New carpet, take your shoes off

Hi. My name is Michael, but everyone calls me Mikey. I run this little web design thingy called Mad Web Skills. I say "thingy" because it's just me really. No big team, not costly overheads. Just one dude and his knowledge and experiences.

Mad Web Skills is a business I run which specialises in standards-based web design and development for both external clients as well as making some cool stuff for myself such as an online web chat (Australia's first webchat actually), virtual tours for real estate agents, a simple temporary bookmarking system and an RSS aggregator, as well as working on my own robust content management system. Unfortunately, having this many irons in the fire means that progress isnt exactly speedy. I also do a bit of domain and hosting stuff as well.

Outside of Mad Web Skills, I work full time (doing pretty much the same thing, but for an employer), so this business (as well as bringing up my 2-year-old daughter) keeps me occupied in my spare time.

One of the main reasons for setting up this blog is because tomorrow I head to Sydney for the Web Directions 06 conference, and thought it would be a good idea to collect my thoughts online somewhere, as well as provide commentary of the event for those unable to make it.

Finally, I have a few friends who are just starting out in the web biz, so following the event, I hope to share some of the knowledge I've gathered in the field over the last 10 years in the form of tutorials, code snippets and links to other online resources.

So, kick back and enjoy.