Welcome to MJR.Towers

Hi. I'm MJ Ray and I'm a free software web developer, statistician, sysadmin and writer, living in Kewstoke, near Weston-super-Mare, Somerset, England.

Most visitors seem to be looking for my news pages, my email page or more info about me and my work... if you can't find what you're looking for, please email me.

Webmaster for hire

Most of my work at the moment is creating web sites using widely-available applications, which should all talk to each other. The key things are knowing which applications are worth using on which sites, knowing how to get the best from them and keeping up-to-date with any security updates and other changes.

I'll work for most business types and sectors, with a mild preference for health-related firms and cooperatives and businesses near me. I'm not keen on gene patenters, software patenters, tobacco firms and stuff like that.

What I do - some detail

Usually, I'm adding to a site or troubleshooting it, but sometimes I'm asked to create or update a site's whole design and that's probably what I enjoy most. I specialise in fairly clean and minimal designs which should adapt well to a wide range of devices and screen types, so everyone should get a similar experience, without the site quietly discriminating against certain groups of customers. You can see some examples of my web work on my work web site or on W3CSites - when I get time to update them!

Statistics are a vital part of the internet - almost every action is recorded, but analysis is needed to make sense of the data. My statistics degree helps there. My computing experience and training means that I can trouble-shoot webservers and manage email servers fairly easily, too.

I've been doing some sort of webmastering or internet consultancy since 1994 or so, on over 100 jobs for a couple of dozen clients so far (I tend to keep working for clients over years, which is nice).

Back in 2000, I was part of the team that won the Independent NUS Student Media Award for best website, having been runner-up in the Guardian awards the year before.

I don't really go for awards any more, preferring to concentrate on helping my clients in work time, and supporting worthwhile campaigns in my spare time. There's more detail on the page with more links about me.

Contact

My email page has contact info (and tips on writing good email that won't get lost among the spam) or you can use my work contact form. If you're replying to an article on my site, there should be a comments form near it - if so, please use it. Thanks. Hope to hear from you soon.