Welcome to the underground

About Me

This is my website, all about me! This means I have to talk about myself.

Well, I've graduated from University with a degree in Mathematics and Computing in the summer of 2000. In my freetime back then I was doing lots of ju-jitsu and fell walking. I read up more on programming and started to work on 3d-game mapping as a hobby and keep my skills sharp.

Shortly after graduating I got a great job in web programming, namely due to my strengths in web programming as I had recently finished my final year project in php and mysql, hot stuff back then.

My trade began under the watchfull and stern eye of Emma Cook at Eurotel Systems Ltd, and our own subsidary busines Inspire Designs. We worked as a team within the marketing department which is really when I started to learn my trade, and very well I might add.

Everyone was friendly and had lots of advice, and everyone had a much keener eye for detail than initially I would have liked, but that's the way of Marketing. The job was to take the web designs given to me, for our clients and create the required html to make the web pages work on all platforms, right down to the version 3 browsers. There would be specific dhtml requests, layers, css, and javascript, so I was proud to create dhtml, most of which was researched, learned, developed and created in house, by me, and within deadlines. I ran statistics for all our clients, laised with our ISP, acted as technical support, and started in Selling, and marketing of the web site to clients.

Moving onto my newer section of my life, due to romantic interests, I moved to the North of Sweden. Whilst awaiting a place on the SFI Course(Swedish for Imigrants), I started to help out a non-profit organisation. I designed and built a 30 page web site, and a nice editable calender system in php, and a text file database. Then I started to learn swedish full time, and left finished the SFI course in four short months.

Then came project nexus, in early spring and then internship at RI-software in late spring. This turned into a full time position. I became the lead web developer and grahical artist, which considering my non-artistic background was a shock to me. There was a variety of projects, a company/organisation town portal, intranet - with news and personal calender system. Again I was in the marketing people, bouncing creative ideas making logos for products and then moved into more serious web developing and teaching web developing roll.

My time came to an end when the office closed down just before Christmas 2004. But now I could afford to buy a new computer, as I had been without a PC for 2 whole years. Due to the company I ordered with, I didn't get it until mid march. My web space came a bit later than that.

Now it's spring 2005, I'm back to studying swedish, namely because I want to get fluent, and be so great. I have a bit of time to consider stories that I may want to write, and mini-websites to design and build, and I've been pondering over for two years, my own site being one of them . . .

That's my life story for now. My interests and hobbies are still the same, computing gaming, watching films, reading literature, spending time out in the hills and the snow. I'm trying to learn snowboarding which is a lot of fun, for the other people on the slope I imagine.

My dreams, ignoring the normal dreams of a house, dog, traveling, wife, kids, and still having money left over to not have to worry, and that silly dream as a kid when I wanted to be Luke Skywalker;

I wish I could be apart of a really cool game that would rock the world, or a film, maybe even a book.

But for now making people happy with cool websites, and helpfull applications makes me very happy.

However battling with Cross web-browser compatibility makes me sad.

Portfolio

Throughout the years, I've done a bit of work, so here's a look at the work I have produced.

www.eurotel.com
Inital design done by Emma Cook, it took the two of us, at the stretch of 3 weeks to redo a whole new web site for Eurotel Systems Ltd. It was only 160 or so pages. Many additions have been added in since my tenure, such as the login in section.

www.inspiredesigns.co.uk
I worked for as the web programmer, technical support, ISP - liason, a little bit of customer relations, and everything else but designing the pre-existing templates

Daisykultur - awaiting permision to re-use the site
A non-profit group who helped people in Umeå needed a web site to 'gather' their flock. Sadly, they hadn't the funds to continue the web hosting. Heres a snap shot of the site as it went live.

RI-software
The "boss" had slapped together a company website via frontpage and word, and assumed it would have done. During my interview I stated my belief I could do better that the current company web designer, and here it is. Sadly the site rests under the old bosses account which he never gave access to, so he would readilly update stuff himself, and ingore my requests for my own update...such as keywords...html which follows html4 standards

Gentle traction
Yup the first new shiny product to roll off our production line. The GT logo was hot from my photoshop window. Sadly the font type for the dubbled title words Gentle Traction was "issued", and unchangeable.

Net-portal
Showboating some mysql skills this 'portal' was to host sites for small companies, and give an administrator serious control of content, links, adverts and sponsors, for subsidary groups and their mini-sites

Net-shop extra
Quick and simple making web site needed before x-mas. Nothing complex, and do not bother with those other web browsers, just ie, and make it quick!! That was the order, at the end of the day I gave a simple two page form and info layout. After their suggestions and refinements, hundreds of lines of javascript, php backend, scrapping finished solutions 3 more redesigns and three weeks later . . . . (oh and it really only works in i.e. too). This site gave me an excuse to do a lot of my own artwork.

Nexus
I put this together as a "thank you" to project nexus, who looked after me for a time in sweden.

underground.gameon.org
My own website, a bit cheeky to include it here. However click on the link above to see why I chose the concept of "underground".

Rymd Tourism - in development
My own mini-site. Big company wants to sell sight-seeing flights in space, have a look at the futre.

Camilla's home - in development
My girlfriend wanted her own "blog" to rant and rave about the world in general, as well as having something cool to show off with, so this is another of my mini-sites.

CV

Meritförteckning can be found in pdf format here (right click "save as").

My english CV is currently being re-work alongside this website

Contact me if you would like to see my references. I'm sure my referees would not appreciate their personal contact details displayed on the internet and thus I removed them from the above material.

Games

As stated in the about me section, I love computer games, it's a hobby / addiction I suffer from. One thing I dreamed of in my life is to be apart of a game, that "rocks" the world. With this I produce stepping stones in the direction of this dream.

UT - map - "Autobots Ark"
This is just a model for later usage created with unreal editor 2.0.
        

UT - map - "Decepticons ship"
This is just a model for later usage created with unreal editor 2.0.
        

UT - map - "Project firestart - DM"
Ever played Project firestart for the C64? Well here is 3D version of The Prometheus from the old classic. It's one of my first maps, and to show it off to friends I made it a deathmatch map. I sliced holes in the ship and erected walkthrough forcefields to allow free access to the game.
        

UT - map - "Project firestart - single player"
I wanted to recreate the original C64 game Project firestart as a proper single player map. Limited with the the first unreal engine, the prometheus is heavily modified from the dm map, but the more modified it became the more buggy the map became, thanks to the joys of the unreal editor version 2.0
        
        

UT - map - "Kontoret - DM"
UT deathmatch of a familly office building. My work colleagues gave this map a serious pounding in their lunch hours.
        

Adventure - Starkrieg" - in production
One of my little ideas. I created this april fools joke of a lost starwars adventure game in the vein of Monkey Island. I then stumbled across an adventure game developer kit, so when I get the time . . . . .
  

// Links

Friendlies, neutrals, and just darn handy links. Due to the nature of some of the links, I left the precursing slashes(//) in.

//www.gameon.co.uk
- my sponsors, and home.

//www-lexikon.nada.kth.se/skolverket/swe-eng.shtml
AWESOME online swedish translator, this has saved my life.... quite literally.

//www.w3schools.com
- my second home.

//validator.w3.org/
- HTML validator

//jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator
- CSS validator

//www.webmonkey.com
One of the first helpfull website I stumbled accross years ago, and whom I owe a lot to in the teach yourself javascript department.

//www.quirksmode.org
Some of the most comprehensive cross browswer web development tips tools and strategies on the net.

//www.dynamicdrive.com/
Some funky dhtml...cough cough.... okay css and javascript =O)

Contact me

Here is my web friendly address chris_paul_dixon@yahoo.se

A word from my sponsor

Why the underground

This site is my face on the internet. I've been trying to come up with a good design premise. Inspiration comes from strange sources.

First was the name "underground". That was due to a report about underground movement, underground press, rebel movements. It was edgy and cool. Sadly my ideas of using it for a web site was more along the, underground tube station lines, and the decaying ruins of some train station.

Eventually, it was when the lights broke in the basement of my flat when I was trying to do the laundry. The pipes in the roof dissapeared into the darkness, so I grabbed my camera and created the photography now used for the site.

The next day I was taking pictures of every day things, lights, lamps, lifts, corridors and there was this lovely, almost musically loud lift. I had to grab a sound sample.

After that the site just came together, there was naturally a few design issues, which are still getting ironed out. Maybe in the not to distant future, a flash version will be created.

The name underground also has potential in the back of my mind for a future business proposal. A man can dream.