Projects I've Worked On

This is an incomplete list of some projects I've worked on; if you've got any questions about a project, or something doesn't seem right on one of the links, feel frree to contact me.

Click Don't Splat (clickdontsplat.com),
NM Dept. of Transportation

A campaign created by the NM Department of Transportation to try to increase teen seat belt usage and educate teens to the importance of seat belt usage. Launched first in April 2009 with a video contest where users could submit 30-second videos for the Department's video contest promotion; re-launched in April 2010 for another video contest.

• Created HTML/CSS and designed remainder of pages based on comp of home page only.
• Built from scratch (well, using a framework) with user login and register functionality, submit/watch videos, and admin interface to approve/disapprove submitted videos.
• Using CodeIgniter (a very cool PHP MVC framework) with MySQL.
• Implemented Flowplayer, an open-source (multi-license) flash video player, allowing multiple (theoretically unlimited) amount of flash video players to display on the same page with no performance penalty.
• Yeah, it's got an annoying popup that plays some music; but that's what the client insisted on; I made it so that it only pops up once during a single browser session and is able to be muted.

Johnny Boards (johnnyboards.com)

JohnnyBoards — one of (at least) two local companies to do "indoor advertising" (a la bathroom stalls). I didn't design or create the original site, but

• Wrote a little app in PHP/MySQL to allow customers to get detailed advertising quotes for JohnnyBoards (johnnyboards.com/pages/quoteapp/)
  • Later, after I discovered the joy of CodeIgniter, I refactored my homegrown MVC to CodeIgniter's MVC for a little more elegance and easier accessibility.
• Used a bit of jQuery for a little bit of UI enhancement.
• Along the way I wrote a little framework for nicely outputting debugging messages during development; if a global "debug" config flag is set, you get a nice handy unobtrusive button at the corner of the screen informing you that debug information is available; clicking upon it nicely and smoothy toggles display of individual debug notices on top of the page, each of which can be expanded and rehidden. Using jQuery.
  (Don't have an example yet that I'm comfortable sharing publicly; but if you'd like to see it email me and I'll send you one.)

Hire A Mountain Guide (hireamountainguide.com)

A database of mountain guides and mountain guiding companies worldwide, built on Plone 2.5 CMS. This was my first Plone site and it was a fantastically thrilling experience, getting to work with a very deep and powerful CMS and application framework (Zope, which Plone is built on), as well as lots of Python and ZPT, Zope & Plone's very elegant templating framework.

• Adapted Plone 2.5 CMS, including custom-made content type product to adapt Plone to the role of a database for mountain guides and guiding companies.
  • Used Python with Archetypes framework
• Skinned with custom design; took a Photoshop comp and created HTML/CSS
  • I'd say the design is about 30-50% mine; the comp included most of the top banner and one sidebar, and background and text colors for the main page only; I modified/added some things, and created designs for guide profile pages; updated designs for stock Plone pages where necessary.
• Ongoing updates and maintenance, as budget allows

Center for Action and Contemplation (www.cacradicalgrace.org)

I small nonprofit based in Albuquerque.But recently have had them as a freelance client and have done some things for them:

• Ongoing maintenance, cleanup and templatification of a sometimes messy and hodge-podge site.
• Set up the webpages for and provided end-user support for live webcasts (6 of them so far!)
• Worked on the script for online conference and event registration
  • The org puts on anywhere from 5-10 events requiring registration each year, including 2-4 major conferences.
  • I was responsible for the initial version of this script in Perl (back when I knew a lot less about putting these things together properly) -- basically just a little utility that lets you add multiple people and all required data to a conference registration, then submits it to a self-hosted ecommerce system for payment.
  • Over the years several other programmers had made changes to it, and relied on copy-and-paste reuse for (nonexistent) version control, resulting by 2009 in an inconsistent and hacky mess that was a pain to use.
  • I refactored it all back into a single code base that could easily be instantiated for event registration using a single configuration file for each new event, and is now much easier to maintain, expand, etc. (It's still far from what it could/should be, but it has and is serving its purpose.)
  • Here's an example of a recent registration instance (I know, it's still kinda ugly, but it's better than it was, trust me):
    • http://cacradicalgrace.org/conferences/2010/creation/reg.php
• Migrated from a clunky self-hosted email solution that bogged down the webserver to Constant Contact, a hosted mass emailing solution
  • Constant Contact is not my favorite by a longshot, but given the size and frequency with with the CAC mails to their list, it was one of the ones that made most sense.
  • (Since we first implemented the opt-in mailing list in 2007, it's grown from about 5,000 subscribers to over 30,000, over 75% of which are opted in to daily emails)
  • The old system (Scot's Mailing List) was so clunky (it uses meta refreshes to trigger the system to send out small batches of emails), I wrote a Greasemonkey script using jQuery to keep it from getting stuck mid-send overnight.
• Lenten Reflections page: cacradicalgrace.org/lenten/2010/ - good example of some nice clean HTML and CSS with a navigation system, implemented using Dreamweaver templates.
  • Includes some flash-powered photo slideshows with plain html backup
• The Drumbeat: Monthly Newsletter for Men
  • Another Dreamweaver template implementation, this one based on a whole new template to be soon applied to the whole site (when new CMS is up and running): http://cacradicalgrace.org/programs/menswork/newsletters/
• Expanded Google Analytics coverage from homepage only with a handful of others to >60% of the main site
• Cleaned up RSS feed of semi-regular podcast, set up on feedburner, submitted to itunes etc
• Troubleshooting the old Miva Merchant ecommerce system (not highly recommended!), and creating new templates for it.

Laguna Construction Company (lagunaconstruction.com)
AFCEE Portal

• A custom web application to government specifications, required for work that the company was doing with Iraqi reconstruction contracts.
• PHP and MySQL on custom MVC framework.
• HTML, CSS, Javascript.
• AFCEE means "Air Force Center for Engineering and the Environment"; it was required as part of their contracts that they have a portal built up to AFCEE specifications to maintain certain documents, records, and workflows.
  • They had a previous solution built for them by another contractor that was horribly built; hard-to-use, and failed to meet AFCEE specifications. Our solution, while in retrospect could have been a lot better, was a significant improvement over the old one and successfully met AFCEE standards.

The portal itself is not publicly accessible; I'm not responsible for the main Laguna Construction site at lagunaconstruction.com; that was done by Shannon at The Graphics Station, for whom I am a sometime subcontractor.

Project began in October 2006; launched Jan 2007, still in use as far as I know, have helped with some maintenance and improvement of the system up until 2009.

Golf New Mexico (golfnm.com)

• Created new design with Photoshop et al.
• Redid site CSS
• Some ongoing maintenance

Sierra Irrigation (sierrairrigation.com)

• Custom implementation of new design on top of Network Solutions "MonsterCommerce" e-commerce platform (not highly recommended).
• Occasional support and maintenance for customer

Other Stuff

• Custom formmail scripts - I use an excellent formmail script I found from tectite.com, it emphasizes great customizability and extensibility while also maintaining solid security.
• Google Analytics -- I try to install this for people whenever I have the opportunity; many people just aren't aware of many of tthe great and free tools out there to improve site intelligence.
• HTML email templates

Custom Debug Message Framework using jQuery

I wrote a little framework for nicely outputting debugging messages during development.

• If a global "debug" config flag is set, you get a nice handy unobtrusive button at the corner of the screen informing you that debug information is available
• Clicking upon it nicely and smoothy toggles display of individual debug notices over the page on the bottom (customizable through CSS), each of which can be expanded and rehidden.
• Using jQuery.
• (Don't have an example yet that I'm comfortable sharing publicly; but if you'd like to see it email me and I'll send you one.)