About Bitmanic

Bitmanic is the online home of Ray Brown, a graphic designer, front-end developer, and jolly good chap currently throwing down in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Photo of Ray Okay, enough of that third person nonsense.  I’m Ray, and this is my site.  The site serves several purposes, acting as a quasi-updated portfolio, a soapbox for whatever I want to get off of my chest, and a way to let others know more about me.  If you have any questions about what you see (or don’t see) on this site, head over to the contact page and get in touch.

A Brief History

I grew up doodling on everything.  It was my whole life — that is, until I realized I wasn’t good enough at it to make a living out of it.  As time went on, and computers became more commonplace, I grew interested in how I could apply my creative skills digitally. This eventually led me to design primitive website mockups.  I didn’t know anything about code or the mechanics of web design; I was simply dreaming up ideas.

As time passed, I slowly learned more and more about front-end development, driven by the urge to work my ideas into living, breathing websites.  I spent years focusing on HTML, CSS, JavaScript, PHP, XML, and a few other languages, all with the goal of bringing these ideas to life more effectively.  This is something that I’m still working on, and will be doing so for the rest of my career.

More to follow.

Around the Web

You can find me on various social sites and services. Below is a compiled list of the ones I use most.

  • Twitter

    I use Twitter to get the latest on my friends, family, and role models. I try my hardest to tweet things that matter, but I can't promise that what I offer is useful in any way.

  • Last.fm

    Last.fm tracks all of my music listening habits and suggests great music to me that I otherwise would have never heard of.

  • Digg

    I use Digg to share sites that I find useful, interesting, or funny, even though it annoys me quite a bit.

  • Tumblr

    I use Tumblr similarly to how I use Twitter, but on a less often cycle. It's still worth a gander, though.

  • Google

    Like humans do, I use Google for many things; their Analytics, Webmaster Tools, and Reader are quite grand.

  • TwitPic

    The occassional random photo or image gets uploaded here for easy sharing on Twitter and elsewhere.

  • DeviantArt

    While I no longer use DeviantArt very often, it's a good place to store all of my old artistic endeavors.