Brenton Fletcher's Portfolio

My new portfolio allows easy editing of my works using a web-based interface, and aids categorization of my works using a tag cloud interface. There were two main issues with my old portfolio:

• A work could only be in one category at a time; so for example, a widget that allowed you to play a game could only be in ‘widgets’ or ‘games’, but not both. The new tag cloud system solves this by allowing each work to have multiple tags – so that widget can now appear under both the ‘fun_&_games’ tag and the ‘widget’ tag.
• It was difficult to add a new work; this meant opening a PHP script in a text editor, manually adding the HTML to describe the work, opening up an FTP program, uploading the PHP script, and checking the results in a browser. The new version allows me to add & edit works directly from my browser – and the body text of each work uses the Textile markup language to lessen the amount of HTML that needs to be written.

Random Unicode Character

This geeky tool displays random code points from Unicode along with their names.

It’s useful to see the wide range of character available with Unicode.

Australian Network for Art & Technology

From the website:

ANAT is Australia’s leading cultural organisation working at the intersection of art, science & technology; networked & emergent art practices; experimental music & sound arts; and mobile & portable platforms.


As a Katalyst project, I completed the back-end coding for the new ANAT website using Ruby on Rails, which launched 1st May, 2008.

AtlanticDVD

AtlanticDVD is one of the premier DVD rental companies in Australia, and their online store serves thousands of customers a month. In only 4 months, as Senior Developer & System Amin for Katalyst Web Design, I have created most of the code behind the new version of AtlanticDVD’s online store including full product management, checkout (with complex postage and insurance algorithms), order fulfillment (involving multiple shipments per order with varying postage and insurance costs).

The new site is implemented in Ruby on Rails, a programming language and framework I mastered on the job. This system will easily scale – which is a requirement of this, one of the largest Ruby on Rails deployments in Australia.

KeyControl

KeyControl is a game for the Apple Dashboard that tests your typing ability and reaction time. The quicker you react to changes on the screen, the more you score. And as you play, the game gets harder – you have to react faster and faster to beat the computer. Your scores are automatically submited to this web site, so you can compare scores with other players. Warning: KeyControl is addictive!