Portfolio

A designer I am not, but I suppose I can do just enough to be dangerous. By dangerous, I mean throw some stuff up on the Internet that isn't offensive to the eye, but won't likely win any awards. Instead, I like to showcase the programming. See also: Resume, 25 Interesting Things Jeff Has Done With The Internet.

Technical blog

You can read technical nerdy programmer stuff here on the ASP.NET blog site: http://weblogs.asp.net/Jeff/

CoasterBuzz

This site has been with me since 2000, and has seen four different versions. The current build was launched September 1, 2008, and includes v8.x of my forum application, custom roller coaster and amusement park databases, photos and all of the amusement news you can stand. From a technical standpoint, it is not a complicated application. Built on ASP.NET v3.5, C#, ASP.NET AJAX, SQL Server, and a hint of jQuery in the member areas. It is supported by advertising and annual memberships to the coaster club associated with the site. It is represented by Federated Media, which puts it in the company of sites like Boing Boing, Read Write Web, AnandTech and Ask A Ninja.

Here's a video clip explaining how to use the "Day in Pictures" forum, a feature that makes use of Silverlight, ASP.NET, AJAX, jQuery and some Web service plumbing. It's an interesting example to me because it uses such a wide range of technologies.

Here's another video clip, this time showing how to install and use the Silverlight 3 based CoasterBuzz Feed, an out-of-browser app that lets the audience stalk what's being posted on the site.

PointBuzz

This one launched in 1998 as Guide to The Point, a fan site for Cedar Point amusement park fans. In 2004, I joined forces with Walt Schmidt and his Virtual Midway, and PointBuzz was born. It's a lot like CoasterBuzz in terms of its development, but also has a ridiculously huge photo gallery.

POP Forums

I've been messing with this application in one form or another since 1998, in old ASP at the time. An early dissatisfaction with various forum apps led me to build it, and it has been evolving ever since, currently using ASP.NET v3.5. It has been for sale on and off. This is a custom styled version used on CoasterBuzz.

Insurance.com quoting interview application

Collecting customer data for the purpose of offering an auto insurance quote is Insurance.com's bread and butter. While there, I was fortunate to be a part of the two-developer team building the new interview app. I prototyped an early version of the rendering engine, and for the production version was responsible for many of the custom controls and UI components that had to be dynamically injected into pages. I also handled some of the AJAX components, modal pop-ups, dynamic elements and other eye candy. One of my last tasks there was to build an SEO-friendly page mapping framework, which is used for the marketing site.