Things I work on sometimes:
- WhereBeYou - Easily check a Twitter user’s location (translates Twitterrific lat/long)
- DoesFollow - Easily check followers on Twitter
- SnapTweet - Easily share Flickr photos on Twitter
- Austin On Rails - I co-founded and currently run the Austin Rails user group
- VitalSource Store - Buy your books like you buy your music
- VitalSource P2 - Publishers can warehouse, organize, and productize their secure content (and much more)
Things I’ve done:
- Enhanced SnapTweet to allow you to send any of your Flickr pictures to Twitter. Send a direct message with the photo’s numeric ID (uses Flickr title)…or add a custom message like D snaptweet 12345678 this is my favorite photo I’ve ever taken.
- Implemented DoesFollow for Twitter because I needed it and paging large follower lists is a nightmare.
- Enhanced SnapTweet to allow for Twitter auto-posting based on a custom Flickr tag and/or Flickr default tags. This makes the direct message unnecessary.
- Implemented SnapTweet, a Twitter/Flickr mashup site. Basically, you snap a photo from your mobile phone and email it to Flickr, and then direct message the snaptweet user on Twitter. SnapTweet posts up a message and link to your photo on your Twitter feed. (2/2008)
- Implemented a private-labeled e-book store for McGraw-Hill. The backend also supports the automated creation of time-limited demos and rental versions of their e-books. (2007)
- Implemented the VitalSource API (REST) for manipulating order items and user accounts. (2007)
- Adapted the VitalSource Bookshelf embedded store for use by all in a web browser. Also included an affiliate marketing program implementation. (Dec. 2006)
- Presented a one hour talk called Agile Databases With Migrations at the First International Rails Conference in Chicago,IL (2006). The talk has been downloaded from my web site over 7000 times.
- Developed, with my wife, the Da Vinci Code Companion product, an electronic book in VitalBook format which delivers chapter summaries, cross references terms to Wikipedia (and other sources), and embeds high resolution photographs of sites in the novel. (2006)
- Launched, with James Duncan Davidson, Mike Clark, and the VitalSource engineering team, one of the first notable (and unique!) Rails-based sites out there (2005). With some trickery we’d developed over the years, we cleanly integrated authentication and a full e-commerce enabled bookstore displayed directly into our native Cocoa and .NET applications with an embedded web browser.
- Developed a very large Rails-based digital asset management system called VitalSource P2 with Dan Benjamin. This included a complex data migration from an existing J2EE system, as well as simultaneous Hibernate/ActiveRecord model access. (2005)
- Wrote the data migration for A List Apart from version 3 to version 4 of the site. My bio on ALA is here.
- Traveled the Western United States with my wife and golden retriever for 8 months, visiting over 20 national parks along the way. [route map]
- Board member of Austin Java Users Group (AustinJUG) (2001-2004)
- Presented a 90 minute talk called Object Persistence Approaches comparing JDO, EJB, and EOF persistence approaches at the No Fluff Just Stuff™ Symposium in Austin, Texas (2003).
- President of the Java Metroplex Users Group (JavaMUG) (1999-2000)
