Hi there!

You’ve landed on the Menno Maakt* site, your Diest-based independent online consultant.

Contact me for:

• Online questions or problems, whatever the size, but especially the unsolved, tricky ones
• Technical modifications or support with current projects
• Online projects with complex technical specifications

Contact me

I know my way around a variety of languages and frameworks, but I also relish a challenge and learning new things.

* "Menno Maakt" is a Dutch play on words. You can read it one of two ways, ‘Menno creates.’ or ‘Menno fixes.’ Naturally, I’m more than happy to help you with both!

Who is Menno?

I'm Menno! And I've been working in the online sector for over two decades now.

What I've been up to in recent years:

• Developing or assisting in the development of hundreds of websites in the financial, retail, and construction sectors, for government institutions, etc.
• Developing both complex and simple ASP.NET and MVC online applications, including dashboards, CMS, CRM, and more
• Creating an endless stream of Drupal modules, and maintaining large websites
• Filling in as an online jack-of-all-trades:
• Why doesn’t the online ordering procedure work?
• Does this module's code measure up?
• Could you add tracking on the website for a funnel?
• Our website doesn't work right on iPad. Could you check the CSS?
• Our website has been infected by malware... ::cue ominous music:: Can you get rid of it? Oh, and can you make sure it doesn’t happen again?
• Our website takes ages to load. How can we fix that?
• And the list goes on...

What does Menno do?

With 20 years of experience behind me, no challenge throws me off my game. Check out my expertise and what I love doing.

• Drupal 7/8/9
  Development of custom modules and themes, setup, and configuration. Seriously, I could do it in my sleep*.
  
  * O.K. I lied... The only thing I produce when I'm asleep is snoring loud enough to wake the dead, not websites.
• ASP.NET/MVC C#
  Development in C#, full stack web app development... C# is still kind of my first love when it comes to programming*.
  
  * My first language was Qbasic, however, the bloom was off that rose pretty quick.
• SQL
  Writing complex queries and optimisation would be my hobby if I wasn’t already paid for it*.
  
  * For the record, that doesn’t mean I’ll do it for free.
• Debugging
  Nothing makes me happier than sinking my teeth into a good tricky problem, whatever the web environment.
• • Google (the works!)
  I have vast experience with the technical end of Google Analytics, Tag Manager, Adwords, Ad Manager (formerly DFP). That includes front-end implementation in complex scripts, as well as for various APIs.
• Source control
  I've worked in Git and SVN (– and VSS, ew...). While I can work in both, to cherry pick in Git, for example, I'm still always going to have to run a syntax search.
• WebApi, WCF Restful/Soap in C#
  I've developed loads of services in WebApi and WCF, and they've been running without a hitch for years now.
• PHP
  PHP is more or less the default language for back-end; personally, though, I don’t find PHP terribly elegant. I have to write PHP, I prefer to do it in a nice MVC framework – Symphony, for instance.
• Html, Css, Javascript
  I make websites look professional – on any screen and in every browser.
• Basic web server management and database management
  Occasionally you find yourself without a system administrator, but it's still got to go online pronto.
• Wordpress
  WordPress has become incredibly popular, so I've already had to take care of the related development for customers, e.g. theme customisation, debugging modules, etc.
• SharePoint
  I've set up several SharePoint sites, some including custom components and some without. I've got to say though... More often than not, working with SharePoint is just about as fun as stabbing yourself in the leg with a sharp pencil.
• AngularJS
  I've acquired an existing AngularJS site and created a series of new controllers and modules for it.
• Bits and bobs
  I don't readily say no to things. That means I've already had a go at (and been successful in) working with the following: Perl, Solr queries, Elastic Search, Magento, Varnish, Java, VB6, VB.NET, F#, VBA, TurboPascal, Python, ColdFusion, Bootstrap, Scss, etc.
• Design
  I admire beauty, but it’s not something I create. If you're looking for great design, you're in the wrong place.
• Tech support
  If we're talking about a project, I'm happy to get my hands dirty and lend support. However, I'm not a system administrator, and I'm not really interested in becoming one.