1. Most readers are familiar with you and your work thanks to PerishablePress and Digging Into WordPress. For those who don't know you well, can you tell us a bit about yourself, your background and what you do? I’ve always been creative, drawing, painting, and building things since I was a kid. Growing up before the Web was available, I did a lot of drawing, graphic design, desktop publishing, and writing. In college, some friends and I got into desktop publishing, which involves a lot of writing, design, and lots of editing. After college, we continued publishing stuff and wanted to share our work online. That’s when I first got into web design, mostly learning basic HTML and CSS and trying to cobble together a few simple web pages. It didn’t take long working online before I was hooked. For the next five years or so, I continued developing web projects, and eventually discovered WordPress (which was relatively new at the time) around 2005. Soon I was heavy into web development, learning everything I could about PHP, SQL, JavaScript, HTML, CSS, XML, .htaccess, and everything in between. I worked 80+ per week for another few years; 40 hours working a “regular” 9-to-5 job in a silicon lab, and another 40+ hours developing web sites and writing tutorials about all of the awesome stuff I was learning. In 2008, about the time I started developing WordPress themes and plugins, Chris Coyier and I wrote a book called Digging Into WordPress. That whole experience really took things to the next level and pretty much changed my life on the Web. The book’s success enabled me to quit my “day job” and focus entirely on working online. Making the transition to independent work was exciting and inspiring and scary all at the same time. Since then, I’ve been working as an independent designer, developer, author, editor, and publisher. It’s been about five years now since I took that big leap and quit my day job, and I continue learning as much as possible and working long hours doing work that I enjoy. I’ve written three other books, published hundreds of articles, started a premium plugin site, developed a dozen or so free plugins, and continued with more projects that you or anyone else cares to read about here. Over the years, I have spent much of my free time helping people for free with their security, WordPress, and general web design questions. I think that’s the best way to summarize what I enjoy most: helping people succeed on the Web.

2. What was your first encounter with the world wide web? In 1999 or so, a group of friends and I decided to put our printed magazine, Dead Letter Art, online. Online documentation was pretty thin back then, but with the help of some IT gurus that we knew, we were able to get a server, FTP access, and even a database to experiment with. After several months of tinkering with HTML, CSS, and Flash (gasp!), we launched out first rudimentary website for DLA. Of course by today’s standards the site was just pitiful, but it was the first step on the path to where I am today.

3. How and when did you get started as a designer/developer? Did you study something in particular or are you self-taught? After launching that first site, I was hooked. I began buying every book I could I find and practicing pretty much non-stop for the next several years. Eventually I started to get a flow going and launched Perishable Press, and things took off from there. So although I didn’t go to any formal school for coding or design, I’ve been studying and working independently on the Web for the past 15 years. I do however think that my five years in college studying Psychology, Biochemistry, and Mathematics has helped immensely in learning the intricacies and nuances of web development.

4. What came first, the designer or the developer? I would say it goes something like: artist, graphic designer, desktop publisher, author, web designer, and web developer, pretty much in that order, but with lot of overlap. I think going forward that I will be focusing primarily on plugin/theme development and books. That is enough to keep me busy for the next five years easily.

5. How does your average day look like? On the computer as soon as I wake up. Answer emails and support requests. Then take a walk, go to the store, run errands, etc. Back at the computer mid-morning and knocking out any small tasks, saving the bigger projects for the afternoon stretch. Work until dinner, break for a few hours in the evening and spend time with the family, and then back at it for several hours working the late-night shift. Generally I try to unwind before bed with a cold beverage and some entertainment.

6. What activities and hobbies do you enjoy when you're not behind your computer? Photography, drawing, listening to music, playing games, travelling, and of course spending time with family and friends. Also love good food, and enjoy watching the occasional Food Network show, like Chopped ;)

7. Do you consider yourself more of an entrepreneur, or a designer/developer? Both. While working on the Web, I run the whole gamut of roles and responsibilities. With books, for example, I do the planning, writing, editing, layout, design, publishing, distribution, promotion, and everything in between. Likewise for web development, I plan, develop, test, test some more, and then promote and maintain things as much as possible. It’s a lot of work and responsibility, but the creative control and freedom really makes it all worthwhile.

8. What’s the most important thing you’ve learned since working for yourself and what advice would you give someone starting out on his/her own? Don’t be lazy. Think for yourself. Learn how to troubleshoot and test stuff. Don’t follow trends blindly. Listen to others. Never stop learning. Find balance in your life and don’t spend your entire life in front of the computer. Also, always keep in mind that life is short, so take some chances and enjoy the ride.

9. How do you stay on top of current design/development trends? Mostly RSS feeds of my favorite sites, as well as Twitter and some other social media. Plus a lot of kind folks send me news and tips via email, and of course you can’t help but notice all of the latest stuff when surfing around on Google, YouTube, tech sites and so forth. When something new sparks my interest, I’ll take some time to check it out. I’ve a growing list of bookmarks and ideas that I’ll probably never have time to fully explore.

10. What is the coolest thing you ever designed/coded? Either of my premium plugins, USP Pro or SES Pro. USP Pro is aimed primarily at WordPress developers, and can do some really cool things with front-end content submission. I’ve seen some amazing projects built with USP Pro. And SES Pro I am proud of just because of its sleekness and flexibility. Beyond coding stuff, I would say that Digging Into WordPress is the coolest project I’ve done. Really was a great experience working with Chris Coyier -- a truly amazing person.

11. What was the prime motivator for the creation of perishablepress.com? I started Perishable Press as a place to learn WordPress and write about web design and development. If you surf around the site, you can still see a bunch of old articles and posts that were entirely experimental. At one point, the site had over 20 themes that visitors could choose from, but maintenance got to be just too ridiculous so I removed them. I guess the focus of Perishable Press eventually shifted from experimentation to sharing in-depth articles on web development and security. As the response grew, I ramped up the tutorials and kept posting all sorts of stuff, anything and everything that is relevant to working online. Perishable Press was my door to professional web development and much more.

12. Which people/friends from the web-design/-development industry are important for you, who do you look up to and who contribute, in your opinion, in the most effective way to the community? I look up to pioneers like Jeffrey Zeldman, Eric Meyer, Jeremy Keith, Douglas Bowman, and Shaun Inman. Getting started online, I learned a great deal from the developers who were there before me, sharing their wisdom and making it possible for others to join the game. These days it’s more challenging to keep up with all the awesome folks and everything they do, but I am inspired by people like Chris Coyier and Vitaly Friedman. They contribute tons of material and help many people in the community. Additionally, I think the entire WordPress development team has made an enormous impact on the Web, so much appreciation there as well.

13. How would you advice people to start with coding and/or designing? Read as much as possible and learn by doing. I think reading and hands-on learning are a great combination. Whatever works though, some people can watch a video tutorial and “get it”, so find what works and roll with it.