B-Reel: Verdensrekord

Norwegian mobile phone company Tele2 streamed a live webcast of their verdensrekord (‘World Record’) attempt for the longest telephone call. I was the backend developer on this project, building a lightweight, bespoke CMS using CakePHP that would allow the streaming team to push live text updates to viewers of the site. I also skinned the HTML/CSS WordPress frontend.

Dealing with a live event was particularly challenging. The event time and date was planned months in advance, and publicity arranged around those dates, so there was no chance of pushing the deadline or any sort of soft launch. Additionally, specifying the server/network infrastructure for a site that would have virtually zero users at 3:45pm, but (hopefully) over 200,000 by 4:00pm, receiving close to realtime updates, took careful thought. If only node.js has been slightly more mature.

More details about this project on the B-Reel site.

Specialmoves: Lynx/Axe Europe

The Lynx Effect is multi-lingual, search-engine-optimised platform for European Lynx/Axe online presence. The site is driven by a bespoke CMS which, aside from uploading “standard” content such as images and video, by leveraging features in IIS 7 a user is able to upload entire web applications ranging from Flash microsites to a complete WordPress install.

I was technical lead on this project but also did hands-on development, working on the HTML frontend, helping out coding the Flex CMS, as well as chipping in on some of the higher level C# .NET backend.

For detailed information on developing a CMS to which you could upload “anything”, you can read the case study.

Specialmoves: R&D – Seismographika

This was an internal R&D prototype project designed to visualize the audio response to key events during a World Cup match. An audio recording was made during a match, analysed for frequency and amplitude changes, then mapped on an interactive graph against incidents such as goals scored and red cards.

Specialmoves: Cornetto

The Cornetto “Love Message” site enabled visitors to send a virtual love message “in the sky”. Enter your love message, select your location and select from a gallery of Panoramio images at that location. When you sent your message, a composited video of your message being flown across your image was delivered to the recipient’s mobile.

An additional component was an instant-win competition engine that backed up the campaign. Integration with third-party APIs, reliability, security and protection against fraudulent claims were amongst the many issues dealt with on this project.

I worked on both the Flash frontend and PHP backend.

Specialmoves: MyDeco Room Designer

The first version of the MyDeco Room Planner allows you to create a 3D plan of your room, then furnish it with items you can later buy. The Flex application integrated with an external render farm, as well as providing realtime previews using Papervision3D.