College Projects

Roll the mouse over an animal to awaken it--repeat rollover to de-activate. The origami crane is a copyright of Steven Aoki. Buddy the golden retriever is a copyright of John Rose and Daryl Wells. Moof the cowdog is a trademark of Apple Computer, Inc.

The Cal Poly Society for Technical Communication web site

June 11, 1998: I designed this site as a practicum for my Technical Writing Certificate, and maintained it as webmaster for Cal Poly STC. For details on its eventful six-month conception, refer to my Final Report for the Cal Poly STC Web Site Practicum. The site works best with Javascript in Netscape 3.0, Internet Explorer 4.0, or higher.

How to Make an Origami Flying Crane (Lite)

November 3, 1996: This Director project, a tutorial on how to fold an origami flying crane, originally had video playbacks. Since over 30 megabytes of video would not download easily, I burned in a "lite" 745K shockwave version for animated scenes that I painstakingly drew in Adobe Illustrator. This site can only be viewed with a Macromedia Shockwave plug-in, and looks better in monitor resolutions beyond 640 x 480 pixels because I originally designed it to fit the whole screen in a Director projection.

Basic Maintenance of an Automobile web site

December 10, 1996: My contribution to this Director-based project included the main menu, the entire "How to Change a Flat Tire" tutorial, and the entire "How to Change Your Oil" tutorial. This site can only be viewed with frames in Internet Explorer or Netscape 2.0 and higher, and works best with a Macromedia Shockwave plug-in.

Max Riedlsperger Map Project

This European map represents the ethno-linguistic regions during World War I (colored in by Joshua Oakes). I edited map borders in Photoshop and programmed a Javascript algorithim so that the WWI and post-WWI borders could overlap at the click of a button. This site can only be viewed with Javascript in Internet Explorer or Netscape 2.0 and higher.

ENGL 372 (Film Directors) web site

October 9, 1996: ENGL 372, a Cal Poly film class, covers different directors each quarter. I designed this page for the Winter 1997 quarter when the class studied Francis Ford Coppola and Martin Scorsese. This site works best with frames in Internet Explorer or Netscape 2.0 and higher.

Robert E. Kennedy Library's comprehensive database page

I developed a Javascript-intensive page for the Cal Poly library that featured pop-up windows to describe each database. My department took the page offline when we discovered that it didn't work in Netscape 2.0 Javascript (which the library still used in some locations). Those are the breaks I guess. This site can only be viewed with Javascript in Internet Explorer or Netscape 3.0 and higher.

ASCII Art Portfolio

I created these drawings by typing in ASCII characters to give the illusion of shape. Best viewed with a fixed font of Courier.

ANSI Animations

As of yet, HTML does not accommodate ANSI animations. So in order to view a some of my work in this field, the clips must be downloaded to a vt100 terminal system and catalogued there.

• "The Leap Trilogy"
  1. "Tristan's Leap" Based on "The Romance of Tristan".
  2. "Freedom Leap" Based on a haiku by Allan Saddi.
  3. "Psycho Leap" The climactic conclusion to the Leap Trilogy.
• "Bouncing Bomb"

Technical Communication at Cal Poly logos

I drew logo variations for Cal Poly's Technical Communication site in order to present choices for the program Director. However, when I decided to secede Cal Poly's Society for Technical Communication from its parent site, I abandoned the logos in favor of a simpler STC concoction.

Mosaic Network Brochures

As the technical advisor on a technical writing team, I researched networking (including the information in the "bits per second" conversion chart), wrote all the rough drafts, drew all the vector graphics (excluding the colored boxes and company logos), and designed all the layouts.

1. "Networking Your Business--Selecting a LAN" brochure (11"x8.5" trifold)
   • 11"x17" 72dpi GIF (both sides folded out)
   • 11x8.5" 72dpi GIF (side 1 only)
   • 11x8.5" 72dpi GIF (side 2 only)
   • Acrobat PDF format
2. "Communications for: Home Offices, Branch Offices, Telecommuters" (14"x8.5" quadfold)
   • 14"x17" 72dpi GIF (both sides folded out)
   • 14"x8.5" 72dpi GIF (side 1 only)
   • 14"x8.5" 72dpi GIF (side 2 only)
   • Acrobat PDF format

SGML and Its Value to Technical Communication

June 2, 1997: SGML represents an international standard in the Technical Communication and Graphic Communication fields, yet few people know it or understand it. This report will explain SGML as well as how it applies to technical writers and the business world.

The XML Revolution

November 2, 1998: XML lets designers customize their own markup tags. It features the benefits of SGML without most of the complexities. This article discusses the potential of XML to revolutionize global informational exchange.

Emerging Digital Trends Papers

• September 28, 1998: Reflections on E-mail
• October 30, 1998: Reflections on Output
• November 30, 1998: Things We Need: "On-Demand Television" and "Multimedia Video Conferencing"

Final Report for the Cal Poly STC Web Site Practicum

June 11, 1998: For my Technical Writing Practicum, I designed a new World Wide Web site for Cal Poly's Society for Technical Communication club. This report elaborates on the various studies, decisions, and problems that preceded the site's completion.

Senior Project: Comparison of XML to HTML for Robert E. Kennedy Library's "New Books" Database

March 15, 1999: For my senior project, I researched XML (eXtensible Markup Language) and compared it to HTML. Using an unsorted Cal Poly library database, I tagged the same books in both XML and HTML. At the time of the study, I concluded that XML's lack of World Wide Web acceptance made HTML more efficient.

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