Corporate Projects

The Toronto Public Space Committee's Elections Site

Wanting to help put public space up on the issues list for Toronto's 2006 municipal election, I volunteered to build the advocacy site for the event. Under the direction of Stephen Young, a corps of researchers gathered information on all 288 candidates and entered it into the site that I wrote.

Once the research was done, candidates were graded and press releases sent out regarding the results. Candidates were then able to login to the site and input their answers to a questionnaire, the results of which were displayed next to their profiles.

Visually designed by David Lewis and the product of the research efforts of over 30people, I wrote the entire site's infrastructure and framework, managed security database design. Compared to ContextClick, it may not be the biggest project I've ever worked on, but it is the one I'm most proud of.

ContextClick

As a developer, this was the project in which I was most heavily involved while working at Rydium. ContextClick is a contextual advertising engine that was applied to keywords when your mouse passed over them on websites. The idea is that this method of advertising is less invasive and more relavent.

The project uses a cluster of 3 MySQL database servers, 2 webservers and 2 additional servers for parsing and spidering. Technologies involved included MySQL replication and mountains of custom PHP, Perl and Bash code.

Outside of my developer responsibilities, I also served as the system administrator for the NOC in the USA and the development environment here in Toronto.

The External Journal

This is my blog. If you don't know what a blog is, I'll direct you to Wikipedia which has a wonderful definition of it. I built the thing from scratch and it continues to evolve as my skills develop over time. Most recently, I've integrated it into this site as a subsection, expanding the framework to manage the entire site.

The software boasts multiple user profiles, session-tracked logins and most importantly, a fully object-oriented design written in PHP. Not to mention a whole slew of nifty modules I've put together including a counter for the number of email viruses I've received. If you have the time, I suggest you check it out. It's the best way to get to know me.

My blogger can be found here.

The "Quinnian" Imager

A short time ago I had managed to save up enough cash to go out and buy something I'd wanted for a very long time: a big, shiny digital camera. But after only a few weeks of shooting, I realised that I needed a way to share the pictures with my friends and family as well as catalogue them for my own use. Sure, I could have just downloaded one of the many available online gallery packages, but each one I looked into didn't do everything I wanted -- besides, this sort of thing looks great on a resume ;-)

The result is the "Quinnian" Imager (sounds better than "my image gallery" doesn't it?). After some intensive planning and tonnes of hours worked on my own time at home, this thing boasts the cataloguing of multiple image sizes, a relational storage system using MySQL and a complete object-oriented PHP-driven front end and administration system based on a multi-user authorisation system. In short, it's really neat.

The imager can be found here.

Trytel Reuseable Tools

Much of my work @Trytel was behind the scenes in the development of custom tools which we would then use to create and deploy sites quickly and cheaply. By the time I left the company, we had enough reuseable tools that we could produce a complex site complete with an OS-like content management system, various output regulators (delivering content in HTML, XML, CSV etc), and an easy to manage multi-lingual engine. Clients for some or all of these tools included high profile clients like The Toronto Bluesfest and Merkley Supply, as well as a number of smaller business.

Gentoo Weekly Newsletter Compilation Software

One of my most important goals that I had starting out in this business was the contribution of my skills to the OpenSource community, but not being the strongest C coder has left my ability to chip in somewhat hampered (I'm working on this). However, when the Gentoo community sent out a request for talented web coders to help out with the newsletter, I fired off an enthusiastic email to the organisers and was greeted with a positive response.

They needed someone to build some portal software that would let the many contributors to the newsletter upload their XML into a single place that would check the file for errors and check it again when combined with the other content. If all looked good, the information would be added to the database to be shipped out the following week.

I built this project using a combination of PHP, MySQL, xmlint, and some of my free time.

ChinOnline.com

Chin Injeti was a new and upcoming artist in Vancouver, BC and his site needed a smooth look with dynamic content capable of hosting a community. I established and maintained the entire development environment and supplied a custom message board built with Perl and MySQL that was infinitely scalable and easily skinnable.

Reelsense.com

Utilising a plugin-free streaming video Java applet, reelsense.com is an online source for movie trailers and reviews. The site uses a combination of Perl and Actionscript, coupled with a MySQL database to deliver dynamic flash content. My responsibilities included design, HTML and Perl coding, database creation/maintenance and hosting for development.

if your screen resolution can go as high as 1600x1200, check it out... there's a surprise for you ;-)

Spam

It's not something I'm proud of, but everybody's gotta eat. If it makes you feel better though, the spam was a of a higher grade than most other spam you might get... our clients included:

• The Vancouver Canucks
• Lorne Mayencourt (British Columbia MLA)
• Tourism BC
• All Terrain Adventures

Netgenetix Intranet

Working at Netgenetix, I was given responsibility of building and administering the company intranet. It's built on a MySQL database, with a Perl CGI interface and it supports the staff with basic everyday needs like timesheets, project summaries, vacation sign up, and employee profiles.

Ronald McDonald House

The Ronald McDonald house in Vancouver is a charitable organisation set up to allow the families of patients a place to stay while their loved ones are receiving treatment at children's hospital in Vancouver, BC. The site was set up for two purposes:

1. Showcase the house and it's staff to raise awareness
2. Allow online donations via a secure website to help the house

I was responsible for the ASP and HTML coding of the site.

Bloodmoney.org

This was my main focus at Moshpit Entertainment. The Bloodmoney Universe was designed to be the hub of information and community for all those involved in playing games for cash. Sound interesting? Here's how it worked:

1. You go looking for someone to play with
2. You find some people to shoot at
3. You wager some cash on the game, as does everyone else
4. You kill everyone
5. You take the pot (minus a network maintenance fee)

The Bloodmoney Universe consisted of a financial transaction system, a forum, free email, news, and piles of information for novice and experienced gamers. I was responsible for the design of the entire site, as well as all the HTML, JavaScript, and some Perl coding.

www.bloodmoney.org was running a MySQL database with Apache webserver on a Redhat Linux box.

Moshpit Entertainment Intranet

During my time at Moshpit, I was responsible not only for the production of bloodmoney.org, but also for the design, coding and maintenance of the company intranet. Perl based, running a MySQL server on a SuSE Linux box, I handled all the graphic design, page layout, and Perl backend.

Fourcorners.bc.ca

Four Corners Community savings came to Vancouver Film School looking for volunteers to help build an attractive looking website capable of catching the eye of potential investors without sensationalising the importance of their work. I volunteered along with 3 others, and with the help of communicopia.net produced a clean and simple site that did the job perfectly.

My role in the site production included working in Photoshop, Homesite, and Dreamweaver, as well as working closely with both a web team and the client.

Sadly, it would seem that the Liberal party has pulled the plug on the project and the site has since disappeared.

u.n.i.o.n

I always wanted to be a game designer... so when I was in school, I developed a storyline and built a whole universe for a game that I hope to one day produce. The site is rather unimpressive looking as it was written so long ago, but in order to make it and the demo reel that came out of it work, I had to become proficient in the following:

• Team management
• 3d animation
• Web design
• Audio engineering

If you'd like to see a list of names of people I worked with on the project, you can check out the credits page