Virtual Urchin is a fully interactive, educational site designed to bring information about sea urchins specifically, and inquiry-based biological science in general, to mainly high-school aged students. I’ve worked from early on in the project, providing design and programming for this highly interactive site using a range of technologies. Of particular interest is a fully XML-programmable “Lab Bench” interface which brings the experience of a laboratory to students.

The Inquiry to Student Environmental Action< website provides interactive modules promoting international student collaboration. As lead programmer for the entire site, I developed an online Carbon Footprint calculator as part of the International Student Carbon Footprint Challenge. Aimed at raising in students an awareness of their personal choices and an understanding of their effects, it has reached students worldwide. I developed a registration and data comparison database that allows students to meet in an online community and discuss choices and footprints.

AmEnglish first contacted me to help convert their suite of English language training programs from a proprietary technology, desktop-based application to Adobe’s Director platform. The conversion entailed a thorough redesign of the product as well as re-implementation. Since then, I’ve converted the products to Adobe’s Flash platform, where it’s become a complex, multi-project code base which has performed extremely stably and allowed for efficient feature additions for over 10 years — including the ability to deploy to multiple environments. I also implemented asset protection including encryption and application licensing utilizing CrypKey’s technology.

Since their inception, I’ve been the programmer of choice for this San Franciso-based design agency. Over the years, I’ve programmed projects using many different technologies — from online delivery to desktop apps to CD-ROMs. To name just one recurrent theme, I’ve done several well-received ROI calculators for large corporate clients. When they need something done with a programatic bent, they turn to me knowing I’ll be able to complete projects with a quick turn-around — on-time and in-budget.

2001-present:  Director, Flash, JavaScript/jQuery, HTML/5

For over a decade, I provided technical support for various projects, and especially the Virtual Labs Project at Stanford. This site provided dozens of educational modules covering fundamental human anatomy. I developed a flexible framework that allowed for a consistent and comprehensible interface to drive a large and complex variety of content targeted towards high-school and undergraduate students. I leveraged this core base to other projects, broadening the reach to local museums, educational organizations, textbook support and others. Developed using Adobe’s Director (Shockwave), and later Flash technology, the site was never converted to HTML5.

This project focused on bringing the history, diverse cultures and musical instruments of the Silk Road area to K-14 students. I designed and developed two interactive modules: one, “The Road to Beijing”, allows students to explore the sites of Beijing, China. The other, “Along the Silk Road”, presents students with a fun, highly interactive environment to explore this incredibly diverse region. Included was a popular game where students must plan and follow the Silk Road, provisioning themselves and trading products at markets along the way in order to survive and (if they wish) maximize trade value.

From early on in its long history as one of the oldest, most popular, and now the world’s largest curated marketplace for vintage and antiques, I’ve helped provide programming for server-side, database, and client-side programming. Amongst numerous projects, I’ve developed such features as a robust shipping calculator utilizing shippers’ APIs and implemented Authorize.Net’s programming interface for securely storing and verifying on-line credit card information.

For many years, I was the programmer this high-end design and marketing company turned to for interactive programming. From complex ROI calculators to fun promotional pieces, I’ve helped them produce cutting-edge interactive projects. As they grew, the decision was made to bring programming work in-house, but I’ll still work with them occasionally when demand is high.

When Stanford Research Institute’s Speech Technology and Research Laboratory needed an experienced C/C++ programmer to port their leading speech recognition system to Adobe’s Director platform, they turned to me. Utilizing Director’s Xtra interface, I provided access to this sophisticated API from the Director platform. Subsequent work for them allowed access from Adobe’s Flash product, utilizing the Director Shockwave plugin.

I designed and developed this marvelous retrospective for a popular Leeds, England based band of the ’70s.

2014:  JavaScript/jQuery, HTML/5

Earlier, I also designed and developed a Flash-based website for one of the band members’ current band, Jazzmundo. When this talented local artist needed a website to help show to wholesalers and galleries, I designed and developed a site quickly and on a limited budget.