Alan Phillips

Alan Phillips is an engineer and web developer with an interest in software development and Internet technologies.

Alan's initial interest in technology was sparked in the 1960s, helping his older brother build electronic projects in the basement. During high school Alan's interest in electronics grew as he became interested in music and synthesizers. His initial focus in college was studying electronics and electrical engineering. In the early 1980s he acquired a discontinued Texas Instruments TI-99/4A. Soon after he built a Heathkit H89 computer running the CPM operating system. Early career position in field service focused on troubleshooting small computer systems to the component level. Later positions in research and development, building circuit prototypes and testing preliminary hardware designs.

In the late 1990s, after several years of writing technical documentation using SGML markup, Alan decided to change directions and focus on Internet development. Since this time he has worked with both large and small clients to help them use the Internet more effectively.

With more than 10 years experience with Internet and Intranet web development projects, including server-side development: Apache, PHP, Java, Python, Perl, Ruby, MySQL, PostgreSQL, SQL Anywhere and Oracle. Client-side development technologies including CSS, JavaScript, jQuery, AJAX, DHTML. Experienced with Model-View-Controller web frameworks including Code Igniter, Django, and Ruby on Rails with a focus on clean, standards-compliant development.

Member of IEEE since 1984, Alan lives in Northeastern Ohio with his wife Angie. They have traveled to Scotland and China in recent years. Alan is currently attending the University of Akron, working (slowly) through the Computer Science core curriculum.