Hi, I'm James, and this is my website! I'm a technologist who has a particular interest in software development and computer programming. I mostly am into web development, but I also find some of the other 'genres' of programming cool as well, such as cryptography (I made a cryptocurrency...), data analysis and development for embedded systems.
In the wider field of technology, I have interests in applying technology to help change the world for the better. Particularly, I like to apply my skills to improve the accessibility of technology so that those who have differing abilities can all have the same level of access to information, and I also think that my skills would be particularly useful in helping to solve the climate crisis that is quickly threatening our existence by the day. I very much value helping to benefit others over making money.
One thing that is lesser known about me is that I was diagnosed with Asperger syndrome at the age of eight, which is a condition that has various neurological effects. I like to think if it as my brain running a different operating system to what neurotypical people have. I would say that without Asperger's, I'd probably not be as obsessed, focussed or interested in technology as I am today.
In 2020 (at the age of 16 ─ the minimum age requirement for setting up a business!), three other people and I set up a company called Emux Technologies. We developed an app called Proxi, which was designed to be a simple but feature-complete coronavirus tracking app. It was made from start to finish in just three weeks and was launched for public use over four months prior to the release of the UK's official NHS COVID-19 app.
I've been coding since the age of 6. I originally started learning
on an old HP tower running Windows XP (in fact it still works to
this day). Back then it was 2009 and YouTube was barely playable
in those days, to consider that most 6-year-olds today like to
watch YouTube and play 18-rated games PG-rated games.
But nope, I was in the countryside (Kimberley) on a Windows XP
computer with a slow internet connection and a fresh installation
of Microsoft Office 2003.
So how did I get into programming? Long story, basically one day I went into Microsoft Publisher to make some cool things that I could print off. I soon got bored and opened PowerPoint and that's when I realised that I could do cool stuff like animations, hyperlinks and... Visual Basic?!
Private Sub Button1_Click() End Sub
Of course when I opened the Visual Basic IDE for PowerPoint I did not know what to do in it. Some time later I met a web developer and asked, what goes in those brackets? From what I remember he said to put my email address in the brackets (must be a bit of JavaScript that he was working on), and of course when I did that in VBA, it threw an error.
So I didn't think much of it for a while; I just started making UserForms in VBA (basically a dialog box that can be summoned from a bit of VBA to allow the user to do cool things). Some time later I managed to get into a place with better Wi-Fi so that I could search up a YouTube tutorial on how to code in VBA. And that's how I started to get results! So yeah, I'm still a programmer, so I guess it stuck!