Client: Lightbox Network

Role: Lead Flex Developer

Technologies:

• Flex
• PHP
• MySQL
• AMFPHP
• BlazeDS
• ImageMagick

Need:

Lightbox Network is an industry leader for professional digital photography workflow, with clients such as NBC Universal, New York Daily News, MillerCoors, Getty Images, Hallmark Channel, Time, and Nickelodeon. They needed a web-based application to allow professional photographers and editors to collaborate remotely.

Summary:

The Live Media Desk application (see overview video) enables real-time collaboration of photo shoots between photographers and editors. As photographers upload images, they become immediately available to editors working remotely to filter, adjust, rank, edit metadata, and forward images. With Live Media Desk, images can go from a photographer’s camera at an event to the desk of an editor, then published to a public web site within minutes.

I was the lead Flex architect and developer for this multi-year project, The biggest challenge was to make the web-based program perform like a desktop application.

To accomplish this, I designed and implemented the following strategies:

• Image and data caching to minimize server round trips
• Priority-based request queuing to manage all HTTP/HTTPS calls, including images and AMFPHP function calls
• Heuristic-based image preloading to anticipate user needs and produce a seamless user experience
• Real-time image filtering in the Flash run-time to match server-side image filtering done with ImageMagick
• Breaking the application into modules with run-time configuration and dependency management
• Real-time updating system using custom messaging delivered through BlazeDS connecting to PHP through STOMP, JMS and ActiveMQ

Client: Skycomp

Role: Developer

Technologies: Flash, Zinc, JSON

Need:

Skycomp wanted to replace the need to print out 1000′s of traffic survey pictures so that “counters” could scan through the pictures and count vehicles, marking each picture with a grease pencil.

Deliverable

Sky Counter loads the images in a viewer area with marking tools to replace the grease pencil. Different types of vehicles can be marked with different symbols. The view area positions images end to end to present a filmstrip style display. All annotations are stored in a file that can be emailed back to Skycomp, enabling them to outsource the counting effort.

In building this application, I implemented the following techniques:

• File system access for loading folders of images
• Image caching for performance
• Custom zooming and panning algorithms to allow seamless functioning at a variety of zoom levels
• Annotation storage through a custom data format which allowed employees to email their tags for review and editing by supervisors

Client: eLearningRx

Role: Developer

Technologies: Flash, PHP/MySQL

Need:

LearningRx is a successful provider of one-on-one cognitive skills training that empowers anyone of any age to learn faster and easier. They wanted to expand their audience by adapting their exercises for delivery over the web.

Summary

For this project, I took the existing one-on-one tutoring program and converted the exercises to be delivered through a Flash-based GUI connecting to a PHP/MySQL back end. (see demo)

• Module management
• Individual tracking of student performance
• Light-weight graphics and optimized code to keep loading performance high

Client: Page International Screenwriting Awards

Roles: Developer

Technology: Flash

Summary:

Every year this international screenwriting contest awards a $25,000 Grand Prize, plus Gold, Silver, and Bronze Prizes in each of ten genre categories. The producers wanted to make the announcement process special, so I created a Flash-based award animation for them. The day of the announcements, the contestants log on from around the world and learn if their entry is the winner.

Client: Designo

Roles: Project Developer

Technology: Flash

Summary:

A boutique print and web design firm wanted a small Flash game to make their website stickier. I took the client’s existing logo, converted it into a space ship and allowed the user to play a fun game.

Client: Healing Rhythms

Roles: Project Manager, Developer

Technology: Flash, Director

Summary:

Interfacing with specialized biofeedback hardware, I built an application that pops-up at selected intervals and guides the user through a relaxation exercise using custom hardware. The project features a Flash application wrapped in a Director executable.

Client: Exabyte

Roles: Project Manager, Developer

Technology: Flash

Summary:

An interactive demo showing the benefits of VXA tape technology.