Portfolio

This portfolio is an archive of selected projects that I worked on from 1999-2008.

Featured projects are marked with a Star icon.

Web Projects

ASTD

Insider: Membership Benefits Tour

This small website consists of an overview and six subpages, coded in Flash and HTML.

The animations are upbeat, the music is cheesy, and all the external links are probably dead by now.. but the main nav has a fun wiggle, so check it out.

2004

Technologies used: Flash 6, HTML, CSS, JavaScript

American Express

My Family Vacation

I developed the "My Vacation" Flash engine knowing that it would be reused across multiple sites. Special attention was paid to data architecture, flexibility and reuse of components from site to site, to keep updates as quick and painless as possible.

The data for this website was stored in XML, and a custom internally-developed XPATH / XSLT library was used to handle selection and transformation of content. All fonts were loaded dynamically, and flash text was styled with CSS.

And like nearly all AMEX sites, almost every click is tracked via custom JavaScript code.

2006

Technologies used: Flash 7, XML, XSLT, RSS, CSS, HTML, JavaScript, ASP

My Sun Vacation

I developed the "My Vacation" Flash engine knowing that it would be reused across multiple sites. Special attention was paid to data architecture, flexibility and reuse of components from site to site, to keep updates as quick and painless as possible.

The data for this website was stored in XML, and a custom internally-developed XPATH / XSLT library was used to handle selection and transformation of content. All fonts were loaded dynamically, and flash text was styled with CSS.

And like nearly all AMEX sites, almost every click is tracked via custom JavaScript code.

2006

Technologies used: Flash 7, XML, XSLT, RSS, CSS, HTML, JavaScript, ASP

Biogen

MS Leaders of Hope '04

This very small, simple HTML site was coded entirely in old-school "tables & quirks mode" HTML.

The homepage flash animation was positive and energetic, with an upbeat cut of music from the ol' stock library.

2004

Technologies used: HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Flash 6

Converse

2002 Web Redesign Prototype

Unfortunately, this hybrid HTML / Flash site never got past the prototype stage, as our client there got fired.. and with her, so did we.

But, nonetheless, the main nav we created was pretty innovative and a lot of fun to use. I've always wanted to use the concept in another project.. and perhaps someday I will!

2002

Technologies used: Flash 5, CSS, HTML, JavaScript

E*Trade Financial

2004 Annual Report

Another very small, simple HTML site that was coded entirely in old-school "tables & quirks mode" HTML, this time using Dreameaver templates.

Trying to save time in a creative way, I used JavaScript to show "current" status in the main nav, which kept the nav template simple. Of course, when the client recoded this site to work in their new CMS a year later, they broke the nav-highlighting functionality. Oh well!

The homepage flash animation was simple, featuring design elements from the E*Trade logo.

2005

Technologies used: HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Flash 6

Impact Consulting Enterprises

2002 Web Redesign

A small, simple, clean HTML website with a Flash intro.

As with many of my older sites, this was coded entirely in old-school "tables & quirks mode" HTML, and isn't remarkable in any way.. but it looks cool, so it's here.

2002

Technologies used: HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Flash 5

Jason Foundation

Pangea Media

Personal

Cowboyscripts.org

I designed and created this personal website in 1999 as a showcase for my assorted FPS- and mIRC-scripts. Eventually I added my Applescripts as well as a JavaScript webcam script and bookmarklets.

Because of the popularity of my scripts, the site got over 10k hits in the first few weeks. Not bad for a small niche in '99.

Despite the fact that I haven't updated the site or its contents in a few years, it's had over 300k hits, and still sees a few dozen daily script downloads. (Most from Germany, interestingly enough)

1999

Technologies used: HTML, CSS, ASP

RJ3 Productions

Big Ben Hillman

I designed and programmed this Flash website in 2002 for my good friend and associate Ben Hillman.

At the time, this website was pretty cutting-edge, with text content and music being loaded dynamically, and a unique quasi-cel-shaded animation style that I ended up using heavily in the Converse "Shine" project.

2002

Technologies used: Flash 5, HTML, CSS, JavaScript

The Freelance Bishops

I designed and programmed this simple HTML website for The Freelance Bishops as an update to their original website. The Flash intro was simple and fun, and was based on their first album cover.

At the time, I just knew the guys and loved their music. Now, I'm in the band, playing bass. You can hear me playing in the "Live" audio clips on the Music page.

2003

Technologies used: HTML, CSS, Flash 5, JavaScript

The New York Times

Small Business Summit

In order to facilitate updates, the data for this small HTML website was stored in XML, and a simple yet robust XSLT stylesheet I created to handle sites like this handled all the display logic.

Special attention was paid to the HTML and CSS, to make the site as SEO-friendly and accessible as possible, while keeping true to the designer's intentions.

2007

Technologies used: XML, XSLT, CSS, HTML, JavaScript, ASP

Viewpoint Creative

Flash Projects

AOL

ASTD

Get Listed

An email blast was sent out, linking directly to this Flash movie on the client's website, which was used as the intro to their website's new "Buyer's Guide" secton.

This piece was fun because I was given a lot of creative flexibility with my animations, not to mention the funky design and disco music.

I was responsible for all the animations, actionscript, and audio editing.

2003

Technologies used: Flash 5

American Express

My Life My Card: My Ski Vacation

This simple Flash animation lived on the homepage of the Amex "My Life My Card" website. I had to follow a fairly rigid template, as the SWF was loaded dynamically into their pre-existing Flash application.

But to be honest, the hardest part of any job like this isn't making the animation. It's getting all the necessary information, documentation, and code samples you need from the client and their vendors so you can be sure that you're actually delivering them something that works.

I was responsible for all the animations and actionscript.. and making sure that it worked.

2007

Technologies used: Flash 7

Biogen

Experience Kiosk

This interactive Flash movie was published as a SWF and then converted to a Windows executable with MDM Studio, which allowed it to play back full-frame WMV video, as well as run as a full-screen kiosk application.

The interface design lent itself to a very cool-looking layered build. Also, animating the content and giving the navigation system just the right tactile feel was key, and worked out very well.

I was responsible for all the animations and actionscript, as well as building the MDM Studio final executable.

(note: because this movie was only ever intended to be run locally, it has no preloader, and the video has been removed)

2003

Technologies used: Flash 6

Avonex: Prefilled Syringes

This Flash movie lived on the homepage of Biogen's Avonex.com and explained the benefits of their new prefilled syringes. Preloading was done in stages to give the user additional navigation options in case of a slow connection speed.

I was responsible for all the animations, actionscript, and audio editing, as well as integrating the flash movie into the client website.

2003

Technologies used: Flash 5

The Avonex Alliance

This Flash movie explaining The Avonex Alliance lived on the homepage of Biogen's Avonex.com. Preloading was done in stages to give the user additional navigation options in case of a slow connection speed.

I was responsible for all the animations, actionscript, and audio editing, as well as integrating the flash movie into the client website.

2003

Technologies used: Flash 5

Avonex.com: Celebrities

This Flash movie about an upcoming MS seminar lived on Biogen's Avonex.com homepage. Preloading was done in stages to give the user additional navigation options in case of a slow connection speed.

I was responsible for all the animations, actionscript, and audio editing, as well as integrating the flash movie into the client website.

2004

Technologies used: Flash 5

Avonex Support Kit

Along with yet another web redesign, this Avonex.com homepage Flash movie explained the contents of the Avonex Support Kit.

I was responsible for all the animations, actionscript, and audio editing, as well as integrating the flash movie into the client website.

2005

Technologies used: Flash 6

MS Leaders of Hope (v2)

This is the final version of the Flash movie that ended up going live with the 2005 refresh of the MS Leaders of Hope website. (I liked version 1 better)

I was responsible for all the animations, actionscript, and audio editing, as well as integrating the flash movie into the client website.

2005

Technologies used: Flash 6

Seize the Momentum

This was another "pump up the sales force" Flash movie that accompanied an internal email blast.

The music has just the right amount of testosterone, which is apparently one of the core requirements of a "pump up the sales force" Flash movie. The other requirement is having an intense theme graphic with large block letters.

The change in music halfway through makes this piece especially fun, and there were a few animations that were a challenge.. but ended up looking great. I was responsible for all the animations, actionscript, and audio editing.

2003

Technologies used: Flash 5

Street Party '03

This fun Flash movie served as an invitation for a party we threw for Biogen to celebrate the success of the work we had done over the past year.

I was responsible for all the animations, actionscript, and audio editing.

2003

Technologies used: Flash 5

MS Active Source

Biogen Idec

Day One

An internal email was sent out company-wide announcing the merger of two major pharmas, Biogen and Idec.

The Flash piece it linked to needed to be energetic and positive, and accentuate the major products of both companies.

I was responsible for all the animations, actionscript, and audio editing.

2003

Technologies used: Flash 5

Tysabri (internal launch)

This Flash movie accompanied an internal email blast announcing the FDA approval of the newest drug from Biogen Idec and Elan.

I created three different versions of this movie, all with different product names, because they didn't know until the last minute which name they were going to use. And because the names were all VERY different, the logo sequence had to be re-animated each time.

I was responsible for all the animations, actionscript, and audio editing.

2004

Technologies used: Flash 6

Street Party '05

This Flash movie served as an invitation for a party we threw for Biogen Idec to celebrate the success of the work we had done over the last few years.

As a throwback to the "Street Party '03" invite, we reused some of that movie's elements, but added a lot more depth.

I was responsible for all the animations, actionscript, and audio editing.. and coming up with that fantastic Jobim track in the beginning.

2005

Technologies used: Flash 6

Bristol-Myers Squibb

RAD Team Kickoff Meeting

This was another "pump up the sales force" Flash movie that accompanied an internal email blast.

The music has just the right amount of testosterone, which is apparently one of the core requirements of a "pump up the sales force" Flash movie. The other requirement is having an intense theme graphic with large block letters.

Regardless, this piece looks good, and I enjoyed putting it together. I was responsible for all the animations, actionscript, and audio editing.

2005

Technologies used: Flash 6

Broadstreet

Holiday Flash '02

This was the first annual Broadstreet holiday Flash movie.

These pieces were always brainstormed and put into production WAY too late, and then rushed to get done.. but we always managed to finish them on-time.

As usual, I was responsible for all the animations, actionscript, and audio editing.

2002

Technologies used: Flash 5

Holiday Flash '03: Snowball

This was the second annual Broadstreet holiday Flash movie. It was a little bit more involved than the first one, but still relatively simple, and fun.

You'll notice that the snowflakes and blue background from the '02 holday Flash returned this year. It became a running joke internally, as every time we needed "winter" in a Flash project, we just reused those elements.

I was responsible for all the animations, actionscript, and audio editing.

2003

Technologies used: Flash 5

Holiday Flash '04: UNICEF

Another year, another annual Broadstreet holiday Flash movie. And of course, the snowflakes and blue background return with a vengeance.

I was responsible for all the animations, actionscript, and audio editing.

2004

Technologies used: Flash 6

Holiday Flash '05

This was definitely my favorite annual Broadstreet holiday Flash movie to work on. There were a lot of complicated animations that look great.. even if I didn't get to reuse the snowflakes and blue background.

I was responsible for all the animations, actionscript, and audio editing.

2005

Technologies used: Flash 6

Holiday Flash '06: Snowman Bowling

The 2006 annual Broadstreet holiday Flash movie was originally conceived as a game, albeit a simple one. In the end, the game ended up being less of a game, and more of a movie, but it's still pretty fun.

And note the return of the "traditional" blue background, which was conspicuously absent from the previous year's movie.

We hired Dave Tilton to do the illustrations, which look great. Once he finished, I had to put it all together, along with the voiceover. I was responsible for all the animations, actionscript, and audio editing.

2006

Technologies used: Flash 7

Broadstreet / Cosmic Blender Merger

Business Objects

Cisco

Strategy Translator (left nav)
Shareholder Value Made Simple: Show

Converse

Cosmic Blender

Gen Re

Risk & Rewards

Genzyme

Fabrazyme

Intranets

Intranets.com

Back when Intranets.com was actually free (watch the Flash and savor the irony), and before they were bought, we created a Flash demo that explained their system and its benefits.

The client was very challening to work with, but after 8 major revisions, we got the job done, and the Flash went live on their site.

Preloading was done in stages to show additional content up-front in case of a slow connection speed. I did all the animations, actionscript, and audio editing.

2002

Technologies used: Flash 4

Momentum

Integrated Marketing Intelligence

This simple Flash movie served as the introduction to a section of the client's website.

I was responsible for all the animations, actionscript, and audio editing.

2003

Technologies used: Flash 5

Pangea Media

Pfizer

EUCAN: Sitemap

The idea here was to make a functional sitemap that actually looked like a map. The challenge was that the map was huge, and we didn't have a ton of real estate to work with.

So, I came up with this idea: the map should zoom in to show the button you're hovering over, as you navigate the map. The level of zoom is dependant on the size of the button you're zooming into.

The programming wasn't too difficult, once I figured out how to make it work in a way that wasn't totally confusing.. even though it can be a little spastic.

2003

Technologies used: Flash 5

Change Happens

This simple Flash movie served as the introduction to an online learning course website.

I was responsible for all the animations, actionscript, and audio editing, as well as integrating the flash movie into the website.

2004

Technologies used: Flash 5

CCI: Drag & Drop Quiz

Starwood

SIXSIGMA: Innovation interCHANGE

This webpage hilighted select Flash pieces from Starwood's SIXSIGMA online training course, so that our client could show it off internally at Starwood.

What you see here is actually just the tip of the iceberg; the project actually consisted of four web modules, each with many pages, JavaScript DHTML quizzes, and at least a half dozen flash pieces.

I was responsible for all the animations, actionscript, and audio editing, including coming up with a system to sync these flash animations to dynamically-loaded audio, so users with slow connection speeds could save bandwidth by disabling the music without adversely affecting the framerate of the movies.

2002

Technologies used: Flash 5, HTML, JavaScript

Proposals / Pitches

AOL

AOL Media Networks

Bayer

ASPIRE

Celebrity

What's Next?

Cisco

SWAT

Intercontinenetal

Kimberly-Clark

Birth

Shire

HunterPatients.com

Solvay

Blinded by Science

Starwood

Takeout

This simple animation illustrated a concept we had come up with for some RFP over at Starwood. I don't even remember what it was.. but the music is cute.

I was responsible for all the animations, actionscript, and audio editing.

2002

Technologies used: Flash 4

Virgin

Fun & Games

PBS Kids

Get a Kiss from Clifford

A very simple color matching game, with amusing illustrations and animation, co-produced with Fablevision.

2001

Technologies used: Flash 4

Slide on Clifford

A very simple color matching game, with amusing illustrations and animation, co-produced with Fablevision.

2003

Technologies used: Flash 5

Help Clifford Stay Warm

In this very simple drag & drop activity, the user must drag the correct items onto Clifford to win. Co-produced with Fablevision.

2000

Technologies used: Flash 4

Personal

Reading Rainbow

Silly Sentence

The user assembles a silly sentence, which is then read aloud, in this simple game. Co-produced with Fablevision.

2002

Technologies used: Flash 5

Logo Animations

Cosmic Blender

Company Logo

MarketSoft

Company Logo

Navic Networks

Company Logo

Starwood

Operation Innovation

Miscellaneous

Gaming

Warhammer Online Addons

Occasionally, I have an idea for an addon that may improve the game's UI.. and even more occasionally, I actually find out that nobody has already created this addon! Then I stop playing, start coding, and the rest is history. This is a link to my profile on Curse.com with my public projects.

2008

Technologies used: Lua

World of Warcraft Addons (Outdated)

While I was playing World of Warcraft, I often had ideas for improving the game's UI.. and when the idea seemed good enough, I usually just started coding a solution in Lua.

This is a list of the interfaces that I released publicly.

2006-2007

Technologies used: Lua

Katamari Damacy CycloDS Skins

I bought a CycloDS Evolution ROM cart for my Nintendo DS, and while looking around for extras I realized that there was a distressing lack of quality Katamari Damacy skins.. so I made three of them!

If you're a Katamari Damacy fan and own a CycloDS, you'll love these. If you've never heard of either Katamari Damacy or CycloDS.. well, don't bother looking. It'll just confuse you!

2008

Technologies used: Photoshop CS3

Google Gadgets

Personal

3D Flash Engine

Even though I started this series of Flash experiments out of pure curiosity, it ended up becoming the basis for the main naviagtion in my personal "Cowboy 4.0" site.

2003

Technologies used: Flash 6

Safari Start Page

This webpage is generated by applying a custom XSLT stylesheet to my Macbook's Safari bookmarks XML file, which is then uploaded to the remote server where inline PHP handles the dynamic functionality.

All of my bookmarks are listed hierarchically on the left. On the right, boxes with my favorite search engines and my favorite RSS feeds are listed. Dynamically-loaded CSS themes allow for custom layouts.

On the server, Magpie RSS is utilized to handle RSS caching, and AJAX is used for tooltips and auto-updating the feeds.

2006

Technologies used: XML, XSLT, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, PHP

Cowboy's Ride

I was so excited about getting my first "real" car that I made a website for it. (This was a very long time ago, so please.. be gentle)

2001

Technologies used: HTML

This Portfolio (XSLT Source)

While benalman.com is based around a customized Movable Type Open Source installation, not all of the content served is managed through MT. The portfolio page of this website was built in PHP, using XML and XSLT. This is the XSLT source that renders the portfolio and its subpages.

2007

Technologies used: XML, XSLT, HTML, CSS, JavaScript

RJ3 Productions

Royal Family Screensaver