Kevin Moran - Harrogate Web Developer
Born in the 1960’s before man had landed on the moon, the Internet wasn’t even on the horizon when I was at school. So after leaving school I began an unfulfilling career in retail and then followed several different roles at a local plastics moulding company in Knaresborough. With the arrival of home computers, In the 80’s I was bitten by the technology bug and had joined the many code kids entering lines of basic onto my Sinclair ZX81 and saving the programs onto a cassette tape. Soon investing (the first of many £s) in an Olivetti Windows PC with dual 5 1/4in floppy disk drives.
By the 1990’s I was already designing manufacturing control systems at work mainly in VBA for Microsoft Office and invested in an Open Learning course, doing my City & Guilds in Computer applications programming in Turbo Pascal, then moving on to Cobol. But exciting changes were on the technology horizon, the arrival of the internet in the 1990s saw me signing up with AOL for a super fast 56kb dial-up connection. I was fascinated by the web and by the late 1990s I had my first mac and was experimenting with very simple table based HTML web design and had created my first commercial web sites.
Another exciting development was coming in 2001 with the arrival of triplets, it was no longer a viable option for me to continue working night shifts as a team leader, so after major financial soul searching I finally took the plunge and went self-employed as a web designer.
Now with over 20 years in the Web Design business I have been there for the roller coaster ride, beginning with Macromedia Dreamweaver 2 designing table-based websites, I have always been a full stack developer using HTML, CSS, SCSS, PHP, MySql, Photoshop, Javascript and Jquery. Now several Macs later I have developed or collaborated on countless websites, and been involved in several exciting product launches including developing a restaurant time-dependent discount booking system from scratch, several company valuation and recruitment websites, an NHS website relating to Diabetes, to name a few. Recently I have been involved in creating more responsive websites, and also with creating my own custom WordPress themes.
I have also held a number of employed roles over the time I have worked in the web industry, working as a Technical Director at Smartdiner then also at Foundation Resourcing/Retiring IFA. More recently I worked at Eden Agency as a Front End developer. Whilst still always maintaining my own client base as well.
In my spare time my hobbies continue to be taking a keen interest in technology, (amazed that my phone now has more computing power than had put that man on the moon), watching Leeds United, and in the last few years I have developed a love for hill walking, in December 2014 I decided to challenge myself to walk 1,000 miles the following year, in November 2015 I completed the challenge finally succeeding in walking 1,045 miles that year, I have so far raised over £1,200 for Parkinson’s UK, losing several stones in weight along the way, it has become a regular target, and I am now in my 7th year of the challenge. – visit 1000milesin2022