These are some web sites I worked on between 2002 and 2007 in Berlin. Some are probably offline or have been replaced by a new site now in 2011.

NSYachts

http://www.nsyachts.com/list.php
Search engine / yacht database

Quetzal Tours and Gorilla Trekking

http://www.quetzal-tours.de
http://www.gorillatrekking.de
Site design, programming, search engine optimization. About 60 HTML pages. 11 page PDF catalog. Design concept.

Sich Lieben Lernen

http://www.sich-lieben-lernen.de
Web portal for women, PHP driven. Includes Flash chat and PHP forum. Backoffice to edit all content. Design concept by Juano.

Massimo Sex d'Electro

http://www.massimosex.com
HTML website with Flash menu. Scans image folders automatically to avoid editing pages. Simple contact form.

David Monros

http://www.davidmonros.com
Added new content to the existing website of this know artist from Menorca. Improved Flash menus, added map + video. Note: this site has been replaced by a new one in 2010.

Emblematica search engine

http://www.studiolum.com/en/biblio.htm
With XML import from Endnote 7

Mevisa

http://www.mevisa.es

PHP Backoffice programming for Dot Project

Margarita Morales
Mariachi el Dorado
Musagetes Quintett

 

I started my own virtual tour project early 2006. I tried pushing the limits both in hardware and software for three years, working together with my brother. We probably created over 30 virtual tours in Mallorca, Madrid and the Canary Islands. But we finally gave up and sold the equipment. We used a one-shot 360º lens I ordered from USA.

• Full screen VR panoramas help people sell their properties.
• Fast even in full screen mode
• Windows, Mac and Linux compatible
• Hotspots and an interactive 3D Flash map ease navigation between rooms.
• Flash map design tool allow easy creation of isometric maps.
• Quick previews and incremental rendering make it feel quite responsive.
• An info layer provide information about each room when desired.
• Custom JAVA applet configuration.
• Self made 360º photography with dedicated equipment.

I will later update this post and explain all the software and hacks we used to be able to create virtual tours quickly and for a low price.

I developed the second version of garitocafe.com in 2005. It included over 50 hours of streaming audio and video. Again, it's a fully database driven Flash web site. I created a dual server set up, where part of the data was in Europe and part in USA. The servers communicated with each other. The whole Flash interface was only 30 kb heavy, and all texts and media were loaded on demand. I programmed a mailing list with delivery control so recipients could be easily removed if their addresses no longer existed. The mailing system allowed previewing HTML e-mails with images, and exporting of all contacts in VCard format. The Flash web site had a parallel HTML site so search engines could index and link to any part of the site. The site interface was pure ActionScript, including layout, animation and interactivity. The design concept was again done by EggCommunity and I did all the rest (layout, PHP + MySQL backoffice, animation, ActionScript programming, mailing system).

In 5 weeks in 2003 I programmed this on-line education website and its control panel together with my cousin Carlos. We used PHP and MySQL to build it. The design concept came from Dot Design, which I then adapted to CSS. e-mergetoledo.com is now offline. The project came through Bilbilis. We think someone hired him to create this site just to get some money from the European union.

The client needed a website with three parts:

1. An on-line school that will allow users to register, pay, download documentation, take exams and view results. It must include a graphical Flash interface to access the different sections. 
2. Informative pages with updatable events and PDF magazines to download.
3. Full backoffice to allow creating and editing courses, update documentation, control students, change events and magazines...

 

The idea behind the Ikarus project was to create a web platform to control satellite communicators in different ways. Together with my cousin Carlos we created the first version of this web platform in 2001. The plan was to be able to see in an interactive map where your truck, boat or airplane was at the moment, where it had been in the past, read variables sent from the devices (for example pressure, temperature), and be able to send and receive messages from those devices. The hardware used the Orbcomm satellite network and the whole concept was created by my friend Miquel.

The main parts of my work were creating a back end, a front end (both using PHP and MySQL), and a Flash based MapServer interface component. This 15 Kb component was quite innovative at the time. Normal use of MapServer required clicking arrows which would reload the whole page (at a time where people still used modems). I created a map interface that could be simply dragged around, the same way Google Maps did it 3 years later. It took more than 5 years for similar web map interfaces to become popular.

MapServer was able to generate images in different formats. I realized that if I used PNG images the file sizes were really small, less than 2 kb most of the time. But Flash was not able to load PNG images so I did a PHP script that would do server side PNG to SWF file conversion on the fly. It worked really nicely. The project did never really take off. It was hard to sell this idea in Mallorca, where we lived at the time. To prove how useful it could be Miquel designed a floating transmitter and offered it for free to track the oil spill in north Spain in 2002. Unfortunately no one seemed to know who was taking the decisions during this crisis, and the help was never accepted. In 2003 our system was tested in a boat expedition from Mallorca to the Antartic. We created a simple web page for this project, which would receive coordinates, texts and photos from the boat, and present them as a blog. At the time I was quite proud of using CSS. I think it was probably the first time I developed and styled the whole web site using style sheets. It made it so easy to update!

In 2002 I was asked to create a complex website for a closet design company in Mallorca. The idea was to build an on-line tool for designing closets. This tool would be used by employees in front of customers visiting their shops, and directly by customers at home over the Internet. This was one of the most complex  projects I've finished. It took me six months.

Unfortunately after it was finished the owner of the company changed, and the new owner was not interested in having a web page at all. The project included:

• The corporate website which I designed.
• The back office which allowed a complete follow up the process, from design to construction and invoicing. It was possible to enter all kinds of materials, sizes, prices based on ranges... gives me a headache just to think about it :)
• On line Flash/ActionScript design tool. It allowed designing both inside and outside of the closet, including drawers, shelves, bars, divisions, sizes, walls, materials, doors. Rules defined conditions of what's allowed in a design and what not. Simple key short cuts allowed creating designs fast. The whole Flash tool was only 23 Kb. Did I mention I like optimizing? :)
• I created a 3D rendering server using Flash, PHP and POV. Photographic quality and lower rendering times were tested using radiosity and a more powerful PC, but the client was not interested. I built this server concept in such way it could be installed in many computers, even home computers with non permanent Internet connection, a bit like SETI at home. Computers would ask the main server if there were pending renders to do, and if there were any, the information would be downloaded, the image rendered, and sent back to the server.
• Printing of closet details: dimensions, materials, and the 3D image. This print out would be used for constructing the closet. The page design was done using ActionScript for precise layout and font control, as opposed to HTML which gave unpredictable and limited results.

In 2002 I created this database driven Flash web site, which is now offline. I was very proud of this site because the interface was only 28 Kb. People often critisized Flash because sites were heavy, but heavy sites were created by developers who embedded megabytes of images and sounds into each project. As this project showed, it was possible to make a Flash site that loaded much faster than an HTML site. Even with a modem (they were still used at that time) it loaded in seconds.

I created this project for Global Red, and the whole concept, design, programming and back end was my work. The final client was Finques Armengol, a real state company that sold properties.

In 2001 I created the first version of this complex Flash website for the popular Garito Cafe in Palma de Mallorca. I was working at Global Red at that time. In 2005 it was replaced by version 2.

What was special about that site?

 

• 100% updatable database driven Flash website (program, recommended music, links, djs, staff, concept, intro text, club pictures, gallery, videos thumbs, audio sessions, dj videos, other videos)
• It was created when Flash could not load JPG files. I created a complex image administrator that converted images in any format to SWF using ImageMagick and PHP. It included resizing, cropping, automatic levels and sharpening.
• It included an audio player with playlist.
• Content was updated monthly.

The design concept was created by Xim Izquierdo. Jose Manuel Ramirez from Global Red did additional design and animation. I did all backoffice and Flash programming, additional design and animation.

I created this PDF generator while working at Global Red in 2000. The client was an international hotel company. Thanks to this system almost 500 PDF files were being generated in less than one minute, so offices around the world could download the latest information to be printed and shown to clients.

I created programming rules to change automatically the color, logos and other page elements depending on the type of hotel. I created a new TTF typography including the company logo and several special characters. This allows adding vector elements to the PDF file for higher resolution printing.

The files were created in 6 different languages.