School of Journalism & Mass Communication: During my time at the Texas State University School of Journalism & Mass Communication, I was the assistant web content manager for the school’s entire website. The biggest challenge I dealt with was rolling over the old SJMC website to the new modern 2015 template through the GATO CMS, which is essentially like a WordPress for school’s or enterprises. Due to the shear amount of web pages on the SJMC website, this task took months, but if you look at the school’s website now, it’s a fantastic mobile-friendly responsive design. I’m very proud of how modernized the school’s website has become.
Additionally, I was also an assistant blog content producer for the SJMC’s blog. You can find several journalistic articles I wrote for the school.
Crime Watch Austin: Crime Watch Austin is the outcome of my entire studies at the Texas State University. Essentially, it represents the pinnacle of every digital media skill I’ve learned and taught during my career as a web developer. The website is designed through a responsive Bootstrap theme and makes significant use custom HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and jQuery.
Crime Watch Austin takes a look into the details surrounding the crimes that occur in the Austin area. I used data provided directly from the cities of Austin, Dallas, and Houston to create visual representations of crime statistics, as well as police brutality through Google Charts. The charts are responsive and pull the data directly from JSON arrays through use of custom JavaScript.
The first major feature of the website is a datatable that allows the user to search through every single crime reported by the city of Austin. Users can search any category, where its zip code, the name of a crime, or the date. Because of the vast amount of entries, I elected to use a plugin called DataTables because of its integrated pagination functionality.
The second major feature is a crime heat map that shows which Austin zip codes have the most frequent crimes. This was accomplished through use of a Google Fusion Table in addition to the KML map file for Austin. The result wasn’t surprising, crime occurs more often in downtown Austin rather than the outskirts.
KTSW-FM 89.9 Statistics: The KTSW statistics project is quite similar to the aforementioned Crime Watch Austin project in the sense that the same tools were used for both sites. The KTSW project is based around a responsive Boostrap theme and makes full use of my coding skills, whether its HTML, CSS, JavaScript, jQuery, and various plugins like DataTables or Google Charts.
The first major feature of the KTSW project is a responsive timeline that tells the history of the KTSW radio station. This slider is powered by KnightLab’s Timeline JavaScript library, a small JavaScript library that allows for journalistic storytelling through basic coding.
The KTSW project also makes use of three datatables, all quite similar to the Crime Watch Austin project. The first datatable is filled with information regarding the international views from the KTSW Blog. The second datatable allows users to learn whether or whether not KTSW-FM broadcasts in their zip code or city. The second datable is also combined with an implantation of Google Maps to create a visual of the broadcasting area. The third datatable with a number of songs and artists that were aired during my time working on the project. These tables are fully searchable and support pagination.
Much like the first project, the additional sections are powered by Google Charts pulling data from various JSON arrays and custom JavaScript. In particular, the pie chart allows the user to select data from 7 years, going back to 2012.
The Nepalese Journey: During the fall of 2016, my father planned a mountain trek in the HImalayan Mountains of Nepal. Because of my schooling, I was unable to go with him. Despite this obvious limitation, I knew that I had to be part of his hike and project, that’s why I decided to equip my dad with a set of iVUE Horizon Pro video glasses in addition to his LG G4 phone for still photography.
Outside of the interview footage, the video from the project was shot nearly in its entirety from my father’s point of view. Naturally, the project features shots of beautiful mountains, ancient ruins, and much more. I’m also excited to say that my father has returned to Nepal this 2017, this time with a 360 degree camera. The second installment should be ready around January 2018.
It’s important to understand the Nepalese Journey is more than just a few video interviews with my father, it’s an entire website dedicated to his story. The Nepalese Journey uses a mobile-friendly responsive theme with a self-hosted WordPress installation. The whole website comes to life through the combination of his storytelling and my web design techniques.
Charles’s & Jarrod’s websites: Both of our websites are based around the same Bootstrap-based mobile-friendly WordPress theme. Each is a prime indicator of the type of portfolio website you could expect Amperage Media to produce for you. The sites are perfected minimalism that really provide a modern mobile-first design and highlight each of our respective skills. Don’t forget to take a visit, if you want to learn more about me or Jarrod.