The Daily Goss is an online celebrity gossip magazine. They asked me to create a Facebook application that would display the latest headlines from their RSS feed.

The application consists of a canvas page and profile entry that are essentially identical. The headlines are got from the RSS feed, while the thumbnail images are fetched directly from the news pages themselves. The data is fetched asynchronously by a cron task that runs at regular intervals. When there is new data it is parsed and stored. This means that no user ever has to wait for the data to be got from the Daily Goss site - it always comes direct from the application.

When you have nothing to say, make a list, as Wittgenstein might have said - had he been a blogger. This particular list is of some of my favourite tools for website development under Windows (XP Pro): some well known, others less so.
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I’m working on a new Facebook application for a client and being a lazy programmer I wanted to do as little work as possible while producing a good result.

I’d started building the app with the Zend Framework but while it is many ways an excellent library it is as yet only a starting point. To build any sort of real-world application with the Zend Framework will require considerable effort, and I was beginning to think this job was going to be a headache.

Imagine my delight, then, at finding Dave Cohen had written a Facebook integration module for my favourite platform, Drupal. Could that solve my development problems? (more…)

North Devon Pathfinder Trust is a charity which provides training in IT to the local area. To make it easier to track students and enrolments across their numerous centres they wanted to migrate their course management system - previously a standalone desktop Access application - to the web.

I worked in close collaboration with Mat Lemmings of Rencache Limited, an IT support consultant with a strong understanding of Pathfinder’s business and technical needs, to build a solution based on the open source Achievo ATK framework. A rapid development tool for the creation of database-centric applications, ATK proved ideal for their requirements. Pathfinder now have a centrally controlled system which is consistent across all their sites, reducing the risk of confusion and error and making it much easier to manage their data.

I’ve recently worked on extending the software to integrate data from Learndirect including ILR (Individualised Learner Record) files.

Wolf and Water Arts Company is a charity which does art work with various groups. The company wanted a new website to help them manage and present their extensive archives of material related to past and present projects. Their old site was hard to update and hence new content tended to be added belatedly or not at all.

Drupal provided a good match for their needs, with its flexible categorisation and general ease of use. Although the new site has a lot more content, it is more accessible due to the clearer menu structure and other navigation options.

“Likemind were excellent - they took plenty of time to fully understand our requirements, exceeded our expectations & delivered a splendid website on time. Training & follow up was also excellent. I would not hesitate to recommend them to anyone.” - Peter Smith, Wolf + Water.

The brief for the web site of this popular North Devon tourist attraction was to create an attractive modern site with a clear organisational structure which would be maintainable by L&B staff.

Given the large amount of content with varying needs for its presentation and management Drupal was the obvious choice. I created a custom theme and companion module that matched the major divisions of the site and installed and configured other appropriate modules. One of the challenges was in the Visitor section, which is internationalized (in seven different languages) whereas the rest of the site is not.

The result is both aesthetically pleasing (the graphic design in large part thanks to Nik Barrie, the L&B webmaster) and highly functional.

“The web site was excellent, containing a vast amount of information, supported by photography of the highest standard. With an easy to browse layout, the pages provided all the information a potential visitor was likely to need, as well appealing to the narrow gauge railway enthusiast.” - VisitBritain inspection report.

This simple Facebook application was written for musician and journalist Rhodri Marsden to publicise his DIY music project “The Schema“.

It plays a tune! To be more specific, it plays The Schema’s single: Those Rules You Made, available to purchase from all good online outlets from August 20th 2007.

“When I needed to create a Facebook application in a hurry for a music project I was working on, Alfred came up with the goods quickly, completely to spec, and kept me informed throughout. Top hole.”
— Rhodri Marsden.

Imaginary Friends is a Facebook application I wrote to explore the possibilities of the API and to act as an advertisement and demonstration of my services.

It’s quite silly, frankly: it allows you to make friends with, and chat to, some software pretending to be a person under one of a large number of different unlikely pseudonyms.

Still, it’s given me some insight into the possibilities that Facebook offers as a platform. And when I’m bored, there’s always Squirehood Armhole or Flyblow Multinomial to talk to…

I was asked by unit9.com to help develop the backend administration for Metro International’s new website. This involved radical customisation of the Drupal content management system so Metro staff could easily maintain the content of this beautifully designed site with its many complex page structures. It doesn’t look like a Drupal site, does it?

“Working with Alfred from Likemind was great, he knows how to use Drupal to do what is needed and make the project happen. I am very happy with his insight into what features will be useful to the end user without laboring on what will not be as effective.” — Yates Buckley, unit9.

The Great Torrington Cavaliers are an energetic local fundraising organization. They had an existing website but they were struggling to cope with the changes required whenever they ran a new event. They also wanted a site which would act as a centre for the exchange of information amongst their membership. I chose to use Drupal to build the site which, with its great flexibility and power, has made it much easier for the Cavaliers to publish information and present it in a well-organised fashion. The new site also has a much stronger visual design than the old one.

“Likemind Web services have helped bring the Great Torrington Cavaliers into the 21st century.

Alfred’s knowledge and understanding of the extremely clever Drupal software is second to none. I gave him our requirements and within a couple of days he had a demo site up and running for me to look at.

Having used Microsoft FrontPage previously I had a job getting my head around this new way of administering, and made several desperate requests to Alfred to get me back on track. He was always there to help and never once made it feel awkward or inconvenient.

I would have no hesitation in recommending Likemind to anyone for the website needs.

Thank you Alfred from ALL the Cavaliers — ” — Steve Blake Secretary, Great Torrington Cavaliers