About Me
This will be fun, I’m normally no good at writing things about my self or any projects, I normally spit something out hoping others would understand.
So in-light of that being said, I am going to try and make this more like a time line that will continue to update as years go by.
September 1990 – To me, this is the best date there possible can be.. what am I talking about I hear you ask? Well it’s simple, I was born… I came into this world, the best thing to happen. Am I right?
September 1995 – Nothing much happened here really, I went to primary school and did the normal things boys did, you know…. cause trouble for their parents and the teachers.
September 2002 – Ya know, I’m fed up with saying September already, this is where things start to get a little bit juicy, anyway I’m rambling on here, back to the story. This is when I started secondary school, it was also the time I started to get into tech a lot and started to learn how to make websites in my free time at home, of course did the normal things at secondary school, what more can I say, I did my GCSE standard grades.
Sometime in 2006 – I was roughly 15 at this point and tech & music played a big part of my life, music especially as I grew up with my older brothers listening to the likes of Helter Skelter & Dreamscape, one of them even have some vinyl decks, so I was always watching him play them. It was around this time that I got into DJing and started to tinker around with a software known as Virtual DJ.
I soon got alright at it and decided to start my own online shoutcast-based radio website, called Northants Ravers.
Sometime in 2007 – This is where things was set in stone for me, Northants Ravers was booming and I had started my own little shared web hosting company, I also purchased a small DJ controller from Hurcules, which at the time was a big deal to me.
During this year I had changed the name of Northants Ravers to Donkin Duo, which at the time become amongst the best small shoutcast-based websites, this trend continued for a few more years.
During this year, I meet my now wife… I was introduced to her by a friend at the time and was meant to of taught her how to DJ, this never happened… more on this later.
Sometime in 2010 – One of my most favourite years, this is when my first born, my daughter was born, and I will never forget the moment I first held her in my arms. I became a daddy, the best feeling in the world.
This year also saw the closure of a couple of things that I had worked so hard on, Donkin Duo, the once thriving internet radio website shut down it’s streaming services and the virtual doors on the community forums was closed to never return (or so we thought), I also took the decision to also close my hosting company as I was running this on my own and although it was thriving and paying for it self, had even bought another company out and took it under it’s own brand, I needed to create more time to be able to dedicate to my growing family.
And so this is where my music journey ended, for now.
Sometime in 2014 – I become a daddy again!! This time to my son, once again a incredible experience to go through.
Sometime in 2017 – I’ve been busy, I become a daddy one again!! To another little boy that I like to call the miracle baby.
Sometime in 2018 – Donkin Duo, you might have read about it…. Between myself and a friend of mine we tried to revive Donkin Duo and bring it back to it’s glory days however it was very short lived and it once again closed.
This was also the year I started to go back into tech and started web development again (I started doing this in 2007, just didn’t do much to really mention), with the opening of LayerBulletin which eventually renamed to LayerBB later on in the year, LayerBB is still around today but no longer developed on an active basis.
Sometime in 2019 – This is the year that saw the beginning of COVID-19, which meant I was no longer working as much and as such started coding again, more updates to LayerBB as well as starting work on my own website which you are seeing right now, VortexCMS was born and is still being developed slowly to this day.
Around this year I started to get back into music too, and I went back on to a shoutcast-based radio website which was actually a kind of rival to Donkin Duo at the time of it being open.
Sometime in 2020 – I begun getting more and more into music, I had started DJing again and had purchased another DJ controller, a Roland DJ-202 for SeratoDJ.
During this year I tightened my skills as a DJ, but doing this meant I had less time to do any development work.
Sometime in 2021 – My time on the radio website mentioned above only lasted for a year, and I was forced to leave on pretty bad terms, this was also the year that a friend of mine setup a Facebook page for DJ Livestreams called DJ’s Factory Live (It was named something else originally) and so I joined him on his page and I am still there to this day.
This year also saw me say good by to my dad who passed away in the May, and also my great uncle in the November, 2021 is a year that I will never forget.
2021 was also the year that I got rid of my Roland DJ-202 and upgrade to what I currently use for DJing, the Denon Prime 4 Professional Decks.
Sometime in 2022 – This chapter of my life is still to be written.