About

I’m Josh, though most people online know me as Citricguy.

I’ve worked in tech all my life, mostly as a developer and consultant. My background is in building for the web, designing databases, integrating systems, and figuring out how to make complicated things work together without making them worse first.

A lot of my work over the years has lived where software meets practical business problems. The two areas I’m probably proudest of are local business reviews and reputation work, and real estate data and online marketing. I’ve spent a lot of time in both worlds, learned a lot in both, and built some things in both that still mean a lot to me.

About this log

This site is more of a log than a traditional blog. It’s where I keep track of projects, lessons learned, experiments, half-finished ideas, fixes, failures, and the occasional thing that seemed useful enough to write down before I forgot how I solved it. A lot of it will be software-heavy. Some of it will wander into hardware, design, or whatever else I’m currently taking apart, improving, or accidentally turning into a larger project than intended.

About the name

Sometime in the late 90s, I was trying to come up with a username and, like everyone else at the time, discovered that everything remotely usable was already taken. I looked down at a can of Fresca, saw the words citric acid, and made what was apparently a binding long-term decision.

Since then, a surprising number of other people have arrived at the same conclusion. As far as I know, I was first, and I plan to continue standing by that claim while doing my part to make the name steadily less useful to anyone hoping to deploy it with dignity.

I also got the domain and a couple of major email addresses, so I feel the paperwork speaks for itself.

One of the other Citricguys turned out to be a good guy, so there is at least one standing peace agreement. The rest remain unresolved, though not urgently.

Outside the keyboard

I spend a lot of time making and fixing things. 3D printing is a deep hobby at this point, and I have a hard time leaving well enough alone when a problem can be improved with a custom plastic part. I’m also into woodworking, electronics, sensors, and the general category of projects that start out small and quietly spread across a bench, a desk, or an entire room.

I keep my personal life fairly private, but the important part is simple: I’m a husband and a dad first. Nothing else really comes close.

Work

I also take on consulting and freelance work from time to time, usually around web development, systems, data, integration work, and online marketing. I’m most interested in solving interesting problems with good people. Over time, I’ve learned that who I work with matters just as much as the work itself.

The rest is in the logs.