About
The name
‘bramn’ is short for Bram Nijmeijer, my real name given to me almost 27 years ago. Born and raised in Enschede (Twenthe), I followed a pretty much default educational career, from elimentary school on 'De Triangel', through high-school on 'Het Jacobus College', too studying Electrical Engineering on the University of Twente right now.
Next to my study I was, and still partially am, an active member of the study association E.T.S.V. Scintilla. I was the treasurer in the daily board from march 2001 till 2002, co-published a yearbook 'Chasing Time', was chairman/editor of the monthly magazine called 'De Vonk' and member of several other committees.
Next to studying and ‘activating’ I have some jobs on the side to be able to make a living. In the weekends and during holidays I’m a receptionist at the AriensZorgpalet, an elderly home. During my free time I’m a freelance journalist for i-TRIXX and web-developer, sometimes in cooperation with Studio 4.
The virtual life
My internet life really set of late 1998 when I started playing Quake 2 Weapons Factory online, using my trusty old Robotics 56k6 modem. When cable internet from @Home became available we registered immediately, enjoying a broadband connection till last year, when their reliability dropped to zero. Since december 2006 I’m connected to the WWW using ADSL from Orange.
Quake 2 WF, Quake 3 Rocket Arena DM/CTF etc., Weaponsfactory Arena, Battlefield 1942, Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory, I played it all. Sometimes active in a clan (most famous was ']II[ The Invisible Invincibles', won a lot of European trophies on Clanbase), as a referee for Gameservers.net or forum moderator for BF-1942.nl. But web development and design took over from gaming during the years.
Nowadays I spend my time in front of my PC working with Photoshop, web development, XHTML/CSS, PHP coding, Javascript and AJAX (libraries), lurking around on forums like Gathering of Tweakers, Mint Pages, Hyves, VIRB, Enschede-Stad, Pivot Support Forum, etc.
Late 2006 I made the switch from Windows PC’s to my first real Apple computer, the MacBook Pro notebook. Although both operating systems have their advantages and disadvantages I definitely prefer OSX Tiger over Windows XP. Can't wait to try out OSX Leopard, Apple's answer to Vista. Or was it the other way around?!
The website
This website is powered by the one and only weblog CMS, which doesn’t need a MySQL database: Pivot. I’ve been using it since one of the pre 1.0 versions and have been a loyal user ever since, showing my appreciation by donating and developing snippets, extensions and templates. Some extensions are also integrated into this blog and can be downloaded via the Pivot++ section.
This weblog started back in 2003 and since then I’ve been blogging about pretty much everything. From my experiences in life to 'stuff' on the web I find interesting. From funny Google movies and weird gadgets to W3C standards, web design, PHP, Adobe CS and so on and so forth.
Statistics of this website are maintained by Mint, an excellent and well designed tool by Shaun Inman. Hosting is done by Dreamhost, located in the United States. One of, if not the, cheapest hosting provider on the world. Massive amounts of webspace and bandwidth for only $7,95.