I’ve built and worked on my websites over the years, unfortunately not all of these stand the test of time. Some are relevant for an event or time that passes, others fail to justify my time to keep going, and some are dependant on organisations that no longer continue. This page keeps alive the memory of websites that once dear to me.
Edible Giving
Donating to charity doesn’t have to involve your wallet, many organisations are grateful for food contributions or volunteered time. However it can be hard to know what food you can give and where to drop it off. Launching the website in Spring 2015, we hope Edible Giving will show charities the benefit in publishing open data and help more people find the organisations and locations that are relevant to them. New features and data sources will be added to this website when we are able to support it with our own development time.
Online: March 2015 – November 2022
Wayback Machine, Oct 2022 (visible but non-functional)
Although this received funding to develop, it had technological complexity that was a barrier for charities to contribute information and it needed wide-reaching sector buy in to be worth while.
Dreams
For an open-mic event that gives audience members 5 minutes maximum to share a dream. No More Grapes provided audio recording, a twitter wall, and a clock (with buzzer noise) for the events. A website was created on a limited budget in order to host media from the events and stagged plans drawn up to increase functionality of the website if resources allowed. The twitter API was used to record comments from the event and then display them on the website beside the relevant dream.
Online: 2011 to ?2020?
Wayback Machine, Jan 2020 (recordings unavailable)
These events were a great success, organised by a small group of people with much energy. As those people focused on other things, the events were not repeated. The format was used by other organisations but with no recordings.
Stuome
Aiming to provide information on the rental market for young adults in Durham, independent of landlords and politics. The students’ union stopped verifying the quality of privately-rented accommodation in the city and formed a gap which some landlords filled by scaremongering students into signing contracts early. This website gathers data from multiple sources and presents it publicly to allow tenants to demand more for their money and to stay safe.
Online: 2014 to 2019
Wayback Machine, Jul 2019
The scraping provided strong insights however had to be updated each time listing sites changed. Campaigning was needed within the student community to make this matters important, however growing complacency meant the subject of fair housing was never a hot topic. A president of the SU admitted that they had a “good relationship” with certain estate agents, but could not recall how much money was exchanged.
On behalf of Cloud Data Service
For over two years, Gregory worked at Cloud Data Service and helped them with a number of web-based projects. Most notable being the lead architect and developer of a bespoke online product-ordering system for the Fair Food Carlisle food hub. Gregory was a key role on the development team of the LEAP suite for Newcastle University and health care information systems such as Felix. He helped maintain many other products including Call it Quits and Let’s Talk Newcastle.
Involvement: March 2012 – July 2014
Cloud Data Service has merged with Patton-Filson to provide a wider coverage of services. Fair Food Carlisle was slightly before it’s time, and while the local aspect was critical to it’s vision, it struggled to get enough custom to justify more than 1 weekday of deliveries or maintain the online system compared to national companies. The LEAP suite was a 5-year academic project that had intention to go nationwide after 2015 although there is no record of this happening. Let’s Talk Newcastle had it’s contract renewed for several years before the council switched to a cheaper supplier with less features.
ToiletMap.org
A website, launched December 2011, utilising the volunteer-created data from OpenStreetMap to show users where public toilets are available. Includes the ability to filter based on gender, wheelchair access, and fee. With a post announcing the end of it’s purpose, the website closed in September 2014.
Online: 2011 to 2014
As explained in the closure post, this was always started as a proof of concept. It provided some inspiration and guidance that a web development agency took and built a similar website that was less tightly integrated with OpenStreetMap.
BritishStudent.ca
A student on an exchange to Canada keeps you updated on the differences, troubles, and adventure.
Online: This ran from September 2009 to March 2010.
Wayback Machine, Aug 2010 (missing photos)
This was only for the duration of my year as an exchange student. It could have been continued by a following student, but no connection was ever made.
