Samples
- Island Wide Stone & Tile Arts & Crafts, Business, Responsive Web Design The design for Maui's Island Wide Stone & Tile incorporates a "tiled" effect throughout. By the beginning of 2015, when the Island-wide.com project was begun, mobile use on the Web had come a long way. At the end of 2014, Google.com reported mobile traffic to its search engine about equal to that from desktop computers. Out of respect for these many mobile users, in creating Island-wide.com I fully incorporated responsive Web design, a method of creating Web pages that automatically adjust to fit the screen where they are being viewed. Responsive Web Design is one of the fastest areas of development in Web design. Full use of responsive web design means there is no need for "mobile versions" of websites, which are generally highly souped-down and missing a lot of content available to desktop viewers. Whether Island-wide.com is viewed on a desktop or a mobile device, the visitor gets full content. This content may need to be laid out and proportioned a little differently for an iPhone compared to a 32" monitor, but the content, the complete message, is all there. As newer responsive techniques emerge, I plan to make full use of them on all future websites. This is particularly an area where hand crafted shines, revealing its power and merit.
- NoteThe sites below are historical. At the time of their creation web browsing meant using a personal computer. Web browsing devices such as tablets and smartphones, as well as very wide screens were not yet in use, and so these websites were not created with those devices in mind. Even so, the hand written code was so advanced for its time that these websites render pretty well on those devices. The styling suffers a little on small smartphone screens in portrait mode but the website information is still accessible. Hopefully keeping with leading edge designing will serve any websites I create now into the future!
- Maui Chinese Cultural, International, Educational Having lived much of my life in the Far East, this one was really up my alley, and I wrote a lot of the commentary in collaboration with the website owner. Graphic and page layout are also original Chinese and Hawaiian themes reflecting the overall message of the site -- learning Chinese and Chinese culture here on the Hawaiian island of Maui. Certain pages make for interesting reading for anyone considering learning a new language. While not essential for promotion, it's little touches like these that can draw visitors back to a website or make them want to pass on the link to others. Sadly, this website is no longer active. To access it, please enter "mauichinese" as a username and maui*chinese as a password.
- Aloha Peace House Compassionate/Humanitarian Loved doing this website with its subtle and not so subtle Hawaiian graphical themes contributing to the objectives of Aloha Peace House. This website is no longer active or complete, as portrayed here. The original website had an interactive BBS (Bulletin Board System) and ways to donate that this sample website doesn't retain. Expect some links to be missing.
- Maui Musart Cultural Have kept this as both an unfinished work and for historical purposes. The work began in 2002 and while outdated, it's a good example of CSS in its infancy. CSS used was revolutionary for its time, with very few designers using it back then. Surprisingly, this CSS written over a decade ago, maybe a century in web design years, still holds up today on modern browsers as well as it does, though in need of a little extra code for mobile devices, non-existent then. The original intention of the website was to explore music being produced on Maui and look at the cultural and historical background of these islands that have influenced so many artists and musicians so in that sense as well it is historical.
- Kokoro Compassionate My own "pro bono" work reflecting my involvement over the last few years with people with disabilities. Hoping to eventually include online resources such as this one, a jigsaw puzzle made with HTML5 that might be of benefit to this population I feel grateful to have come to know.
- Linux on Maui Educational This one is my own, too, very recent, ongoing, and developing. It attempts to be a very non-technical explanation on using a minimalist Linux operating system at a non-profit organization here on Maui.
International
- Alama (in Japanese)
Nature, Cultural, Educational
While many Japanese try their hand at writing in English very very few non-Japanese make any attempt to write in Japanese. Anyway, whether courageous or foolhardy or a little of both, I decided to give it a try. This website is an extensive and ongoing exploration and presentation of the nature of Maui in the Japanese language. It includes some cultural aspects as well, and evolved out of a time when I was a Japanese speaking tour guide for Exotic Maui Tours.
Revision is in store for the home page, Alama (in Japanese), but I plan to keep the bottom right picture. I like the way it changes with each day of the month, giving a returning visitor a different picture of Maui to look forward to.
Most modern non-Japanese browsers will display the Japanese language properly so viewers can see the natural page layout without needing to read Japanese. Otherwise, please understand these pages will be rendered in unsightly computer gobbledygook that can disrupt page layout and is not how a Japanese would see it. Since reading Japanese is necessary to navigate, I've included a few direct links to selected, representative pages of this website below to serve as examples of Alama net design. These pages get a lot of visits from Japan and Hawaii. - Star Gazing Though telescopes sit atop its peaks, many don't fully realize how Maui and the Big Island offer some of the earth's finest opportunities for star gazing.
- Nene Gallery Nature, Geology, Vulcanism, Ornithology Some nice pictures of nene are set against a backdrop of volcanic scenery inside Haleakala crater. This is scenery many people wouldn't associate with an island in the tropics and shows how naturally diverse Maui is. Nice to see this unique bird making a comeback. Unknown are the circumstances of the Nene's arrival on Maui, but what amazes me is how at least some decided to stay, giving up their migrating ways.
- Kahanu Nature, Culture, History, Ethnobotany, Educational This is a cultural and historical site that's way too often missed and far too little known, so decided to put up a page for those who might otherwise pass this site by on their way to Hana.
- Canoe Plants Nature, Botany, Ethnobotany, Hawaiian History, Educational This page serves as the gateway to an exploration of 22 canoe plants, so called because they were brought to the Hawaiian islands by the first settlers in canoes. A page is dedicated to each plant making up one of the most thorough presentations on canoe plants on the web in Japanese.
- Hawaii Weather Story Nature, Climatology, Educational After all, the weather of Hawai'i is a story in itself.
- Hawaii from Space Nature, Geology, Educational A simple gallery of views of the Hawaiian Islands from far above, courtesy NASA.