Work
In 1994, I was introduced to a wonderful thing called the World Wide Web. It wasn't long before I began tinkering with "View Source" and figuring out how to create my own websites. Somehow I ended up doing it for a living. Over the years my skills evolved and I became interested in creating websites that were less about publishing static content and more about doing things.
Today I work as the Web Editor for the American Association of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons, where I am solely responsible for developing and maintaining their website. I'm also available for freelance projects. Below are a few things I've worked on recently. If you're interested in hiring me to work on your site, or simply have a web-related question, feel free to contact me.
AAOMS
I was initially hired by AAOMS simply to maintain the content on their website. The previous site was a beast — lots of content with terrible navigation. I convinced them to let me re-do the web site from scratch.
I scrapped their old content management system and built my own, re-working a lot of the content to be published in a blog-like format. News items can be easily tagged and categorized as well as given an expire date, after which they will automatically be removed from the site.
The events page includes a calendar that is dynamically generated based on the upcoming events in the database. Events which have already occurred are automatically removed from the site, keeping the content fresh and saving a lot of maintenance time.
The Find an OMS page allows users to search for an oral surgeon within a certain distance of their zip code, as well as by name, city, state or country. Each doctor's results page includes an imbedded Google Map of their office location along with their contact information.
With the site completed, I have begun to focus on creating new ways for staff, members and the public to collaborate using the web site.
The Cookie Sandwich Company
My friends Rick and Jen asked me to help them with a site for their new business, selling gourmet cookie sandwiches. Their original site was simply a third-party shopping cart system that lacked customibility and did not project the clean, professional look that they wanted.
The only graphics used on the site are the excellent product photos done by Masen Larsen, with the rest of the site simply styled with CSS.
Because PayPal's default shopping cart does not allow for multiple delivery types, I created a custom shopping cart system. Customers can modify their carts and select between standard shipping, local delivery or pickup before checking out via PayPal.
Once the transaction is complete, the order data is passed back to the web site and stored in a database. An orders page shows pending and shipped orders and allows for the entry of new orders (for offline transactions) and also generates invoices for printing. The client can also mark orders as shipped, which automatically emails a confirmation e-mail to the customer.
David F. Driesbach
My uncle's father-in-law, David Dreisbach, is a skilled printmaker. I developed a website for him in 2003 to help him showcase and sell his work. The gallery and control panel was the basis for future projects including The Cookie Sandwich Company.
One of David's most facinating prints is a work in progress created specifically for the website. Off to the Office began as little more than a blank canvas and sold for $15. After each print is sold, David makes adds more to the engraving and increases the price by one dollar. Each print is truly unique and the print has become quite interesting after a few dozen iterations.
Basketball Projects
Basketball is one of my biggest passions. In fact, it was basketball that got me into web development in the first place. My first website, Mikey's Chicago Bulls Page, was immensely popular during the Bulls' second title run. It was featured in several magazines and newspapers and named one of PC Computing's Top 1000 websites of 1996. My love for basketball has driven me to develop my skills further over the years.
NCAA Pool — Since sports sites are often blocked at work, I needed to develop my own application for running the office NCAA pool. All of the submitted brackets were entered through a form, which took me about three minutes per entry. Once the tourney began, all I needed to do was enter the score of each game to automatically update the bracket and leaderboard.
Box Score Parser — The box score parser was the beginning of resurrecting one of the first web projects I collaborated on, a fantasy basketball league called Hoopscity. The parser is merely a form that reads an HTML file of an individual NBA box score, grabs all of the stats and dumps them into a database. From these stats I can generate standings, player stats, league leaders, and format my own box scores. An administrative panel allows for the adding and editing of players as well as other tasks. I'm hoping to have the fantasy site ready in time for the 2007-2008 season.
My Fake Season — Bored one summer, I decided to create a new site to showcase my skills. My Fake Season chronicled the simulation of an entire Chicago Bulls season using NBA Live. NBA Live generates text file boxscores which can be parsed much easier than the HTML files used for the fantasy application above. Besides stats, I also added game recaps, feature stories and game photos (screen captures from the game). Stories were entered into a custom content management system, much like a blog. I never did finish the season, but the site was a good example of what I could accomplish with HTML, CSS, PHP and MySQL.
More examples to come...