Web Design & Development

I started doing web design around the time DHTML swept the Internet. The ability to do whatever you want on computer screens across the globe yielded thousands of nerds making idols unto themselves in their own 640×480 box of glory. And, as with every other feat of mankind, it turned into a massive competition. If 10 interactive animations were cool, then 100 were even cooler. At least until the competition took an unexpected turn when someone realized elitism was more fun.

Soon those with cleaner code and more "standards-oriented" designs were boasting of how they were better because they were playing by the rules. Strict adherence to W3C guidelines quickly became the norm and rather than fighting over which intro was the coolest, fights were over which DOCTYPE to use, whose site was the most accessibile and whether or not to use tables.

This fight for dominance among geeks created an army of strong web designers with the ability to make web sites not only look good, but work the best that possibly could. This document, for example, is XHTML 1.0 Strict, does not use layout tables, does degrade nicely in text only browsers, and prints like a document, not a web page.

My goal is not to make cool web sites, it's to make usable websites because that's where the challenge is.

First and foremost, I know XHTML, JavaScript (with DOM), and CSS; and I can apply them together to make an accessible web site. Beyond that I know a variety of server languages, a few markup languages, and can manage them all in Dreamweaver.

Client Side	Server Side	Software
HTML	PHP	Dreamweaver
XHTML	ASP.NET	Contribute
JavaScript	PERL	The GIMP
DOM	C
CSS	MySQL
AJAX
XSLT

Delta Gamma Chapter of Theta Tau

The Theta Tau web site has really been one of experimentation. When I became webmaster, it had a variety of tools, all written in C, and very limited usability. Since I've been in charge, I wrote new libraries for handling cookies, forms, and templates, as well as restructured the MySQL access library so each connection would be completely accessible through a struct. With all these changes, RAD is fully possible despite being C, and many functions, such as form filing, calendar maintenance, and academic help have been made into web pages.

Recently, I incorporated AJAX into the calendar system to allow for additional features and a greater ease of use. It now allows event highlighting, fast navigation, and live updates. While AJAX is a little extreme for most web pages, it provides a lot of power for web applications and I think in this case it worked out very well.

ASU Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering

Before	After

This is a web site I ported from its old design to the College's standard design. When I ported it, though, I rewrote the templates to be less than half the size, have less graphical glitches, and be less dependent on background images. If you look at other sites on the Fulton domain, you'll see what I mean, especially in Firefox. I believe in a crisp clean site that works well in all browsers, and this process let me make just that.

This site is also managed with the Macromedia Contribute content management system, which allows multiple users to edit content in a Dreamweaver based editor and either publish or submit it for review. Developing this site has immensely increased my understanding and appreciation of Macromedia products.

My Personal Web site

I originally built this site just so I could have a place to put coursework I'm proud of, but mostly it exists as a test of what I can do. There are now layout tables on this site, and when it prints it prints as a document, not a web page. More than that, this site is designed to be easy to use and degrade nicely in old browsers. Long story short, it's a "Hey, look what I'm capable of" web site. Feel free to view the source or disable the stylesheet.