About Me

Hi, I’m Matt Ball, 19, from Melton Mowbray, studying Internet Computing at Aberystwyth University.

Why this site is here:
Welcome! I set the site up to improve my web presence, run a blog, put a bit out there about myself, show some of my previous work and ‘advertise’ my services. The pages on this site follow a more relaxed and blog style and by no means is all of the content perfect in terms of a professional résumé type thing! I’d rather you (the viewer) felt like we were having more of a face-to-face conversation than reading off some fancy CV with a strange blog attached to it. Enjoy your stay, feel free to leave me some comments, follow me on Twitter and/or add me on Facebook and last but by no means least, LinkedIn.

Hobbies and Interests:
I don’t have a list of hobbies and interests to reel off, but I’ll let you know a few. Obviously I’m a big technology fan, probably spent far too many hours in front of the PC since the Windows 98 box manufactured by Time arrived on the family desk. I guess I was just born into the computer generation. The first main thing to come of this was gaming. Starting a long time ago on the PSOne and starting properly in around 2004 with the release of the first of the Call of Duty series for PC. This progressed until I came to university by which time many hours had been played, and some competitions won. My love for creating on the web came during this period when I wanted to set up websites for gaming teams. Finding myself picking it up rather quickly I started taking new adventures on the web and that is how Airsoft Forums UK was born. During the same period I purchased my own components for a PC build and successfully put it together. This interest extended into building systems for others and also learning to troubleshoot machines that were almost unusable due to virus infections, bad hardware or software glitches.

Motorsport is also a great passion of mine. I’ve watched Formula 1 from a young age, and there won’t be much in the news that I haven’t already heard about. This passion extends to driving simulators on the PC, many public karting sessions, a Ferrari Experience, racing in the British Universities Karting Championship for Aberystwyth, my love for Japanese and Italian cars (and especially not French as friends will know), the modification scene and trying to excel at driving. I passed first time with 1 minor!

Another hobby is R/C. With my love for motorsport it was sort of an obvious thing to go for whilst I wasn’t old enough to drive. I found I could apply my knowledge of driving in simulators and knowledge of how real driving worked to be good at it. Although starting in the lower group at my local R/C club, after a couple of weeks I was winning the majority of the rounds each week. I think this shows my strong but quiet desire to succeed at anything I am passionate about.

Academic Achievements:
GCSE Equivalents – Award in Digital Applications, Certificate in Digitial Applications
GCSE’s – Maths, English, English Literature, Physics, Chemisty, Biology, Music, French, Systems and Control, RE, Citizenship (All A* – C)
A Level’s – Physics, Electronics, ICT

Work Experience:
1 week with Cuttlefish multimedia
Various PC maintenance jobs across Melton Mowbray

Other:
Brone & Silver Duke of Edinburgh Awards – This included 1 year of voluntary work with a local Beaver Scout group and a local Trailblazers youth group.