Andrew's Tech Musings » Portfolio http://andrewcurioso.com Tech, Social Media, PHP, Opinions Wed, 12 Oct 2011 19:43:27 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3 FreePriceAlerts.com http://andrewcurioso.com/2011/03/freepricealerts-com/ http://andrewcurioso.com/2011/03/freepricealerts-com/#comments Thu, 10 Mar 2011 20:01:05 +0000 Andrew Curioso http://andrewcurioso.com/?p=655 FreePriceAlerts.com is a set of tools that help people save money while they shop.

It was originally built on technologies developed for myVBO but has grown to something much more. Some of its features are:

  • An advanced pricing engine that quickly finds the best prices from all over the Internet.
  • Toolbars for Firefox, Safari, Chrome, and Internet Explorer.
  • A mobile website.
  • Wishlists that users can create and share.

My own contributions to the project include:

  • Collaborated on the user experience and architecture design from the project start.
  • Developed a product processing infrastructure capable of handling tens of millions of products a day using Gearman as a job manager along with XSLT, AWK, Lex, and Yacc.
  • Designed a RESTful API for use by all client applications.
  • Partner integration.
  • Designed a scalable cloud based multi-tier infrastructure.
]]> http://andrewcurioso.com/2011/03/freepricealerts-com/feed/ 0 AccessiblePlaces.in http://andrewcurioso.com/2011/03/accessibleplaces/ http://andrewcurioso.com/2011/03/accessibleplaces/#comments Thu, 10 Mar 2011 15:52:39 +0000 Andrew Curioso http://andrewcurioso.com/?p=653 I had the pleasure of attending the Boston Hack Day challenge in 2011. I came without any ideas of my own. Instead, I was looking to help a team that was working on something cool and genuinely good for society. I was not disappointed.

AccessiblePlaces.in is a crowd sourced website that helps people with disabilities discover places that are accessible to them and anonymously share their experiences with other people. It is optimized to be quick and easy to use on both a mobile phone and on a computer.

AccessiblePlaces.in was conceived and launched during a 48-hour hack-day in Boston sponsored by the Boston Globe and Boston.com. The team consisted of Anthony Deaver, Sam Bisbee, and myself. In total, 32 teams competed. At the end of the weekend the project was fully working and it was awarded “Best Geo-Location Hack.” It only came extremely close to being the audience choice award (only a couple votes off).

The site was built using jQuery Mobile for the interface. On the back-end, PHP and CouchDB were used. It was built from the ground up to have an easy to use RESTful API and stores data that is compatible with the Open Civic Data standard.

I was able to flex my creative muscles a bit. My personal contributions included designing the logo, writing the copy on the Boston Hack Day wiki… and of course a little PHP and Javascript.

The project later went on to be a finalist for a 2011 MITX Innovation Award in the “Doing Good” category. Although my direct involvement with the project was limited to the Hack Day, I am happy to have helped with such a worthy project.

]]> http://andrewcurioso.com/2011/03/accessibleplaces/feed/ 0 CakeFest 2010 – Chicago, IL http://andrewcurioso.com/2010/06/cakefest-2010/ http://andrewcurioso.com/2010/06/cakefest-2010/#comments Thu, 24 Jun 2010 15:39:28 +0000 Andrew Curioso http://andrewcurioso.com/?p=333 CakeFest is an annual gathering of CakePHP developers. The 2010 conference was held in Chicago, IL on September 2nd and 5th.

I presented a talk on API Development.



 

Play Video

]]> http://andrewcurioso.com/2010/06/cakefest-2010/feed/ 0 Expert PHP and MySQL http://andrewcurioso.com/2010/02/expert-php-and-mysql/ http://andrewcurioso.com/2010/02/expert-php-and-mysql/#comments Mon, 08 Feb 2010 20:34:17 +0000 Andrew Curioso http://andrewcurioso.com/?p=185 Expert PHP and MySQL was published in 2010 by Wiley as part of the Wrox P2P series (Programmer to Programmer). It is a perfect book for advanced PHP and MySQL programmers who want to take their code to the next level.

Some of the topics covered in the book include:

  • PHP Design Patterns
  • Security
  • Writing PHP Extensions
  • Multi-tasking with Gearman
  • Full-text search with Sphinx
  • Writing MySQL UDFs
  • Advanced MySQL
  • Advanced rewrite rules and regular expressions
  • Building command-line applications
  • SOAP services
  • RESTful services
  • more…

Available in stores this now.
Pick up your copy today on Amazon.com.

What other people are saying:

For once, an “Expert” book where you not only can, but must take the title seriously.
Carsten Pedersen

The techniques discussed in this book [are] used by large sites we all know: Digg, Yahoo, Facebook, YouTube and more.. if its [sic] good for them I believe its [sic] good for you too.
Udi Mosayev

If you wrote a review please contact me and let me know.

Expert PHP and MySQL


]]> http://andrewcurioso.com/2010/02/expert-php-and-mysql/feed/ 0 myVBO – The Virtual Business Office http://andrewcurioso.com/2010/02/myvbo/ http://andrewcurioso.com/2010/02/myvbo/#comments Mon, 08 Feb 2010 18:45:42 +0000 Andrew Curioso http://andrewcurioso.com/?p=174 MyVBO is a business application created by people who know business. It brings all your business needs into one place, including purchasing, stock quotes, Quickbooks, and social media.

You can try out myVBO for free at www.myVBO.com.

I joined the myVBO team in March of 2009. My contributions to the project include:

  • Designed a full featured multi-account Twitter client with scheduling.
  • Created versatile multi-environment configuration system.
  • Designed and developed a versatile cross-platform short-polling and batch processing mechanism for dynamic data updates.
  • Developed a robust platform API (both REST and RPC) as well as ActionScript 3 consumer client libraries.
  • Created an extensible authentication system ready to accept users from multiple sources.
  • Developed a user avatar system.
  • Also contributed to: user profiles, product search, news infrastructure, product planning, billing, user interface design and operations.

Be sure to give it a try if you need a way to keep track of your business online.

]]> http://andrewcurioso.com/2010/02/myvbo/feed/ 0 Webon http://andrewcurioso.com/2009/03/webon/ http://andrewcurioso.com/2009/03/webon/#comments Sun, 01 Mar 2009 20:32:24 +0000 Andrew Curioso http://andrewcurioso.com/?p=353 I worked for Lycos on the Webon from the initial planning all the way through several major released versions. The result, a clean and easy to use cloud-based web publishing product. The project is now the preferred page building tool for another Lycos property: Angelfire.

My major contributions to the project include:

  • Software architecture design and development.
  • Supporting XML schema design (a super-set of XHTML).
  • A cutting edge web based rich-text editor in Javascript.
  • A cutting edge CSS and theme editor as well as easy dynamic theme switching and previewing.
  • Unified Javascript libraries including dynamic module loading.
  • OpenSocial implementation.
  • OpenID integration.
  • Lycos Analytics — a Google-like web analytics platform.
  • Organized Foosball tournaments.
  • Significant contributions to media management, module resizing, and project planning.
  • Additional contributions to blogging module, premium accounts, and user profiles.

Webon was a Finalist in the 2008 MITX Interactive Awards in the Web 2.0 and Social Networking category.

What other people are saying:

[Webon] is a simplified and clean way in which to make a multimedia site.
Kristen Nicole – Mashable

… a free site-building service that’s solid, simple, and very usable.
Rafe Needleman – CNET

If you’re interested in starting up a simple web site with virtually no learning curve, Webon looks like a good choice.
Adam Pash – Lifehacker

More coverage:
Killer Startups
BizInformer

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