About - MyAutoLog.com

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Where Driving Enthusiasts Become Geeks

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My name is Les Porter and I designed, developed and continue to maintain MyAutoLog.com. I created MyAutoLog.com because I'm a web developer, driving enthusiast and a bit of a stats geek. I had an idea of having a collaborative website where users can store their vehicle history in all areas and compare their vehicles with other vehicles. You may be saying to yourself, "There's tons of applications out there for people to use for tracking this kind of stuff." You're right. There are quite a few, but I wanted one where users could compare their data in real-time against the data of other users at any internet-capable computer or mobile device. In addition, I did not want members to be required to install any software. I was not able to find an application that did that, plus I have always wanted to build one.

Why isn't the website free for everyone?

First, I understand when I require members to pay it means fewer people will contribute their vehicle data. I know the more data MyAutoLog.com has the better it is for everyone. The reason use of this website is not completely free is because it costs money to host and maintain a website that has the level of functionality and integration that MyAutoLog.com has. Believe it or not, this website will not run on one of those free hosting accounts you get with your ISP. I can not fund the website's hosting for the long term, so the idea is to share the cost across all members.

Why all the 'we' references everywhere?

You might be asking yourself why you see all of the plural pronouns everywhere when this website is a one man show. Well, the reason is I just can't bring myself to refer to the website as a single person. MyAutoLog.com is a living entity that exists because a group of people contribute and compare their vehicle information. If this website were just a personal weblog then you might see references such as "Contact Me" versus "Contact Us". Just keep in mind when you make an email request there is one person (me) who will be responding to you.

I thought if people are going to pay money to use this website the least I could do is tell them more about myself so they feel a little better about where their money is going.

My name is Les Porter and I am a web developer in Charlotte, NC. I graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1999 with a Bachelors in Public Health as a Biostatistics major. I got started in web development because my internship asked me to do some simple web work. I discovered the 'View Source' browser option and it was not long before I had a few clients. I say clients, but that may not be completely accurate since I would do web work for free to build my portfolio.

When my senior year rolled around, it came time to find a job in my career. First, I had to select my career. I was educated in Biostatistics, but I had taught myself web development in my free time. I began looking at jobs in both fields and settled on a career in the web development because I felt I enjoyed it more since I was self taught and found a promising job at Flying Bridge Technologies.

Working at Flying Bridge was an excellent opportunity. It was a small web firm in my hometown that was less than a year old. I was lucky enough to be hired and was the company's first full-time designer/developer. Officially, I was hired as a web designer but being a small company you have to be skilled in many areas. As a developer, I became skilled in creating dynamic solutions based in ASP and database backends.

Today, I am still lucky enough to be employed at Flying Bridge and my role has continued to evolve with our growth. I am now a project manager and do not get to do as much as design and development as I used to. One of the reasons I created MyAutoLog.com is so I could continue to use my web skills to keep them up to date and learn new things. Our industry moves so quickly if you take too much of a break from it you will lose touch with it.

Flying Bridge has grown into a talented and versatile firm that provides a wide spectrum of services to our clients. Web design and development are still our bread and butter as we have been ranked as a top five web firm in Charlotte, NC since 2002.

If you are wondering what I drive, I have two vehicles. My primary vehicle and daily driver is a 2004 MINI Cooper S and I absolutely love it. My secondary vehicle is a 1993 Jeep Grand Cherokee.

If you have any questions about myself or the website, feel free to send me an email. I hope you find MyAutoLog.com is a valuable and useful service. Thanks.