For Web Development, I prefer to work in PHP in MVC frameworks (CodeIgniter mostly) and MySQL as the database. For front-end development, I do like jQuery, but have logged a lot of time with Prototype and Scriptaculous. I do a lot of Javascript. I've done a number of Flash/Actionscript projects in the past, but I'd rather build something mobile-friendly. While I mostly custom-build sites, I've done some installation and skinning of pre-packaged CMSs like WordPress.

Here's a new site for Family Resources of Western Pennsylvania, built on the latest version of the Actual Size CMS. We did a full restructuring of our admin interface, and there's a lot of gorgeous work on the front end from the Actual Size team. My role was to design the data structure (MySQL) and do the dynamic server-side scripting (PHP MVC Codeigniter), coordinating closely with our designers and front-end developer. Significant challenge: integrating (successfully!) two different flavors of PayPal clearing for donations and benefit purchases.

I'm dealing with Bad Neighbor Effect. Fortunately this is just on a database server, and not in our real neighborhood.

Another new site, for hockey blog TrueHockey. The excellent, bold design was done, of course, by our fine team at Actual Size Creative. Notable problem solved: there are a lot of different types of content, many of which behave slightly differently, but all need to be aggregated in some places, and performance needs to be responsive. I structured the database with this in mind, doing a combination of discrete tables for presentation and aggregated tables for searching. Another interesting problem was commenter authorization, so the site offers login through a native system, Facebook, and Twitter, each of which are, of course, rather different, but the behavior is consistent for users from each. I coded the CMS and dynamic front-end in PHP MVC framework Codeigniter.

So, Twitter @Anywhere authentication, who's laughing now, huh?

The client brief was to have the Flats at 327 site launched quickly. It required large images, image randomization, Javascript-based slideshows, and a lot of AJAX-revealed (or -hidden) content. And no database or CMS. To ship this site quickly, I leveraged the CodeIgniter framework for serving the pages and routing the URLs, and jQuery on the front end to handle the asynchronous transactions. Admins maintain the site (without a CMS) by editing content in one configuration file.

I'm bringing you a better tomorrow today, but isn't sure what will fill the vacuum where tomorrow was going to go.

A really nice new site, for The Century Council's Ask, Listen, Learn program. I built and structured the database, coded the CMS and dynamic front-end in PHP MVC framework Codeigniter, and did a fair amount of the front-end implementation, working closely with Steve, Actual Size's new front-end developer. Possibly the part of the site I'm proudest of: when you sign up and upload your photo, my code dynamically creates a baseball card for you. You choose colors, text, icons, etc., and we give you a custom graphic. Pretty slick, and there's a lot of neat stuff going on here.

I just told someone "I'll be in the bit-mines."

Yet another day of PHP programming, and still no flying teapot in sight.

A certain kind of software developer, if he was building a house, would lavish great time and attention on an elaborate and possibly revolutionary scheme to replace all the doorknobs with something "much better," but meanwhile none of the bricks would be mortared together, because people have already solved that problem in other houses.

At FlashPitt. The MMO in Flash session is compelling--nice to see MVC in Flash/Flex...not that I'm going back into Flash anytime soon.

Fun with prototype.js!

New site for Actual Size Creative!. I designed the database structure (MySQL), scripted the front end and CMS in the PHP MVC framework CodeIgniter, and spent a lot of time with prototype.js and scriptaculous for the animation. Some tricky stuff here, and a great design by my co-workers.

So I just did a table-based layout with pixel shims for an HTML email. Does THAT make me so evil?

I have tweaking-design-for-Outlook rage.

I'll note that the multi-DVD-swapping Adobe CS4 install is just like the multi-floppy-swapping software installs of 20 years ago.

I'm doing some very subtle Javascript coding before punching out.

I'm saying goodbye to (most) freelance work.

I'm being subversive (or, rather, using Subversion)

I built an online ticket-generating system for the Pittsburgh Youth Symphony Orchestra, which lets visitors download and print dynamically generated PDFs of tickets to the PYSO's free events. It's more convenient than their previous system, and offers significant savings over having to mail them out. This was a PHP/mySQL project in CodeIgniter, also involving the FPDF library for the PDF output.