About

I’m a web developer and technical writer and editor. I work for Google on the Chrome team as a staff technical writer and content lead for web.dev and developer.chrome.com.

Prior to Google I spent 20 years as a freelancer and business owner. I founded edgeofmyseat.com in 2001 as a web development consultancy, the company moved into products launching Perch CMS in 2009 and Notist in 2018.

My professional web development skills range from front and back-end development to operations.

Writing and editing

Since 2001 I have authored or co-authored a number of books and many articles for on and offline publications. I love writing about the things I am interested in, and sharing what I learn. I am an experienced developmental and technical editor, and have edited several books and countless articles.

Speaking

I am an experienced conference speaker, able to deliver a technical talk to teach your audience about CSS Layout or a keynote to inspire them. You can see where I am next, and also find my archive of talks and video on my Notist Profile.

If you would like me to speak at your event please read this first and then drop me a line. Given the current situation I am very happy to present at online events!

Personal life

In my personal life I have a grown-up daughter, and three cats named Pixel, Em, and Max who make frequent appearances in meetings and workshops.

When I am not writing code, writing about writing code or on a plane to speak to some people about code I have a range of interests. Pre-pandemic I was learning to fly small aeroplanes, working towards my PPL. I run a lot, sometimes cycle and swim, am always happy for company if fellow runners at conferences want to join me to explore the sites on foot!

My interests include family history and religious studies. The former has led me to discover that I am descended from Irish Travellers and the latter gained me a First Class degree in Humanities with Religious Studies from the Open University.

I’m an ex-dancer and singer, ex-West End Theatre Technician and a pretty decent stage manager. I take photographs; can dress-make, cook, read Latin and lift heavy stuff, although not all at once.

About this site

This site has a long history as my personal blog. You can find posts going back to 2001 if you keep trawling the archives. It is currently hosted on WordPress, but the archive has traveled well, through Movable Type, a Classic ASP CMS that I wrote, a very early version of WordPress, Perch, Perch Runway, and now back to WordPress.