chrisbaril.com
Latest Websites
A website I created in conjunction with Craig Metzger, the marketing director of IPATH Footwear and Apparel. IPATH needed a new website built before their 2010 product line was released, and Craig contacted me to see if it were possible. The website was launched in less than 4 weeks- just before their new product line. I was contracted for technical direction, server customization, back-end development, front-end development, and the launch of their new website. "I've had the pleasure of working with Chris on multiple web projects. His professionalism, skill level and whatever-it-takes attitude makes Chris the only programmer I work with on projects big and small." -Craig Metzger, Marketing Director IPATH Footwear
A website I created in conjunction with Tony Larson, the creative director of SUPERbrand Apparel. The SUPERbrand Apparel brand was launching, and they wanted a simple, user-friendly website to let the goods speak for itself. I was contracted for technical direction, server customization, back-end development, front-end development, and the launch of their new website."Chris is absolutely one of the best web developers I've ever had the pleasure of working with. As a designer I can be pretty picky and Chris never fails to make things easy to understand and to accommodate all of the many changes that invariably happen. Look forward to working on the next project with Chris!" -Tony Larson, Creative Director SUPERbrand Apparel
A website I created in conjunction with Craig Metzger and Andrew Durham, a NYC/LA-based photographer. Craig handled all of the design and we were able to create a slick flip-book effect to display Andrew's photos. I was contracted for technical direction, server customization, back-end development, front-end development, flash development and the launch of his new website.
A website I created in conjunction with Craig Metzger, a SoCal-based artist, designer, brand manager, marketing director and Instant Winner skateboards owner. Craig handled all of the design and we were able to create a very clean, user-friendly site. I was contracted for technical direction, server customization, back-end development, front-end development, and the launch of his new website. "I've had the pleasure of working with Chris on multiple web projects. His professionalism, skill level and whatever-it-takes attitude makes Chris the only programmer I work with on projects big and small." -Craig Metzger
A website I created in conjunction with Temp-Flex Cable Inc., a manufacturer of specialty wire & cable for the Medical, Aerospace, Military, Computer, Electronics, Test & Measurement and Industrial markets. Temp-Flex is a leader in cutting-edge technology and they wanted their website to show this. I was contracted for technical direction, server customization, back-end development, front-end development, graphic design and the launch of their new website. Chris is by far one of the easiest "techies" I have had the pleasure of working with. He is a right/left brain professional, highly technical yet easy to communicate with. He made our website launch a breeze. -Kim Gamblin, Marketing Director Temp-Flex Cable
A website I created in conjunction with Ben Tour, a Vancouver-based painter and illustrator. Ben handled all of the design and we were able to create a very unique, complex, user-friendly website. I was contracted for technical direction, server customization, back-end development, front-end development and the launch of his new website. "Chris helped me out big time with my site, which is the perfect online portfolio for my work. All the ideas we had for the design came out smoothly and I think my site is truely unique and navigates smoothly and easily even for a computer illiterate person like myself." -Ben Tour
A website I created in conjunction with Patrick Connelly, graphics manager at the Cambie Malone's Hospitality Corp. I was the web director of the Cambie Malone's Hospitality Corp. from November 2006 thru April 2007. My duties included technical direction, server customization, back-end development, front-end development, and content editing. "Chris Baril is an outstanding web developer whose understanding of code and computers is matched by a bigger awareness of cultural trends and target markets. Simply put, when it comes to web design, Chris gets the whole the picture, not just what's 'under the hood'. I would not hesitate to recommend Chris highly." -Patrick Connelly
A website I created in conjunction with Andy Miller, a UK-based artist and illustrator. Andy wanted a simple but powerful image gallery with several different views to display his work. I was contracted for technical direction, server customization, back-end development, front-end development, and the launch of his new website.
A website I created in conjunction with Patrick Hickey, owner of Next Generation Skateboard Shop. Pat wanted a website where customers could buy products, view the NG team footage, see what's arrived recently, or even find out they exist. I was contracted for technical direction, server customization, back-end development, front-end development, and the launch of their new website.
A website I created in conjunction with Patrick O'Keefe, a Montreal-based concept artist at Electronic Arts. Patrick wanted a clean, user-friendly portfolio website to display his artwork, illustrations and storyboards. I was contracted for technical direction, server customization, back-end development, front-end development, and the launch of his new website.
A website I created in conjunction with Dan Simmler, head organizer of the North American Jiu-Jitsu Rally. Dan wanted ralliers to be able to sign up using the website, as well as stay up-to-date with rally news and events. I was contracted for technical direction, server customization, back-end development, front-end development, and the launch of the new website.
A website I created in conjunction with Joe Castro, a Philadelphia-based musician, artist, and graphic designer. Joe wanted a clean, user-friendly portfolio website to display his collages and paintings. I was contracted for technical direction, server customization, back-end development, front-end development, and the launch of his new website.
A website I created in conjunction with Sandro Grison, co-founder and art director of Color magazine. I was the web director of Color from September 2006 thru January 2010. My duties included technical direction, server customization, back-end development, front-end development, and content editing.
Debugged Interactive Designs is a company I started in late 2007. The graphic design was done by David Kho, out of Vancouver, BC. The idea behind the company is to provide a software development lab, as well as a graphics design studio using the constantly growing network of freelance developers and designers that I have or currently do work with. Think of it as more of a collective than a company.
Latest Contract/Consulting Work
A website I worked as the technical director and senior developer. I built the entire backend using the CakePHP framework and migrated the front-end templates. The backend allows an unlimited amount of users and uses an Access Control List. I hosted the development environment locally, performed all server installation and handled the entire website launch. There was also 1 front-end developer working on the project.
A website I worked as a senior developer. I built several custom modules for the Teacher Curriculum-Sharing Community website using the CakePHP framework. The modules I built included the user management system, affiliation management system, performed CakePHP-specific-ACL research and removed many pre-existing bugs. The project required using Subversion to submit all new code and Trac to monitor tasks.
A website I worked as a developer on while in-house at Fjord Interactive in Vancouver, and later remotely from Boston. I built several modules for the trilingual McDonald's Employee Community website using an open source CMS called TYPO3. The modules I built included the back-end of their photowall (a flash-driven map of North America used to upload, display and organize user's photos), the tag engine used in the photowall (creates tag clouds and returns photos with matching tags), the search module (searches all content and comments on website and display results in 4 categories with pagination), and the weekly poll module (allows users to choose a radio button for several choices).
Open Source Projects
Php5TubeYOUTUBE API WRAPPER
Php5tube is an open source class I co-authored with 1 other developer. It was written in PHP5 to act as a wrapper for Youtube's API. Methods process the response XML and return a friendly array of data to make development simple and intuitive.
MailtoEMAIL ADDRESS OBFUSCATOR
Mailto is an open source class I co-authored with 1 other developer. It was written in PHP4 to obfuscate e-mail addresses from spam harvesters. The class lets you easily encode an entire anchor tag using ROT13 Encryption or an 8 bit, random key, ASCII Caesar Cipher. At run-time, javascript is used to decode the encryption. If javascript is disabled, then the e-mail address is safely shown by reversing the e-mail address using PHP and re-reversing (versing?) it at run-time using CSS.
PHP Presentations
I participated in the "Framework Bake Off" event organized by the BostonPHP group on June 3, 2009. Three frameworks were presented: CodeIgnitor, Symphony and CakePHP. Each of us were given a small but simple application (ended up being a task manager) to develop using our PHP framework of choice. We did all the development in real time, in front of a live audience. The idea was to explore each of the frameworks and discuss the differences. I presented CakePHP and was able to complete the app in 30 minutes and use Cake's built-in Form helper and Pagination component.
I participated in the "Show-and-tell" event organized by the BostonPHP group on September 25, 2008. Presenters were given 15-minutes to display current projects. I presented the open source class Php5tube that I co-wrote, which simplifies using the Youtube API.
Published Articles
Brita is a CakePHP Component wrapper class created to take advantage of the functionality provided by HTML Purifier. HTML Purifier is a standards-compliant HTML filter library written in PHP. HTML Purifier will not only remove all malicious code (better known as XSS) with a thoroughly audited, secure yet permissive whitelist, it will also make sure your documents are standards compliant, something only achievable with a comprehensive knowledge of W3C's specifications.
Scraper is a CakePHP Component wrapper class created to take advantage of the functionality provided by an updated version of Antonio Mota Rodrigues's open source Scraper class. The class is given a web address and a tag pattern (ie. where the data you want to scrape is located in the html) and it returns an array holding the requested data objects from that webpage.
Why would I want to use encoded "mailto:" anchor tags? To obfuscate e-mail addresses from spam harvesters. The helper lets you easily encode an entire anchor tag using ROT13 Encryption. The ROT13 encoding simply shifts every letter by 13 places in the alphabet while leaving non-alpha characters untouched. At run-time, javascript is used to decode the ROT13 encryption. If javascript is disabled, then the e-mail address is safely shown by reversing the e-mail address using PHP and re-reversing (versing?) it at run-time using CSS.
Captcha is a CakePHP Component wrapper class created to take advantage of the functionality provided by Securimage. Securimage is an open-source free PHP CAPTCHA script for generating complex images and CAPTCHA codes to protect forms from spam and abuse. It can be easily added into existing forms on your website to provide protection from spam bots. It can run on most any webserver as long as you have PHP installed, and GD support within PHP. Securimage does everything from generate complicated CAPTCHA images to making sure the code the user entered was correct.