HELLO
... and thank you for visiting the online home of
Gordon Kramer
Creative Services. Let me put my unique blend of skills to work on behalf of
your organization. I can...
- Work with your customers or potential customers to assess their needs for a website, web
application, custom software or database application, or selection of an existing product.
- Take your development projects straight through from conceptualization to design to execution
to installation and customer support.
- Interact effectively with all parties in the development life cycle: Speak plain English to
your customers, talk budget constraints and deadlines to your financial staff, speak geek to your
programmers, talk layout and color to your graphic designers, talk procedure and process to your
trainers – or, for smaller projects, assume all of these roles myself.
Towards this end, I offer a broad range of experience in enterprises ranging from manufacturing to
higher education to the fine arts, including the private, public, and non-profit sectors.
Starting with a degree in Mechanical Engineering, I have developed these skills over thirty years' time.
While possessing significant technical skills, I am not a "techie" – I can bridge the gap
between the technical and non-technical, allowing for much more efficient use of your
organization's resources, as "lost in translation" issues rarely occur in projects where I am involved. To
this I add a strong work ethic, a willingness to get my hands dirty in the details, and a
sense of adventure about meeting new challenges.
WEB DESIGN
In the area of web design and development, I offer a strong working knowledge of HTML, CSS, Javascript,
PHP, XML and JSON – I am self-taught in all of these areas, and can readily pick up new skills as
needed for any given project. In addition, I have good graphic design skills, with expertise in Photoshop
and basic knowledge of Flash and Actionscript. I can compose web pages and sites from scratch, and have
also worked with Javascript frameworks such as JQuery and Dojo, and content management systems such as
TikiWiki and Drupal. In addition to this site, feel free to check out these examples of my work:
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E-Book Access Code Sales Page
Developed for Cengage Learning for sales of access codes to their college-level Chemistry
e-book licenses, in conjunction with the Online Web-Based Learning (OWL) system authored by
the Center for Educational Software Development (CESD) at the University of Massachusetts,
Amherst. This page features a Javascript-driven tabbed interface where all content is
generated on the fly from a JSON file that can be edited independently of the HTML page,
allowing content updates without needing to edit the page itself.
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Business Office Software User Site
Developed as a customer service site for users of a client-server database application that
I developed for the IT services business office at University of Massachusetts, Amherst (see the
Application Design page on this site for details). The site provides software updates,
documentation and support for users.
-
Java Resource Center: A Resource and Networking Site for Java Instructors
Developed using the TikiWiki content management system (CMS) at University of Massachusetts, to
provide information, support, and networking opportunities for instructors and students of the
Java programming language. The special requirements of this project necessitated heavy
customization of the basic TikiWiki configuration through custom PHP programming and enhancements of the
MySQL database. To see an instructor's view of the wiki, follow the above link and log in using
instruc1 as both the user name and password.
-
Dean's List Page for Registrar's Office site
The Registrar's Office at University of Massachusetts maintains their Dean's List information in
Excel spreadsheets, and was spending many person-hours each semester manually transcribing this
information into HTML tables. In response to this, I developed a Javascript-driven page which generates
a table of the Dean's List students for each School. The listed
information is stored in a JSON file; I developed a separate, stand-alone application to
convert the Excel data into JSON. The entire process of preparing the Deans List page
for a new semester, which formerly consumed many hours and was subject to inaccuracies as data
was transcribed from one form to another, now takes about 15 minutes.
Note: The page will initially display without any students' names; click the name of any
School listed in the top area of the page.
DATABASE DEVELOPMENT
Whether you need a complete database application designed from scratch, extensions or enhancements
to an existing database, or just a new view of your data for a query or report – I can deliver.
With a thorough understanding of database design priciples, a solid knowledge of SQL, and exensive
experience developing data schemae, queries and reports in MS SQL Server, MS Access, and MySQL, I can
quickly come up to speed on your existing database project, or efficiently launch a new one. Some of
my recent work includes:
- Developing a client-server database application for the IT services business office at
University of Massachusetts, Amherst (also see my Application Design page). This was a complete
new database development using MS SQL Server 2005 with MS Access serving as the application front end.
- Developing an extension application for the Studio Abroad application used by the international
programs office (IPO) at University of Massachusetts. The objective here was to support billing, invoicing,
and transcript management for IPO's study-abroad programs – functionality not provided by Studio Abroad.
I developed a new MS SQL 2005 database to house this data, which synchronizes with the student records
in Studio Abroad, accessed through it's own MS Access front end application.
- At University of Massachusetts, developed an MS SQL database to support early identification of students
academically at risk, based on a broad spectrum of data from various campus sources. This project involved
detailed analysis of test scores, participation levels and grades in various online learning systems, and
data from classroom electronic response systems (aka PRS or "clickers") – highly diverse sources where
the challenge was to identify common factors indicating that an individual might need extra counseling or
academic support to stay on track with their studies.
- For the Java Resource Center (see my Web Design page for details), a TikiWiki CMS web application,
I extended the MySQL database schema to support enhanced search capabilities not normally present on
a TikiWiki site.
APPLICATION DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT
In developing software solutions, one of the most important challenges is to put oneself in the end user's
position, to speak their language rather than (or in addition to) the programmer's language. One great
advantage of having developed software in small companies and as an independent consultant, as I have done
throughout most of my working career, is that one learns the design and development process as a
continuous flow – much like the craftsmen of the pre-assembly line era who knew the cabinets they
built from the tree that produced the wood to the linseed oil rubbed into the finished product just
before it went to market. With this range of experience, I can perform any of the following services
for you, or manage your development project and supervise staff who are engaged in them:
- Needs assessment
- Product research
- Conceptual design
- Developing technical specifications
- Selecting development tools
- Detailed design, mock-ups and wireframing
- Database schema design
- Database development
- Coding, testing and debugging
- Developing version control and maintenance plans
- Developing user documentation and training videos
- Training
- Software lifecycle maintenence and user support
Please also see the Web Design and Database Development pages, where some specific applications are mentioned, and
the Portfolio page, where you can see examples of my work, demonstrating skills in the areas listed here.
DOCUMENTATION AND TRAINING
In addition to my technical skills, I can support your customers or end-users with excellent verbal,
writing, and graphic design skills, and a facility for communicating technical details to
non-technical individuals. Throughout my programming / development career, I have written user
manuals and conducted trainings for my own products; in addition, I have worked profesionally in
a training capacity, teaching Microsoft Office applications to business clients.
For an example, please visit the
user support site
for a client-server database application I am currently developing for the IT services business office at
University of Massachusetts. While the site in general is an example of my communications skills, you
may also want to click the
User Guides link, where you will find software manuals I have written
in connection with this project, or the
How-To Articles and Videos link.
ABOUT GORDON KRAMER CREATIVE SERVICES
PORTFOLIO
Many examples of my work can be found through the links on the
Web Design page. This includes a link to the user site for the OIT Business Office Database
Application (OBODA), a client-server database application currently in use at University of
Massachusetts, for which I designed the user interface, developed the database schema, wrote the user
guides (see the user site), conducted training, and am currently engaged in ongoing development and
support.
On the OBODA Demo Page you will see a "working" mockup of some parts
of the OBODA application, showing screen captures of the user interface with some of the buttons active,
i.e., linking to other screen captures imitating what a user would see in the actual application.
Please note that this part of the site is still under construction and shows only a small fraction of
the application. For reasons of data privacy, it is not possible to show a real working model of the
application, and parts of the screenshots are deliberately blurred to mask the actual information.
CONTACT ME
Thank you for your interest!
