Web Design

I've been building websites since I first got a computer. I enjoyed the coding so much that I went on to get a degree in computer science, and I'm now the webmaster at the Rockford Register Star.

Here are some samples of my work:

rrstar.com Blogs (Website)
There was an existing WordPress MU install, but it was significantly out of date (MU was merged into the main WordPress codebase in version 3). There were several intermediate upgrade steps needed, so I set up on a staging server and went to work. While at it, I redesigned the blogs to reflect the look and feel of the corporately-provided template for rrstar.com. I also wanted to improve the site traffic, so I added some plugins like YARPP for related posts, Subscribe to Comments Reloaded to keep commenters engaged after they left the site, and Advanced Excerpt so users would get a summary on the main blog page and click through to the full post. My new custom template also made heavy use of social media, with sharing buttons on every post, and Twitter follow and Facebook like buttons for those bloggers with active accounts. The result? A 40% increase in page views after the upgrade and a much better user experience.

Ad Rates App (Website)
The Register Star is rolling out Android tablets to its ad reps, which presented an opportunity to resolve a confusing part of selling online advertising: Calculating the CPM. It also gave me an opportunity to make a web app for tablets. To get everything working without reloading the page, I turned to jQuery UI. Unfortunately, jQuery UI doesn't support a touch-based interface. Touch Punch to the rescue. It translates touch events into click events that jQuery UI understands. (I did consider jQuery Mobile, but the slider event I was looking at wasn't mature enough for my use.) I also built a RESTful JSON API to access the rate data. The result? Initial reaction has been extremely positive, and the hope is that it will assist in upselling a longer run or additional impressions.

Quixotic Bakery (Beta Website)
This site isn't yet in production, but I thought it was too unique not to share. Quixotic Bakery is a ministry of Grace Lutheran Church, run by several of their youth. Rather than putting in a bulky Content Management System, I decided to build the entire site based on a Google account. There is one login for their email, calendar, order form via Google Docs and the Google Spreadsheets API, and photos via Picasa.

Chandler Team (Website)
Two BeautiControl directors wanted a site to communicate with and provide resources for their consultants. They wanted a very custom look, so this took quite a bit of CSS work (and Firebug came in quite handy). I used the Drupal Foliage theme as a starting point - click through to the theme to see the design before the CSS changes. I also used the WYSIWYG module with TinyMCE to allow them to easily update the site.

mike-owens.com (Website)
The site you're currently reading is built on Drupal as well. The theme is basically stock Marinelli, though the photos rotating at the top are my own. Some modules of note include MP3 Player for my Broadcast page and CAPTCHA because sadly even my little website became a target of comment spam.

Some other work
I am no longer an active developer for the following sites, so the work I did is quickly fading from view. They provided great experiences for me, so I will continue to mention them as part of my experience.

• Luther College Chips - I served as Web Manager at Chips for three school years. I inherited a site built on XOOPS that was well-done and functional, but proved to be insecure. I moved the site to Drupal, added https logins and LDAP, and added a staff blog.

• KWLC Radio - I was Web Manager at KWLC for two school years. The site was built in Dreamweaver at the time. Even without a dynamic website, I added a blog based on Blogger's now-defunct FTP publishing option, and got the station started in social media with a MySpace page (Yes, MySpace was once that popular and the place to be for musicians, so it was a good fit for a college radio station).