Benjamin Clark

I'm just your everyday geeky Apple fanatic, Linux enthusiast, and Drupal evangelist. I work as a Web developer. I recently relocated from Tallahassee, Florida to Washington, DC with my wife Maggie and two carloads of our belongings. I spent 7 years in higher education, earning Bachelors and Masters degrees, and I would have completed that PhD if it weren't for those meddling kids. (Oh, wait, this isn't Scooby Doo.)

A brief history of the last 10 years

1999-2005

I was admitted to Florida State University in 1999. I received a Bachelor of Science degree in Library & Information Studies in May 2003.

2003-2005

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.

2005-2006

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. While I was there, I worked with Susan Herring and her BROG research group.

2006-2010

In May 2006, I moved back to Tallahassee from Indiana, taking a step back from pursuing an academic career due to personal reasons. I started working at FSU (part time at first, then full time starting 1/07), and in my off-time I reconnected with old friends and made new friends through work.

I met my wife, Maggie, through work in August 2007. She started working as a student assistant in the COSS Dean's Office, and I was brought in to help with a computer problem on her first day, and we immediately clicked. We started dating shortly thereafter, and after a June 25, 2009 proposal, we were married March 20, 2010. (In typical geek fashion, I created a Drupal-powered wedding website, Ben and Maggie Get Married.)

2010-Present

After the wedding and honeymoon, we began making plans for the next phase of our lives: moving to the Washington, DC metro area! Maggie is a Journalism graduate student at the University of Maryland, College Park. We moved up here May 24, 2010.

On August 2, 2010, I started working at Jackson River as a Web Producer. JR is a virtual company that works exclusively with Drupal for non-profit clients. "Virtual company" is a buzzword that roughly translates to "work from home, using cloud-based management tools." It's a great opportunity and I'm very excited.

Work background

For more professional-oriented detail, please visit my resume. For examples of my work, please visit my portfolio or projects.

I have worked in web development since I was in high school. My first job ever was as a part-time customer support and web developer at Florida Network Technologies, Inc. in Sarasota, Florida (1998-1999). FLnet primarily provided dial-up Internet service for the Sarasota area, but also provided web development services to several large clients in the Sarasota area.

Later, I worked part-time at FSU's 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 took over as Coordinator of Information Services. I was in charge of the College's web presence. I managed a team of support and web assistants. I moved us from static HTML files to Drupal. I managed two hardened Gentoo Linux servers, a SAMP stack in a Solaris zone, and memberships and policies for COSS in the FSU Active Directory. I also directly managed IT support for at least 20 workstations, and I was the "go-to guy" for all IT support at the College. If I'm completely frank, it was the job of three separate people, but I managed to juggle all the separate roles.

I also work periodically as an independent contractor, working primarily with small- to medium-sized businesses that need dynamic web presences. For some examples of my work, please visit my portfolio.

Some of my interests

Music

I am a lover of all music. I have a strong preference for progressive rock, although my iTunes library leans toward mid-90s alternative rock. However, I thoroughly enjoy all genres.

From time to time, I play guitar and bass guitar. In my high school days, I was in a band with some friends. We recorded an album of original material in 1999. For a while, I dabbled in home recording, thanks to Apple's GarageBand and the Line 6 PODxt Live.

Apple & Mac

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 under System 7. I released a shareware application called Tagline that was mildly popular.

While I was stuck in the Windows world during Apple's bleak late-90s period, I eventually switched back thanks to OS X and Apple's iPod-fueled renaissance. I've since owned a 12-inch PowerBook G4 (2003-2007), a Core2 Duo Mac mini (2007-2010), and a 15-inch Core i5 MacBook Pro (2010-Present).

Linux

I am also a Linux geek. In addition to working as the Linux system administrator at FSU COSS, I've been tinkering with Linux and been a big supporter of the OSS movement since the late-90s and the early versions of Slackware and Red Hat. My current preferred distro is Arch Linux, replacing my former favorite Gentoo Linux because Arch doesn't take half a weekend to compile xorg but retains the KISS philosophy that I enjoy from Gentoo. I was a Debian fan for a long while, too.

I strongly prefer the use of shell whenever possible. My co-workers will vouch for this.

I also run a MythTV & xbmc DVR and home server running Arch x64 on an Intel Atom 330. I've been tinkering with one DVR setup or another since I ditched my TiVo in 2004. Its first incarnation was a repurposed AMD64 full tower running Debian, which was replaced with a VIA EPIA C3-powered mini-ITX HTPC running Gentoo. My wife would say that my favorite hobby is to break my DVR on purpose so I can fix it.

Benclark.com and several other domains are happily hosted on a Arch Linux virtual server at Linode. I've been extremely satisfied with Linode thus far, although I admit it might be overkill for my low-traffic websites.

"Benclark.com"

I registered this domain in 1999. The blog first made an appearance in 2003, and it has gone through several cycles of use and design. The blog started on MovableType, then moved to WordPress, and then finally to Drupal.

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 what you're looking at reflects my best aesthetic effort at the moment.

Elsewhere in the tubes

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.