Michael Springer.net

Hey there, I'm Mike

//About the author, he is a cool dude who makes websites and doesn't afraid of anything

Welcome to that obligatory page on my website that either tends to be overfilled with irrelevant information or none at all. Let’s hope I got it right this time.

So, who are you?

My name is Michael Springer, but you can call me Mike because I like to keep things informal. I hail from South Western Pennsylvania in a city called Uniontown (famous mostly for George C. Marshall and being near Fallingwater).

I’m currently enrolled as an Information Technology Major / Computer Science Minor at Slippery Rock University of Pennsylvania (I promise I’m not making up the name, feel free to laugh). While I’ve been there I have studied various things relating to computers and the web such as networking, systems administration, and writing scripts for websites to make them do some awesome stuff.

When I’m not a student I work as a Tech Monkey (it’s an affectionate term I assure you) for the IATS department at SRU. And when I’m not a student I like to play video & tabletop games, play with Linux, and freelance as a web designer and graphic artist.

Ah, so you can do something relevant after all

Yes, I do for a fact design websites. I’ve been doing it for the last few years and I think I’ve got off to a good start. I began back in high school with a geocities account and an HTML primer. From there it blossomed into an obsession of trying to learn the newest web technology and becoming the best I could possibly be.

I'm quite skilled with HTML & CSS, as well as serverside PHP scripting. I also am very adept with Photoshop which makes for one mean combination in web design. Another language I've been learning is the SVG, and it can produce some pretty awesome graphics when it comes to the web. If you are interested in seeing any of my work I've done previously, check out my portfolio.

Colophon

//About the website, and stuff

This website is powered by PHP, CSS, and JQuery. It is also powered by MonsterGrid, a personal webpage framework project of mine for the last few years. It was hand coded in Notepad++ and graphics were done in Adobe Photoshop. The title text is set in Rockwell, one of my favorite typefaces. The headings are set in Museo Slab 500 (still loving the slab serifs) and the body text is set in Museo Sans 500; both fonts were created by Jos Buivenga (exljbris). The slideshow on the front page is powered by Nivo Slider, and it is the most awesome jQuery image slider.

One of the key aspects of this website's design is that it was meant to focus more on my abilites as a programmer more so than that of graphic design. The color of the website is initially a monochromatic black and white, the link and hover text on the title are colored based off the current weather in the area I have set into the code (typically my current location). So if you come back at a later date and the colors have changed, no I didn't get the random urge to redesign it (although that is a common practice when making one's own website).