I helped to organize the content that he currently had and integrate it into a WordPress installation for ease of maintenance by not so “tech-savy” users.  I modified the original theme by adding a jQuery image preview of all of their properties as part of the site’s header.  I also integrated the properties to be dynamically pulled together on the properties page and made use of post meta-data to determine what extra amenities each property had.

I used embedded Google map information for allowing site visitor’s to quickly map directions to Put-in-Bay from any source.

Finally, we decided on a new domain name to use to avoid confusion and settled on islandclubvillarentals.com (we also have islandclubvilla.com).  I then setup his pages to use SEO keywords and descriptions, setup his sitemap.xml and robots.txt file, hooked his site into Google Analytics for stat tracking, and even setup a quick Google AdWords campaign to help get him on his feet with web traffic.

The project was based around design, ease of use, and trying to get rid of the stigma that e-learning has to be the same old boring thing.

My role was to create the entire application from scratch, using only still photo mock-ups. This involved chopping out the assets, integrating them into Flash or HTML, adding appropriate animations, and tweaking the design as functionality and usability were introduced… and that’s just to get the artwork into the project.

• I built the application with a PHP and MySQL backend to handle all of the server side functionality.
• There is a CRON job that calculates client statistics every few hours so we have an idea of how the system is being operated.
• There is a PHP class for dynamically developing PDF files for course certificates which I integrated into the system.
• System alerts are delivered using jQuery in a Growl-like fashion.
• Part of the admins side is a Flex-based application for creating quiz pools, including picture uploads, that can be randomly drawn from during quizzes on the user side.

The project was a great learning experience, and I have learned many things along the way like how to handle continued feature and support requests, how to take a project from design to web, and how to best manage the available resources for the project.

My job was to create a Flash navigation between the different sections of the site by integrating a third-party component that manipulates stage elements in 3D. There were video intros to the major sections of the site as well as a Flex application that allowed the user to navigate and filter photographs taken by the site’s photographers. Picture information was read dynamically from an XML file at runtime and the Flex piece was loaded into the main Flash movie when needed. When you click a photograph, a Flex HTML viewing component would load up that photo’s Zoomify files. Zoomify is a Flash-based navigation of high resolution pictures that operates like Google maps where higher resolution tiles are requested as the photograph is zoomed in. The Zoomify files where created as and export type in Photoshop, however I did all the work of loading them in dynamically and removing them when the user wanted to move on.

There was a web and a kiosk version of the software created with the kiosk version having a few extra features including keeping track of visitor interactions in Flash shared objects and allowing those interactions to be export in a CSV file when a specific key combination is activated on the keyboard. It also had a screensaver-type mode that would automatically play a video repeatedly if there was no keyboard or mouse interactions for a few minutes.

I later went back and added subtitle support for the videos so that external files could be loaded to show German translations over the videos for another version of the software. I was already using the Flash FLVPlaybackComponent for displaying the videos, so adding on the FLVPlayackCaptioning component allowed me to achieve the subtitling without rewriting all of the video logic. It was still a bit of a pain to get right, but after enough tweaking and it turned out pretty nice.

The link for the website is a backed up copy with German translations so that you can see all of the parts of the application I worked on.

There are three separate applications to the software:

• an administration program for setting up the game’s variables
• a point-of-sale application for issuing tickets, checking balances, and logging POS operators
• the player’s game which would run on separate touch-screen kiosks

The software was a lot of fun to write, and was very educational in putting together a larger project, handling features and changes once deployments had been made, and in keeping track of all source files to make sure everything was up to date on installations and upgrades.

The system had a PHP/MySQL backend that talked to the server through AMFPHP. Variables were loaded up from an external XML file at startup to specify the server’s IP address, whether to show the mouse cursor, etc. Over time I actually made a few versions of the game that gave a new view to the user, but still operated on the same backend structure so that both games could be operational at the same time in the same facility.

Other challenges for the project were interacting with a thermal receipt printer and sending reporting information from the server to the POS unit using CRON and a custom C# application for talking to an HTML printing program.

To test out the demo game enter the code: 12341234

Since I haven’t been keeping the site up to date as much as I should have, I now redirect traffic to jonknapp.com but you can view an archived copy of the site if you’d like.

After meeting personally with them and collecting any pictures and print assets that they had, I came up with a mock-up design that they thought looked good. Soon I had their entire site designed with updated pictures and a good HTML/CSS design combo. I also implemented a random testimonial that appears on their homepage when pulled from a pool of testimonials on the server and a Google map of their location on their contact page.

To allow them to manage their content and images on their own, I decided to create them a site using WordPress. By working closely with the client, I was able to find a theme that was close to the design they were looking for, and then modify it to meet their needs.

A large portion of the project was batch importing and labeling of a lot of the design patterns that they can mix and match on their rocks. That way a client could easily browse their patterns and pick their designs without having to physically show up at their business.

Instead of having to learn how to create an application for displaying video files natively on the iPhone, I used a JavaScript/CSS model for creating an experience that mimics the iPhone’s controls.

The project link is to a backup of the site since we didn’t plan on keeping the mobile portfolio up to date in the long run.