pugetive.com . code

Web Development Projects

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Hopville

2008 - Present

Ruby, Ruby on Rails, XHTML, CSS, Web Standards, Ajax, MySQL, Linux, Social Networking, SVN

Amateur Solo Project

The free online community for homebrewers. Under active but sporadic development, this has been my pet side project since 2008. Also the first relatively complex UI that I built with pixel-twiddling precision without a designer's help. Usability and getting fun/utilitarian features from structured recipe data are the driving forces of the project.
Beer Calculus

1996 - Present

Ruby, Ruby on Rails, XHTML, CSS, HAML, jQuery, JavaScript, AJAX, Web Standards, MySQL, Linux

Amateur Solo Project
Evolution of the online brewer's calculator I built while working at a homebrew shop. My longest-running web project by far. A brief history:
- 1996: CGI script in C - The first brewers' calculator on the web! Giant form to fill out, and then a landing page with the results. The layout of the results page is still the basic framework for Beer Calculus, 17 years later.
- 1998: CGI script rewritten in Perl. Still used the two-page model of a giant HTML form and then a results page.
- 2006: Single-page version. Totally redesigned for usability and rewritten into the MVC pattern with Ruby on Rails, and given its own domain name.
- 2008: AJAX version in Rails with Prototype. Still based on a poorly-factored model where the whole recipe was POSTed as a giant form on each recipe edit. Finally created Hopville, the place to save and share the recipes. Refactored the internals in order to map recipes more easily into BeerXML. Opened the ingredients database to user additions.
- 2009: Moved Beer Calculus under the hopville.com domain for easier traffic monitoring, cookie management, and Google juice. Added BJCP style information and recipe validation.
- 2010: Crossed the 10,000 recipe mark on Hopville. Refactored the calculator code to use the RESTful model, rewrote its XHTML into HAML, and reanimated its user interface into pure AJAX with jQuery.
43 Things

2004 - 2009

Social Networking, Ruby, Ruby on Rails, XHTML, CSS, JavaScript, Ajax, MySQL, FreeBSD

Web Developer

Flagship site for the Robot Co-op. We gambled on Ruby on Rails, building the whole site before the application framework was even at its 1.0 release. We were the most trafficked rails site until Twitter came along and trounced us.
Amazon.com

1998 - 2004

Unix, Linux, Perl, Catsubst (Amazon's proprietary scriptiong "language"), CVS, Mason, Object-Oriented Programming, XHTML, JavaScript, Java, MySQL, Windows

Senior Web Developer for Digital Technologies, Web Development Manager for Personalization and Automation, Web Developer

I heard they were launching a music store and got pretty fired up about being a hotshot record reviewer, but they threw me into the web development team. The most substantial contributions I made while there were helping to build the Personalization team, one of Amazon's first experiments with decentralized project management, and the features that flowed from it as it grew from a four people into several sub-teams. I continue to work with my Personalization peers today, because they are the bee's knees.
43 Places Redesign

2008 - 2009

Flash, ActionScript 2.0, Ruby, Ruby on Rails, XHTML, CSS, Ajax, MySQL, Social Networking

Web/Flash Developer

My first pro Flash feature! Created an image browser/cropper with ActionScript 2.0, in addition to standard Rails development work as part of the Robot Co-op's 43 Places redesign.
43 Places

2005 - 2009

Social Networking, Ruby, Ruby on Rails, SVN, Javascript, XHTML, Ajax, MySQL

Web Developer

The travel and urban exploration analogue to 43 Things.
43 People

2006 - 2009

Social Networking, Ruby, Ruby on Rails, SVN, Javascript, XHTML, Ajax, MySQL

Web Developer

The socializing analogue to 43 Things/Places, plus digital lifestyle aggregator.
Lists of Bests

2006 - 2009

Social Networking, Ruby, Ruby on Rails, SVN, Javascript, XHTML, CSS, Ajax, MySQL

Web Developer

We bought Bill Turner's list-making site and absorbed it into our network of social networking sites.
All Consuming

2006 - 2009

Social Networking, Ruby, Ruby on Rails, SVN, Javascript, XHTML, Ajax, MySQL

Web Developer

We absorbed Erik Benson's cataloguing site into the suite of Robot Co-op sites, rewriting it in the process.
Should Do This

2007 - 2009

Social Networking, Ruby, Ruby on Rails, SVN, Javascript, XHTML, CSS, Ajax, MySQL

Web Developer
Charming Facts Project

2009

XHTML, CSS, Web Standards

Amateur Solo Project

Revival of a project I'd started and scrapped late in my college years, creating a collection of index cards with one charming fact each. Now online, and open to user submissions. For now, I'm just putting it out there to see if something takes root.
pugetive.com

2002 - Present

Ruby, Ruby on Rails, SVN, XHTML, CSS, Web Standards

Amateur Solo Project

Gone meta! The domain name comes from the handle I coined when creating my first online account in 1994. I merged "Puget Sound" and "fugitive", nodding to my recent escape from the East Coast and arrival in Seattle. In the years since, the only non-me-related Google result I've discovered used the word in reference to the herbal remedy Senna Leaves:
Effective pugetive, even for chronic constipation.
So it goes.
Major White

2007

Ruby, Ruby on Rails, MySQL, SVN, XHTML, DNS, Web Services

Amateur Solo project

If I was going to go through the trouble of building my own photography portfolio site, I decided I might as well generalize it and offer it up to my photography friends for their use too, so I turned it into a free public site. It runs on top of Flickr's API.
National Solo Album Month

2006 - 2008

Ruby, Ruby on Rails, SVN, MySQL, XHTML, CSS, Web Standards, Javascript

Amateur Solo Project

I participated in 2005 and took over organizing the NaSoAlMo challenge the following year. The site as I built it is no longer extant; NaSoAlMo and its website are now in somebody else's capable hands.
amp ))) a music project [defunct]

1999, 2005

OO Perl, mod_perl, MySQL, FreeBSD, HTML, CSS, Web Standards, XHTML 1.0 Strict, Javascript, MVC

Amateur Solo Project

My pet project at home. We had a joke at Amazon that a standard interview question for web development candidates should be "describe how your mp3 server works". Mine started as a mammoth procedural CGI script in Perl and ended as a cleanly organized MVC app running via mod_perl. After iTunes came around I even converted their design to CSS and wrapped my site in it. Making it pixel-pefect, valid strict XHTML and cross-browser compliant all at the same time was what they call in technical jargon, "a bitch".
Site is now officially gone. iTunes smart playlists handle most of the personalization features I liked, Simplify Media handles streaming over the internet from home without having to run a webserver, and the hard drive on my iPhone can now hold most of my favorite songs anyway. Fun while it lasted!
Cellar Homebrew

1995 - 1998

HTML, HTTP, FTP, C, CGI, HomeSite, Photoshop, Windows, Unix

Webmaster (sole developer, designer, and sysadmin).
Working as self-appointed webmaster for this retail store purveying home brewing and winemaking supplies, I first duplicated the entire mail-order catalog as flat text files in monospaced font, including a "contact us" form that allowed people to request an order. That pride and joy can be perused online, including a still-functioning <blink> tag! As charmingly naive as it was, that first version was actually stolen hook, line, and sinker by a competing store, much to the flattery and bewilderment of the boss and I. I was allowed to write my first ever cease and desist letter.

A self-taught developer without prior Unix experience, I recall believing that each internet application created an exclusive tunnel to the internet, leading to a development regimen something like this:
1. Open HomeSite
2. Edit HTML page on local Windows machine
3. Open FTP client
4. Transfer HTML file
5. Close FTP client
6. Open browser
7. Refresh page
8. Close browser
Eventually I'd automated the creation of catalog pages and built a shopping cart system using CGI scripts written in C. Suspecting that I could upgrade to a skilled labor salary, I applied at Amazon.com, where I landed my first white-collar job.