markcadman.com


about me

a photo of me I'm a 26-year-old WordPress developer from Stourbridge in the West Midlands, UK.

I'm passionate about the internet, gadgets (often gadgets with access to the internet) and photography (and largely via Flickr, photography and the internet).

My social network output is mainly Twitter, Flickr and some Delicious linking. Though I also make use of Google Reader's 'Share' functionality. I don't really blog in a lengthy regular sense, but this a WordPress site so if I do it will be here.

I like to watch the F1 (which I'm enjoying much more now the BBC has taken it over) and MotoGP (where I like to consider Valentino Rossi to be an honorary Brit [he does live in England!], though I root for James Toseland. MotoGP isn't the same without Toby Moody, Julian Ryder and Randy Mamola though. Best commentary team ever.

contact me

If you'd just like to get in touch, try my twitter account or email contact@markcadman.com if you prefer.

blog posts

Occasionally I write something that can't fit into 140 characters. If that happens and it's worth writing, I'll write a blog post:

February 21st

blog (feed #14)
8:24am via markcadman.com

August 9th

blog (feed #14)
6:30pm via markcadman.com

lifestream

Today

lastfm (feed #12)
Listened to 8 songs.
12:53pm via last.fm/user/cMadman

Yesterday

twitter (feed #6)
Flipboard shines with many types of content, but rarely more so than image heavy articles: http://yfrog.com/myqjtj http://yfrog.com/6zn92qj [cmadman]
8:33pm via twitter.com/cMadman
googlereader (feed #7)
googlereader (feed #7)
lastfm (feed #12)
6:40pm via last.fm/user/cMadman
raptr (feed #15)
Played Crackdown 2.
4:55pm via Raptr
googlereader (feed #7)
googlereader (feed #7)
twitter (feed #6)
RT @BarackObama In ways big and small, we are ushering in a new era of open and accountable government. http://j.mp/btrjdz [cmadman]
5:07am via twitter.com/cMadman

July 27th

generic (feed #16)
8:00pm via Twitter Faves
raptr (feed #15)
7:38pm via Raptr
raptr (feed #15)
Played Crackdown 2.
7:36pm via Raptr
raptr (feed #15)
Played Crackdown 2.
5:01pm via Raptr
twitter (feed #6)
Absolutely stunning HTML5 Color cycling demo with art from the Monkey Island graphic artist: http://www.effectgames.com/demos/canvascycle/ [cmadman]
8:03am via twitter.com/cMadman

July 26th

raptr (feed #15)
Played Crackdown 2.
8:47pm via Raptr

Older Entries

work

Have a project you'd like to discuss? Email me via work@markcadman.com

Currently I work for a regional newspaper group in a team called MNA Digital, where we develop news sites powered almost entirely by WordPress such as the Express & Star, which Matt Mullenweg (co-creator of WordPress) linked to in a post entitled Best WP Newspaper site.

previously on markcadman: jobs

Before my job at MNA Digital I worked for Sandwell MBC, working to make their many websites as accessible and usable as possible. I worked with taxonomy and accessibility standards and pioneered some greasemonkey scripts to cut costs and accelerate development.

Before Sandwell MBC I worked at Sandwell LEA, where our focus was on the many sites within Education and Children's Services. In addition to the accessibility and usability work I extended into central council I also implemented standards based websites for local schools, teaching head teachers how to use software such as DreamWeaver to manage them internally.

portfolio

Whilst I encourage anyone interested to look at the above sites which I'm currently and have previously been employed to develop, markcadman.com is a good example of my WordPress, CSS, HTML, PHP and JavaScript/jQuery skills.

about markcadman.com

The image header slice fetches a random image from my last 500 (an arbitrary flickr.com limit) using the FlickrAPI and phpFlickr. The FlickrAPI queries are cached to a database and the images are cached to a subdomain to increase performance. I use jQuery for all of the header and colour animation, it also makes a JSON request to a php service (built on the foundations of this excellent 'ambilight' experiment) to select a complimentary colour which I then animate into several elements with jQuery.

When I made my original sketch I was intending to write a lifestream aggregation plugin myself, unaware of the excellent wp-lifestream from iBegin. Once I found that I decided to concentrate on modifying it to suit my needs and I've found it very useful.