Web Development

Me

Pre-1995, I was a print person, but thereafter, I left the print world and have focused purely on web technologies. I like to think that my web skills are good on the front-end (design) but I also like crawling/coding around on the back-end (server side) of web development because only back-end technologies can result in truly dynamic websites. I guess this makes me a so called “web designer-developer”.

Typically, I build sites alone for my clients, and then hand the site over to in-house staff. My goal is building sites that can be updated and edited easily by non-web professionals, so they can keep their web content fresh but not get bogged-down with the technical coding complexities. I usually recommend clients investigate WordPress’ CMS (Content Management System) which allows clients to easily become the “content providers” for their site with minimal web experience.

After only a few hours of experimentation within the WordPress admin pages, most clients have successfully taken over the updating of their site’s content and the site’s future expansion. Here are number of benefits that WordPress offers:

  • There is no software to buy, WordPress is free, open source software.
  • WordPress is browser-based application. It can be used on anyone’s computer that is a connected to the Internet.
  • WordPress’s CMS can be used with or without it’s blog components enabled.
  • Wordpress offers almost infinite expansion possibilities. There are over 4000 WordPress plugins available.
  • If SEO (search engine optimization) is important to a client, WordPress offers a Google Analytics plugin.
  • If you want to take advantage of the Internet’s social networking phenomena. WordPress is a good choice.
  • If you want your site to integrate with the new mobile devices, a WordPress site can adapt its layout to many existing smart phones.
  • Because WordPress has a large and loyal following, support for WordPress can easily be found on the Internet.
  • For further information on WordPress and how this site was developed.

After a new site goes online, my clients thereafter can hire my services on an hourly basis ($30/hour) as needed.

New Site Pre-planning

There is a lot of leg-work/planning in getting content ready for the web designer. Clients always underestimate this task. If you give your web designer crappy content, then you should expect a crappy website.

Organizational site chart

It is recommended that your website planning team draw out a tree diagram/organizational chart (see diagram above), so it is clear to the web designer what pages you want, what function-ability each page will have, and how the browser will navigate through them. The web developer will use this diagram to design the site’s initial structure.

How might a new site evolve between the client and the web designer?

  1. A default WordPress site is created and connected it to a SQL database. The CMS (Content Management System) is now in place.
  2. At some point, hopefully early on, a plan is outlined for who is responsible for what site content.
  3. A navigational structure is developed. Site headers, footers, forms, widgets, and sidebar content might be integrated.
  4. A page theme is developed. The theme template can be custom  or pre-existing, and one site page might be designed for the clients inspection and approval, before site mass-production.
  5. Usually content providers and/or site editors can be assigned user privileges early on and work directly within the site as it develops.
  6. Additional customization and features of the site are created with WordPress Plugins installed and activated. One example of this would be the addition of a site photo gallery.
  7. SEO. The site is optimized for search engine optimization. Integrating Google Analytic is recommended.
  8. Polishing stage and content providers begin to take increasing more site responsibilities within the WordPress admin pages.
  9. Site testing with various browser applications.
  10. Site goes live.
Web Hosting

I also have my own LAMP server (Linux-Apache-mySQL-PHP). A LAMP server is all “open source” server software. When programmers can read, redistribute and modify the source code for a piece of software, the software evolves quickly. This is good for everyone. I have the capacity to host sites I build. This means I can build, host, and serve a client’s whole web presence. No ISPs. No third parties. No extra charges. This keeps it simple and saves $.

  • $20/month web hosting
  • $30/month web hosting with email
  • Web Database (SQL) no charge
  • Hosting billed once a year.

Google Analytics

You can pay a lot of money for web statistics or you can have Google Analytics for free. I do charge for setting up the service initially.

Adobe Applications

I work mostly with the Adobe Creative Suite like most of the web world.  I also use Flash Actionscript 3, PHP, and SQL web server technologies.

Web Applications

Web Application – CAIC

Colorado Avalanche Information Center. The client needed a web graphic drawing tool that would generate avalanche hazard graphics daily, quickly and automatically.

Blog Sites

This is the blog-CMS code I am familiar with.  Sometimes the goal is to integrate the blog into your site, and not look like everyone else’s blog site. This site  is 100% WordPress with the exception of some Flash web applications. Click here for more details about having a Wordpress site.

Browser Compatibility

Life is too short to fix all the problems with the Internet Explorer 6 browser. If you or your company still use IE6, please update your browsers. I test my code to work with all the latest major browsers, but not with IE 6. Support web browsers that comply with the W3C web standards.

Client Sites

Some of these sites I maintain entirely. For others, I designed and built the original site structure, but an in-house content provider is maintaining the site on a day-to-day basis:

Site – Follow Your Folly

Tastes great, less land-filling. New Belgium Brewery’s sister-site celebrating and show-casing individuals who “are making more from less and livin large”;. Flash site, Flash streaming video, and Flash animation.

Site - Doug Rager Architecture

This is an all Flash-based site that highlights an architect’s design portfolio. This site also displays Autocad “Fly-Throughs” as QuickTime movies for his clients’ visualization of architectural plans.

Site – Backcountry Access


P2P or Point to Point. BCA to 7 BCA vendors. Getting your browsers to the correct shopping cart with one click. Coordinating vendor’s inventories and current site maps. A major coordinating nightmare. The process was to combine vendor XML inventories, allowing the browser his choice of online vendors, and finally getting him to the correct shopping cart page. With just one click.

Site – Anadyr Adventures

Anadyr Adventures is a sea-kayaking outfitter in the Prince William Sound area of Alaska. Some cool things about this site:

  • This site uses a PHP/SQL database to keep their trip specials current. They use a web-based admin page to update these trip specials.
  • Browsers can send Anadyr email ecards. Anadyr trip itineraries are animated with Flash maps.
  • Web video is used extensively within this site.

Site – Moki Treks

This adventure travel site wanted maps to show the itinerary of their trips and at the same time, set a visual tone of the early North American explorers.

Print – North Carolina Rivers & Creeks

This was a break from web projects and a chance to hone my print design skills. Click here for some sample layout spreads.

Google Maps Tiles – Maps

Manually creating interactive maps with lots of data equals lots of work. But this client’s project started with a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet which was converted to KML, then integrated with the Google Maps provider for its map background.