I'm Michael Adams, currently a 21 year-old student and one of many students at the University of Canterbury, New Zealand. I'm studying towards a career in electrical engineering, one of my major passions.

I have been designing websites commercially for the past three years. I enjoy the art of making a websites — balancing both the technical and artistic sides is a problem I like, even relish!

I have always had a technical bent, frequently causing all manner of problems at an early age when I would compulsively disassemble brand-new toys and put them back together in 'interesting' ways.

In 2002 I took Bursary Art-Design as a, well, diversion from the technical nature of my other subjects. I didn't realise what I was letting myself into! Design soon became a large part of my life and I rapidly developed my own favourite style; elegant minimalism — simple, clean and smart looking, with little in the way of visual clutter. Three years later I find that this style still serves me well and is ideally suited the Internet as medium. For more information on this aspect, see the difference page.

• Extensive experience in:
• Dynamic, high traffic database backed websites
• External website integration using a variety of schemes, and client/server integration
• Creating, optimising and managing extremely large (5+GB) databases
• Writing secure credit card gateways
• Designing simple user-interfaces around complex problems
• Statistics collection & presentation
• Server and client side caching
• Data parsing
• Linux server management
• Server side daemons written in PHP and Python
• Server monitoring and backup software
• VMWare server management
• High performance cross platform database integration (Linux/PHP to Windows/SQL Server)
• High level [MVC=Mode View Controller] framework design


• Adobe Photoshop, Macromedia Freehand, Macromedia Fireworks (image manipulation and graphic design)
• Macromedia Flash (Flash content creation)
• Macromedia Director (Stand-alone content creation)
• Database design using MySQL and SQL Server 2000, 2005
• Dynamic websites using PHP, ASP, Ruby
• Experience using XLST, ASP
• "Web guy" for PatronBase, Software Builders, Solution Architects and numerous small companies throughout Christchurch. (See my portfolio.)
• First class honours in Electrical & Computer Engineering from the University of Canterbury.


• University results, 2005
• B+ for Biol113 (Diversity of Life)
• C+ for Enel335 (Power Electronics 1)
• A- for Enel350 (Design and Management 2)
• B+ for Enel351 (Signals, Systems and Control)
• A for Enel352 (Electric Power Engineering)
• B+ for Enel353 (Computer Hardware 1)
• University results, 2004
• A+ for Cosc208 (C & C++ Programming)
• A for Cosc221 (Computer Systems)
• A- for Emth203 (Linear Algebra)
• A- for Emth202 (Calculus)
• A- for Enel204 (Electrical Systems and Machines)
• B for Enel202 (Circuits and Systems)
• B for Enel203 (Principles of Electronics)
• C+ for Emth205 (Engineering Statistics)
• Pass for Ene211 (Design and Management)
• University results, 2003
• A+ for Phys113 (Waves, thermodynamics and mechanics)
• A for Phys114 (Quantum & electrical physics)
• A+ for Cosc 121 (Java)
• A- for Cosc 122 (Algorithms)
• B+ for Math105 (Calculus & linear algebra)
• C- for Engr102 (Engineering mechanics — missed the exam unfortunately!)
• Five years of high school at St Andrew's College, Christchurch.
• Bursary 2002: A Bursary.
• 90% (scholarship) for Art-Design (ranked 17th in NZ, out of over 2000)
• 82% (A) for Physics
• 69% (A) for Graphics
• 65% (B) for Maths with Calculus (67% in 2001)
• 59% (B) for English
• Sixth Form Certificate 2001 (attained University Entrance)
• grade one for Electronics, Maths (2000), Physics and Graphics
• grade two in Chemistry
• grade three for English
• School Certificate 2000
• 88% (A) for Maths (1999)
• 79% (B) for English
• 96% (A) for Graphics
• 90% (A) for Physics
• 85% (A) for Science
• 75% (B) for Geography
• Team leader for the highly successful St Andrew's team in the CCES 2002 competition — first overall in desktop publishing, and winner of a Allied-Telesyn switch for the school.