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Below are some examples of what a coding addiction like mine can lead to. Try as I might, I just can't resist a good web project.
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// Future Musicians Website
Client: A music studio
Graphic Designer: Abbey Papa
Code I Used: XHTML, CSS, PHP (with custom page class), JavaScript and a touch of jQuery (for the audio effect)
Notes: Notable features of this hand-coded project include an interactive "playable" piano, a random quote generator and strong SEO (search engine optimization) techniques.
This site has been enormously successful in bringing in new business, accounting for more than 90% of the clients the studio currently serves.
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// Village of Port Alice Website
Client: A Vancouver Island municipality
Graphic Designer: Abbey Papa
Code I Used: XHTML, CSS, PHP and the WordPress Codex
Notes: I redeveloped the Village's website for this project, taking it from Flash into the WordPress CMS (content management system) and applying a new custom design.
My work also included implementing foreign language translations, integrating JavaScript/jQuery functions for the drop-downs, slideshow and photo gallery, and helping reorganize the content.
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// Juliana L. Brandt's Website
Client: A young adult author
Graphic Designer: Letitia Englund
Code I Used: XHTML, CSS, PHP and the WordPress Codex
Notes: I designed and developed this project myself, again using the WordPress CMS as a foundation.
Of particular importance for Juliana's site was the integration of social media tools, including displaying her Twitter feed, providing quick access to RSS subscription, adding in Google Friend Connect and making commenting and sharing as easy as possible.
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// Village of Tahsis Website
Client: A Vancouver Island municipality
Graphic Designer: Abbey Papa
Code I Used: XHTML, CSS, PHP (with custom page class), MySQL, JavaScript and jQuery
Notes: Some of the more advanced features of this hand-coded project include readable document directories, a business database and a jQuery photo gallery.
This site won an honourable mention for Website Best Practices at the Union of British Columbia Municipalities' 2010 Community Excellence Awards.
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// Jill Van Sickle's Website
Client: A painter and artist
Graphic Designer: Jill Van Sickle, Letitia Englund
Code I Used: XHMTL, CSS, PHP and the WordPress Codex
Notes: I converted Jill's website to WordPress for this project, creating a custom theme from scratch to improve on the existing (HTML-based) design, while still keeping content control in her hands.
Added features for the new site include a front page slideshow, interactive artwork galleries, Google fonts and a fully functional blog (with social media connectors).
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// Sonja Wilson Music Website
Client: A music teacher and transcriber
Graphic Designer: Abbey Papa
Code I Used: XHTML, CSS, PHP (with custom page class) and JavaScript
Notes: As has become my preferred coding style for smaller projects, the foundation here is a PHP page class. This allows me to use a custom HTML page template.
Sonja's website includes a double dose of form validation (using JavaScript and PHP) and a focus on good, basic SEO techniques.
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// Kitchen Bandits Website
Client: An interactive developer
Graphic Designer: Jon Sexe
Code I Used: PHP, MySQL and JavaScript/AJAX
Notes: Jon asked me to build the back end for this project, creating a password-protected recipe-sharing site for his friends and family.
I implemented advanced database interaction for this site, allowing Kitchen Bandit members to create, edit, delete, save and comment on the site's recipes (while being careful to include input sanitization when needed).
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// Loose-Leaf Tea Website
Graphic Designer: Letitia Englund
Code I Used: XHTML, CSS and PHP
Notes: I created this personal project to test more advanced features of CSS. The design, development and majority of photography were done by me.
The site uses a CSS reset for optimal customization, various CSS3 tricks (shadows, opacity, border radius) and pseudo-selectors and pseudo-elements to generate content and create an accordion effect (on the contact page).
This site is best viewed in newer browser versions.
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// Anna and Matt's Wedding Website
Client: An engaged couple
Graphic Designer: Abbey Papa
Code I Used: XHTML, CSS, PHP, JavaScript and a small Flash plugin (on the home page)
Notes: This website required solid validation for the wedding RSVP form, which was implemented twice, using JavaScript and PHP (in the event that JavaScript is turned off).
This site successfully handled all RSVPs for the couple's August 2010 wedding at its original domain (raukmitchellwedding.com).