Web Sites

I have been hand-coding exclusively for the last six years or so. I prefer coding by hand because it gives me finer control of my page layouts.

I created a front-end searchable database of ad banners, known affectionately as the Banner Pool, that made it easy to find and work with any banner creative ever entered into the system, saving hours of fruitless file searching and wasted re-development effort. After that, it was a comfortable stretch to create a microsite to fill a gap in the Network Solutions storefront to help people get their .eu domains properly pre-registered. This was a remarkable success, but the storefront gap only widened for reasons beyond Network Solutions' control, so I did a second microsite. Both of the sites were done with PHP and MySQL, but you need to have actually participated in the .eu landrush to know or care what these sites do.

In connection with the intranet that I designed and the corporate information site that I maintained for Network Solutions, I automated the push of available positions from an internal system to the external web site, saving hours of labor each week. The automation hinged on knowing who to talk to within the company, HTML, PHP, and MySQL.

Internet Privacy Advocate

  • I designed, coded, and uploaded this little site to the Network Solutions corporate style guide specifications
  • The site was originally put up to publicize the change in federal policy affecting privacy and .us domains. The site is nearly four years old now, and is just barely maintained. I included it here because it's heart is in the right place.

County Arts Council

  • Skills Used: HTML, PHP, CSS, image editing, information architecture, FTP
  • Role: Working with a committee of volunteers providing content, largely through email, keep the site up to date and consistent
  • Results: Many costly print and mail programs have been transitioned to the web, saving the organization money
  • I have kept the Loudoun Arts Council (LAC) website up-to-date and user friendly for a pretty long time. Adding new elements to the global navigation goes fast, because the content is mostly separate from the presentation layer, and the presentation layer is all in style sheets and included files.
  • More results: Many hours of staff time has been saved since I created and implemented a very light content management system that uses Google Documents as the main engine to power the calendar and opportunity listings on the site. These used to be gathered by hand and retyped in a time-consuming hodgepodge. Now they are crowd sourced, organized, and efficient.
  • Also check out the fancy javascript powered slide show on the homepage.

Developer's Personal Blog

  • My Normal Life, a personal blog and development 'sandbox' is a project of a dear colleague.
  • I created the header graphic or masthead from scratch using Illustrator and PhotoShop, and my unique sense of the developer's personality.
  • We collaboratively developed the look and feel, with my colleague deciding to go with the full black and centered content, and me advising on the curves, line weights, widget grouping and overall balance.

Samples and Specifics

Student Website Contest

Network Solutions® and The National Foundation of Teaching Entrepreneurship® (NFTE) partnered to promote entrepreneurism in urban youth with the NFTE®/Network Solutions Web Site Challenge.
  • Recently, I worked with one other designer/coder and a very small team of stakeholders to build the website for the NFTE Network Solutions Contest. Note that it is not taking new registrations anymore, but that you can take a peek at the experience for entrants.
  • The site gathers sign-up information and saves it with a unique and secure identifier so that entrants can go back and provide additional information without having to create a username and password or risk having a class clown change change the entry. The site also emails registration confirmation to the entrant and emails the sign-up information to the contest administrator, and has a password-protected data-dump of the registrations to facilitate judging and further communication.
  • I did the information architecture, user experience flow, and PHP coding. My colleague did the bulk of the visual design, HTML, CSS, and Javascript at my direction.

First Friday Program

  • Leesburg's First Friday, a program of the LAC, is an event eleven times a year that includes special events arranged by participating merchants and outdoor performances arranged by the LAC.
  • When the performing group has promotional material to include on the First Friday site to help create excitement, we include it.

Humor Columnist

  • Donovan Kelly - the guy who wrote the Crummy But Good column for the Washington Post and raised awareness of The Planet Wayside restaurant - wanted his AOL webpage to be converted into an actual website that he could update with Notepad, a modem, and an understanding of the <b> tag.
  • He's doing beautifully with the HTML, CSS and quick tutoring sessions I gave him.

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