brett alton • portfolio
websites - up and running
Black Mesa
Black Mesa, a Half-Life 2 modification was in serious need of XHTML and CSS compliance along with a fresh new look. That's where I came in.
Interspecies
Interspecies wanted a fresh, new look on the web, so they employed an editor and I to re-design their magazine and give their website a facelift. The website features a PHP/MySQL backend.
Marisgold
A small, home-grown aromatherapy company in British Columbia, Heaven on Earth Enterprises needed their first presence on the web to be noticed.
Town and Country Water
A large and growing water purification company in Peterborough, Ontario, Town and Country Water wanted a website that was better than the rest. With sharp blue colours and contrasting oranges, Town and Country Water's website is the best in its class.
websites - proof of concepts
Mackie Harley Davidson
Mackie Harley Davidson needed a serious revamp of their old website as it used proprietary Frontpage extensions and was completely inaccessible to W3C-compliant browsers. The website includes original photography, an original logo and is PHP and JavaScript heavy.
Shelley Irving
An up-and-coming Ontario photographer wanted a website comparable-in-rank to Robert Bateman. Not only was the goal met, it was surpassed.
Sun Microsystems
An extremely light PHP website (100 LOC) with a fully searchable MySQL backend. The aesthetically pleasing interface is icing on the cake.
programming
Ubuntu Linux
Install VMware
Installing VMware can be quite tedious. Their are two downloads you have to make and countless fixes before you can get it up and running. I created a script to automatically take care of it all and released it publicly at the Ubuntu Forums.
install_vmware.sh (9.15 kB)
Copy Floppy
A client needed to backup over 30 floppies so I created a script to help speed things up.
copy_floppy.sh (3.31 kB)
Rsync over SSH
I wanted to make an automated backup system for my household and friends that would securely copy the user's documents to a backup server. It works out quite well and has options for installing and uninstalling and an option for running the program manually.
rsync.sh (7.51 kB)
Secure Delete
Some clients were worried about sensitive documents not being completely erased from their hard drive when they emptied their 'trash'. Its true that when files are deleted, they are simply 'unlinked' from the hard drive, so I created a program the wiped their files out of existence.
secure_delete.sh (6.24 kB)
graphics - raster
Five Bretts
A fun project where five photos of a subject plus a background had to be layered onto each other with no hint of foreplay.
Red Kiss
Another fun project that dealt with image masking but from two, unrelated sources. It was hard to get the angles to match.
graphics - vector
Brett in Vector
This graphic took over 14 hours to complete and was based on a real, raster image. The background was created by a LiveTrace in Adobe Illustrator.
Snowboards
This project dealt with making snowboard wraps for Durham College and myself. It was produced in both Adobe Illustrator and Adobe Photoshop and contains image masking effects.
graphics - layout
Interspecies
A complete reworking of Jim Nollman's Interspecies Magazine by myself and editor Michael Da Silva. We produced eight magazines in PDF form (Vol. 1, Issues 1-8) which can be found at interspecies.com/newsletter. A sample can be found below:
photography
Vanilla
A contrast between a bright blue sky and dank-looking baseball field that nature has overthrown.
Megan
A light insight into the preparation for a girl's night out with a soft motion and focus blur.
calligraphy
BrettFont
In October 2005 at Durham College, I was told by one of my professors that I was not allowed to hand in any more hand-written math assignments due to illegibility. That night, I wrote out my alphabet, scanned it into my computer and turned it into a font.
In October 2007, I submitted my font to the Open Font Library project as I wanted the font to be freely used be anyone and everyone.
As of May 19th, 2008, the font as been picked up by the Fedora Project and is now packaged and installed by default in the Fedora Linux operating system.
my resumes
contact information
about
This web development portfolio features websites I've designed and programmed; artwork, design and photography I've manipulated in GIMP, Inkscape, Photoshop & Illustrator and general programming I've produced in JavaScript (including AJAX) using Mootools, PHP and BASH.
W3C validity
site information
Last modified on 2008-06-22 (77 days ago)
Server software: Apache/2.2.3 (Unix) DAV/2 PHP/5.2.6 mod_fastcgi/2.4.6
your information
an unknown browser
an unknown system
If this is incorrect, please e-mail me and tell me what browser and operating system you're on and what I incorrectly detected it as.