Bulborama
This site was running on a very old version of Sum Effect's DigiSHOP ecommerce platform. The site was upgraded to DigiSHOP 5, and given a redesign. The content is now better organized, the site is less cluttered, and many items that were once static are now dynamic. The left hand navigation, based on the category structure, is now dynamic. Before, if categories were added, updated, or restructured, it was a manual process to update the navigation, but it now happens instantly. All of the static pages were integrated with DigisHOP's CMS, as well as DigiSHOP's templating system. Again, if changes to navigation were made before, all of these pages would need to be updated manually and individually. It now happens instantly.
A site map was added to the site to help with SEO. It lists the entire product and category tree. Because any category can have a arbitrary number of products and sub categories, it recursively walks through the top level of categories until it finds no more sub categories, and then lists the products. Since there are 1000s of products, this page can take a bit of time to build and be a bit of a resource hog. The page is cached daily to cut back on its high demand on resources. It uses a simple, custom file cache, saving the generated HTML to an external file and determining expiration based on the file time.
Lastly, with so many architectural changes, and moving the static pages to DigiSHOP's CMS, a series of 301 redirects were written to maintain link continuity, and so as not to hinder any SEO efforts.
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Limitless International
Limitless International was built using CakePHP. While it contains mostly static content, CakePHP was utilized to easily separate pages, and common content around the site. The site also uses CakePHP's built in validation for forms, and easy email templating for email functionality. Since it was built in CakePHP, the site can easily be upgraded in the future to utilize a custom CMS.
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Usedboats
Usedboats.com is one of the top boating classified sites on the web. This project was a complete rewrite from PHP4 to PHP5. Zend Frameworks was utilized for rapid, robust development. The Mootools javascript framework was used originally, but the site later migrated to the more popular jQuery. This project had a team of as many as 6 developers during its peak production period.
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Yachtbroker
Yachtbroker is a sister site of Usedboats.com, geared towards brokers, instead of just the average Joe selling his boat. It was built to work off of the same code base as Usedboats, utilizing Zend Framework, Mootools, jQuery, and other libraries. Under the hood, there are very few differences in code between the two sides, but Yachtbroker was given a different look and feel, primarily with HTML and CSS.
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Orlando Watch Company
This site was designed and developed at 540 Interactive. It was built on a framework that was designed at 540 Interactive. My job was to apply the Photoshop design with HTML and CSS, and to customize the framework and associated content management system to fit this site's needs.
We created a rollover menu on the left. It displays an image of a watch within the collection, set in the content management system. Rather than preload all of the images when the site load (due to server load), the images are preloaded when a user rolls over the brand. It was an interesting solution to a unique problem.
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Facebook Application Running Expo
This application was built as a marketing device for the ecommerce site RunningExpo.com. Since its inception it has taken on a life of its own, gathering over 500 total users, and around 75 monthly users. It uses the Google Maps API to allow users to track map their running routes, save, and share with others.
The initial application was written entirely from scratch, without the use of any PHP or Javascript frameworks. The back-end was ported to CakePHP soon after its initial launch. With the application's latest release, which allowed for sharing of routes between users, all of the handwritten javascript was replaced with jQuery wherever possible.
This application makes use of many APIs and web services. It is built on the Facebook Application platform, utilizes the Google Maps API, uses a Geonames web service to determine the starting Zip Code for routes (which is utilized for searches), and the Weather Underground API to provide users with weather forecasts for routes.
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Running Expo
Running Expo is an ecommerce site geared towards runners. It was built on the DigiSHOP ecommerce platform. I setup the application, skinned it, and made various customizations to the system. Over the lifetime of the site, I have also had to upgrade the DigiSHOP platform, requiring many of the previous customizations to be reimplemented in the process.
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