About This Site

February 22nd, 2005 by Steve Ivy

My name is Steve Ivy, though you may see me around as redmonk, monkinetic, or even occasionally wallrazer. I write at redmonk.net.

I work for GoDaddy.com as a web developer, designer, and standards agitator, but the usual disclaimers apply:

The views expressed on this website/weblog are mine alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of Go Daddy.com Software, Inc.

In my spare time I’m your basic nerd - I also co-founded the DiSo Project with Chris Messina, and spend night hours hacking microformats, OpenID, and XMPP into Wordpress, as well as running the DiSo website, wiki, and Google Code site.

DiSo (dee • zoh) is an umbrella project for a group of open source implementations of [...] distributed social networking concepts. Or as Chris puts it: “to build a social network with its skin inside out”.

Your can also find me on:

My Linklog/Lifestream, echoloquation.com
Ma.gnolia
MyOpenID
Twitter (redmonk)
AIM (monkinetic)
GTalk (steveivy@gmail.com)
monkinetic or redmonk on irc.freenode.net
A map of Gilbert, Arizona

(Download my contact info)

Contact Me

This was my first about page:

My name is Steve Ivy, and I run redmonk.net. I’m a web architect by trade, for Compass. My unofficial title is web architect, designer, and xml evangelist.

Work Stuff:

I discovered the web back in 1994, when Mosaic was really cool. The office I worked in as a graphic design production assistant was next door to the local ISP. I convinced the owner to get an account. To grind out a cliché: The rest was history. [I should clarify: I was not at all involved in the development of Ethicom's site. Pity- it's a nice site. ;-)]

In 1996 I found myself in Germany working for a great design studio, ArtLab Europe. I knew that the web thing was going to be big (honest!) and again convinced my boss (Thanks Joseph!) to let me do some investigating. Soon I was neck deep in FreeBSD, BBEdit, Perl, and the Bare Bones Guide To HTML. We quickly found ourselves with a rock solid FreeBSD-based web server internally, and we transformed ArtLab into a graphic design and webdesign studio.

I also discovered Frontier in 1996. I’ve been spoiled for web development ever since. If you are a web developer, and don’t know what Frontier is, check it out here.

In 1998 I stumbled onto XML; totally by accident, even before there was an XML.com. ArtLab was working with a client who was transforming XML-stored content into PageMaker-compatible markup and delivering it, simultaneously rendering a website. The penny dropped, and it’s been a crusade of mine ever since, much to the annoyance of several groups of coworkers to date. Well, no one’s perfect.

Other Stuff:

I am a rabid, ok, maybe not rabid, but really really (really) fan of R.E.M. I narrowly missed seeing them in Hamburg, Germany when Bill Berry had something pop in his noggin, and darn it, they decided to skip some shows. Imagine that.

Should we talk about the weather?

Lego Plus

So what do you do on an evening that you’re bored and don’t know what to do? Why, build a Mac Plus out of LEGO, of course!

Why redmonk.ret?

As a sometime freelance web developer, I’ve needed an online home for a while. More than that, I want a venue for communication which is entirely mine. redmonk.net is that place.