More than once in my life someone tells me, “Jim, you are not like any other programmer we know.” I am not sure if I should take it as a compliment, or thinking people suggesting that I am not that good of a programmer. Then they tell me, I am a lot approachable than other programmers, and I actually have a “personality”, unlike some others.

When I learn and work on a project, I not only think from the technology-side of it, but also from the user-side of it. I don’t like to just write an application for others to use, but I want to write an application that make it easy for users to run their business, without make a lot of changes to what they are already doing. That’s why I am not only good with coding, but also good with talking and communicating with people. I guess that’s why a lot of people would rather work with me.

My Skills-wise, I started doing a lot of classic ASP, then decided to move to PHP, and that was about ten years ago. I don’t like the traditional way of learning by just sitting in the classroom, that just puts me to sleep within five minutes. I learn what I need to learn by reading books, online video tutorials broken down into lessons with hands-on exercises, so I can ‘see’ what I code in. I work extra hard to get where I am today. Now I have been working a combination of web technology including HTML, PHP, MySQL, CSS, JavaScript, and JQuery.

I love movies, whenever I have a free time I check out what good movies are playing, or are available on DVD or Blu-Ray. I also love to travel, though I don’t do it as much as before (probably because of lack of money and time). I love Japanese food, I can have Japanese food every day. One other thing I like is music. I don’t play any instrument or anything but I like to listen to music while I work. It keeps my mind focused to what I do. One of my favorite quote from the movie August Rush:

“The music is all around us, all you have to do .. is listen”

I don’t want to bore you with a lot of details, check out my portfolio page for the work I am proud to showcase here. If you have questions or just want to drop in a line saying “Hey Jim, I have been here” in the Contact Me page, I’d appreciate it, too. For now, take care of youself, and may God bless you.

Jim Tseng