Kramerican Industries

Don't use GoDaddy for PHP/MySQL!

Eric — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 11:30:27 -0700

Here's a tip I recently discovered: don't use GoDaddy for your PHP/MySQL projects! Their servers are stupidly slow when executing PHP/MySQL scripts. I discovered this on a recent Drupal project where I was using some JSON services. The total time for the http request on my local development server was less than a second. On GoDaddy's server the exact same http request was taking anywhere from 8 seconds to 30 seconds!

ETSEO/WOUB What's the Problem

Eric — Tue, 27 May 2008 18:29:29 -0700

What's the Problem, supported by ETSEO (Education Technology for Southeast Ohio) and WOUB, is a website designed to help students prepare for the Ohio Graduation Test in mathematics.

I added dynamic HTML elements as well as a basic JavaScript algorithm to test users' inputs. I also created some interactive Flash activities.

Configurable Flash Slideshow

Eric — Mon, 26 May 2008 17:05:53 -0700

I created a configurable slide show so that our designers could easily drop into an HTML page and configure the file paths, captions, caption location, caption duration, slide duration, and transition duration, all via a XML file.

It also accommodates any embed dimensions and features background image loading.

OU Outreach Interactive Map

Eric — Mon, 26 May 2008 15:30:35 -0700

I created an interactive Flash map for the Ohio University Campus Community Outreach that displays a list of partnerships per county. This provides a visual way for users to browse for partnerships by location in addition to conventional search methods.

The map interfaces with the back-end Java database application to get all of the partnership data.

Ohio University Department of English

Eric — Mon, 26 May 2008 14:54:39 -0700

I rebuilt the OU English Department website using the Expression Engine content management system.

Prior to my rebuild the site was static HTML except for a large amount of course information stored in a MySQL database. My goal for rebuilding the site was to enable non-technical administrators to manage the content.

Noteasaurus

Eric — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 11:19:37 -0800

Noteasaurus is a free online note-taking application. It uses the familiar 'sticky note' paradigm, but allows you to take notes and keep them on the web where they can be accessed from any web browser.

The initial beta release will offer only a basic note taking interface, but future planned releases include new features such as note sharing, emailing, and searching, as well as alternative interfaces such as Browser extensions and an Adobe Air application for the desktop.

Tips for anyone who needs a website (part 2 of 4)

Eric — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 07:23:40 -0800

Previous: Introduction

Part two of my tips section is about some common pitfalls of web publishing.

1. Don't try to build your site from scratch (unless you have a lot of time and patience).

Don't get me wrong, I'm all about doing it yourself. But based on my experience of teaching web design to hundreds college students, if you aren't a techy computer person or have programming experience, learning to create HTML pages can be a very frustrating and unfruitful experience.

Tips for anyone who needs a website (part 1 of 4)

Eric — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 07:15:59 -0800

It's really not very hard to get a website these days. Sure, like anything, when you are starting at square one with no knowledge of how these things work, it can all seem very technical, and in reality it is. But there are so many resources available now for publishing content content online that getting a site for yourself is easier than it has ever been.

First Post

Eric — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 09:24:30 -0800

Welcome to my new blog. I'll be using this space to jot down my thoughts on web design and development. I'll throw in some tips and any discoveries I think other people might be interested in.

I'll try to spruce things up around here with a tag menu and some other cool stuff. Stay tuned for updates!

Shadesofgreyphotography.net

Eric — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 08:14:28 -0800

Shades of Grey Photography is the website of an up-and-coming photography outfit out of Chattanooga TN. The site features 100% managed content, including the image galleries and their categories, prices page, and blog.

The design for the site was done by Nic Couturier, a designer who I work with.

Asteroids!

Eric — Mon, 26 May 2008 19:04:15 -0700

This was one of my first AS3 projects that I played with when the Flash 9 beta came out. I essentially just worked on it to learn the new language, but I eventually got obsessed with working on it. Unfortunately paying projects picked up, and I had to abandon it, but I hope to work on it again. Consider it a proof of concept. Click the "Interact" link below to play. Space bar shoots, Shift key changes guns. Lucky for the player, you can't die yet.

JCU Admissions Visits Calendar

Eric — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 18:36:22 -0700

I created this application for John Carroll University to display scheduled recruiting events from their database.

The application uses JavaScript and JQuery to request JSON formatted data from a ASP service and format it for displaying on the page.

The JavaScript also handles paging and advanced filtering functions for a quick and responsive application.

Features include filtering by location, location radius, and date.

Soul of Athens

Eric — Tue, 27 May 2008 21:12:16 -0700

Soul of Athens is an award winning multimedia journalism website produced by students and faculty of the Ohio University School of Visual Communications. The project began in 2007 and this year we are releasing an updating version. Some of the new features include:

A switch from an all Flash site to an HTML/Flash hybrid site for search engine optimization
A new content management system
Yahoo API maps integration with markers for stories and images for browsing based on geo-location

Preoperative Surgical Procedures

Eric — Tue, 27 May 2008 16:37:16 -0700

I did a number of interactive Flash learning exercises for Preoperative Surgical Procedures, a Director-based desktop learning application for health care professionals.

Getoutzine.com

Eric — Tue, 27 May 2008 20:40:58 -0700

Getoutzine.com is an online magazine about outdoor adventure in the Ohio River region. I designed the site and built it using the Drupal. The site is fully content managed and the owner of the create and edit all of the content on the site without any knowledge of HTML. It also has these cool features:

Image upload and galleries for each story
User contributed events calender
Upgraded "featured" events that display on the front page for a fee payable via Paypal
Site organization via categories

IV Therapy / Dosage Calculation Safety Series

Eric — Tue, 27 May 2008 20:02:12 -0700

Dosage Calculation Safety Series is a Flex application I built for Delmar Learning. Its an e-learning program designed to help health care professionals administering medications avoid errors (which unfortunately happens all too often).

This application features a number of advanced features:

Courses are completely configurable (menu navigation and content) via XML files
Course layout and design is completely configurable via MXML and CSS

Viscom Galleries

Eric — Mon, 26 May 2008 18:11:48 -0700

This was a project I worked on to complete my Master's project requirements. It is a PHP/MySQL web application that I built from scratch.

Its purpose is to Viscom students and alumni to register with the site and upload their portfolio materials, resumes, and bio information.

The application features user management, file uploading and resizing, upload/server space limits per user, free tagging, searching, and more.