ChrisRidenour.com

HTML, Javascript, CSS, PHP, Search, SQL, Database Design, Web Development, jQuery, Project Management, Photoshop, Web Design, MySQL

After recognizing the difficulty of portraying all of one's accomplishments on a one page resume, I decided to finally create a website on the domain name I have had the longest, chrisridenour.com.

Initially, I was planning on using Drupal, an open-source CMS that I have become all too familiar with over the years. (You can see my Drupal projects here.) However, it had been some time since I have written a PHP system from scratch and I was excited to take advantage of the new features in PHP 5.3. In the long run, I was glad to be working in the simplicity of a custom system while trying to implemented pages such as the skill browser.

As mentioned before, this site runs on a PHP 5.3 library with a MySQL database. The other major technology used here is the jQuery Javascript library, though almost every page degrades nicely (with the obvious exception of the skill browser). The pages themself validate as XHTML Strict 1.0 but misses CSS validation due to browser specific shadow implementations.

The object-oriented library features four major content types:

• Companies
• Positions
• Skills
• Projects

Each of these can be edited directly from the browser and are protected by a simple, but secure, login system. The content types are linked both in code and in database by a series of relationships. These relationships ensure that while presenting a project, I have all data available to me at any time.

One major feature of the site is the dynamic nature of almost all content. Each image was only uploaded once and is resized and cached for any number of sizes. This is done through masking the query as a filename and ensuring that images are re-generated only as needed. In a similar fashion, many of the custom font headers are generated to keep up with changing content. They implement the same caching system.

In addition to jQuery, a number of open source libraries were used to aid in the rapid development of this site.

• Phorms
• qTip
• jCarousel

Overall, I could not be happier with how this site turned out in such a short period. I cannot thank Amanda Appiarius enough for the design, helping me focus on the content itself.