tjmweb.com
aboutME
Short Biography
My name is Trapper Markelz. I am a technology professional specializing in product management. My youth was spent growing up in Homer, Alaska working in my father's marine engine shop, tinkering with computers and BBS systems, playing sports, biking, camping and various other distractions. After attending college at RIT in Rochester, New York, I moved to Chicago where I met my wonderful wife Maureen and had two daughters Lucy and Hannah. I recently joined an internet startup in Boston, MA so we all moved to New England where we now live in Arlington, MA.
I have almost 10 years of experience in the technology industry managing, designing and building applications for a wide range of employers and clients. I am currently employed with GamerDNA, Inc. as the VP of Products, leading the development of an innovative new type of online gaming community. Yes... you read that right... I work in the video game industry.
If you want to really get the scoop, check out my blog at http://www.trappermarkelz.com.
About this website
This purpose of this site is to serve as repository for my online and offline activities and ideas. I try and update it as often as I can, more for myself than for anyone actively reading it.
This site has been built using valid XHTML and CSS when possible. Much of my content uses RSS aggregation from external sources so I am unable to control the validity of the markup that gets served. Other things worth noting:
- Inspiration for this site came from days of endless browsing in the Css Vault. The final design is a combination of many things I saw and liked.
- For my graphical theme, I wanted to capture a "cosmological" feel without being too specific. The banner is suppose to envoke the horizon of a planet, taken from orbit. It is actually a photo of a sunset from an airplane that I duotoned and then cranked the contrast.
- Royalty-free stock photography was purchased from Clipart.com (which also has photos)
- Typefaces used in this site include Verdana, Trebuchet MS, and Century Gothic.
- Markup is meant to work with the latest versions of Microsoft IE and Mozilla Firefox. Outside of that, I make no promises.
- My photo page is powered entirely by the Flickr API. A combination of javascript, asp, XML and XSL pulls it from my Flickr account.
- The latest version of Macromedia Flash is required for some elements on the photo page and to stream my music
- My RSS aggregator is called Newsfeed. I ended up generalizing some of the ASP, writing additional XSLs and converting the database to run on SQL Server.
- The blog on the homepage is powered by a Typepad account via RSS.
- My RSS feed is powered by FeedBurner.
- I have a rolling list of links on my homepage powered by DEL.ICIO.US.
- My list of favorite links has been replaced by a list of favorite feeds powered by Newsgator. Sign up for your own account. It will change how you browse the web.
- My website is geographically located using the BlogMap service.
- I am hosted by WebHost4Life. I host all of my freelance websites with them as well.
- Check out my web stats if you are interested in that sort of thing.
BEHIND THE CURTAIN
taken 10.28.2004
w/ camera phone
