About Chris Latko
Summary
Artist Sketch
Chris graduated with honors from Indiana University with a double major in Business Economics and Japanese Language and Literature. In 1994, he developed his first Web site and has since acquired fifteen years in Web development experience, a major part of which has been his participation in the development and deployment of over 200 Web sites that required his contribution in virtually all areas of the production process, including management, programming, design, and system administration. Other keynotes in his career include working for a Fortune Global 500 company (Sony) and several start-ups (WTIC, GBOT, Brand Ichiba).
Chris has produced over $15 million in revenue for his companies through the deployment of systems such as a content management system and Web site deployment tools for the world’s largest bank, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group. His Web site creation tools are used for 1,000,000 Japanese distributors for Amway, a global leader in multilevel marketing. He is responsible for creating the Cialis Web sites for the Oceania region of the global pharmaceutical, Eli Lilly and Company. Chris has also designed content management systems for sites such as Audi, Clarion, Daiwa Securities, Dunlop, Fiat, Itochu, Nissan, Renault, Sanyo, Sharp, THK, and Warner Brothers. In his latest role as CTO for Ashley Associates, Chris has built the infrastructure for Web interface source code management, bug tracking, replication of Web sites across servers, and versioned build deployment, saving his company over $1 million per year in infrastructure costs.
Specialties
Web development with server-side languages: PHP, Cold Fusion, Ruby, J2EE, Perl, Lasso, and ASP and client-side languages: Javascript, CSS, XML/XSLT, and “AJAX”. Database: MySQL, Postgres, SQL Server, and Oracle. Other languages: Bash, C, Python, Ruby and J2ME for mobile devices. Frameworks: Fusebox, Spring, Ruby on Rails, Zend. SysAdmin: Apache, Apache Modules, Sendmail, Postfix, Bind. OS: Mac OS X, Linux (Red Hat, CentOS, Gentoo, Ubuntu), FreeBSD, and Solaris.
“Chris is the most mysterious person I have ever met.”
About Dreaming Of Beetles
I’m going to make this section a FAQ:
What’s with the stupid site name?
My username/handle/whatever has been “beetle” for a long, long time. This is partly due to my fascinating with beetles, especially the Japanese variety. When I lived in Japan, I kept beetles as pets, mostly kuwagatas (stag beetle) and buchin (female stag beetle). The kabuto (rhino beetle) were too difficult to raise. I have professional supplies in Japan (in storage) and a frequent shopper’s card at a beetle store. I also tend to name my machines after Japanese beetles. Anyway, the night before I started this blog, I literally dreamt of beetles. I remember I was trying to catch a new species of beetle, but it kept escaping. Couldn’t think of a name for this site so not being one to waste too much time on such things, I decided on “Dreaming Of Beetles”. You’ll have to figure out the tagline on your own.
What’s the purpose of the site?
Over my 15 years of web development, I’ve accumulated a whole ton of tidbits, facts, tutorials, tricks, tips, etc. and have also wanted to create a knowledge base in a blog format. I’ve tried this blogging thing about five years ago, but didn’t have the time to update it with any frequency so it petered out. Now, I have a little time on the side so I’m going for it again. I have a ton of material, but a bunch is outdated. I’m not going to post about Cold Fusion web services or server-side image maps. I’ll try to keep the content relevant.
You seem very opinionated…
You could say that. I read a ton of news and often find inconsistencies, factual errors, obtuse reporters, etc. and grow increasing frustrated with the echo chamber that exists in the blogging community (I’m not going to use that sphere word). I want to tell my side of a story as well, even if I’m wrong. I like to hear other’s reactions to what I have to say and am extremely willing to learn.
Bottom line, as my dad likes to say, is that this site is all about learning. I like to share my knowledge with others and the reward for me is when people pick it apart and ask why? It makes me think, and that’s what this is all about.
Popularity: 1% [?]
