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Jeff Wheeler interview

Feb 14, 06:14 AM by Marko

Jeff Wheeler


Interivew with Jeff Wheeler at nokrev.com

Marko: Hello Jeff! For our reader’s could you tell something about yourself? (year old and other stuff)

Jeff: Sure thing. I’m 15 years old, and live in Austin, Texas. I do design and programming between school and during the breaks, while maintaining grades I’m rather proud to make. Logically, the parents wouldn’t be too happy if I revealed much about my personal life.

Marko: How are you doing these days?

Jeff: I’m doing very well. Both programming work and school-work are plentiful, and I seem to be doing well in both. I couldn’t be happier.

Marko: When did you first encounter a keyboard or computer?

Jeff: Well, it’s hard to remember exactly, since I was probably very young. The earliest I can remember is from the beginning days of 95, and getting a PC for the family. I recall clicking the AOL icon, and that’s about it.

Marko: What is your favorite art work /website!?

Jeff: I love the work of Dan Cederholm at Simplebits. His work is so clean, yet fresh and bright. I can’t stop looking at it, in all honesty. Additionally, he writes very well.

Additionally, the brilliant Michael Heilemann never ceases to amaze me with his beautiful designs and typography. He always seems to have something new that surprises me, but works amazingly well. The variety is great.

Marko: when you launched nokrev.com are you happy with the result of the site?

Jeff: Yes, very much so. I got the domain for my twelfth birthday, and since then, it’s grown to something I can be proud to have made. I measure its success by the customers it brings in, and so far, it has worked very well for me.

Marko: What do you do in your spare time (We realize that spare time, in this context)

Jeff: I program. I love programming, so I do as much as I can of it. At the moment, I have three programming books open: Building Cocoa Applications, Foundations of Ajax, and Agile Web Development with Rails. The problem is, I don’t get very far into any of them, because I get easily side-tracked into a slightly different programming thing online.

Marko: Do you have a favorite drink? How much of it do you drink?

Jeff: Coke (that includes Coke, Dr. Pepper, and any other “soft drink”). I’m really not choosy, but I drink about two a day of one or the other, depending on what we have in the fridge. It’s a really awful habit, but I get very thirsty at the computer.

Marko: Would you care to give us a brief overview of what a typical day is like for Jeff Wheeler?

Jeff: It greatly depends on whether it’s a school day or not. On a school day, I’ll wake at 6:45, get ready until 7:20, then ride the bus to school which starts at 9:00. I’ll stay there, very bored (except for computer science, where I’ll still be bored, but working slightly too), until 4:00PM, at which point I’ll ride the bus home until 4:45. At this point, I’ll read feeds until about 5:00, and promise myself that I’ll turn them off in ten minutes until 6:00, when I really do. The rest of the night, I’ll spend procrastinating on Kirupa.com forums until I have very little time to do my homework. Then I’ll do it very quickly and accurately, and end up in bed at about 11:30, after another shower.

On a holiday or weekend, I’ll get up out of bed, walk over to my computer at about 10:00AM, and stay there until 5:00PM, when I’ll eat dinner. From 5:30PM to 2:00AM the next day, I’ll be on the computer still talking to friends. That is of course, unless there is school the next day, in which case the school timeline continues past dinner.

Marko: I am always wondering how people such as yourself go about getting work? How do you do it?

Jeff: My two wordpress themes (Fresh Bananas and White Onions) bring some people asking for their own Wordpress themes, and simply having a website brings the rest. My primary job is school, and that work is, well, given to me without any choices.

Marko: Who are some of your biggest influences?

Jeff: I have been heavily influenced by my family to make money; I’ve always wanted to make more than those around me (perhaps I just like to brag, but I guess bragging rights are a good enough reason for me). I got the entrepreneurial spirit from my father, so I’ve always been encouraged to do things by myself rather than through somebody else.

Additionally, Dan Cederholm (who I mentioned above) has strongly influenced my design styles, along with Doug Bowman.

I guess I should also give credit to a camp guide at some big techie camp that “teaches you how to make your first website.” The instructor was the one who first introduced me into css, and I was immediately blown away. I was addicted at once.

Marko: Is your background in design? What was the progression into web development and design like?

Jeff: I have had no training at all, to be perfectly honest. I’ve taught myself everything I know through books and web sites (well, and through watching other great people online and in forums). In seventh grade, I skipped into the “advanced web design” class, but to be truthful, we were stuck using Frontpage and the teach only knew tables for layout. It was truly not even slightly challenging, and my friends and I co-taught with the teacher (actually, there were only 6 people in the class the whole year, 3 of which skipped to it without taking the other class first).

Marko: If you where not a designer/programmer what would you be?

Jeff: I never said I would be a designer/programmer when I got out of school. I think I’d much rather prefer to be an electrical engineer (where I can still program very low-level things). Electrical engineering has a much higher learning curve though, so it’s a bit tougher to do as a student, although I’d like to get into it as much as I can before actually taking classes on it.

Marko: How do you like our site mcville.net?

Jeff: Honestly, I’ve never heard of it. It’s nice now that I know about it. I love reading little things about all my favorite people.

Marko: If you could change something on mcville what would it be?

Jeff: I’m not fond of that font the logo and the interview pictures are in. It’s a little bit too silly.

Marko: What kind of music do you fancy?

Jeff: Pretty much anything but rap and country. I especially like Singer/Songwriter kind of things, especially from fellow Austinites.

Marko: What’s your favorite food?

Jeff: Bacon-wrapped-shrip from Truluck’s. I used to be fourth on Google for Truluck’s since I talked about it so much, but then I changed around my blog, and now everything is broken.

Marko: Where do you get out on Saturday’s?

Jeff: My Mac is about 4 feet away from my bed. I explained earlier what I do on holidays and weekends, and that applies to Saturdays as well.


some relaxing question to follow

Marko: Chinese or Thai (food)?

Jeff: Chinese.

Marko: Coke or Pepsi?

Jeff: Coke, but I don’t really care.

Marko: html or css?

Jeff: They’re both necessary. You can’t have one without the other, but if I had to pick, I suppose I prefer (x)html.

Marko: Do you watch television? If so, do you have a favorite show?

Jeff: Yes; The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.

Marko: What would we find in your favorites bookmarks-bar?

Jeff: Bookmark (with delicious; mine’s here); Seed Newsvine (am I allowed to say that?); Nokrev; Textdrive (folder container Webmin, Usermin, Webmail, phpMyAdmin, Awstats, Google Analytics, Textdrive, Joyent); Apple; Kirupa (flash forum, but very friendly people); Flickr; Bookmarklets.

Marko: What inspires you? This doesn’t have to be design related.

Jeff: The thought of one day becoming a great programmer that people would respect. Or, getting Slashdotted for something like putting Linux on a toaster.

Marko: Thank again for having this interview Jeff,Cheers!

Jeff: No, thank you!

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