I can work all day and I can dance all night
I got an old used truck and it runs just like a top
I get the feeling it ain't ever going to stop
Stuff that works--stuff that holds up
The kind of stuff you don't hang on the wall
Stuff that's real--stuff you feel
The kind of stuff you reach for when you fall
--Guy Clark, Stuff That Works
Making Technology Work for You
Whether it's a custom database-driven website, a community forum, wiki, mailing lists, custom automated software, or simply a professional presence on the web, I have experience designing, implementing, and maintaining solutions that put the best technologies to work for people, enabling them to do what they do best.
Fair's Nursery
After some bad experiences with a few other web-development shops, the folks from Fair's Nursery approached me for a new solution. In addition to consolidating their domain registrations, website hosting, and email hosting from four different places all into one simple (and much cheaper) place, I worked with them to produce a clean, straightforward, informative site that showcases their unique character and helps them reach their customers.
Laurren Smith Foundation
When I heard the story of my friend Sandy's niece and that they were planning a fundraiser on short notice, I decided I had to chip in somehow. This site can serve as a central spot for information concerning Laurren's journey while allowing friends and family members to leave encouraging messages.
Books & Bars
This is a site I put together and maintain for a Twin Cities book club that I attend (when I can find the time!). Beyond being a great place to post upcoming events, past books, and contact information, it includes a full-featured forum and an events mailing list.
Lynde's Restaurant
When Mark and Cathy Lynde built their new restaurant, they knew they would need a new website to go with it. This site showcases their new restaurant, makes their menu conveniently available, and displays their many daily specials--all while allowing them full control over keeping their content up-to-date.
Lynde's Catering
Along with the Lyndes' new restaurant, their catering operations also got a new home and it was time their website got an overhaul as well. This new site makes it easier for people looking for information on Lynde's Catering to find what they're looking for quickly.
Fashionista
This WordPress site for my friends at Fashionista allows them to show off their latest accessories and keep their customers informed using advanced photo galleries, blog posts, and mailing list.
Dick's Bar & Grill
I created this site for Dick's Bar & Grill in Osseo, MN, a friendly neighborhood bar. The site uses WordPress as a content management system, allowing the bar owners to regularly update their content and daily specials.
Osseo Fire Department
I created this site to be the official online presence of the Osseo Volunteer Fire Department, of which I am a member. It is a great resource that allows us to share vital and timely information with the community. It also allows us to showcase some of the activities we are involved with in the community, preserve and share our rich history, and recruit new members.
OFD Member Site
To accompany the public website for the Osseo Fire Department, I created this password-protected site for the department to share important information with its members. It includes announcements of upcoming events, a user-editable roster including contact and membership information, a calendar of drills, meetings, and events, and lists of useful links to other online resources relevant to the department.
Minnesota Association of Asphalt Paving Technologists
I created this site for the MAAPT as a place for them to display information about their organization, information on their annual convention, and accept membership applications online.
Karin's Window Cleaning
Karin's Window Cleaning is a company in the Minneapolis/Saint Paul area that contracted me to design this site. It is a clean, lightweight design that allows for easy modifications and additions.
MJG Photography
Mary Gorton is a photographer in the Twin Cities area specializing in artful portraiture of children and pets. This site allows her to display her work, information about herself, pricing details, and contact information. The site also provides her with the ability to add, reorder, and remove photos herself through a simple administration page. Thanks to Lisa Perkins at April Graphics for supplying the logo and design elements so the site would remain consistent with Mary's other promotional materials.
YCAF - Young Catholic Adults and Friends
Young Catholic Adults and Friends is a group for young adults at Saint Francis of Assisi Catholic Church in West Des Moines, Iowa. The site integrates an automatically-updated calendar from Google Calendar and a random selection of the group's photos from Flickr.
The Trilinos Project
This is a site that I designed, created, and maintain for the Trilinos Project, an R&D 100 Award-winning project at Sandia National Laboratories. It is the central resource for users and developers of the software. It includes thousands of interconnected pages. A wide variety of technologies are used to provide the many features on the site.
Test Harness
The test harness is a suite of utilities that allow the Trilinos project to automatically configure, compile, and test its code every night on a number of different high-performance test clusters. Results are inserted into a database on the central server so that they can be viewed in a variety of ways. The website employs different views to display the complex, multi-dimensional data in meaningful ways. Daily emails are also sent to developer mail lists summarizing activity over the previous 24 hours.
Tramonto
Tramonto is part of Sandia's Molecular Theory Software for Nanostructured Fluids. I was contracted to perform this redesign of their site in preparation for their upcoming public release. In addition, I developed a test harness for Tramonto similar to that of the Trilinos project.
The Record
This is a site that I designed, created, and maintained for The Record, the official student newspaper of The College of Saint Benedict and Saint John's University. This site was named the best website out of all Minnesota private college newspapers at the 2004 Minnesota Private College Newspaper Conference. The latest edition of the paper was published on the site every week. A mailing list was set up that allowed readers to subscribe and receive an email whenever new content was published. Submission of stories by the editors was simplified by a desktop application that I developed to streamline the process. Additional content was also made available on the site, including reviews of area restaurants. The site featured a community forum that became very popular and hosted many extensive discussions about a wide range of topics.