Contact

Ben Huot, D.Min.

researcher and writer for consumer/citizen advocacy
improve your life by getting better advice

May 2012

Benjamin-Newton Creative Works

wisdom of the greatest thinkers
plus more experience and research
minus profit motive equals better advice

Portfolio Website

ben@benjamin-newton.com
www.benjamin-newton.com
mobile.benjamin-newton.com

Personal Website

Benjamin-Newton Oregon
www.benjamin-newton.org

Design Proficiency (In General Terms)

Web Design Proficiency

Information Technology Proficiency

Anticipating Constant Revolutionary Changes

looking forward to radical and rapid change
ready for complete shift in business models
hoping for increasing industry quality standards
hope consumer expectations increase
expecting my entire skill set to become commoditized

Enjoy New Challenges

know how to adjust to new software, techniques
can figure out software without training
can master new skills very rapidly
creative in software use
normally work at high speed

Well-Rounded Understanding of Field

broad and in-depth background knowledge
historical perspective on evolution of technology
approach new technologies instinctually
can master every part of your design process

Psychological Reasons for Design Ability

mental illness forces me to keep designs and organization simple
extreme literalness pushes me to communicate clearly (to avoid any confusion in meaning)
class distinction drives me to communicate directly and simply
my serious and complex approach to life gives priority to creations with depth and meaning
my creative ability in multiple aspects my of life helps me do more with less
goal for creative work to be more important over time makes me focus on universal relevance

Unusual Design Specialties

Communication Centered Design

I assume as little as possible (technically, cognitively, or socially)
virtually every decision in design and content has a reason
communicate message in different media, subjects, and complexity level (for different people/situations)
graphics and layout designed to reinforce content
allow people to distribute content as widely as useful and appropriate

Future Proof and Platform Independent Design

with budget and limited functionality tools
techniques concept based and software independent
maximum compatibility and accessibility
have higher standards than almost anyone

File Format Conversion

document, vector graphics
keeping original structure
maximum compatibility
specialty formats

Web Design

structured design using flexible formats and methods
large and simple (no thinking) layouts
user can get the information as fast as possible
most thorough website help section

Teaching and Complete End User Support

can and want to teach and document everything I know
any experience level
focus on fundamentals and techniques, not software
train you so thoroughly, that you don't need me any more

Technical Aspects of Design Proficiency

Efficient File Design Choices

maximum lossless compression
most compatible compression
removing unneeded data
bandwidth efficiency

High Quality Web Hosting

highly reliable hosting
high speed connection for host
hosting optimized for speed
globally optimized by locale
keeping server processing load minimal

Efficient Use of Device Resources

maximum mobile device performance
minimum processor load
minimum battery use
processor efficient design methods

Audio Optimization

computer generated text to speech
achieved 100:1 compression of spoken audio (30 MB for 3 hours)
clean defects in recorded audio including heavy breathing on microphone
understand licensing issues of each codec used
support most major devices out of the box (no install needed)
no reliance on Flash fallback for any platform

Device/Software Compatibility

information available in many file formats
designs adapt to computing device limitations
almost every device/OS/browser tested
designs resilient (to unexpected device/software combinations and limitations)
browser/device-specific website integration elements
Internet Explorer Pinned Sites, (iOS/Mobile Safari) Apple Touch Icons, Firefox Persona, and Opera Speed Dial

Accessibility for Sight Impaired

enlargeable (allows clean zooming) or large print text
color blind accessible
works with screen readers
large interface elements

Marketing, Legal, and Public Relations Aspects of Design

Improving Search Engine Rankings (SEO) General

2 of my books rank 1st and 2nd for topic on Google (Christian Existentialism Philosophical Taoism)
use only "White Hat" official Google and Bing SEO suggestions
all SEO improvements benefit the user as well
updated hundreds of pages one by one

Improving Search Engine Rankings (SEO) Metadata

marked book license and cataloging information for Google and Bing
now use headings like Google and Bing want
added concise descriptions for book pages for Google descriptions
overrode Open Directory site descriptions

Improving Search Engine Rankings (SEO) Navigation

improved navigation by providing quicklinks to most common options
set up automatic redirects of old web page sections to new addresses
marked which one of several versions of same web page content to use
made website map for both Google and humans
providing useful error messages to users

Copyright/Legal Work

removed unwanted copies of my books from online bookstores
enforced license against unknowing infringement
know how to find who to contact for copyright violation
Apple iBookstore
Barnes and Noble Nook Store
Lulu.com's bookstore on Amazon.com

Website Skills and Experience

Webmaster Jobs

14 years

project vision and concept planning
content and design creation and updates
software/script and hosting selection and installation/updating
development of ideas and projects
information organization and accessibility
link and file maintenance and bug testing
customer support and research

Types of Website Content

Text

poetry
philosophy
technology help

Graphics

photography
drawings
animations

Audio

music
audiobooks
audio readings

Other

fonts
design
puzzles
awards

Size of Website Content

free gifts for others
$6,394 worth of content (per copy)
over 2,285 pages of original text (arranged into 52 text books)
5 website domains
9 subdomains
20,000 files on website
1.10 GB of content on website

Content Delivery Network Assets (Files)

1,150 total downloads
490 graphics downloads
280 drawing downloads
190 photo downloads
20 miscellaneous graphics downloads
375 audio downloads
270 text book downloads

Content Delivery Network Assets (File Size)

5.45 GB of total downloads
3.60 GB of graphics downloads
1.75 GB of drawing downloads
1.75 GB of photo downloads
95 MB miscellaneous graphics downloads
1.50 GB of audio downloads
350 MB of text book downloads

Website Speed

DSL (Front Page)

fully loads in 2 and 2/3 seconds
loads in about 1/7 of a second 2nd time
about 1/3 of 1 MB of total content
1.5 MB/s DSL on US East Coast with Google Chrome
scores 96/100 with Google Page Speed Online Test
faster than 90% of the websites tested with Pingdom Tools

DSL/Internet Explorer (Front Page)

fully loads in about 4 and 3/4 seconds
loads in about 1 and 1/3 seconds 2nd time
less than 2/3 of 1 MB of total content
1.5 MB/s DSL on US East Coast with Internet Explorer 8
scores 96/100 with Google Page Speed Online Test

Cable Internet (Front Page)

fully loads in about 1 and 1/3 seconds
loads in about 1/10 of a second 2nd time
about 1/3 of 1 MB of total content
Cable Internet on US East Coast with Google Chrome
scores 96/100 with Google Page Speed Online Test
faster than 90% of the websites tested with Pingdom Tools

Dial Up (Front Page)

fully loads in less than 1 minute and 30 seconds
loads in about 1/7 of a second 2nd time
about 1/3 of 1 MB of total content
56k Dial Up on US East Coast with Google Chrome
scores 96/100 with Google Page Speed Online Test
faster than 90% of the websites tested with Pingdom Tools

FIOS (Front Page)

fully loads in less than 1 second
loads in about 1/10 of a second 2nd time
about 1/3 of 1 MB of total content
FIOS on US East Coast with Google Chrome
scores 96/100 with Google Page Speed Online Test
faster than 90% of the websites tested with Pingdom Tools

Website Design Details

Website Design Strategies

color coded designs by situation, location, and device
6 unique device type specific designs (including printer and mobile site designs)
4 website specific variations on each of 4 designs
auto selects optimal design by device type
design methods work for multiple vendors and variations of similar device types
design optimized for book pages, downloaded book series bundles, and custom 404 error pages (phone and tablet size)

Website Design Specifications

tablet (iPad) and mobile smart phone/iPod Touch optimized designs for portrait and landscape orientations
advanced design for latest PC browsers (Internet Explorer 9 compatible)
advanced design for wide screen monitors and HD TVs
default, fail safe Internet Explorer 6 compatible design
separate simplified site with older/less powerful mobile phone and tablet optimized designs
print optimized design

Before Adding to Designs/Content

has to have a practical use for the end user
keeps my workload the same or reduces it
has to be efficient in download speed, client and server system requirements
must work optimally on an iPad and iPod Touch

Delivered via

website
e-book
audio book
paperback

Book Printing Skills

General Book Proficiency

successfully

researched
wrote
created pictures
formatted
proofread

over 14,500 pages and 61 books

Text Book Statistics

52 books (not including 3rd Party books)
14,561 combined total
novel/trade, pocket, and US letter sizes
hardcover, paperback, large print, and e-book
black and white
custom text formatting
typeset with LaTeX or HTMLdoc
custom covers
covers designed with Xara Xtreme, Toon Boom Studio Express, Pages, Gimp, and/or Inkscape

Picture Book Statistics

9 books
547 pages
467 unique pictures
pictures entirely vector based
pictures vectorized with Inkscape
novel/trade and US letter sizes
paperback and e-book
full color and black and white
layout done with Scribus
custom covers
covers designed with Xara Xtreme

Programming (Print Markup Languages)

LaTeX (general)

structured
footnotes
margin notes
quotations
poetry
custom footers and headers
custom page size
two-sided
custom margins
custom justification
drop caps
page breaks
multiple source files
other macro packages
convert to Open Document via RTF with structure

LaTeX (direct to PDF specific)

hyperlinked table of contents
bookmarks
links to web
meta data
color
vector graphics
interactive Flash embedding
custom embedded and subset Postscript fonts

LaTeX to PDF Authoring Tools

TeX Shop, Kile, and Winefish text editors
TeX Live distribution
pdftex compiler
Ghostscript for PDF editing
Adobe Reader

Converting LaTeX to Other Formats

latex2rtf converter
OpenOffice.org
Daisy Pipeline
Calibre

Binding Skills

Can laser print and comb bind publications on my own

Book Marketing

Types of Publications

logo
business cards
flyers
brochures
concept maps
timelines

Publication Ideas

self designed
clear and clean design
easily readable
concise wording

Publication Design

resolution independent
bright and colorful
large print

Matches website

colors
images
styles

Handouts Tools

Toon Boom Studio Express
Pages (part of Apple iWork)

Specific Software Experience

Applications

Microsoft: Word (Mac and Windows) ribbon and old menus versions, Excel (Mac and Windows) ribbon and old menus versions, Powerpoint (Mac and Windows) ribbon and old menus versions, Publisher, Outlook, Expression, Internet Explorer (through version 9)
Adobe: Dreamweaver, Photoshop Elements, Flash Paper
Apple: iPhoto, iTunes, Garageband, iMovie, Quicktime Pro, Logic Pro, Pages, Keynote, Numbers, iBooks Author, ColorSync Utility, Preview, Mail, Safari, Mac App Store, (iOS) App Store, iTunes Music Store, iBookstore, iPhone Simulator, iBooks, Disk Utility, Terminal, X11
Corel: Draw, Painter, WordPerfect
Lotus: Symphony, WordPro, 123
Open Source: OpenOffice.org, Firefox, Thunderbird, Evolution, Kompozer, FileZilla, Cyberduck, Chicken in the VNC, Gimp, Inkscape, Scribus, Audacity, Calibre, Sigil, Daisy Pipeline, LaTeX, DjVu, K3b, Sword Project
Other: VMware, Nero, Toast, BBedit, Carrara, Poser, Toon Boom Studio, Hype, Amadeus Pro, Print Shop, Picasa, Pixelmator, Acorn, XnView, MacStitch, Kindle (iOS, Mac OS X, Kindle), Kindlegen, Google Chrome, Opera Mini (iPad and iPhone), Diskwarrior, Logos, Stuffit

Operating Systems

Windows (via VNC)
Apple (UNIX): Mac OS X (every major version from 10.2 to the 10.7) on eMac, Mac Mini, and iMac; Apple iOS (iPad 1) 3.2-5.0 and Apple iOS (iPad 3) 5.1; Apple iOS (iPod Touch 4) 4.1-5.0; Apple TV (original Intel configuration); Airport WiFi Routers
X-Windows (UNIX): Ubuntu Linux, openSUSE Linux, PC-BSD, OpenSolaris
Other: Amazon Kindle 3, Google Android Simulator, HP/Palm Simulator, Blackberry Simulator

Web Services and Technologies

Services/Server/Behind the Scenes: cPanel Apache based web hosting, .htaccess configuration (HTTP 1.1 compression, 301 redirects, mime types) , content distribution network, remote virtual machine service for multiple web browser/OS web page compatibility testing, web page speed testing, "white hat" Google approved search engine optimization, and legal issues (Creative Commons, copyright, privacy, and licensing issues)
People/Client Facing Technology: HTML5 (CSS 3 Styling, SVG, Audio, and device orientation/media queries), always use industry standard best practices, optimization for many devices (for Internet Explorer 6-8, Large Screen, Netbook/iPad 1, iPhone/iPod Touch 4, and Google and older Apple devices), always fully accessible and usable (for all people including people with physical, technical, cognitive, or social limitations), jQuery, MooTools, CSS3 PIE, pdf.js, WebODF, LaTeX, image optimization (lossless transparent 24-bit and 8-bit PNG, JPG, 4 color - 256 color GIFs with transparency and without dithering, JPEG XR, vectorization of bitmaps, PDF optimization, and Amazon Kindle (mobi)), and audio format conversion and licensing (MP3, AAC, iPhone Ringtone, HE-AAC v2, Windows Media, Ogg Vorbis, Apple Losssless, FLAC), SVG/ interactive ePub/iBooks.

Linux and Mac OS X Command Line

basic file management
package installation and upgrades
compile programs with make
check out via subversion