Charles A Upsdell

Website Design

Portfolio: Websites & Concept Pages

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This page lists websites and concept pages I have created since 1998. The oldest sites are more primitive, because they were designed in an era when browsers were much less capable and the Internet was much slower.

Other pages in this portfolio list:

Note : if you’re interested in an amateur sports site, see my portfolio’s page titled Sports Sites.

Websites 

Here are websites I have made, most active, some inactive:

Active Websites 

These sites are active, though some team sports sites are rarely updated because their playing seasons are over:

  • Browser News: a weekly web-based newsletter that offers news about browsers and web design, links to browsers old and new, design resources, and internet stats. 42 pages. Created in 1998, redesigned several times.

Elements of Design

There are four key elements in the design of my sites.

1. I design each site to meet the client’s unique needs.

2. I design each site to work with both current and future browsers, by adhering to industry standards.

3. I design sites that work with all browsers in common use, but which may look nicer with newer, more capable browsers.

4. I encourage clients to adopt a functional design that avoids excess. This is achieved in large part by focusing on what truly must be done, and by keeping things simple.

  • Georgetown Eagles Baseball Teams 2008-2009: local élite baseball teams. 79 pages and growing. Small Perl programs are used to enable administrators to do some site administration. Created in 2008. Note : JavaScript must be enabled for some pages to work.

  • International Lawyers' Group: a lawyers' association. 90+ pages. Created in 2000. After Dec 2009 updates were done by a Swiss designer under the auspices of a Swiss lawyer, so my involvement with the site ceased. Note : this site is password protected, available to members only.

  • Mississauga Majors Baseball Teams 2000-2010: local élite baseball teams. 460 pages and growing. Perl programs are used for generating map pages and to enable managers to do some site administration. Created in 2000, heavily redesigned twice. Note : JavaScript must be enabled for some pages to work, beginning in 2007.

  • Mississauga North Stars 2009/2010: local hockey team. 40 pages and growing. Small Perl programs are used to enable administrators to do some site administration. Created in 2009. Note : JavaScript must be enabled for some pages to work.

  • NCOHA Predators: a site for a youth hockey association, the North Central Ontario Hockey Association, which fields 7 élite teams. 90 pages and growing. Small Perl programs are used to enable administrators to do some site administration. Created in 2007.

  • Saint Edward the Confessor Anglican Church: a church site. 34 pages. Created in 1998.

  • Security News: a weekly web-based newsletter that gives news about security fixes for common PC software. 5 pages. Created in 1999, redesigned several times.

  • Stiritz.net: a professional photographer's photo galleries. 13 pages. Created in 2006, enhanced in 2008. Note : JavaScript must be enabled. Note : the client specified the look and feel of each page, right down to the finest detail, so I cannot claim credit for the site’s appearance. Note : the client does minor maintenance on the site, so infelicities may have crept in.

  • Alma A Upsdell Family Tree: a personal genealogical site. 425+ pages. Created in 1999, redesigned twice.

Inactive Websites 

These sites are inactive: none are being updated, except perhaps to bring them more in line with current coding practices; some sites are incomplete fragments of previously deployed sites.

The oldest sites were designed to work well with primitive browsers which are now extinct; those sites, therefore, do not make use of features offered only by modern browsers. The oldest sites also tend to have smaller font sizes than users prefer, in accordance with common coding practices at the time.

Created in 2007:

  • Ontario Lightning Hockey Clubs: a site for an élite youth hockey association. Created in 2007, terminated in 2008 due to the client’s failure to pay. 63 pages. Note : the site was tweaked in 2010 to bring it in line with modern coding practices.

  • Toronto Titans Minor Bantam AAA Hockey 2007/2008: a local élite boys’ hockey team. 25 pages. Created in 2007. Caution : this site is no longer updated, since the 2007/2008 season is over; some links may have broken since then. Note : the site was tweaked in 2010 to bring it in line with modern coding practices.

Created in 2006:

  • Mississauga Terriers Peewee AA Hockey 2006/2007: a local boys’ hockey team. 9 pages. Note : this is a very low budget site, so it lacks many features found in other sports sites. Note : this site is no longer updated, since the 2006/2007 season is over; some links may have broken in the meanwhile.

Created in 2002:

  • Erindale Cardinals 2003: a baseball team. 31 pages. Note : Internet Explorer 8 seems to have a bug which can make pages display incorrectly. Note : this site is no longer updated, since the 2003 season is long over; some links may have broken since then. Note : the site was tweaked in 2010 to bring it in line with modern coding practices. See also: Erindale Blue Jays 2001 and 2002.

Created in 1999:

  • John Adams: a Toronto City Councillor. Was 130+ pages. Note : this site is no longer accessible, as Mr. Adams let his site expire after opting not to run in the 2000 election: only a copy of the home page is accessible, and links are no longer active.

  • North American Decal: a graphic arts company that offers OEM, fleet, and promotional graphic services. Was 12 pages. Note : this site was later redesigned by someone else; the link goes to a copy of the last version I made.

  • WebSightServices: a website integrator. Was 11 pages. Note : the company shut down during the .com collapse. Note : the home page takes a very long time to load for those with dial-up connections, since it has a huge graphic selected by the client.

Concept Pages 

Here are concept pages: pages created to present design ideas. Because they are not production pages, links in the concept pages are often inactive, and links to external pages may have expired. The design of newer pages is better. Note : concept pages are rarely, if ever, updated, so the newest pages may not work well with obsolete browsers, and the oldest pages may not work as well with the newest browsers.

Whence the Concept Pages?

Some may wonder why I made the concept pages.

I created some to show prospective clients what their sites might look like. E.g. I designed Astrological Forecasts (2) for an astrologer who wanted a site to promote his services: the concept page was a proposed entry page to the site.

I created or modified some to explore design techniques. E.g. I took a design that had been made for an old proposal and re-used it as a test-bed for perfecting a new way of making drop-down menus, resulting in the current ERT concept site.

I created some to improve my design skills. E.g. I made Calendar as an exercise for improving my skills in using the Perl language.

In one case I created a concept site as an initial step in developing a site. I made Galleria to demonstrate and test JavaScript code for making a photo gallery: this code — but not the page design — became the core of the Stiritz.net photo gallery.

Created in 2009:

  • Fraser Presbytery: a concept site for a church organization. Links in this site are not active.

Created in 2008:

  • Barrie Colts: a concept page for a hockey association. Links in the page are not active.

Created in 2007:

  • Modern Access Systems: a rough concept site for an international vendor of access control systems. Links in this site are active, but only a few pages exist, so clicking on many pages will go to pages which do not exist.

  • Mississauga Terriers Minor Bantam AAA: a concept site for hockey team. Links in this site are not active.

  • Surplus Machine Tool: a concept site for a seller of used manufacturing equipment, machine tools, and metalworking machinery. Links in this site are not active.

Created in 2006:

  • Coalition for Persons with Disabilities: a concept site for an organization working with the disabled; the concept site fixed problems described in a detailed critique. This is a re-make of an existing Dec. 2005 site. Links in this site are active.

  • Galleria: a concept site demonstrating a photo gallery. Links in this site are active. Note : this is made for modern browsers.

Created in 2003:

  • Calendar: a simple multilingual perpetual calendar, implemented in Perl, with the calendar displayed very compactly.

  • ERT Inc.: a concept page for an environmental investigation and remediation firm. This is a re-make of an existing Aug. 2003 site. Links in this site are not active. Note : the site was tweaked in 2010 to bring it more in line with modern coding practices.

  • Ultek: a concept site for a internet host provider. This is a re-make of an existing Mar. 2003 site. Links in this site are not active. Updated in 2006 to fix an IE7 problem.

Created in 2002:

  • Qualikom: a concept site for a internet host provider. This is a re-make of an existing Mar. 2002 site. Links in this site are not active.

Created in 2001:

  • Mississauga Chess Club: a concept site for a chess club. This is a re-make of an existing Aug. 2001 site. Links in this site are active.

  • Pickwick Farm: a concept site for a farm. This is a re-make of an existing Aug. 2001 site. Links in this site are active.

  • Saints Martha and Mary Parish: a concept site for a parish. Links in this site are active.

  • Volunteer Centre of Peel: a concept site for a city volunteer organization. This is a re-make of an existing June 2001 site. Links in this site are active.

Created in 2000:

  • Astrological Forecasts (1): a concept page for a site to be used to sell astrological forecasts. Links in the page are not active.

  • Astrological Forecasts (2): a concept page for a site to be used to sell astrological forecasts. Links in the page are not active.

  • Mancor Industries, Ltd.: a concept page for an industrial firm. This is a re-make of an existing Dec. 2000 site. Links in this site are not active.

Created in 1999:

  • Home Business Place: a concept for a business portal. Links in this site are not active. Note: this is made for modern browsers.

  • Mother Teresa School: a concept site for a school. Links in this site are active.

  • WoodFantasies: a concept page for a site to be used to sell handcrafted accessories to needlework enthusiasts. Links in the page are not active.