Jason Corradino – Developer
Projects
Groupon: In the News – Press Blog
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Groupon: In The News - Groupon's press blog.
Groupon’s press blog was probably the least troublesome site I launched yet. My portion of the project started as the production manager. I only had to make sure the space was there and get the site online. But, when the person working on the site got pulled to a different project, the whole thing fell into my lap. This sounds as if it would be a pain, but it was actually a pretty easy-going site. A good chunk of the design work was already completed, and all that was required of me was to fine-tune the design based on what was wanted, and develop custom modules for the site.
This project also forced me to learn how to work and integrate a site with an Amazon S3 server, which was an interesting experience. I also have to deal with hundreds and hundreds of videos and determine the best hosting solution for them, which as of now is looking to be a mixture of Amazon S3 and LimeLight.
I would share a link, but the video use-licenses on the page prohibit publicly sharing. As soon as that changes, however, I will share.
The Tech Mumbo-Jumbo
Since I am anticipating this site to get a rather decent amount of traffic, I decided to run this off of a MediaTemple VE server, which I happen to like since it gives you full control of the box and you don’t have to worry about some proprietary piece of software fubaring the whole machine. The site is running off of a rather out-of-the-box installation of wordpress with just a few tweaks to allow for heavy traffic and integration between S3 and LimeLight. I also incorporated a partially-custom chromeless video player into the sidebar that can be edited to show any youtube video the editors may want to play.
My Project – Project/Client Management Suite
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My Project - a project management tool I am developing for clients
I am in the process of building a project management/client management tool that will allow clients the ability to keep tabs on where I am at in their project, see what is coming up, and see what is already done. It will allow clients to have a very active role in the completion of their own projects.
This has been on the back burner for quite a long time, something I have wanted to complete, and now that I have finally found some free time, I am trying to roll this out as quickly as possible. This is really something I am making for myself, but I am starting to think more and more about releasing this into the public, most likely open source.
Features
By the completion of this project, I would like to have the following features implemented:
- Projected/Actual gantt charting – Client will be able to clearly see where the project is currently, as well as where I projected it to be, allowing the client to see about when the project will be done, so it can be relayed to shareholders and stakeholders that rely on this project’s completion.
- Digital client sign off – Allow the client to log on, see what tasks I have completed, and sign off or send back for further development, giving the client a proactive role in making the site exactly how the client wants it.
- Task Proposal – Allow the client to propose further tasks/milestones for a project, and allow me to approve/deny changes and change the invoice price appropriately.
- Task removal – Like task proposal, it will give the client the ability to ask for a specific task to be removed, changing the billing of the project based on contractual stipulations..
- Billing – Using an integrated Google Checkout script to allow the client to view their invoice, and pay their bill. No writing checks, no meeting at awkward times, just quick and simple online checkout.
- Simple CMS allowing me to modify tasks/milestones and easily update the project gantt chart.
I will give an update further into this project, this could end up being pretty cool.
Happy coding all,
Jason
My Reddit Birthday – Pet Project
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Reddit Birthday Looker Upper
This is going to be a pretty short one, but I thought it was kinda cool, so I am sharing it.
As an avid user of Reddit for a few years, I started wondering when my “Reddit Birthday” is – Forgive me, I am admittedly a nerd. After some digging, I came across a simple API that spits out the information of any given user. Then I figured: others may not know about this, why not build a simple tool letting them quickly and easily look it up.
I use a CURL to retrieve the .json file, and spit out the information, then pull the response using ajax to the clean query page. That is, it is supposed to work like that, there is really nothing I can do about Reddit’s fragile servers going down because of a stiff breeze.
GrouponWorks
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GrouponWorks - The primary business development site for Groupon.
As this site is a constant work-in-progress, but has gotten to a point where I can honestly call it finished. I built this site from the ground up using a very customized foundation of the Drupal content management system. This site was designed by Lucian Slatineanu, a design contractor at Groupon, and developed solely by myself using PHP, SQL, HTML, and CSS.
Throughout the progression of this site, I have been challenged by several tasks, one of the most complicated of which was my being new to drupal, but I was able to overcome all of those and build a sturdy website, one that has never crashed, even though it is our second most visited site, seconded by groupon.com, of course.
Feel free to take a look around and let me know if you have any questions. As this particular site has taken up quite a lot of my time at this job, this will not be the first post on it, there is more to come.
Happy coding,
Jason
