I am a new Developer; eager for the opportunity to combine past experiences and education with, more recently acquired skills in Web Development and Cloud Computing.  Earlier in life, I acquired a degree in Journalism, from Delaware State University.  As a young journalist, I worked in both news and advertising environments and utilized skills in layout & design, technical writing, image processing and Editing.

Throughout my life, I have found that I really enjoy creating, and in recent years, I have really enjoyed creating with my computer.  I have found that I tend to become completely absorbed, when I engage in electronic creativity.  In an effort to satisfy my desire to create, I taught myself to use a variety of popular software applications for processing images, music and video.  In addition, I learned to use templates in order to create websites and blogs.  Therefore, it seemed a logical next step to become formally educated in Web Development and Cloud Computing.

At Delaware County Community College, I have achieved academic honors while acquiring core development skills in areas such as; Responsive Web Design, Front and Back-End Programming, Database Management, Networking and Cloud Architecture.  Upon completion, this fall, I will receive the College's certification in Web Development.

My goal is to combine past experiences with newly acquired skills, to create dynamic, feature-rich web content and cloud-based applications.

This site was created for a class project and was, actually, my first “scratch-built” website.  I decided to create it after noticing that the borough, in which I reside, lacked an adequate digital presence.

The borough's situation provided a “real-world” opportunity to create a relevant website, for my class project.  In addition, it also presented a genuine business opportunity and chance to learn beyond the scope of my class.  Therefore, this site was created as a working sample that could be “pitched” to the borough, when completed.

In spite of being originally created using HTML & CSS only, the site which I created was better organized and provided greater functionality than the site, which the borough used, at that time.

This application was created to gain experience making API calls.  At start-up, the application detects the location of the user's device by making an API call for its geo-location.  It then uses the information, returned, to make a second API call to obtain weather information, for that location.  The local weather is then displayed.  In addition, the user is provided with the ability to enter a different location, and receive weather information remotely.

The application, also, includes functions which accurately determine and display the time, wind direction and weather description, for the selected location.

To gain experience with the use of plugins, I created this application just for fun.  All of the input elements were created using plugins from one source or another.  The submission button generates a dialogue box which displays the user's inputs, prior to submission.  The same method is used to confirm user input on the “contact” page of my portfolio, before sending data to the back-end.

From the layout to the color scheme and even its use of bevel & emboss, the portfolio, which I have created, reflects my personality.  It was designed to be responsive, so that it displays well on all screen sizes and utilizes a wide variety of skills.

JavaScript is used on all pages to enhance the user experience by handling user interactions, manipulating elements and validating the site's contact form, before submitting.  Photoshop was used to process the images, including the thumbnails on the home page, my own image and the clickable light bulbs on the "Skills" page.

The “Contact” page leverages AWS to perform “back-end” services.  User inputs are harvested and displayed within a dialog box, for confirmation, before being sent to the back-end.  A call is then made to AWS where I have created an API endpoint, to receive the JSON data.  The API gateway triggers a Lambda function where I have written a script in Node.js, to process the data.  The data is formatted and sent to an “SNS” topic, to which my business email is a subscriber.

My portfolio is intended to serve as an additional example of my work and at this moment, it is probably the most prominent.

"Dear William,
It gives me great pleasure to inform you that you have been named to the President's Honor List for part-time students.
This honor recognizes the achievement of an academic grade point average of more than 3.5 while having completed a minimum of 12 degree credit hours at the College. You are to be commended for the effort you have exerted and the diligence you have shown. This honor you have earned is well deserved.
Congratulations on this achievement and onthe promise it suggests for the future.
Sincerely,
Dr. Marta Yera Cronin
President"