[January 2009 - July 2010] I was dissatisfied with the look of Version 8 almost as soon as I launched it, mostly because of my dissapointment with the color scheme. Ultimately I chickened out and went with a dark layout that looked decent.
[August - December 2008] Without a major redesign of my website in four years, I made it my singular goal in the summer of 2008 to come up with something new. I wanted a simple, light colored CSS-based layout for 1024x768 resolution, all code to conform to XHTML 1.0 Strict and my pages converted to Unicode. I did all those things without much trouble but was never satisfied with the appearance.
[November 2005 - August 2008] During my time at Louisiana Tech, I read an article on A List Apart called Good Designers Redesign, Great Designers Realign. What I took from it was that there is no particular necessity to chuck everything when you're refreshing a website. With that in mind, I made a number of substantial improvements to the appearance and backend of the website.
[2004] Unlike previous websites I've done, this one had some semblance of purpose. Although I was fond of my previous work, I needed more room for content which necessitated a more standard layout. I was short on good ideas though so this turned out to be usable but rather blasé.
[2003] Before moving on to another concept, I decided to take another crack at LCARS. I saw a blue LCARS screen in the latest Star Trek movie and decided to try that color scheme. LCARS.blue is easily the most well-planned site I have ever created. I always scribble some things on paper but this was the first time I made some decent drawings.
[2002] I was only a contributor to this website. Thanks to the School to Career program, I got my first job as an intern working at Priority EMS. It was used by the company until they were bought out by Acadian Ambulance Service. I worked as the primary coder while two other interns did the graphic work and PHP coding for the intranet section. Even so, I learned a few PHP tricks, did something I love, and got paid for it.
![[TAG] The Assembly of Gamers](images/portfolio_thumb_tag.png)
![[TDM] The Dark Masters](images/portfolio_thumb_tdm.png)
[2002 - 2003] Shortly after leaving [TDM], a classmate I founded an Unreal Tournament 2003 clan, [TAG]. I wanted a standard three column layout, as my last clan site was cramped. With some of the tricks I learned as an intern at Priority, I used PHP for the first time on a website. The site received high praise and I am still impressed at the sites appearance.
[2002] Finally, some color! After a couple grey and dull websites, I created a colorful interface, although most people thought the colors were crap. This layout is based on LCARS, the computer interface seen on Star Trek: The Next Generation and series following. I had always wanted to do an LCARS interface; this one follows the DS9 canon. With this version, my hand-coding got alot cleaner.
[2002 - 2003] Shortly after joining [TDM], a gaming clan for Star Trek Voyager: Elite Force, I took duties as webmaster. There was a pre-existing site which I eventually got rid of in favor of redesigning it myself. This site was easily the best learning experience of all the sites I've created.
[October 2001 - January 2002] My first web template, dull and grey as it may be. I decided I better start making my own layouts and this is well, a start. Again, simple code but not so crude. The interface was created with MS Paint and Irfanview, with a header from Flaming Text. Unfortunately, little content was added with this new version. Over the course of its run, it was moved between a few free hosts. Eventually I moved the site to professional hosting when I took over the [TDM] website.
[2001] This is the first incarnation of Mr. B's Domain. It used a template from Free Web Templates. Over the next year or so, I added a framed version, and alot of the content that is here in v7. I was rather impressed with my work at the time even though the appearance is rather monochromatic.
[2000] This is the first set of HTML pages I ever created. It was done for a networking class in high school. With these pages I learned the simple things like headers, frames and tables. The code is simple and crude, but it's why Mr. B's Domain exists today in all its glory.
[December 2008] My final paper for a class on Louisiana Politics was this short profile of Senator Allen Ellender, an influential if not widely well known figure. This was one of a few occasions during college where I took the opportunity to write about something both obscure and important. (Photo: LIFE)
[April 2008] As part of a class presentation for a class called "History in Everyday Life," I wrote a short paper about the National WWII Museum. Choosing this topic was the low road as I visited the museum a few times before although I went once again to prepare this project. My paper predates the expansion of the museum.
[December 2006] This was the final project for a layout and design class, a magazine advertisement for a fictional product. Obviously, I backed the wrong horse in the format war. This project represents my only real experience with Adobe Illustrator.
[February 2005] The paper for "History of Rock and Roll" required us to compare and contrast two books which more or less discuss the cultural impact of rock and roll music. The challenge was to tie Coming of Age in Buffalo and Flowers in the Dustbin together in some fashion. I was not particularly fond of my work but the professor liked it enough to give me an "A" on the paper, not something he made a habit of.
[Febrary 2005] A generic movie review for a class on writing reviews. Like too many of my assignments, it was done in the 11th hour. It has been through a few revisions, however. It's consequently more polished than alot of my work.
[Febrary 2005] Another assignment for my review writing class was to review an online community. Having been a member of TrekBBS for three years, it was the perfect choice given my accidental experience not to mention the plethora of witty material coming from the board and its members daily.
![[TAG] The Assembly of Gamers](http://mrbsdomain.com/gallery2/junk/portfolio/The+Assembly+of+Gamers.png.html){kind=link}
[January 2005] Yet another review writing assignment, this time a product review, one of the only reviews I wrote for a tangible product. I was told the first draft was too technical so it was toned down a bit.
[October 2004] This was a news feature for my "Introduction of Journalism" class. The assignment was to write a news story pertaining to a business aspect of Halloween. It was the first story requiring me to interview strangers. (Photo: scratch n sniff)
[March 2002] This is an essay I wrote for American History class in the 11th grade of high school. We were fortunate enough to be able to choose the subject ourselves. I don't remember the criteria but I remember writing about cars was a stretch. I initially got an "F" on the rough draft because the teacher thought I plagiarized the entire paper. I was promptly able to prove otherwise, I suppose I took it as a compliment. (Photo: LoC)
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