Hello and welcome to David’s portfolio and blog. David started on computers well before most of his peers. At the age of five, David received his first computer – a Texas Instruments TI99/4a. Though functionally obsolete by today’s standards, it gave David his first exposure to the world of personal computing and technology. By the age of 6, he had written his first computer program – “Hello World” – in BASIC.

At the age of nine, David’s father brought home a “portable” computer – a suitcase-sized Compaq portable computer that weighed about 30 lbs. With it’s green-and-black monochrome CRT monitor and dual floppy disk drives, it was a technological marvel for it’s time. One piece of included hardware, a modem, opened up the world of digital communications to David. David’s grandfather, a tech-savvy and successful business man who loved new technology and gadgets, saw the potential for digital communications and purchased for David two books – one on digital communications and one on Microsoft Quick Basic. As an early and voracious reader, David soaked up the information in those books and others. Sometimes, he would play hooky from school and visit the library because the computing books were far more advanced than those offered in grade school. (Parenthetically, the librarians never asked him why he wasn’t in class. What normal kid would hang out in a library while playing hooky, right?)

During his amateur hobby teen years, David made use of such services as CompuServe and GEnie and eventually began and maintained a Bulletin Board System (BBS) as a SysOp (System Operator) in a similar vein as HAM radios. Though educational, David’s parents were often less than pleased at the $800+ phone bills that accumulated while David was calling and logging into computers in California and Guam. There were many questions to be answered and, eventually, compromises with the phone company where David could only call certain area codes at certain times of the day for a set price (known, at the time, as a “scope”). This afforded David (and his parents) more piece of mind and, eventually, a second phone line which allowed others to log into his computer and BBS where they could “chat” and “email” with each other.

During his college years, David was president of his college’s Computer Graphics Association, acted as a volunteer teaching and lab assistant and gave lectures on electronic publishing and a newly available technology – the world wide web. Though some were skeptical that the WWW would amount to much, David’s interest persisted – much to his advantage. During college, David started a resume design business and helped college students get their first jobs. This business would eventually evolved into David Kaplan Design, LLC.

Shortly after college, David got his first full-time job in new media and eventually became one among the very first web designers. During the hey-day of the dot-com era, David worked for a number of large companies and small start-ups and traveled from coast-to-coast spearheading new internet initiatives and consulting with veteran and newly minted business leaders.

Today, David strives to deliver world-class new media projects and internet applications. He loves his work and feels fortunate to be able to do what he always enjoyed.