Kitchen Design & Manufacture Specialists in Hamilton, New Zealand. Pure Kitchens Ltd.

Introduction

Pearce Stephens Portrait

Kia ora everyone, my name is Pearce. I work full time at the University of Waikato as a team player within the Web Team; where I work on improving the Universities online presence.

Just recently, I finished teaching a 8 weeknight class (April 2015) at Fraser High School focusing on Web Development. Alongside that I work with a handful of awesome clients whom I do external contract work where I work on a bunch of projects from all schemes of the web world.

Simultaneously to all that, I am studying for my Masters degree in E-Commerce at the University; majoring in Electronic Business & Computer Science.

In my past, I have managed and developed brick-and-mortar retail stores, endured and overcome the technological challenges (and people challenges) that occur in their respective industry. This means I have spent a lot of time dealing with customers, both in-store and on-line, locally and internationally.

During the time I studied at the University of Waikato, apart from working with organisations and improving their web presence, I spent time doing security work where I dealt with individuals from all walks of life, from night clubs to concerts and sporting events such as cricket and rugby games.



The Purpose

The purpose of this website is for me to publically display the work that I complete as I venture into more new and exciting terroritories. I plan to publish articles and bits of code that I have found myself particually useful for various applications as well as any useful advice I can share.


My Blog

Pearce Stephens
Whats new in Pearce's world
Just a short summary

So it has been a little while since I have made a post, I have been fairly busy over the past few months concentrating on studies at the university and projects.

Semester A of 2014 has come to an ending, it was been a fairly successful semester releasing 3 websites and getting the top marks in the COMP258 paper.

One of the websites I released 'HobbySpy.co.nz' has been quite a success so far with multiple hobby stores contacting me, including Mighty Ape in regards to being included in the search results. Feedback from customers have also been really positive with such remarks as 'With HobbySpy I found a product I would otherwise of purchased overseas.'

Another website I recently released was 'RCManuals.co.nz' which is a database that holds instruction manuals for modelling goods. I spent a bit of time developing the UX to be as good as possible at all resolutions, I think I was successful.

I also just recently released publically another website 'Rennacs.com'. Rennacs is a small software engineering company that specialise in Vehicle Diagnostic Equipment. I was in charge of all aspects from design/graphics/backend. It has been a lot of fun to put together, it features a couple of cool things I had not done before.

Just recently I also joined the IITP (Institute of IT Professionals NZ), I got a cool certificate in the mail and recently attended a Cyber Security lecture that was held at the University of Waikato.

Check out this JavaScript 'Widget' below, which is an advert I built for HobbySpy.co.nz, this is featured currently on the www.rcracer.co.nz homepage.


Published : 2014-06-29
Pearce Stephens
I am now responsively designed
The way of the future...

So lately I have been playing around a lot with responsive websites. The idea is fantastic! No longer having to create a separate entity to cater for mobile devices. I have built recently a couple of websites using the bootstrap framework from twitter. It is very cool, the framework has drastically increased productivity while enabling the user with an aesthetically great, semantically great and high performing mobile responsive website. I love it and look forward to making more websites in the technology.

So give it a try and resize this website and see it change! It’s very cool. I didn’t use the bootstrap framework for this website, I simply utilized CSS media queries in order to recognise the different size windows and adjust accordingly.


If you want to check out some of the other websites I have created recently in the responsive design. Check out http://www.rc-manuals.co.nz and http://www.rennacs.com


Published : 2014-04-01
Pearce Stephens
My First Microsoft Interview
wish me luck!

Last week Microsoft came and visited the University. About 2 weeks prior to this one of the Microsoft recruiters found me on Linked In, the job and career website. Their lovely recruiter Veronika contacted me suggesting to attend and to apply on the Microsoft website for a career in the firm.

So I registered and submitted my CV and went to the tech talk and then about 5 days later I have received an email informing me that I have made it through the next stage and have been invited to attend the first round of interviews in a couple weeks, very exciting!

Today I also got a letter from the university informing me that I am in the top 15% of students within the Waikato University, and because of this I have an invitation to join the Golden Key International Honour Society which is restricted to high performing academics, I thought that was pretty cool!


Published : 2014-03-19
Pearce Stephens
Snuggler.co.nz & Ajax Chat Application
More and more programming

Hey everybody, over the past few weeks I have been busy at it working on various projects, I have spent a bit of time building a back end for one of my websites; snuggler.co.nz. I did this in order to control members and disable fake accounts easily. Prior to this I had to manually edit records in the database.

Following that, at university this year I am doing a 3rd year paper based on Web Development. Our first assignment was to create a chat room application in a browser that takes advantage of Ajax, it was a lot of fun and helped me fine tune my knowledge of JavaScript.

Check out the Ajax Chat, click here


Published : 2014-03-11
Pearce Stephens
MYOB AccountRight Plus To ZenCart
Database Synchronization software

I had been given the opportunity to write a small application to convert an exported database from MYOB to a ZenCart schema that would update stock levels, product status and prices in one bulk go. It also inserts new products into a specified category within ZenCart. A very basic GUI to make it as easy as possible to use. It is custom built for MBranz's needs.

It was fun to build though, it had taken me a couple of days to get it together. It was the first time I have worked with using different threads in an application, very cool!

Check it out, click here


Published : 2013-12-23
Pearce Stephens
Latest completed Project
http://www.snuggler.co.nz

My latest project has proven to be one of the largest projects I have taken on board. Using a combination of C#, ASP.NET, SQL, JavaScript and a ton load of CSS/HTML I have been able to release www.snuggler.co.nz. A project that has taken over 500 hours to stitch together. The website is something I have built for my own personal agenda. The long term plan for this website is to provide a steady additional income sometime in the future. It has also been a fantastic learning experience.

Check it out sometime!
http://www.snuggler.co.nz


Published : 2013-11-24
Pearce Stephens
http://www.hikumutu.org.nz
My Latest Addition!

I met the owners of Hikumutu Camps at university, after briefly chatting to me about their current web developer who was taking excessively long to complete the project while at the same time producing a website that was not to their specific visually and functionally. I offered my services despite being quite busy at the university and working part time to put together a website that would meet the requirements.

The website is heavily consisted of HTML/CSS/JavaScript utilizing PHP/mySQL. Using a modulated approach, the structure allows any staff member to login to the backend and edit events/pages as required.

It was a lot of fun to put together!  Check it out at http://www.hikumutu.org.nz


Published : 2013-08-10
Pearce Stephens
http://www.hobbysoftware.co.nz/
Is now online!

So I have pretty much finished stitching together hobbysoftware.co.nz and making a few adjustments to the software before presenting it to the public. I have advertised it on a couple of modelling forums and emailed a couple of large websites if they will publish an advert. Been fun though! Back to uni on Monday sigh! this semester break has flew by!


Published : 2013-07-06
Pearce Stephens
Repair Centre Software Released
My first C# application used in a business

This week I finished the software I have been working on for the past couple of weeks. It is called the Repair Centre. It is built simply using Web Forms & C# in visual studio; and is my first application that is built for a corporate purpose. The software has been installed at the Frankton Model Shop and so far the response from my fellow staff members has been very positive. 

Check out the preview of it by clicking here

However in the near future expect the release of http://hobbysoftware.co.nz


Published : 2013-07-01
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