Work

The projects I've worked on range from full applications with regular release schedules to small additions to existing web sites and applications. Below you'll find selected projects in descending order.

• Shiny-Pixels.com

  August 2008

  Project Summary

  In desperate need of a personal site to serve as a blog and portfolio, I started throwing around design ideas for a portfolio to showcase my work as a front-end and server-side web developer.

  I decided to pick up Ruby on Rails after scrapping the initial design I had come up with and then started from scratch while learning something new and exciting, Rails.

  My role

  I spent about a year in my spare time aside from my day job working on the design of the site, the implementation and learning about other open source tools. Throughout the process I learned to deploy SVN installations on Linux, Mac and Windows (hosted locally and remotely), learned Ruby and Rails and came out with more knowledge of HTTP, REST and MVC than I had before. I also used the opportunity to play around with some web-based API's provided by sites like Twitter.

• LA Alliance Portal

  June 2008

  Project Summary

  This project was for a local alliance of 13 community-based organizations in the Los Angeles area who advocate for quality child care and early childhood education. They needed a small online portal to allow local families in need of childcare to search for available agencies in the area.

  My role

  We received templates from a 3rd-party designer and I implemented this portion of their site. I used the light MVC framework that was originally created for the NoHo R&R Report Builder (below) project. The portal consists of an interactive map of Los Angeles implemented using CSS/XHTML and jQuery.

• NoHo R&R Report Builder

  October 2007

  Project Summary

  An addition to the NoHo R&R application (below), the report builder was designed as a tool for users to generate custom ad hoc queries using any fields in the primary schema. The tool is capable of generating complex SQL queries using a rich representation of the schema in the form of stored meta data.

  My role

  This project was used as an opportunity to explore REST and MVC. I ported some of the older legacy framework code (written in classic ASP) into a newer and lighter custom framework to illustrate the technologies and methods to other staff members in preparation for a future move to ASP.NET and MVC.NET. The library, dubbed "RASP" (RESTful Active Server Pages), was directly based on my experience with Ruby on Rails and is very similar to Sinatra, although technically RASP is an MVC implementation. I was responsible for the design, programming and overall implementation of this project.

• CCRC Online Referrals

  May 2003

  Project Summary

  Built as an extension to NoHo R&R (below), the Online Referrals allow customers of CCRC to search for referrals directly on the company's site as opposed to calling the center directly.

  It consists of a moderately dense questionnaire which is then used in a search to find providers who may serve as a good match for providing child care services.

  My role

  Working with an outside firm who provided us with site templates, I served as lead developer of this small application. Data taken in from the user is then stored in a database to be pushed to CCRC's primary database during off-hours.

• NoHo R&R

  June 2002

  Project Summary

  Initially developed by contract for a local LA child care agency, NoHo R&R is now licensed to resource and referral departments at many child care agencies throughout California. Resource and referral departments use R&R daily for providing their customers with referrals to child care providers in their area.

  My role

  I built the system using much of the same framework that was built for the NoHo CEL (below) in classic ASP. The system retained much of what the client liked in their old system which was a non web-based client server application. NoHo R&R featured some early, pre-ajaxian type functionality by making extensive use of iframes.

  NoHo R&R still follows a regular release schedule to this day and receives many feature requests from an active user-community in the California Child Care industry. I was responsible for the design, programming and overall implementation of this application.

• NoHo Centralized Eligibility List

  May 2001

  Project Summary

  Developed during California's CEL Pilot Program, the NoHo CEL is used by counties in California as a means of maintaining a list of children who may be eligible for government-subsidized child care. Providers from each county participate in maintaining the list and use it as a search tool for filling available slots for government-subsidized child care.

  My role

  My first project as lead developer at NoHo Software, I was responsible for the redesign, programming and overall implementation of the the NoHo CEL. I lead a redesign effort and took the smaller, less capable version and improved it in many ways.

  I developed a small UI framework for use server-side which concealed the complexities of the JavaScript and HTML that made it work and allowed easy binding of data sets from the database. The goal was to make it easier to maintain and for development to be inclusive of the staff's varying skill levels.