Having been rushed in to taking down the embarrassment of a website that was here before (thanks Cat) there is now that inevitable moment where you have to dig deep and find something to better it. Hmm, well let’s get the boring stuff out of the way first.
I’m Will Dashwood, self employed web developer, operating under the name w3Factory. Currently living in North Anston, on the outskirts of Sheffield, in a lovely detached house with a big garden, but moving soon to Thurcroft once the house has been done up.
There are just a few simple things in life I enjoy on a regular basis. I’m listening to music about 90% of my waking hours. I have a nice vinyl selection (just about every Faith No More record released in the UK) and an even bigger digital collection. I’d probably get more work done if I wasn’t manic air drumming to a bit of System of a Down or getting down with my bad self to some Soulwax but where’s the fun in that?
I love retro gaming on the old MegaDrive along with party orientated titles (Sing Star, Dance games and Buzz). Whenever we have a big meet up round these parts you know there’s gonna be no shortage of games to keep the crowds entertained. 10 pin bowling anyone?
Business is going well, plenty of projects on the go. I do have a tendency to take on bigger, slightly unusual projects which require far more research than normal and as such are hard to make profitable. I’m also balancing this with property development which would probably be more lucrative. Before w3Factory I was technical director of Website World and before that, a programmer for D6 which was essentially the same company in a different role.
I studied Music Technology & Audio Systems at Huddersfield University (2000 – 2003), which I highly recommend if you’re someone like me who has a passion for both music and computing. It covered a little bit of studio engineering/producing but by that stage I’d lost most interest in pursuing that line of work; my recordings of the Ghost Buster’s theme and MJ’s ‘Bad’ were probably a nail in the coffin! I did enjoy the experimental electronic music assignments and I’ll get my weird soundscapes back up here soon.
The straight forward C/C++/MFC programming was much more interesting and useful. Tied in with DirectX for audio applications and OpenGL (GLUT) for a bit of virtual reality/3D programming it was right up my street. We also did a bit of Flash and graphic design, back in the day when Dreamweaver was my choice of weapon.
I never did properly finish off my final year project, an offline VST plug-in which convolutes two sound sources. Perhaps when I’m feeling nostalgic I’ll dig all my old work out of the loft and see if I can sort out the memory leaks and polish it off. I’ve no idea what’s been happening in the world of Cubase/Wavelab in the past 3 years, it might not work at all!
OK so that will do you for now you knowledge thirsty people!