Skills
This field incorporates many disciplines and technologies, which are divided into my self-assessed skill level below.
Topics
- Expert: web development, programming, web design, graphic design, research and concept development
- Proficient: system administration, server monitoring, technical writing and copyediting, technical support, database design, e-commerce implementation, OOP, MVC / design patterns, information architecture, standards compliance, accessibility, cross-browser compatibility, source control
- Competent: SEO/SEM, user interface design, caching strategies
Languages / Technologies
- Expert: XHTML, CSS, PHP, MySQL
- Proficient: PHP Frameworks, C/C++, shell scripting and *nix command line tools, ganglia, svn
- Competent: AJAX, Javascript, Javascript Frameworks, XML and related, Actionscript, CURL, Apache and lighttpd configuration, Microsoft Access, ASP, monit
Project Descriptions
This is an abbreviated selection – for more detail, contact me.
Arabian Nights Tickets & Reservations
2011 ▪ tickets.arabian-nights.com
Designed, developed and maintained an e-commerce web application to sell tickets online and manage physical ticket inventory using Symfony (a PHP framework) and MySQL. The application processes one to two thousand pageviews per day, and should process over $1 million worth of payments in 2011.
- Utilized principles of information architecture to design the flow of the application
- Incorporated long-term goals related to scalability, expansion, internationalization, and monitoring during preproduction
- Studied normalization and implemented a solid relational database design
- Provided competitor and fiscal analysis, a formal proposal, and documentation throughout the project
- Evaluated php frameworks in light of the needs of the users and developers
- Designed and developed the application, integrating PayPal and conducting testing
- Researched appropriate hosts and launched the application
- Monitored resource usage and site analytics, provided bug fixes and feature additions, and performed system updates on the VPS hosting the application
Arabian Nights Dinner Attraction
2011 ▪ www.arabian-nights.com
Redesigned the main website, creating a standards compliant WordPress theme from scratch and deploying multiple sites on one WordPress multisite installation.
The Art of Nathan Selikoff
2010 ▪ nathanselikoff.com
Crafted text and imagery into a well-architected customized WordPress deployment.
Digital Awakening Studios
2010 ▪ digitalawakeningstudios.com
Learned and deployed WordPress Mu as a platform for websites for friends and family. Assembled themes and plugins for a variety of websites and tweaked as necessary for wpmu compatibility. Secured an appropriate VPS and set up the LAMP stack to support this WordPress Mu installation.
Bridges Conference
2010 ▪ gallery.bridgesmathart.org
Designed, implemented and deployed a custom-themed Drupal web application to support the artwork submission process for an international conference. Developed complex MySQL queries to support the generation of pages with very particular database views.
Entrust
2009 ▪ ientrust.org
Designed, implemented and deployed a custom-themed website for this non-profit organization.
Robby Fights The World
2009 ▪ robbyfightstheworld.com
Designed, implemented and deployed a custom-themed WordPress website.
d’lor, inc. / Lorraine Lax
2003 – 2009 ▪ lorrainelax.com
Designed and developed a professional fine artist portfolio website that is functional, beautiful, unique, and search engine friendly. Customized the flash web gallery provided with Adobe Photoshop CS2 by extensively editing ActionScript code. Implemented SWFAddress to provide deep linking and SEO friendly URLs in a hybrid Flash/AJAX website.
JVI Appraisal Division
2006 – 2007
Developed and implemented an automated system to transfer MySafeFlorida XML data gathered from PDAs in the field through secure channels. Wrote custom PHP scripts to retrieve a caselist via cURL, parse the caselist, retrieve the XML data for each case, save and archive the data to be fetched later, and remove the case from the caselist. Created an error and process logging system to monitor the automation, and created a web-based interface for manual interaction with the system. Wrote technical documentation to ensure the client and future developers would be able to use and maintain the application.
Developed and implemented a database-driven PHP/MySQL web order system that utilized SSL and included user registration, password protection, complicated forms with input validation, automated emails, Verisign integration, XML data transfer via cURL, PHP sessions, an administrative backend, bulk order uploads from Excel files, and cron jobs for automatic notification of incomplete orders.
Developed and implemented an XML to Access pipeline, using XSL Transformations (XSLT).
Houlihan’s
2005 – 2007 ▪ CaterOurParty.com, CaterOurWedding.com, CaterOurLunch.com
Designed and developed three catering websites utilizing HTML, CSS, PHP, and Flash. Designed various ads, flyers, menus, and billboards to help advertise the restaurant.
Power House Cafe
2006 ▪ powerhousecafe.com
Designed and developed a local restaurant website utilizing PHP and MySQL. Implemented a searchable and dynamic menu that has brought a lot of search engine traffic, created a contact form with automatic email sent via SMTP, and coded a password-protected administrative backend for easy updates to the menu.