About Us

And by "us" I mean "me"...

The Man

Hello, my name is Jonathan Cook - and I'm the developer and author of Arkamonta Designs.

The website has taken a long time to finally hit the internet - and has gone through many revisions to get to this point. The website is basically a collection of random branches of my mind put in a web-based format.

I'm a nerd - I grew up playing Magic: The Gathering and reading fantasy novels. I'm fascinated with Anient Egypt, the vastness of space, and unexplained mysteries. I absolutely enjoy coding websites and plugins, playing and modding computer games, definitely team Xbox for consoles, listening to 90's rap music as well as underground horrorcore music (Whoop Whoop!!), as well as a ton of other random interests.

The Developer

Below is a Digital Resume

Education

ASSOCIATE’S IN APPLIED SCIENCE | DEC. 2010 | KAPLAN UNIVERSITY
Major: Website Development
Minor: IT Technician

Career Summary

~20 years of HTML / CSS / PSD to HTML template generation
10+ years of PHP / MySQL development
10+ years of JavaScript / jQuery
10+ years of custom WordPress Themes & Plugin generation
6 years working with ddnux in a LAMP stack
6 years utilizing Git workflows

Key Skills

PERSONAL
Self-Taught “Coder by nature”
Self-Starter “Point and Click”
Self-Motivated “Thirsty Learner”
WEB STACK
WAMP
LAMP
XAMPP (localhost)
PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES
PHP / HTML / HTML5
MySQL
Prog. Lang. More
JavaScript / jQuery / AJAX / JSON
CSS / CSS3 / SASS
WEB TECHNOLOGIES
Git (SVN)
OOP
MySQL
Linux
Node.js / NPM / Gulp
Web Tech More
Bootstrap
Photoshop
Smarty
Bash
Apache / NGINX
CONTENT MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS
PostNuke (2001-2008)
Zikula (2008-2010)
WordPress (2008-Present)
CMS More
*Progress (2014-Present)
*Boost (2014-Present)
*Boost2 (2016-Present

Experience

INDEPENDENT DEVELOPER | FREELANCE | 2020 – PRESENT

Designed, built, and launched the Arkamonta Designs website.

  • This personal project acts as a personal website / digital resume / work portfolio.

Built new websites for various clients using WordPress.

INDEPENDENT DEVELOPER | METRO STUDIOS – HIAWATHA, IA | 2018 – 2020

Continued providing services as a Remote, Independent Developer.

  • Assisting the in-house team with projects related to Boost and Boost2

LEAD WEB DEVELOPER | METRO STUDIOS – HIAWATHA, IA | 2014 - 2018

Started as a Junior Developer and was promoted to Lead Developer after two years.

  • In charge of creating dev sites, CMS installation and plugin development / feature programming.

Lead Developer position came with some additional Linux server administration responsibilities.

  • In charge of creating / maintaining user accounts, security log checking, Git repository health, and client site launches.
  • Responsible for generating a list of plugins needed for each project and providing time / cost estimates for these lists.
  • Attended client meetings to assess the project requirements and answer any client questions regarding requested features.

Utilized WordPress as well as the company’s two in-house CMSs Progress and Boost to build client sites.

Initiated an overhaul of the Boost CMS – and created Boost2. The overhaul made the CMS compatible with PHP 7 and introduced a responsive admin panel and dynamic page generation capability.

PHP, MySQL, HTML, CSS, jQuery

WEB DEVELOPER | ACT – IOWA CITY, IA | 2012-2013 (6 MONTH CONTRACT)

Brought on as a temp to ease the workload on the full-time web team.

Duties included error tracking and bug fixes, HTML template generation, and general overflow tasks delegated by senior employees.

PHP, MySQL, HTML, CSS, jQuery

INDEPENDENT DEVELOPER | KROHN TECHNICAL SERVICES | 2011-2014

Converted PSD / Graphic Mockups to HTML templates and custom WordPress themes.

Tasked with generating lists of plugins needed for each project, based on site requirements.

Created custom WordPress plugins as needed when existing plugins were either unavailable, or overly complicated for what was needed.

PHP, MySQL, HTML, CSS, jQuery

INDEPENDENT DEVELOPER | FREELANCE | 2001-2011

Built and maintained multiple websites using the PostNuke & Zikula CMSs.

Began working with WordPress, building custom themes and plugins.

Obtained an AAS in Website Development.

PHP, MySQL, HTML, CSS, jQuery