Portfolio
Equality Means Business
This site features Fortune 500 companies that operate in Florida and implement human resources policies eliminate discrimination based on sexual orientation, gender identitiy or expression. EqualityMeansBusiness.org features a dynamically-generated slide show on the front page, a dynamic view of the advisory board members and resources. One one page, it embeds another site to provide visitors with a directory of pro-equality businesses. It also allows visitors to sign up to receive email updates, donate to the organization, sign up to be included in the business directory and contact the organization. Embedded videos help deliver the message effectively. Tight integration with Facebook helps the organization engage visitors and activists within their social networks.
As I Am (asiam.fm)
This multimedia site is the most dynamic and complex site in my portfolio, so far. The site features a weekly internet TV show that covers spiritual, personal growth and current event topics of interest to lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people. It includes a full set of archives so that visitors can find shows that cover specific topics or that feature specific guests. Resources that are referenced an a show are also listed and cross-indexed with the show itself.
Another feature of the site is a directory of LGBT-friendly therapists and counselors, the Coalition of Counselors. After joining, members of the coalition may sign in to the site to maintain their own pages. Visitors to the site can search for a therapist by a plethora of parameters. There is also a workflow system that allows a site editor to review and edit text narratives. A sponsor directory is also easily accessible.
All of the views of the site are generated dynamically so that the most recent content is highlighted with minimal effort by the staff.
The site is easily maintained by staff members who are editors and publishers rather than tech geeks.
Ubuntu in Action
I was just finishing reading the book Three Cups of Tea, about Greg Mortensen's work building peace by building schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and feeling very moved and inspired, when I received an email from Etienne Mashuli of Ubuntu in Action. Etienne and the rest of the Ubuntu organization are doing similar work in the African Great Lakes region (Rwanda, Burundi, eastern DRC and Tanzania, an area that has been devastated by war and genocide in the last 2 decades. Etienne himself grew up in this area and is now a student in the United States. I was honored to be able to contribute to this project by designing a new website for Ubuntu in Action, to help spread the word and raise funds for this vitally important work.
Features include:
- lots of graphic design elements and photographic content
- online donations
- easy for visitors to post and share to social networks and email
- RSS feed
- automatic backup
- live Twitter feed
New York Yearly Meeting
The development of this site has been a long-term project working with the Communications Committee and staff of New York Yearly Meeting, the organization of Quaker meetings in New York state and parts of New Jersey and Connecticut. This project consisted of an entirely new Drupal site, the migration of some content from an old html site, and the development of much new content. My role was to do the Drupal design and creation, organize and manage volunteers to migrate and write content, edit and review the content and finally to deploy the site on a new hosting service.
Features of this site include:
- Lots of new dynamic content
- Online calendar of events
- RSS feed
- fresh graphic design
- online donations
- coming soon will be online event registration
The Mosaic Initiative
The Mosaic Initiative is a grassroots organization dedicated to stopping the spread of HIV/AIDS. This website is a public information and advocacy platform to inform the public on options for self-testing at home. Features include:
- Tight integration with social networking sites
- A bright, accessible design
- Easy updating by volunteers
- Embedded videos
- Tools for visitors to add links to this site from their own sites or blogs
Friends Meeting of Washington
This site is for a Quaker meeting in Washington DC and will help them keep members informed of events and news within the community and also introduce members of the public to the faith and practices of this religious community. I did a lot of writing on this site, adapting language from printed materials to more simplified website style writing.
This site features:
- A rich text editor.
- An online calendar and detailed scheduling system that allows staff to easily see when a room is being used and when it's available.
- A way to distribute newsletters electronically, saving the meeting large printing and mailing costs.
- A 'Printer-Friendly' link on each page to allow easy printing by visitors, even those who don't have a PDF reader.
- A way for staff to easily enter announcements and to generate lists of announcements by date for inclusion in weekly bulletins and newletters.
- A detailed user's manual and in-person training for staff and volunteers.
Writeousness
This site was a collaborative effort with the owner, writer N. Jeanne Burns, who had a design that she liked and wanted to use. My job was to create a theme that would look like her design and then to create a site that would allow her to maintain her content easily.
This site features:
- A rich text editor.
- A RSS feed so the writers fans can easily get her new content when she posts it.
- A share button so readers can easily post the content from this site onto their social networking pages.
- Integration with Google Analytics.
Hemingway's Cat
This site is for the band, Hemingway's Cat, which I also happen to be a member of. The most difficult challenge in creating this site was finding time between doing work for my paying clients to get it done.
Aesthetically, I was more daring with this site, using vibrant colors on a black background, design elements that I created for other promotional materials using Photoshop, and a customized Drupal theme that I made using the Zen Starterkit.
Neat features of this site include:
- Widgets that leverage the band's social networking activities on facebook and reverbnation.com
- Streaming of music so curious listeners can hear what we actually sound like rather than just read descriptions
- A calendar that maps the geographical points of our shows
- A blog where the other members of the band and myself can reflect on our shows and what we're working on
- A way for fans to comment on the blog, but with CAPTCHA challenge to prevent garbage from Spambots appearing on our site
- Search Engine Optimization and integration with Google Analytics
Mawenawasigh Healing Arts
This site is for a healing arts practitioner in Salt Point, NY (Dutchess County). Aesthetic considerations were of the primary importance to this client so this site features unique design elements such as the logo and the left sidebar graphic, that began with digital photography at her location and continued with the creation of the elements using Photoshop. This site features content that is easily updated by the owner with a rich text editor, image handler and calendar system.
The Melanie Group
This site is for a professional educator in the real estate business. It features content that is easy for the owner to update, including a rich text editor and a calendar and events scheduler that is customized to handle her specific classes and webinars.
In January 2010, the owner asked for new features to be added to the site. Because the architecture was open, it was easy to add these:
- A 'members only' section so that Melanie's students may create their own user accounts, log in, and download Powerpoint slides for classes they have attended.
- An easy way for the owner to upload files and index them by class for access in the members-only section
- A page that automatically aggregates all of the owner's blogging activities on many different external sites
- A 'Quote of the Day' display that allows the owner to enter a lot of quotes in advance and indicate on which day they should be displayed
- New tools for the owner to view and manage the members of the site.
Balanced Pools
This e-commerce site is for a start-up company based in Clearwater Florida that sells an environmentally-friendly swimming pool product.
BalancedPools.com needed an easy way for website visitors to calculate the volume of their pool and how much product they need and also to estimate their energy savings. For this site, I used Drupal 6.14 and wrote two custom modules using PHP and Drupal's Form API.
Other cool features include:
- A system for wholesale customers to create their own log in accounts.
- A rich text editor so the business owner can easily update text and graphics.
- An easy-to-use interface for the owner to approve wholesale accounts and interact with customers
- Shopping cart and order management using Ubercart
- Integration with UPS Shipping Tools to calculate shipping costs.
- Integration with PayPal API's to handle transactions
- Handling the county-specific Florida surtax and state salestax for retail and non-tax-exempt customers.
- Search Engine Optimization and integration with Google Analytics
William Penn House
This organization came to me because, although they had a functional, well-constructed site already, the person who had been maintaining it was leaving the organization. They needed a solution that would allow people with less time and inclination for technical stuff to be able to maintain the site easily.
Some of the coolest features of this site include:
- a rich text editor, so that staff members can enter and format content, including images, with an interface that looks a lot like Word;
- a powerful calendar and date system, so they can enter an event just one time and have it appear in multiple places on the site, and then disappear when the event is past; and,
- a rotating slideshow on the home page that is easily updated with new photos
I created this site for them using Drupal 6.10.