Dennis Whiteman

Web Projects

Active WordPress Projects

This I Believe Inc. — Converted more than 60,000 essays on thisibelieve.org from a custom LAMP site to one based on WordPress through a variety of custom and open source plugins and themes. This historic project, based on an original series started by Edward R. Murrow in the 1950s, has produced several best selling books, a variety of cd compilations and audiobooks, and was featured as a series on National Public Radio from 2005 to 2009. It also performs a role as an educational curriculum for elementary, high school and college programs. (5/2008-Present)
Worlds of Words — Created an online catalog of children's literature for the College of Education at the University of Arizona based on WordPress. Project has included developing custom advanced search methods and plugins along with a system for importing XML files of books into WordPress. (12/2006-Present)
HDTV in Oklahoma — Created a basic web site for tracking the Digital Television transition in Oklahoma in September 2001. In June 2006, the site was converted from phpWebsite to WordPress. (2001-present)
Payne County Democrats — Converted web site for the local Democratic Party office from a static iWeb site to WordPress so that it could be tied into social media outlets for the 2010 and 2012 election cycles. Project has included developing custom widget plugins for handling online video, use of Gravity Forms for attracting volunteers and a pretty javascript gallery. (5/2010-Present)
eViticulture — Building a simple WordPress-based site for an organization of grape horticulturists and enthusiasts using BuddyPress. Project included custom page templates, SEO tweaking and remote training. (5/2011-Present)

iOS App Development for iPhone/iPad

This I Believe — Developed iPhone application providing access to more than 70,000 essays on the iPhone. The app uses data from WordPress RSS feeds and provides a simple way for browsing and searching essays. My role includes developing server-side interaction, specifying the user interface, testing the app with external users, coordinating development and publication through iTunes Connect. (4/2009-Present)

Teaching

Journalism

JB 3623 | Internet Communications — Developed a curriculum for training young journalism, advertising, public relations and broadcast students in the use of the internet as a communications medium as a lecturer in the Oklahoma State University School of Journalism and Broadcasting. Focus was on the use of WordPress software to learn basic HTML, CSS, graphic design, audio, video and written communication for the web by creating an individual web site as a comprehensive project. Classwork also included training in Adobe Creative Suite CS3 and an overview of open source software software. (Spring 2006-Spring 2008)

Other Web Projects

Completed WordPress Projects

Caldwell — Building a Wordpress site for a former student, David D'Angelo Caldwell, who is a fashion designer in New York. Caldwell is currently featured on The Fashion Show, a reality TV program on Bravo, and is currently designing wardrobe for Paula Abduls new dance show on CBS. (7/2010-Present)
ReVampit LLC — Built a simple WordPress-based promotional site for a Massachusetts-based home renovator. Project included custom page templates, extensive hacking of the WordPress media library, custom widgets, SEO tweaking and remote training. (6/2010)
Mark Mastronianni for District Attorney — Built a simple WordPress-based site for a District Attorney candidate in Hampden County, Massachusetts. Project included custom page templates, SEO tweaking and remote training. (4/2010)
Tillona Law LLC — Built a WordPress-based promotional site for a Connecticut-based attorney. Project included custom page templates, a custom blog setup for publishing a newsletter, custom widgets and training. (12/2009)
Bad Bad JuJu — Converted a Movable Type site into a WordPress blog. While the WordPress conversion plugin handled many parts of the conversion, some aspects, including trackbacks, were not handled and had to be done via SQL. The project included converting an existing design, custom page templates, custom widgets, and mechanisms for redirecting old MT permalinks to the new, more SEO-friendly WordPress permalinks. (11/2009)
Mideast Youth — Converted podcast episodes that used Podpress plugin to use Blubrry Powerpress plugin, including custom sql and fixing some CSS layout problems after the conversion. (10/2009)
Dr. Brenda masters — Designed and hosted a simple site for an Oklahoma State University statistics professor. The site was originally done using phpWebsite, converted to WordPress in 2006, and moved to WordPress.com in 2009. (2002-2009)
OColly.com — Reinvented the collegiate newspaper that I originally put online in 1996 into a modern media journalism teaching tool, including a content management system based on WordPress to support the publication of the newspaper, blogs, podcasts and video clips. This installation used Gallery for image publishing and integration into WordPress along with OpenX for serving advertising impressions and clicks. This project also involved developing a revenue stream through the hiring and management of student programmers, advertising sales people and student content producers. (5/2007-5/2008)
Humane Society of Stillwater — Designed and built a web site around phpWebsite content management system that could be updated by board members relatively untrained in HTML. It was converted to WordPress in 2006 with a relatively new design. (2003-2007)

Long-term Web Projects

Stan Clark Companies — Provided initial design and other services to build the Eskimo Joe’s web and retail sites in 1996 and hosted half a dozen web sites during more than 12 years of service. (6/1995-9/2007)
Oklahoma State University HLC Accreditation — Provided technical consulting in the production of a 256 page book and built a static web site that was included on CD-ROM with that publication. Project involved the use of a document versioning system and collaboration among multiple offices, on-campus and off. (2004-2005)
Lazy E Arena/Ranch — Designed and built initial web sites in 1997 that were updated in 2002. In 1992, I also developed a Filemaker Pro-based accounting/tracking system for its veterinary and breeding operations that is still used today in an upgraded form. (1996-2006)
National Wrestling Hall of Fame and Museum — Created web site covering the history of the sport, including searchable statistical data for more than 12,000 wrestlers in hundreds of events dating from 1904. The original web site was developed using Tango and Microsoft SQL Server software while it was converted to PHP and MySQL 2002. (1998-2005)
Oklahoma State University — Managed OSU home page and related pages through nine major design revisions over eight years and multiple technology changes. The basic foundation established at the beginning, including a custom directory listing written first in Tango using Butler SQL and later rewritten in php using MySQL, is still in place. Millions of web pages were served using Macintosh technology from Mac 7.5 to Mac OS X Panther Server, including conversion to Apache, PHP and MySQL in 2002. (1995-2002)
Stillwater Convention and Visitors Bureau — Designed and built a web site around phpWebsite content management system that could be updated by staff untrained in HTML. (2004)
The Game and The Greg Swaim Show — Set up and hosted a streaming internet broadcast of these two shows in the spring and summer of 2000. The project included designing logos and creating an automated method for pulling the shows off the analog radio broadcast as well as creating archives that could be played back over the internet once the shows were over. Javascript were also written to detect whether the user had the Quicktime Plug-in installed. The scripts for automating the archival process were featured in the July 2001 issue of DV Magazine. (2000)
Daily O'Collegian — Created the first daily updated web site for the student newspaper at Oklahoma State University. It was been maintained by students since its inception until a switch to Collegiate Media Network in 2009. (1996)

Other Experience

Kiosks

National Wrestling Hall of Fame and Museum — Using data from its public web site, Macintosh-based kiosks were built so that the data could be accessed via large touch screen monitors using a standard web browser. Initial design used Netscape DHTML techniques while a redesign in 2002 moved the concept to Internet Explorer and then-current standards-based CSS and HTML. (1998-2005)

DVD and Video

OSU Athletic Department — Specialized videography for Development and Major Gifts. (2006-2007)
Stillwater National Bank — Projects included motion graphics for a human resource training video, editing quarterly financial presentations for distribution using e-mail and Flash for an expanding regional bank services company. (2005-2006)

Film Production

Worked as a freelance production assistant, grip, production coordinator and residuals coordinator for more than 10 years on a wide range of film projects. Recurring clients included Lazy E Productions, Inc. and Brightwater Media.

Feature Films

My Heros Have Always Been Cowboys (1989-94) [residuals]

Shadows On The Wall (1988-94) [residuals]

Dark Before Dawn (1987-94) [production coordinator, post production coordinator and residuals]

Near Dark (1986) [local production coordinator]

Free EnterPrise (1986) [production coordinator]
Documentaries

Let's Get Lost, directed by Bruce Weber (1987) [production coordinator]

Morgan Horse Show (1986) [production coordinator]
Selected Commercial Credits

Kerr-McGee, Brightwater Media [production coordinator] (1992, 1990)

Brunswick Rhino bowling balls, Brightwater Media [production coordinator] (1990)

AT&T, Cinematic Directions, directed by Haskell Wexler [production coordinator] (1988)

Remington Park, Denali Films [production coordinator] (1988)

Blue Cross & Blue Shield, Atkins Film/Video Productions [production coordinator] (1987)
Music Video

Toby Keith (1993)

Writing & Editing

Extensive free-lance writing and editing experience for all media since 1982, including nearly fours years of reporting experience with newspapers such as The Daily Oklahoman and The Dallas Morning News.
Projects included supporting the publication of a 4-color, 256-page publication for OSU's 2005 HLC Accreditation book using InDesign and Version Cue, writing four chapters of a Texas junior high computer literacy textbook for The Mazer Corporation in 1989, and serving as editor of the 1982 Redskin Yearbook at Oklahoma State University.
In addition, designed and edited Location: Oklahoma!, a quarterly newsletter covering the film industry in Oklahoma, designed and compiled annual reports and served on several committees for the Oklahoma Film Office between 1985 and 1992.

Legal Experience

Pierson, Ball & Dowd — Freelance Legal Assistant. Performed legal, financial, statistical and factual research for Western Branch Office of Pierson, Ball & Dowd, a law firm specializing in First Amendment, communications and securities law under the direction of attorney Michael Minnis. (1983-1986)

Skills

Computers and Software

Expert, owner and user of Apple Macintosh equipment since 1985, from Mac OS 1 to Mac OS X Snow Leopard, from Motorola 68k to PowerPC to Intel. Mac client solutions have included scripting solutions including Applescript, Automator and perl along with shell scripts using the unix underpinnings of Mac OS X and Mac OS X Server. Paid Apple developer with working knowledge of XCode, including developing applications for iPhone.

Desktop Applications

Expert level knowledge of Apple's built-in iCal, iSync, Address Book, iChat and various other bundled Mac OS X applications up to and including Leopard;

Apple Final Cut Studio, including Final Cut Pro, Compressor, Motion and DVD Studio Pro;

Apple iLife '04 to '09, including iTunes, iMovie, iDVD, iPhoto and Garageband;

Apple iWork '05 to '09, including Keynote, Pages and Numbers;

Adobe Creative Suite CS, CS2 and CS3 Design Premium, including Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Acrobat Pro and Flash CS3;

Microsoft Office, including Word, Excel and Powerpoint since the original Macintosh versions back in the 1980s;

Quicktime Pro, including streaming media, podcasts, and media conversion for iPhone, iPod, iTunes and Windows Media using Applescript and Automator;

Bare Bones BBEdit, Textwrangler and Yojimbo;

Omni Group's OmniOutliner, OmniGraffle and OmniFocus;

Filemaker Pro 2.x-8.x by Filemaker, Inc.;

Applescript, Automator, perl, php and many other scripting languages;

Google Applications, including GMail, Calendar, Documents, Reader, Earth, Maps and Google Talk, and

Working knowledge of Ubuntu, Windows XP, Vista from a web developer's perspective.
Internet Applications

Mac OS X Server, 10.0 to 10.6, including Quicktime Streaming Server;

Working knowledge of Linux and BSD servers as deployment platforms;

Apache, WebStar and IIS web servers;

PHP, Perl, Tango and Netcloak web scripting languages;

MySQL, Primebase, MS SQL Server, and Butler SQL database servers;

WordPress, BBPress, Gallery, OpenX, phpWebsite and many other Web applications and scripts;

Trac project management and Subversion version control software;

Eudora Internet Mail Server;

BIND domain name server, and

Shell scripting.

Public Service

Payne County Democrats — Volunteer, webmaster. (4/2010-present)
Humane Society of Stillwater — Member, board of directors, personnel committee liaison, chairman of technology committee. (2003-2007)

References

This I Believe, Inc. | 2424 Frankfort Ave, Louisville, KY 40206 | dan@thisibelieve.org | (502) 259-9889

Mr. Gediman is executive director of This I Believe, Inc., which among many other things owns a web site that I built, manage and support that receives about 1000 new essays each month as part of curriculum designed for K-12 schools, colleges and lifelong learning programs.

University of South Carolina | School of Journalism and Mass Communications, Columbia, SC 29208 | weirt@sc.edu | (803) 777-9572

Dr. Weir, who was then director of the School of Journalism and Broadcasting at Oklahoma State University, hired me to teach the school’s Internet Communications course in January 2006. Beginning in 2007, I also managed a refresh of the technologies used to publish the Daily O’Collegian’s web site, a site I originally set up in September 1996, and oversaw the online staff of this student-run newspaper.

Oklahoma State University | 301 Math Sciences, Stillwater, OK 74078 | brenda.masters@okstate.edu | (405) 334-8091

Dr. Masters was in charge of the Higher Learning Commission accreditation project for which I supported, designed and built the web site (http://accreditation.okstate.edu), a version of which was distributed on CD-ROM, and supported publication of the final report through management of the project in Adobe Version Cue.