Aquinas High School

I began working on the Aquinas High School website as a freshman. I worked on the Middle School website before that. We began with static HTML pages that were in place before I started. My main job was to post updates as we received them. I was somewhat familiar with web work at this point, but was not very advanced. We used a combination of Front Page and HTML to create and edit pages. In my sophomore year the computer club decided to take on the task of redesigning the Aquinas Webpage. I would continue to update the site while other members were working on the new design. They came up with a design, which looked pretty good and was used for a year or two. We soon found out that the way this new design was set up was not the best way to handle things on the site.

We then thought about redesigning the page again. A couple of people threw a few different ideas at the drawing board. We didn't want a template straight off the web. Instead we wanted to make something that was unique to Aquinas. I sat down one day and came up with the theme that would be used for the following few years. At this point I was more familiar with HTML, CSS, so I wanted something that used the new idea of using DIVs for layout instead of tables. I was able to get what I wanted and I showed it to Mr. Boisvert. He liked it and we began work on using that as the template for the main pages.

We had our design done, but we were still stuck with static pages. About this time different server side scripting was becoming popular. One of the other students in computer club was familiar with PHP and decided that it would be nice to have some sort of Content Management System on the site. He began work on writing his own system. He came quite a way, and the functionality was very nice. However, it never reached a finished state. So we continued to use static HTML pages.

I graduated from Aquinas in the spring of 2007. There were no new students to take over the site, so I continued to help out by posting updates. In fall of 2007 I decided to switch the Aquinas site over to a CMS (Content Management System) that was available for free called Drupal. During the next few months while juggling classes, the Aquinas Website, and a couple of other sites, I worked on moving the static pages over to the CMS. This allowed the school to begin posting announcements and to keep different areas of the site more up-to-date. Anyone could update pages without knowing anything about creating/editing websites. The switch was mostly completed by the end of 2007.

The site is now under the control of a professional marketing company.

URL: http://aquinasschools.org

ABLE Inc.

This website began as a project for a computer class. My teacher was volunteering for the group home. They wanted a redesign of their current page. It was originally going to be a simple design. We planned on simply changing the colors to make it look better. What started out simple and grew to a complete redesign with a different layout. I took their logo and made that into a header image with a slideshow. Then I used different colors from their logo and created the rest of the page. I think it turned out really well and they liked the new design. They, however, put off transferring to the new design. They now have implemented some aspects of my design and a more traditional layout for most of the pages.

URL: http://able-inc.org

The Violet Flame

A friend recommended me to the owner of the Violet Flame. We talked about what she wanted on her website and the purpose it was to serve. Inspired by flames on the previous site I came up with the header for the new layout. I then used different shades of violet to create the layout. This is the first site that I created as a job. All previous sites were all volunteer projects. While working on this site I explored the possibilities of using a Content Management System (CMS) to allow the content on the site to be easily added and updated. Prior to this I never used a CMS and I discovered the ease of use and power of a CMS with this project. For this site we used Drupal a free and open-source CMS.

url: http://violetflame.biz

The Cathedral of Saint Joseph the Workman Cathedral

I was recommended at a meeting at the Cathedral for webpage work. When it was time to redesign the Cathedral webpage a group of three people emerged. I was one of them. Later a fourth person was added to the group.

My part in the project was to provide the CSS knowledge. I helped take the layout mockup from being just a picture to an actual webpage.

Current Site url: http://www.cathedralsjworkman.org/
Alternative Site url: http://csjw.org

University of Wisconsin-La Crosse

With the transfer from High School to College, I also transferred from working on the Aquinas High School website to the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse website. I was looking for a part-time job during the school year. My friend told me that he was working on the University website over the summer and told me that I should look into the same job. I started that job two weeks before classes began. It turned out to be a great fit for me. I was able to continue working in the area that I was most familiar with, Websites.

At this job I learned about Sharepoint and Dreamweaver. These are programs that are often used to easily design websites. I haven't/don't really need these since most of the time I create sites by hand coding them. But, one thing that I didn't know about was the Template feature of these applications. Templates allow for navigation links and design changes to be easily and quickly propagated throughout all the pages on a site. This is a huge time saver when updating static HTML pages.

We have also explored the possibilities of using Server Side software programs such as Drupal, Wordpress, WIKIs, and a whole bunch of other applications. I have also learned some about creating flash animations, creating flash videos, and using a flash streaming server.

URL: http://www.uwlax.edu