Portfolio
This is a sample of my work over the last three years. Most of this was done in my spare time while getting my Computer Engineering degree and in the months since I graduated. All of my code (HTML and otherwise) is written by hand using TextWrangler; the only exception is the FSU Reading Endorsement website, where I was required to use Visual Studio .NET. Feel free to view the source of these websites to see how I do things.
Note: This is updated as I finished projects. Check back to see the latest entries.
Liminality View Site | Show Detail Hide Detail
This is a photoblog I built for a friend using a customized version of Birch. It has all of the features of a stock Birch install (see the Birch page for specifics) with the addition of a commenting system and a new design & layout.
Take your time and look around, these photographs are really stunning. I like the shots of the birdman in Paris.
Technologies Used
- Perl: All of the scripts read an XML file to create the main and archive pages.
- XHTML
- CSS
- Javascript
- XML: When a new photo is uploaded, an entry is created in the XML file.
- Apache
Notable Features
- Administrator Interface: All administrative tasks are done from one interface, with no page reloads thanks to Javascript tabs.
- Archiving: View the most recent photos, all that were posted in a certain month, or every one on a single page.
- Commenting: Free commenting from Haloscan incorporated into the sidebar.
- W3C XHTML & CSS Validation
Downdream View Site | Show Detail Hide Detail
This is another photoblog I built for a friend, also using a customized version of Birch. The differences between this site and Liminality show how easy it is to radically change the layout and design just by using CSS (and minor code alterations). They both started from the same source code and diverged into completely different sites.
As with Liminality, these photos are also amazing. My favorites are the ones of the White House surrounded in barbed wire.
Technologies Used
- Perl: All of the scripts read an XML file to create the main and archive pages.
- XHTML
- CSS
- Javascript
- XML: When a new photo is uploaded, an entry is created in the XML file.
- Apache
Notable Features
- Administrator Interface: All administrative tasks are done from one interface, with no page reloads thanks to Javascript tabs.
- Archiving: View the most recent photos, all that were posted in a certain month, or every one on a single page.
- Commenting: Free commenting from Haloscan incorporated into the caption.
- W3C XHTML & CSS Validation
PHP & MySQL Weblog No Link | Show Detail Hide Detail
This is weblog I built to run my personal site, and has been a long-term project of mine since March 2003. It began as a CMS written in Perl, using flat text-files to store the posts. Over the last two and a half years it has grown much more complex, culminating in a complete, ground up rewrite using PHP and MySQL in October 2004. This weblog software is unnamed at the present, and since it is far too complex to be released to the public (unlike Birch), it is likely to stay that way.
Technologies Used
- PHP: Every single page is written in PHP, dynamically creating each page from the database as it is requested.
- MySQL Database: Every post, comment and page view is stored in a MySQL database.
- Javascript: Comment previews are done using Javascript.
- XHTML: Written using valid XTHML (where possible; I use validation as a tool, not hard and fast rule).
- CSS
- Apache: The site is hosted on a G3 server in my house. I have configured the stock Apache install on Mac OS X to use a database for access logging and to allow clean URLs.
- Flash: The statistics page uses Flash to make pie charts and line graphs from data provided by a PHP script.
Notable Features
- Archiving by Day, Month or Year: Going to http://domain.com/archives/2005/ will show all posts made in 2005, while http://domain.com/archives/2005/06/ will show all posts made in June of 2005, etc.
- Clean URLs: All URLs end in a directory (i.e. the address for the colophon is http://domain.com/colophon/), which allows me to change the name of the index page using Apache without breaking anyone's links to my page.
- Photo Gallery: Dynamically created by reading a directory of photos and captions.
- Site Search: With term highlighting and ordering by frequency.
- Comment Preview
- Statistics Page: By keeping all Apache logs in the MySQL database, I can show the statistics any way I like. This is a collection of Flash graphs and lists of referrers and search terms.
- W3C XHTML & CSS Validation: Most of the time. Occasionally an external link breaks validation.
AT Computer Database Password Protected | Show Detail Hide Detail
This is the web application I created with my partner, Andrew Ferguson, for my senior project at UF. It is a system for cataloging all of the computers in the computer labs on campus, and tracking their complete repair history. The frontend was built using XHTML and a lot of Javascript, while the backend was created using PHP connected to a MySQL database. The interface was the marquee feature; the use of Javascript allowed a very flexible interface that could change without a page reload.
The page is now password protected, actually being in use at UF, but I have a Powerpoint presentation of screenshots to give you some idea of what it looked like and how the interface functioned.
Technologies Used
- PHP: Used to interact with the MySQL database and construct the pages.
- MySQL Database
- XHTML
- CSS
- Javascript: Used extensively in the interface.
- Apache
Notable Features
- Dynamic Interface: Javascript allows the interface to be modified without a page reload.
- Database Search: A full-featured search, built using minimal code. Javascript preprocesses the search terms before sending them to the PHP script to simplify the search algorithm.
- Three Level Authentication: Depending on whether you were a User, a Technician or an Administrator, the page displayed different options.
- Server Setup & Administration: We setup the server from scratch, configuring Apache, MySQL, PHP 5.0, DNS and Mac OS X 10.3 to allow our code to run properly.
- W3C XHTML & CSS Validation
FSU Reading Endorsement Program Password Protected | Show Detail Hide Detail
I made this site for the FSU College of Education in the Spring of 2005. It is a complete class website written using Microsoft Visual Studio .NET, C# and MS SQL database. The student would use this page to register for the class, to login, to view the weeks lesson and to take quizzes and fill out class evaluations. The site wasn't pretty, but for this job, it didn't have to be. When registration was opened in March, the demand was much higher than we had anticipated, and we had to deal with huge loads on our pages and servers.
The page is also password protected, since it is currently being used at FSU. Screenshots wouldn't really show much for this site, but I have code examples if you would like to see them.
Technologies Used
- C#
- ASP.NET
- MS SQL
- Javascript
- HTML
- CSS
Notable Features
- Site Login
- Javascript Form Validation
- Javascript Timers: Used to ensure the students didn't take more than one hour to take a quiz.
- Mass Email Program: A C# program I wrote to allow FSU to send emails to all of the 800+ students at once.
View View Site | Show Detail Hide Detail
This is really a meta-entry, since you are at the View website already. The About page will give you a better idea what this site is about. Also be sure to check out Birch.
Since I try to make by code as re-usable as possible, this site uses a lot of the same code as RossHarmes.net.
Technologies Used
- PHP
- MySQL Database: Every page view is stored in a MySQL database.
- Javascript: This page uses Javascript to hide and show the details of each entry.
- XHTML
- CSS
- Apache
- Flash: This site also has a statistics page created using Flash to make pie charts and line graphs from data provided by a PHP script.
Notable Features
- Clean URLs: All URLs end in a directory, which allows me to change the name of the index page using Apache without breaking anyone's links to my page.
- Statistics Page: By keeping all Apache logs in the MySQL database, I can show the statistics any way I like. This is a collection of Flash graphs and lists of referrers and search terms.
- W3C XHTML & CSS Validation: Most of the time. Occasionally an external link breaks validation.
- Javascript Fade In and Screenshot Viewer: The screenshot thumbnails on the main page are faded in gradually, and then expanded when clicked on.
Other Projects
These are sites whose construction I've contributed to but were not solely responsible for. For most of these I wasn't responsible for the design or layout, just some of the HTML or programming. I include them here more to show the breadth of my experience than to show specific examples of my work.