Website Development

I am available for hire as a contract programmer or website developer. I have been working as a programmer since graduating in 1992, initially with Microsoft and more recently as a freelancer doing projects in Drupal, PHP, HTML, CSS and JavaScript. I aim for standards-compliant websites that are great experiences for the average user but still fully functional for those with different configurations. There's nothing wrong with a flashy website as long as everyone can enjoy it!

My strong suit is not graphic design. Let's be honest — I'm a computer programmer. My artistic side begins and ends with photography. That doesn't mean I can't put together a decent looking web page, but I work better when someone has a vision of what they want their site to look like and lets me work on the implementation of that vision. Some recent projects:

• Well, there's this site, though I have to admit that it doesn't get the attention it deserves. Mostly because no one pays me to work on my own homepage!
• Two Seattle-based photographers, Justin Gollmer and Dennis Wise, came to me with similar requests: Web sites to promote their photography and allow them to edit the photo layouts.  In both cases, the target audience is photo editors (who generally have large monitors) so we could get away with using a larger layout and, in the case of Dennis' website, requiring JavaScript be enabled.  Justin and Dennis have an administrative interface that lets them upload new photos and drag-and-drop the layouts of their portfolios.  There is also a "backdoor" that lets them upload a directory worth of photos from, say, a vacation and share those with friends as if it were part of their portfolio but without making it part of the public website.
• Some recent Drupal-based projects include sites for the University Temple Children's School and the Columbia City Bakery.  The UTCS site allows parents to log in and see the latest from their kid's classes in the form of blog entries, upcoming events, news articles or forum posts.  Once logged in, this is a highly interactive site as described in my write-up about the project.  The Columbia City Bakery site is a classic example of a company "brochure" site -- owners want to promote their company but don't want the burden of learning new technologies.  In this case, the bakery staff have logins that grant them permissions to add photos or easily change the content of the pages using a WYSIWYG editor.  This frees them from having to contact a Web developer everytime they change the price of a latte or scone; they are in control of their content.
• I'm also the author and maintainer of the Drupal module Better Exposed Filters.  But unless you're a Drupal developer, that probably doesn't mean much to you...  Suffice to say that Drupal is an open-source content management system that gives a developer an astounding collection of components out of the box yet allows great freedom to customize.
• I've done several projects for the University of Washington's Climate Impacts Group (CIG) including an online presentation request form and a soon-to-be-launched database of climate change case studies.  I should point out that I did not have control over the layout of these pages, only the functionality.  These are also Drupal-based sites with password-protected admin pages that allow speakers to edit requests once they have been completed and administrators to assign requests to speakers and view and print reports.  One of these days I'll get some screenshots together as most of the action is on the password-protected pages.
• I am currently the webteam lead for DiscNW's website. I worked for DiscNW for several years, then took some time off to be the stay-at-home parent for our youngest daughter. Now, I'm back volunteering for DiscNW in several capacities. I have worked on the online payment system and currently manage the webteam, however, I can not take credit for the vast majority of the programming work at DiscNW. Kudos should go to the dedicated crew of volunteers on the DiscNW webteam who do amazing work for the occasional free dinner and beer.
• Jillian Chong's website was created to help her get a college lacrosse scholarship.  Personally, I had no idea that kids needed a website to get into college.  Just a sign of the times, I suppose...  Anyhow, the video clips were created by Jillian's father.  This site is a good example of embedding Flash videos into a website without the use of YouTube or similar services.  Be warned: Jillian picked the music so check your speaker volume before clicking on any of the video clip links!
• Snow Summit Chalet is a website promoting vacation rental property near California's Snow Summit and Big Bear ski resorts. A very simple site with nothing more fancy than a 'Contact Us' form.

If you're interested, please contact me and we'll talk.