Commercial and professional sites

The Case Centre

An enormous, searchable database and e-commerce website to sell case studies for university and corporate use. This was built in entirely from scratch using CFML, a custom MVC framework, search engine technology and Javascript. It went through multiple design iterations and huge areas of functionality have been required since launch.

As of August 2025, the front page featured a slideshow, e-commerce facilities, easy search topics, a search box for the database and the ability to login to maintain your account.

Anachem

A pharmaceutical supplies company based in Luton (now since split up, sold off and reinvented several times over!) For this website, which was a basic e-commerce platform back in the timeframe of 2007-2010, I created a CFML MVC framework to handle presentation and also integration with a Microsoft Navision back-end. There was a Verity search index (top of the line at the time!) which later morphed into a Lucene-based engine. I worked entirely solo on the project until launch, which was miraculously on-time and to-spec!

Trovus

Way back before social networks were really “a thing”, a fledgling start-up called Trovus required a semi-social website to launch their servicing company. It was a bit of a failure, creatively, but taught me a lot about how to structure a project along the lines of client requirements, even if those requirements were ultimately misplaced!

The design itself was very complex for its time and required pixel-perfect placement of elements to achieve a smooth look-and-feel.

PrimeLocation

A property website with a CFML/Fusebox 4 back end that I was brought on to the team to maintain and expand. A mahoosive, bewildering beast of a website (that didn’t need to be, it just was!) I integrated with The Guardian’s website (I think, it was one of those big papers) to provide them with a property search. It was fun, for a little while.

Elsevier e-ditions

A lesson in management at Elsevier. The business customers were in the US, the development team was spread across London and India and showed me how outsourcing could be not only fascinating, but also very stressful!

Mostly, I concentrated on the “e-ditions” – electronic, online version of such books as Gray’s Anatomy and other well-known publications. My intention was to draw together the disparate websites into one platform, but resistance from the business made for a frustrating time. I did manage to implement an issue/job tracking system for them, but ultimately it was the cross-continental management that proved the job’s undoing!

The IET (formerly The IEE)

Mentoring other developers for the first time, my role changed from Webmaster to team leader in this mammoth CFML-based project. Using the Allaire Spectra CMS (remember that?!), we created a large site which dealt with membership of this organisation and created online communities where content could be distributed by use of a taxonomy. It was quite cutting edge at the time and a vast improvement from the cgi-bin days of Perl!

Websites for family and friends

These are some of the websites that I have designed and worked on over many years. Those below are all WordPress-based. Much of the content has been written, or at least adapted, by me.

Many of them look similar, in terms of layout – this makes management and maintenance a lot easier, but of course there are many, many themes out there that can be used.

In Safe Hands

For my sister, I constructed a website to highlight her parenting and child sleep services. Amongst the basic marketing and pricing material, I also encouraged her to write blog posts on a variety of topics.

RS Jumps

For my friends Ricky and Kathryn Johnson, I made a simple site for Ricky’s fencing and show jump business featuring marketing material and other content which was then maintained by Kathryn.

Standing in the Wings

Also for Kathryn Johnson, I created and launched a website for her theatrical coaching business. The website has grown over time with various other initiatives such as her own theatre company. She has now taken over the design and content management to keep the website looking fresh and up-to-date.

Sharnbrook Mill Theatre

For The Mill, they needed a website that “did a lot” and covered an awful lot of bases. Firstly, and foremost, they wanted to promote their shows, which was accomplished with a manually-maintained list of productions together with a box office/ticketing page. They also wanted to highlight membership and elements of their charitable remit, such as their Youth programme.

Raspberry Pi Pod

A semi-personal blogging website for the Raspberry Pi mini computer, and later the BBC micro:bit. This was one of the first ever Pi blogging sites (launched back in July 2012!). I’ve left the content up there as it is still useful, but my actual posting has diminished over the years. I now use it to announce and cover personal electronics projects such as my Psion 5/Raspberry Pi conversion project.

Pi Wars

For our Raspberry Pi robotics challenge competition website, we knew that we would have to keep it up to date with the current competition, but also maintain an archive of previous competitions. This is now a massive resource for running robotics challenge events. During COVID, I created a separate team management app using CFML which was used to not only keep a record of who was competing, but also the submissions and results from their challenge runs on self-built courses!

Kaye Vincent

For my author friend Kaye, I constructed a simple website to highlight her writing and other creative works.

CamJam – Cambridge Raspberry Jam

CamJam was most active during 2013-2020 when myself and my friend Tim Richardson ran events attended by 200+ people over one day. These events highlighted how the Raspberry Pi computer could be used in a variety of settings. I maintained a MailChimp mailing list and kept the site up-to-date with event announcements, policies and other information. Tim and I also developed electronics kits which are still on sale at The Pi Hut.

Blackwood Cottage Cattery in Adelaide, Australia

For my sister-in-law, I created a simple “shop window” website to show her cattery business over in Australia.