My name is Benjamin Clark. I live in Tallahassee, Florida where I work as the Coordinator of Information Services for the FSU College of Social Sciences & Public Policy. I also work as a freelance web developer. I prefer to work with Drupal. I am an Apple, Inc. fanatic and a Linux power user.
A Brief History
My hometown is Venice, Florida. I attended Venice Elementary (2nd-5th grades), Venice Area Middle (6th), and Pine View School (7th-12th).
I was admitted to Florida State University in 1999. I received a Bachelor of Science degree in Library & Information Studies in May 2003.
I remained at FSU for a Master's degree in Information Studies (graduated August 2005) where I concentrated in information architecture, online journals (blogs), and usability.
Between August 2005 and May 2006, I was a Ph.D student at Indiana University School of Library and Information Science in Bloomington, Indiana. My research interests included blogging, computer-mediated communication, and information seeking behaviors.
Career Background
For a detailed work history, please visit my resume page.
My first job (1998-1999) was as a part-time customer support and web developer at Florida Network Technologies, Inc. in Sarasota, Florida. FLnet primarily provided dial-up Internet service for the Sarasota area. FLnet also provided web development services.
The summer following my first two semesters at Florida State, I worked at WWSB-TV in Sarasota, Florida. WWSB was a former client of FLnet and wanted a more robust content management solution for their online presence. I created the new site with a custom CMS in ASP (Summer 2000). I kept a maintenance contract with WWSB until 2006.
I worked at FSU College of Social Sciences from 2003-2005 where I rolled out a complete redesign of the main College site as well as several departments and institutes within the College. After returning to Tallahassee in 2006, I resumed the same role at FSU COSS until I took over as Senior Computer Support Specialist in Jan 2007.
My current position at FSU COSS is Coordinator of Information Services. I manage a team of support and web assistants. We work exclusively with Drupal. I also manage two hardened Gentoo Linux servers, a SAMP stack in a Solaris zone, and memberships and policies for COSS in the FSU Active Directory.
Interests & Hobbies
I am a lover of all music. I have a strong preference for progressive rock, although I have a nostalgic predilection for early- to mid-90s alternative rock. However, I thoroughly enjoy all genres. I also dabble in home recording. I play guitar and occasionally bass guitar. In my high school days, I was in a band with some friends. We recorded an album of original material in 1999.
I am a die-hard Apple fanatic. My first computer experience was programming LOGO on an Apple IIe. My parents bought an Apple Macintosh LC III in 1993, and I spent as much time as I could learning to program (HyperCard, FutureBASIC) under System 7. I released a shareware application called Tagline that was mildly popular.
I bought a 12-inch PowerBook G4 in 2003. For 5 years it served as my primary workstation. I now own an Intel Core2 Duo Mac mini (November 2007).
I am also a Linux power user. I have been a Linux fan since the mid-90s and early versions of Slackware and Red Hat. My current preferred distro is Arch Linux, replacing Gentoo Linux because it keeps the KISS principles of Gentoo but doesn't take half a weekend to compile xorg.
I strongly advocate the use of shell, not GUI. I call myself a 'power user' because while I don't program kernel device drivers or reverse engineer closed-source APIs, I'm able to brazenly edit configuration files to get my way.
I also run a MythTV DVR and home server running Arch x64 on an Intel Atom 330. Benclark.com (and other domains) is hosted on a Arch Linux virtual server at Linode.
"Benclark.com"
I bought this domain in 1999 when I was working at FLnet. The blog first made an appearance in 2003, and it has gone through several cycles of use and design. I was discouraged from maintaining a non-research (i.e. personal) blog while I was a Ph.D student at IU SLIS, so for a time this site was mostly static.
Like most programmer types (a group with whom I identify most), I can spot a good web design but I lack the necessary skills to fill a blank canvas. My strengths are in layout, programming, and administration. And while I could go on about how Benclark.com reflects a philosophy of clean and simple UI design (and it does), the truth is that it reflects my best aesthetic effort.
Elsewhere on the Net
I posted regularly to my LiveJournal from April 2001 to March 2007. These days, it is mostly neglected. For social networking, I primarily use Facebook, although I have profiles at LinkedIn, Twitter, and others.
I post photos to my Flickr photostream.
