About Me - Mister VErb, the VErbinator, 'Entine...

Why Do You Call Your Business “Val Erb, Services at Large”?

The short answer is that it required no paperwork.  I first used this name when I was unexpectedly laid off in 2003 and needed to start freelancing while I found a new job - seven years later, I again found myself in this situation.   If I find myself needing to be insulated from what I do in business, I will of course re-brand, but in the meantime this is what I am (one guy), what they call me (Val), and what I do (provide an indeterminately wide range of services in an unconstrained manner). If you're still puzzled, see definitions of “at large”.

Where Did You Learn To Do What You Do?

What I do is very much interdisciplinary, so I've been learning how to do it over my entire lifetime. I combine my skills in graphic design, user interface & experience, search engine optimization, server & client -side scripting, brand strategy, communications, copywriting, computer science, logic, math, database architecture, web hosting, application development, search engine & affiliate marketing, multimedia production, online retailing, finance, social media & networking, law, economics, project management, client relations, philosophy, psychology and other areas to provide solutions. I received my Bachelor's of Business Administration from the University of Rhode Island in 1999 and I have been dedicated to making technology work for business ever since.  Over the course of my career I've taken several courses in specific technologies and performed a great deal of independent study.  In 2004 I received my CIW (Certified Internet Webmaster) Professional certification.

What's Your Attitude Towards [Insert Technology Name Here]?

I try to maintain a technology/vendor-neutral standpoint and assert that if a technology fits the bill... ...but if I had my druthers your site would live on a Windows server running IIS (and WebLogExpert for reporting on raw logs) with ColdFusion and/or PHP applications using a MSSQL and/or MySQL databases and render XHTML, XML/RSS, CSS and JavaScript - it might also leverage other technologies like Flash/ActionScript, the Yahoo User Interface (YUI) library, a phpBB-powered forum, a SlideShowPro-powered photo gallery, a WordPress-powered blog, the jQuery library, Lightbox/Lytebox/Shadowbox/prettyPhoto -type galleries and API's like GoogleMaps' and Facebook's. All my websites and many of those of my clients (and their clients) are hosted on the W. Hardy Interactive, Inc. network at the Silicon Valley's Plug And Play Tech Center, where all this and more is readily available on an actively managed n-tier server group - I pass this business on to W. Hardy at no markup; the peace of mind in knowing your website is hosted there and the facilitation it provides in working with your web properties is compensation enough.

Who Do You Consider To Be Your Heroes?

Les Claypool, Warren Miller, Ben Forta, Glen Plake, Jake Burton, Eddie Hazel, Bootsy Collins, Nancy Wilson, Ben Franklin, Frank Zappa, Sly Stone, the Deal twins, Tony Hawk, Jesse James, Billy Gibbons, Tony Royster Jr., Betty White...

What's This Band You're In All About?

I've been making music on one instrument or another all my life, mostly guitar over the last 15 years or so. I had gotten it in my mind during high school that I wanted to play bass, but all my music-making friends said "learn guitar and you'll know how to play bass", so I did just that, but never really played much of the fat strings. One of my biggest influences, a friend from the University of Rhode Island, Mr. Matt Zimmerman, was a highly accomplished bassist when I met him, but I stuck with the guitar. In 2009 I was recruited to play bass and round out a new band comprised of former members of the acclaimed Bennington-area band Sap. It turns out I was right all those years ago, playing bass is absolutely a calling for me. ...but my old friends were right, too - everything I knew about playing guitar made me a better bass player. DBLDN's been extremely busy over the last year or so, playing venues all over the Northeast including New Hampshire Motor Speedway in Loudon, NH for the June 2010 NASCAR weekend and the 2009/2010 Stateline Riders' NETRA Hare Scrambles in New York. We are in the process of recording our first album right now. Check out DBLDN.com and/or like us on Facebook.

What Do You Like To Do With Your Free Time?

I like to hike, mountain bike, ski, snowboard, snowshoe, ride motorcycles, camp, make music, travel, fish, garden, wildcraft and take photographs.