Archive for July, 2009

Google Maps Aps

Monday, July 27th, 2009

I had an interesting chat with Eric Nance and Neil Corman, associates of mine and  members of IndieArsenal, during our happy hour meeting last week regarding making some improvements to the IA website. They had a great idea of adding a map that lists upcoming events with a visual indicator of priority and a member listing that lets the viewer sort members by their businesses.

I dig it! While I’ve only done really basic work with Google maps before, I think this should be a snap with some fancy AJAX work. I’ve begun a prototype of it already and plan to continue doing work on it this week. So far I’ve been impressed with the ease-of-use of all of Google’s APIs (despite the stereo-instruction-like documentation).

Later I’m going to set it up as a plugin for ExpressionEngine (their content management system) to re-use the existing user data from the IndieArsenal website. Stay tuned- We’ll post it as soon as I’m done!

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Posted in Case Studies, Web Development

iPhone, Facebook and Aps Oh My!

Monday, July 20th, 2009

So, I’ve recently become an addict to some of the new applications and games found on Facebook, and I have to say I’ve been very impressed with a lot of them. Using a mix of PHP, databases, Flash interfaces and access to Facebook’s database API, a number of companies and individuals have rocked out some massively complex games and programs.

A number of my friends and customers have asked me if I develop any aps for either of these devices/websites and up until recently, my answer has been: no. However, I’m posting this to announce that as of this month I’m going to start researching Facebook aps, and will very shortly be obtaining an iPod touch with the notion of developing some aps for it (my iPod finally died after almost 4 years of hard work running my car stereo!).

Stay tuned!

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Posted in IT & Tech, Web Development, business development

Launch – CustomChannels Ad Solution

Sunday, July 12th, 2009

Earlier this week, my friends CustomChannels.net – producers of CD quality internet radio “side channels” and I released yet another new version of their Flash online media players. This year, we decided to offer Flash solutions as well as Silverlight in order to cover the broadest market possible (and it actually has slightly higher quality audio).

CustomChannels

CustomChannels

This iteration includes a fancy schmancy integration with my favourite OpenSource adserver, OpenX. I’ve written a number of PHP/mySQL plugins that alter the ad delivery mechanisms and allow the same demographic statistical tracking as the standard server package. With this in place, our stations are now far easier to upgrade and feature tracking on total unique listeners, number of ad impressions, and ad clickthroughs. This server even features a cost tracking ability which allows them to let their advertising customers literally pay-per-click.

Eventually they’ll even be able to leverage it to sell on-air ad space. Way to find yet another method to get your loyal customers some bucks, guys! Check out some of our new stations on CustomChannels.net’s listen page.

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Posted in Case Studies, Web Development

Site Launch- Acoustic Eidolon

Saturday, July 11th, 2009
Acoustic Eidolon

Acoustic Eidolon

Purveyors of unique acoustic sounds – Eidolon, and their contractor, Barnaby and Associates contacted me to use an existing design to integrate into WordPress and to build a new store-front.

Using a series of hand-made PHP/mySQL plugins, Eidolon gains a unique look and feel using Flash elements and still maintains the ability to independently update their content. A from-scratch shopping cart system allows them to manage their albums and merch via a simple admin tool while taking automated credit card orders.

The long awaited launch occured this weekend and I think the results speak for themselves. Well done everyone!

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Posted in Case Studies, Web Development