This is a list of the major websites I have worked on and the most significant features that I developed for them.
My primary involvement is in developing the functional requirements of a website. Such as data structures and business rules. However, I also get my hands dirty with website design and construction when required.
The websites are powered by Grunt unless otherwise stated. Grunt is our in-house Content Management System (CMS) which enables us to rapidly develop the data access web services, business logic and web based administration interface for a custom website. Grunt is written in C# and based around StORM, an Object Relation Mapper (ORM) which I also developed.
URL: www.nomadsworld.com
Nomads provide Backpacker services such as Hostels and Tours throughout the world.
An extensive navigational structure was required including the ability to cross reference between areas of the website. This was achieved by creating a criteria based page tree structure with powerful abilities to query for related pages.
This was the first website I developed in which I actively increased its number of visitors by researching and implementing onsite Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) practices.
APG Website
Australian Power Group (APG)
URL: www.austpower.com.au (most features are for members only)
APG is a group of stationery dealers (stationers) throughout Australia.
They are a group of over 30 related websites. Each website (dealer) shares a common set of data while also having their own private additions and modifications to this data. Each shop owner has administrative access to manage their own website.
To facilitate this I developed a permissions system based on Users, Groups and Roles. Using this I could control what each user can View, Edit, Add, Delete or perform.
The system also has a complex pricing policy where prices can vary based on things like Cost, Customer, Shop and Price Group.
With a large amount of products it became apparent that an effective search ability was needed. Here I combined several search ideas to provide good results. This includes:
- Results sorted by relevance
- Relevance affected by word position and repetition
- Partial word matching
- Deep searches, i.e. also searches related data such as information on the supplier of a product
- Fast due to caching and indexing of searched for words
- Support of special characters via pre-processing of words. e.g. searching for "thing-45" will match variations such as "thing45" and "thing 45"
- Support of boolean search features such as required (+), exclude (-), phrase ("") and partial (*)
URL: www.kirratours.co.nz
Kirra provide tourism products and services in New Zealand, in particular they provide escorted coach tours. Due to the variety of products and their suppliers used, they required a pricing system that could cope with many varied situations.
As the core part of the pricing structure I developed a 4-dimesional pricing table. Each product could define prices based across the 4 customisable dimensions of Date Ranges, Order Quantities, No of People and Categories. Administration can define a pricing table structure which can then be re-used over a range of products.
URL: www.vaf.com.au
VAF Research produces high end audio speakers.
This was the first website where we developed a comprehensive membership system which integrates with user login, shopping, subscriptions etc.
- Member Registration with email validation
- Member Login
- Password changing and reminders
- Member Information editing including multiple addresses
- Multiple Subscription options
- Shopping Checkout integration with Member Information
- Members can view shopping history
URL: www.sharrowvale.co.uk
Based around Google Maps, this website provides a business directory and local information for the Sharrow Vale suburb of Sheffield.
This is a personal project and is not Grunt based. My brother runs the local launderette and its community atmosphere inspired me to help promote it.
It is a simple website with no database nor administration tools. All data is stored in xml files and driven by some simple asp and javascript.
URL: www.mccreath.org.uk
This baby! I have recently re-written it. I use it to promote myself, experiment with new ideas and to test the latest version of Grunt.
Some experiments are:
- Using my "Morph" javascript library to re-write the html once it is loaded
- The only current asp.net website front-end for Grunt.
- New data structure ideas such as Event tracking across item types (What's New)
- Images are stored in the database and dynamically resized as required
- Url mapping to provide user and search engine friendly urls
URL: www.medallionhomes.com.au
Medallion Homes design and Build luxury homes around Adelaide and South Australia.
I was not involved int the design and development of this website and it is not Grunt based.
My role is to market the website via Google AdWords. Using my existing Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) and Search Engine Marketing (SEM) skills I gathered an initial set of key phrases that should perform well for the client. After implementing the AdWord campaigns I have expanded and refined the phrases used which now total over 1000.
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