Tom Farrell, web technologist

UPS Olympics Sponsorship
UPS, as a major corporate sponsor of the Sydney Olympics, wanted a site to showcase their sponsorship.

This site uses advanced Dynamic HTML (DHTML) for all interface functions. Due to the client's needs, and to facilitate translation into multiple languages, DHTML was used for all animation rather than Flash. All pages on the site have completely CSS positioned layout, rather than layout using tables. This both enabled faster site build and causes the site to load faster.

I performed all DHTML coding and most all of the general programming for the site. For this project, I worked extremely closely with the visual designer and the writer to create a rich interactive experience. The client graciously allowed us to deviate from their usual corporate design standards in order to create an exciting new look for them. The site's purpose is to demonstrate that UPS is a good corporate citizen, and to make the user feel that they are part of the Olympics experience.

You may view the site in your desired language. You will be viewing my archival copy of the site, as the original site is no longer on the web. NOTE: This site was created in 2000 so it's 10 years old and may not work in modern web browsers.

United States version
Non-US version in US English	Non-US version in the Queen's English
German for Germany	Queen's English for Germany
French for Canada	Canadian English for Canada
Australian English for Australia	Queen's English for Great Britain

Fleet Bank
Fleet Bank hired Zentropy Partners to create their corporate web site. I contributed DHTML code and advised on the creation of additional custom DHTML.

Fleet Credit Card
Fleet's credit card division separately hired Zentropy Partners to create their web site. I consulted with the client for over a month to assist in their selection and purchase of a content management solution. My analysis helped guide them to a product which could meet all their needs, and helped eliminate vaporware solutions from consideration.

I also contributed DHTML library code to the site.

Fleet Fusion Card
Fusion Card was a new product offering from the Fleet Credit Card group. It was one of the first three "smart card" Visa cards on the market. They wanted a hot, hip, fresh design to attract desirable customers. Zentropy Partners obliged with a design that is classy yet unmistakably today.

I was brought in to lead the technology team when the lead developer was transitioning to a new role within the company. The client knew me already from my previous consulting work with them, so I was able to help them feel comfortable with the transition as we continued working together on the project.

Fresh off my DHTML-heavy project for UPS, I had developed extensive libraries for rapid development of pages using CSS positioning and DHTML. I shared my new techniques with the Fusion team, and we unanimously decided it would be faster and more efficient to switch from plain HTML and layout with tables to DHTML and layout with CSS positioning immediately.

Dun & Bradstreet DecisionMaker
This web-based application was created to allow Dun & Bradstreet customers (who purchase credit reports from D&B) to define their credit policies so that credit reports could be delivered pre-analysed to save them substantial analysis time.

This benefits the customers because they can make credit determinations more quickly. This benefits D&B because customers who use the service tend to buy more credit reports. Having customers use the application to define their credit reports on the web, rather than calling in to do it over the phone, benefits D&B because their staff is freed from manually assisting customers to instead perform more valuable work.

The application is particularly interesting because it is a full client-server application written in Javascript, communicating with a back-end mainframe using CGI on the web server and XML as the data transmission format - in other words, it was an AJAX app before AJAX became standard technology.

There may have been other DHTML applications of the same size on the web, but I rather doubt there were any larger at the time, since I discovered upon completing the application that it was within 5 lines of code of overflowing the Javascript buffer on some browsers.

johnwolfarth.com

John Wolfarth was the east coast creative director at Zentropy Partners, and was one of the most respected and liked people in the company. We worked closely together on a variety of projects, from Dun & Bradstret and Minolta to UPS.

As Zentropy Partners's Cambridge office was clearly approaching its closing, John asked me if I would help him build a site to promote his skills for potential new employers. Of course I jumped at the opportunity to work with him again, and I had a lot of fun creating technology for the site.

A link is provided below, but as the site was developed about a decade ago and hasn't been updated, it doesn't work on many contemporary browsers.

johnwolfarth.com

Mt. Wilson Observatory

When I first saw the web, I thought "Wow, that's a really awesome concept... but it'll never catch on, it just takes too much bandwidth." Oh well. But I was smart enough to start playing with it immediately, and in 1995 I made my first homepage with Netcape v0.6 beta. A week later a friend saw it and liked what I was doing, and asked me if I was willing to help out with redesigning the site for Mt. Wilson Observatory. It was one of the most interesting sites on the web at the time (and perhaps the biggest), so how could I resist?

For this site I was not only an HTML programmer, but also the visual designer and graphic artist. After the site won lots of awards, I tried to make a career as a graphic artist, but I ended up getting a job as a programmer again instead.

By today's standards, the site was nothing much, but in 1996 it was unlike anything else on the web. We had fabulous CGI, we had 3D rendered graphics, we had thousands of pages, we had consistent design and iconography standards, and everything was accessible to the blind. I'm proud that I was able to make such a fabulous site so early in the history of the web.

Regretfully, the site I created for them is no longer viewable by the public.

Massachusetts College of Pharmacy - Phoenix
The Phoenix project at Massachusetts College of Pharmacy was an effort to create a unified web application system for performing most, if not all, data processing operations for the university. Its goals were to replace the university's ERP system with a custom web-based application system, and to create web-based application services for students to have improved access to view their own student data. The pilot implementation brought enormously improved functionality to the admissions department, which now performs all of its data reporting through the Phoenix system.

The initial system was created in Java/JSP/J2EE with JDBC connections to the existing ERP database. The interface was an advanced system of database-backed DHTML to create an easy-to-understand structure of tabbed menus with advanced behavior. The interface goal was to create web applications which functioned more like desktop application software than like web pages, and I believe in this regard the project succeeded admirably. Other tasks which were in process of being architected at the time I left the organization were integration with Active Directory using LDAP connectivity through J2EE, and rollout of services to additional departments.

My role in this project was as the software architect, lead technologist, and lead programmer. I consulted to internal constituencies, assessed needs, set project goals, architected solutions, and lead implementation.

Federal Home Loan Bank of Boston

The Federal Home Loan Bank of Boston was concerned that they may have been a bit behind the web technology curve, and brought in Type T to put them ahead of the game. I was technology lead on the project, and performed most technology consulting with the client during implementation.

I'm occasionally accused of being "just an expert in fancy HTML tricks". I think this site should dispel that. While I did use a few fancy HTML tricks, they're tightly integrated into the design and are usually not noticed. The site is attractive but very conservative, both in design and technology. One aspect we particularly liked is that all the site's graphics were created as paintings, which were then scanned.

The site is written in Java Server Pages (JSP) on the free Apache Tomcat platform, which I recommended to the client as an alternative to spending improbable amounts of money on BEA Weblogic. Implementing with Tomcat was extremely fast and easy, as the development team enjoyed the benefit of each programmer having their own copy of the server software to use as a sandbox. We implemented a limited content management system to allow bank staff to safely integrate fresh content into the site regularly, and dynamic retrieval and display of the bank's lending rates from their database. The site also selects random content for some pages to help viewers feel that the site is fresh and interesting each time they see it.

This client engagement also included on-site tutoring of client staff on HTML and Javascript programming.

http://www.fhlbboston.com/

WGBH Public Television
WGBH is the leading producer of public television content in the United States, and is famous for programs ranging from Mystery, American Experience, Nova, and the Julia Child show to children's shows such as Zoom. Talk about great content to work with!

WGBH was doing a redesign of their corporate web site, which is used mostly by viewers to find out about upcoming shows and to make donations. Their interface programmer was departing the organization during the project, and they brought me in as a contractor to complete the project for them. Coding of the HTML had been underway for 6 months, and 4 weeks of additional work were anticipated. Coding of a DHTML widget had been going on for a month, and only debugging was expected to be necessary.

The HTML code I found when I arrived was very disorganized and not up to WGBH's usual high quality standards. The visual output from the browser did not match the original designs. Also, the DHTML didn't work quite right on some browsers and not at all on others. Upon further examination I determined that there were enough bugs in the HTML that the DHTML was simply never going to work, and started the whole thing over from scratch.

I was able to completely redo the DHTML in four hours, and redoing the other work that had previously taken 6 months took me 5 weeks. The new HTML looked exactly like the original designs, and displayed more quickly. The new DHTML worked in Netscape and IE versions 4 and above on Windows and Macintosh.

Resourcesforbears.com

Resourcesforbears.com is a portal site that serves a specific subset of the gay community. It offers listings of social clubs, businessess, related web sites, related books and videos, and personal profiles. The site is privately owned and operated and has no profit or paid employees. It has been in operation since 1994 and has a wealth of content and a very large user base, with over half a million hits daily.

The site's visual design hasn't changed much since the advent of Netscape 2, and I was brought in to give it a major overhaul. I'm being given a very free hand, and the site's owner and I share the philosophy that a site should be built with the most forward-looking interface possible so it won't seem stale in a year, so I'm going wild with design and DHTML to create an interface that will be not only a pleasure to look at and use, not only a substantial advance on the offerings of any similar web site, but will indeed be one of the most cutting-edge interfaces on the web.

Absolutely everything will be positioned with CSS and managed with Javascript. The page will load once and will maintain a consistent look for the user as they use the site. Sections of content will be loaded into the page dynamically as the user calls for them, without requiring a complete reload of the page. To the user, the effect will be as if the entire site was built as a single page, and content will load faster as the navigation elements will never have to be redrawn.

Textile Arts

My first quilt, The Map, hangs in my entry hall to welcome guests to my home.

About five years ago I found myself in the awkward situation of needing a whole new summer wardrobe and having only about $50 to spend on it. As you can imagine that would buy about two t-shirts and a pair of shorts, all of which would no doubt get worn out really fast from being washed every day.

I was wandering around downtown Boston trying to decide what to do about it when I came across a really cheap fabric store. I bought patterns for a shirt and shorts and the cheapest fabric and thread they had, borrowed a sewing machine from a friend, and went to work. Those early creations may not have been very interesting or terribly attractive... but I could wear them.

Two years later you can imagine my surprise to find myself teaching advanced classes in shirt tailoring.

I've also taken up knitting (both by hand and by machine) and quilting. My father knits, too. He's extraordinarily talented and knits elaborate patterned sweaters and afghans. My knitting is extremely simple, but I like being able to give gifts that I made with my hands. I give away almost all of my knitting.

Tom's Textile Resouces, my personal web site about the subject, has been one of the more popular sewing, quilting, and knitting destinations on the web for some years now. I also published a short book titled "How to Buy a Sewing Machine", available on Amazon.com .

The Theremin
While channel surfing one day in 2001 I came across a documentary about Dr. Lev Termin, inventor of the original electronic musical instrument, the Theremin. I was fascinated by the instrument, which is played by waving your hands in the air without touching it. (I'm serious!) You'll remember the sound of the theremin as the spooky whistling noise from the Beach Boys' song "Good Vibrations", or the haunting music from the film "The Day the Earth Stood Still".

As days passed I couldn't stop thinking about the instrument. I had my TiVo pick up another showing of the documentary, watched it again, thought about it, and decided I had to have one. Theremins are only manufactured in small quantities by hand, so it took me a week to find the one retailer in the entire country who had one in stock. After he shipped it to me from Hollywood, I eagerly started trying to learn to play it.

The theremin is hard to play. It may well be the most difficult instrument in existence. (There was one more difficult instrument created by Dr. Teremin, which you played by standing on it and dancing very slowly, but no examples are known to still exist.) Only one person is believed to have ever mastered it, and she died some years ago. I can barely play a scale on it. However, it is a lot of fun, and I'm glad I bought it. Slowly I practice with it, and perhaps someday I'll actually be able to play it acceptably.

If you're interested, the documentary is called Theremin: An Electronic Odyssey and is available on DVD from your favorite online DVD shop. For more information on acquiring an instrument, see my ugly Theremin web site.

Cooking
I decided about two years ago that my cooking repertoire had become a bit stale, and that I wanted to learn to make new foods with new techniques. My goal was both to eat better on a day-to-day basis, and to be able to throw a nice dinner party. I eventually decided to work on a combination of American comfort foods and simple French cuisine (which is often hard to tell from American staples anyway), made with fresh, top quality ingredients.

I work on one dish at a time, and make it over and over (varying the recipe each time) until I feel I have perfected the flavors that I wanted from it, before moving on to another dish. I seek to create rich, strong flavors, primarily by concentrating the natural flavors of the ingredients.

The one big resource I've learned the most from is Julia Child's fabulous book, The Way To Cook. It's so packed with wisdom about cooking today, I know I can always turn to it when I need direction. I don't always do things exactly the way Julia does, but she always provides a method that works every time and that's a super start.

I was given a few cookbooks by Thomas Keller. My friends have suggested that I should cook everything in one of them, write a blog about the experience, turn that into a book, and then get it made into a movie. We're thinking of calling it "Tom and Thomas"...

Science Fiction
My parents were nerds.

I mean that in the best way, mind you. A house full of classical music and science fiction books can be a good thing for a kid. I've joked that my mother watched "Star Trek" in the delivery room, but for all I know it may be true: my parents were both big fans.

My second grade teacher was extremely surprised that while the rest of the class was still reading books that had a big picture and one sentence on each page, I turned up with a copy of "2001: A Space Odyssey" in my desk. I read my way through the whole science fiction section in the town library, and they'd call me when they got a new book.

Fast-forward to today. I make my living working on a giant worldwide interconnected network of computers. I can pull a shiny plastic box out of my pocket and talk to someone on the other side of the planet any time I like. I have a pocket computer, and a portable supercomputer that talks to me and recognizes my voice. I can cook with radio waves, and GE makes an oven that cooks with light. One of my friends picks out stars like our sun around which other plaetary systems are being discovered. There are genetically altered humans. We have cloned mammals.

Every January I attend the Arisia science fiction convention in Boston. A lot of people think science fiction conventions are a lot of people who dress up funny and talk about fantasy. But you know, with each passing year I see less distinction between the future, and today.

I was raised by dogs.
Well, not exactly, but I did have a dog as a baby-sitter anyway. Her name was Fido. She was a border collie. They're often considered to be the smartest dogs there are, and among the most loyal. When I was a baby she wouldn't let anyone near me but my parents. Anyone else got bitten, including my aunts, uncles, and grandparents. Ostensibly, she was my grandmother's dog, but from the moment my parents brought me home from the hospital, it was clear where her loyalties lay.

She was the only baby-sitter I ever had. As a toddler, my mother could put me out the front door with Fido and know that she would make sure that nobody got near me, make sure I didn't eat anything bad for me, keep me entertained, and herd me back into the house for meals. Fido died in 1979, but not before finding a stray border collie puppy and bringing him into the family for us. (Over my parents' objections: border collie puppies don't look like border collies, and they didn't want a mutt, but Fido got what she wanted.) Her replacement got named Tiger. (Okay, it's true, we had un-creative dog names.) He was my dog... or more accurately, I was his person, until I went to college. He died a week after I left.

I love border collies. They're beautiful, they're proud, they're brilliant, they're loving, and they're fiercely loyal. Once you've had one, you don't want any other kind of dog. I want to have one, but they require large amounts of time, attention, and exercise. Basically, they're a bad choice of dog unless you work at home full time and have a very large home and are willing to take your dog with you for anything other than a short errand. They're almost as demanding as a child. They're as smart as a lot of people, so they can really get into mischief if you let them get bored. I remember coming home from a 2-hour trip to my grandparents' house to find Tiger had somehow gotten my easter chocolate out of the cookie jar on top of the fridge and eaten about half of it, and was laying on the floor in front of the TV with the remote control under his paw, channel surfing. He couldn't press individual buttons but he would just sort of mash at it with his paw and the channel would change. I'm not kidding.

Someday, I'll be ready.


		Photography My entire family are avid photographers, and I am no exception to this rule. My father taught me everything I know about the subject, and while I know I'm not the next Stieglitz, I'm immodest enough to think I'm pretty good. But more importantly, I enjoy it immensely. Digital photography has been a marvelous boon to my hobby, because I can just keep snapping photos and know that it won't cost me a penny more for film developing. My father said the same thing to me when he got his digital camera, but the last time I visited him he was astonished that I was shooting 200 megabytes of photos a day, to his approximately 15 megabytes. I just keep taking pictures until I get what I want. I also dabble with stereography. This is the process of taking two simultaneous side-by-side photos with lenses separated by the same distance as the separation of the human eyes. When viewed with an appropriate viewer (or by looking at it crosseyed,) the resulting print appears to be 3-D. The effect is really quite startlingly realistic. It's great for outdoor scenes with multiple layers of interest, or for very lifelike portraits. Remember the Viewmaster viewer you no doubt had as a kid? That's the same technique. The technique is actually quite old, and in fact predates photography itself: some painters were actually able to paint stereographic paintings. It was more popular in the 50's, but today it's fairly rare. I was only able to find one manufacturer actually making the cameras, and I was only able to buy one from them directly.
	<- View from the top of 2 World Trade Center, March 2001

An Immodest Biography
I am a senior web technologist with a 21 year background in consulting, programming, technology architecture, and technology team leadership. In 19 years of consulting I have served a broad variety of Fortune 500 companies and most of the major financial institutions of the United States.

My 15 years of web programming experience has included end to end development, allowing me to create tightly integrated front end and back end technology architectures. In the context of user interface, I can program Dynamic HTML (DHTML) more quickly and easily than practically anyone, often producing in hours what would take a less experienced DHTML programmer a month or more. I also have a background as a database programmer, which helps me to easily integrate database functionality into a web site and to create robust yet efficient information architecture. My database architectures often both serve the immediate needs of the site and focus on specific areas for future enhancement to be created more easily due to good modular design.

As a businessman, I can speak with other business people about technology in plain english and understand their business needs, and translate that into technical architecture that other technologists can understand. As a technology architect, I create simple, modular technology approaches that facilitate rapid implementation and hold down cost while allowing for future growth. And as a team leader, I pride myself in being able to work with less experienced team members to enhance their skills and bolster their confidence, while delivering the project on-time. Indeed, I'm delighted that former coworkers who were on my team three jobs ago continue to turn to me for technical or career advice.

Goals
I am presently seeking a full time position with either a company seeking to maintain its own web site at a high quality standard or with a professional services group offering web technology related services. Please contact me if you believe I would be a good fit for your organization.