Hello to everyone and a little about myself

Hello,

My name is Keith and I'm looking forward to being a member here on the forum.

After spending some time last night looking around the forum and doing a bit of reading I picked up on a positive vibe, so I joined. I hope it doesn't seem self-serving for me to discuss a little about who I am and how I arrived at this point.

Owning brick and mortar businesses over the past few decades was my line of work, but I grew tired of my staffs "drama" being part of my world. I owned nice restaurant/bars, so it was always about which server wasn't showing up for the evening dinner rush and.... "What do you mean my kitchen managers in jail? ....child support. Oh good grief!" It was always something, but I digress. LOL

Well computers were a vital part of my business starting back in 1988. All maintenance and bookkeeping was done from a DOS prompt, so I've been around the block a few times.

Then I got involved with security equipment and decided I'd start an ecommerce site. I'll not bore you with the details of going through not one, but two web design outfits and both experiences left me with a bit of a bad taste in my mouth. So, not being one to wilt in the face of a challenge I decided "To hell with this nonsense, I can learn anything."

I already had a pretty good knowledge of photoshop, since I had laid out all of my own print ads for many years in the rest/bar business. So, I buried my head and I've learned so much very quickly, but it's impossible to gain a complete grasp on so many things all at the same. xHTML, CSS & CSS3, PHP, jQuery/Javascript, heck I even manged to fix a little Ajax problem last week.

My cart is based on OpenCart and while I like OC I was far from happy with some default layout issues for instance on the product pages there was a scattered look to the call to action area and the additional product images were scattered below the main large image. You can see the default layout OC layout below and then a screenshot of the changes I made.

http://demo.opencart.com/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=49

This is a screenshot from my cart.

http://puu.sh/poUf <-- I still have a little work to do in that area, but you can see the dramatic change.

Well, I think I've wandered a little off the path of the traditional introduction, but hopefully it will explain a little about who I am... and why I might be asking such an obvious question on some occasions. LOL But, don't worry, Google is my friend and generally I've spent time looking before I ask on the forum.

I'm looking forward to the interaction with everyone.

Keith