Projects
Custom LMS for an online English tutor, using custom hosted Directus CMS install to manage her students coursework, exercises, quizzes and assignments. Front-end is being built with Nuxt 3.
My business partner Thierry Muller (now at Google) did most of the back-end development, but I helped with the strategic design/abstraction, templating, documentation, testing and design.
Stand-out features:
- Markup api - every element rendered by the framework is assigned an id that can be used to move elements around, wrap or inner wrap with additional markup, as well as add/remove attributes on any elements. Insanely powerful.
- Fields api - attach custom fields to any post type, post, page, menu or taxonomy.
- Uikit api - selectively using any of the Uikit components on any page, post type, etc.
- Caching api - only ever load a single, optimized css and js on any given page. Creates custom cache for pages deviate from the global cache.
Created the first Joomla template framework, along with admin component to customize layout, colours, child themes, backups, custom code and more.
Side Projects
Rebuilding / rebranding Savvy Garden as Permie Pro. Just finished migrating the content from Airtable to Directus (thanks to Ben for creating the migration script - more on that later). Still deciding whether to use Nuxt or Astro for the front-end rebuild. Also switching to Master CSS over Tailwind.
Companion planting web-app that I built for myself to get better at planning my veggie beds.
Built over a weekend using Airtable as the database and Gridsome to statically generate the content.
WIP Online travel guide for South Africa, aggregating data from a number of different sources to provide a clean, ad-free guide to backpacking in South Africa.
Speaking
For those new to content construction and the Zoo component for Joomla. The talk covered an overview of how content construction works, an overview of Zoo's features and a couple tricks I learnt along the way.
For those new to content construction and the Zoo component for Joomla. The talk covered an overview of how content construction works, an overview of Zoo's features and a couple tricks I learnt along the way.
An introduction to Morph, the Joomla template framework we created back in 2009. The talk included a demo of the setup process and admin user interface and finally some practical examples of theming using child-themes.
An introduction to Morph, the Joomla template framework we created back in 2009. The talk included a demo of the setup process and admin user interface and finally some practical examples of theming using child-themes.
A two part presentation that covered my tips and tips for rapid Joomla development, using Yahoo's YUI library and jQuery.
Work Experience
I was initially contracted to redesign and rebuild the previous WineFolly.com site, but was later hired full-time as the sole developer working on the site.
The site was built using the Beans framework and Google's Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) project, which aims to set a new standard for the performance of websites on mobile devices.
Some of the other projects I worked on include:
A suite of Gutenberg blocks.
An index of 260+ grape and wine landing pages.
AB Testing using Google Optimise
Custom shortcodes, including a super flexible card shortcode.
A custom shortcode preset builder.
Native integration with Klaviyo.
Feedback system for posts.
Custom post type for team and contributors.
Custom landing pages for different initiatives.
Custom API endpoints for the AMP integration.
RPC Data was the value added distributor for Oracle software in region 3 Africa. Myself and 11 others were recruited for a six month boot camp (covering software, hardware, networking and Oracles suite of products). After the training we were given full-time positions and sent for additional thee months Oracle training in Harare, Zimbabwe. The company also paid for me to do an advanced web design course at the University of Cape Town. My responsibilities including assisting the sales team with enquiries, creating proof-of-concepts, presentations and technical demos.
Volunteering
Co-founded a non-profit focussed on improving our food security by supporting local producers, while creating multiple avenues for producers to distribute their products. The project shut down at the end of last year after my co-founder pulled out.