About

Barb Ackemann, founder of Iris Lines LLC has been involved with computers and information retrieval for over 30 years.In 1982, when she took a position as an elementary school librarian she was warned: “But you’ll have to be in charge of the [single!] computer! “Intended to scare her off, because her principal wanted to keep her in a classroom teaching role, Barb saw this as an opportunity to explore a field she’d dabbled in back in the 1970s – computer programming ! She learned about databases, and automated two school libraries.

Barb involved her students in hyper-media long before the internet was available. She wrote interactive teaching modules and helped students create and present multi-media projects.

When the internet did come along it was a natural next step to learn coding and Barb did so with a group of high school students in 1995. In 1996 she took off for 9 months of traveling with her family, home-schooling her sons and creating web reports for friends and family. After 28 years in public education, as classroom teacher, librarian and computer coordinator, Barb decided to make a change and go into business for herself. She completed the Marlboro College Graduate School’s MSIT program in August of 2006, receiving the President’s Award for her capstone project – a Joomla! 1.0 site.

From years of teaching, Barb learned how to patiently translate technology into common sense and plain English and helped many many colleagues step into the world of computers. Now she’s ready to help you.

Barb understands the value of good, clean code — in fact, she’s taught the Web Standards course at the Marlboro College Graduate School, a CMS course for the Community College of Vermont, and  training videos for OSTraining. Whether developing a quick static html site, or designing custom templates for Joomla! or Word Press, she keeps her eye on efficient, valid code that will work with current and future browsers and devices of all sizes, from mobile to large screens. Barb’s background in library science supports an approach to web development that combines art, craft and puzzle-solving. She’s happiest figuring out how to get database driven websites to deliver just what her clients need.

And when she can’t write the code that’s needed, she teams up with other web professionals like Bill Tomczak of Grumpy Engineering, to create elegant solutions for clients. Meg McCarthy of MegMcCarthy.com is also a frequent collaborator.