Welcome to my temporary home, keep a look out for a shiny new portfolio site coming soon! You can follow the design and construction of the portfolio right here as I blog my way through it.

Tags: portfolio

I am no doubt that the project I am developing is vast. There new WordPress admin section alone would take me a week to build.

The biggest hurdle I face, other than time, is the iPhone app development, being that I am a novice in this area. I would like to say that it would take me 3 weeks of solid work to build the app, based on the scale I have seen other apps developed. Add that to the double the time rule and you get 6 weeks. I’m not saying that’s an unreasonably long time, but I need to be realistic about how long it will take me.

The next hurdle is the integration of mapping, or rather the control of the mapping into the site. This required control beyond WordPress’s capability and thus needs to be hand-coded with a new SQL database.

Where I think I can save time is the actual HTML build of the site, before WordPress Integration. I can usually build a site framework in a day or two and then take a further day or two to add whatever advanced scripting is needed. I feel I should allocate a full week to this in case things turn out to take longer, but I hope to be able to claw that time back and invest it in other areas, such as app development.

I have projected the major tasks on to a Gantt chart along with its critical path. Note that the app is not part of the critical path as it is a secondary development that does not stop me building the site.

You can download the Excel file Gantt chart here

I have gone through quite a few variations and thoughts as I initially sketched my wireframes. I have settled on an essentially clutter free header with a little information on the current image being displayed.  I then overlap the contents of the site, namely the navigation and featured route over the top of the image to break up the horizontal line that would otherwise exist at the edge of the image. Given the size of the image this would of been a substantial line, and I want the eye to flow from the header to the featured route and then down the page. Continue reading…

I believe I know enough now to begin to structure the site and put together exactly what I want out with it. I have already established the content I wish to include, but what about the functionality of the site, what are the wow factors to make me stand out. Continue reading…

Mapping through KML

KML, essentially XML with a KML namespace allows us to pass geo-data to and from various Google API’s, most notably Earth and Maps. Continue reading…

OpenStreetMap is free open source Wiki map. It provides mapping and user submitted mapping to an open format available for exporting to various file formats. So for example I could choose a map region and have it exported to a PNG for use within my site or app. It also has an API available for use to obtain geo-data. Continue reading…

I’m a novice at app development, I have a reasonably good grasp of how it’s done through my placement, but have yet to touch Objective-C.  My first port of call is Objective-C for Absolute Beginners for an overview of what I should expect. Continue reading…

The name of the site, which I plan to reflect in the logo, branding and url is of vital importance. If I get it wrong I could end up with something difficult to find, understand and remember. Looking to the web for guidance on choosing a domain name, I encountered newentrepreneur.com which offers the advice to keep it short, memorable and descriptive, pretty much what I had been thinking. Continue reading…

The management of multiple routes will require quite a substantial CMS, certainly more than I could build myself with the timeframe.  There are multiple CMS packages available that I could adapt to serve my site, the most familiar of these is WordPress. Continue reading…

Given the vast amount of routes available in Ireland, let alone Northern Ireland, I am planning for a lot of my routes to come from the community. However, I will be providing a reasonably large number myself, from both known routes, such as those obtained from the BBC, those found on tourism sites (the popular routes, I won’t start copying other peoples routes) and those I create through myself and friends. Continue reading…

This site is about finding and sharing routes across Ireland, but there is much more content to it than that. Beyond the routes, I want forums, advice on hiking, equipment advice, the ability to create your own maps and the ability to review other user submissions. Continue reading…