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Datastream Web Sites

At Datastream Systems, Inc., I was able to really grow and explore web site development. When I started, the site was static HTML hosted by NetDepot in Atlanta, Georgia. Over the next four years, I created award-winning database driven web sites we hosted in house on webserver I had set up.

Looking back on my earlier works, I was able to see my style and technique become more refined over the years.

My position at Datastream was always somewhat unusual. I originally started in Development, then transferred to Documentation, then iProcure, then Marketing, and then finally back where I started - Development. In spite of all the transfers my duties remained a constant and I was able to perform.


www.datastream.net

www.datastream.net
www.datastream.net
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Datastream.net was the last version of the Datastream web site I was involved with. It launched on December of 2000. My main responsibilities for this web site included creating and coding it, setting up and deploying the databases (SQL Server), setting up the webserver (Windows 2000, Internet Information Server 5), and implementing this design in a bandwidth friendly manner.

This site shares most of the code of Site Version 4, but includes a few new things like the events management system I created originally for iProcure.


iProcure - Version 2

iProcure
iProcure - Version 2
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iProcure is the name of Datastream's on-line commerce initiative. This version, launched in early 2000, appeared as the iProcure public marketing web site. I designed this look to be flexible enough to fix all the problems the brown and tan "Barnes & Noble" look had. Unfortunately Development didn't have the chance to implement this front end.

When I made this site I was officially an employee of iProcure when they were contemplating spinning it off from Datastream. It never happened.

While I was in that division, we started new types of seminars that needed a tracking and scheduling system. It was then I created the current events system Datastream uses to this day. Not only does it allow the events staff to manage seminar listings, it also tracks who signs up for what seminars. The events management site also included an email notification system that used simple email templates event changes. This functionality allowed the events staff to quickly inform anyone who had signed up for a given event when a cancellation, time change, or other modification had been made. It also allowed attendance to be tracked so attendees could be emailed a special thank you letter. The idea was to allow maximum flexibility to the events staff. Many new event types have been added to my events management system and it has handled it gracefully. The management system has since been incorporated into the www.datastream.net marketing web site.

This site also introduced a curved table HTML element. It involved creating a few nested tables that could expand to fit whatever content put inside. I like browser based HTML effects like that because they are much more flexible and downloaded much faster than simple graphics.


iProcure - Version 1

iProcure
iProcure - Version 1
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This iProcure site was made during the height of what I call the "Barnes & Noble" era. The executives liked the look of the Barnes & Noble web site and they approached the Marketing designers to come up with something.


BizSurplus

BizSurplus
BizSurplus
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Designed during Datastream's "Barnes & Noble" site design era, this was the final look of BizSurplus before the business was turned over to DoveBid. BizSurplus was a place where factories could dispose of excess inventory. During the short life of BizSurplus, it underwent several design changes. I was only involved in the final version pictured here.


Datastream Site Version 4

Datastream Site 4 Version 2
Datastream Site Version 4 r2
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This site was one of my greatest achievements at Datastream. To record it was also the longest-lived web site at Datastream - launched October 1998 and replaced in December of 2000.

Shortly after it debuted, it was submitted to the Atlanta chapter of the Society for Technical Communication Online Communications Competition. It won an Award of Distinguished Technical Communication (the highest) and went on to win the Award of Best of Show for all entries that year. Later, it earned an Award of Merit in the international competition.

I designed the look and feel, the content structure, wrote all the HTML, programmed all the scripts, set up the databases, set up the server (Windows NT 4 & Internet Information Server 4), configured the search engine (Index Server), set up and configured SSL, wrote the shopping cart system, and developed a localizable structure - essentially everything on this site but content itself. It was written almost entirely with Notepad. This site encompassed everything that I had learned up to that point and took full advantage of server-side includes and used every HTML trick I knew at the time to create a flexible and bandwidth friendly layout. Using server side includes allowed me to create an easy to maintain web site while avoiding the use of frames.

The goals of this site were to: write something that could grow to fit our changing demands, could be easily localized into many different languages, and provide a streamlined means of gathering sales leads. Gathering leads presented both a design and technical challenges. The design challenge was providing a special space for calling attention to upcoming events and specials without interfering with the pages content. This problem was solved by creating a right side "ad gutter" on the top level pages that allowed several items of interest to be listed. The technical challenge was collecting leads with minimal frustration by the user. This system was re-written a few different times, finally settling on laying a cookie on the client's machine that was sent back to the server with each demo download. This eliminated need for the user to fill the leads form out multiple times while allowing Marketing to know what the user was interested in.

Datastream Site 4 Version 2
Datastream Site Version 4 r1
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This web site was the first designed with translation in mind. It was offered in English, Spanish, French, Dutch, German, Chinese, Korean, Japanese, and Portuguese. Being the single member of the Webmaster staff, content maintenance became a concern - especially for the foreign language sites. A compromise was three different translation levels - 1 being bare bones and 3 being fairly comprehensive, but still short of the full blown web site. This allowed the staff of the regional offices an opportunity to gradually increase the size and amount of translated content on each site. It also made it easier for me to implement. The most challenging languages were the multi-byte ones (Chinese, Japanese, Korean). Using the English content as a framework I was able to implement it.

For the first time, the Datastream web site offered a way to purchase items directly from it. Rather than rely on an expensive third party solution, I opted to create my own shopping cart system. Admittedly, it is nothing enterprise-level, but the database and cookie driven system had enough flexibility to allow for items to be added and removed from the store quickly and easily. It is still in use to this day on the www.datastream.net site.

Another first for this site was a comprehensive area where customers could sign in for support and services. One of the more challenging parts of this site was incorporating ServiceSoft's WebAdvisor on-line knowledge base system. It used its own template language and posed numerous challenges. Working closely with our support department I was able to customize it to fit closely with our needs. Other new additions to this site included a way to allow customers to submit product enhancement suggestions. After review, these suggestions could be set for voting where our customer liaison could find out what the customers wanted most.

A year after the initial launch, the site was modified to include the tabs at the top as a way to jump between Datastream Web sites.


Development Intranet Site

Development Intranet
Development Intranet Site
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Being a designer in the Development department created several unique design opportunities. The head of Development wanted me to create a nice intranet site for the team so I made this.

This site is a landmark one in my career because of one project, the Review Checklist. The Review Checklist was a tool for developers to make sure they were following Development departmental standards in their interfaces and coding practices. I had the pleasure of working with David Western, one of Datastream's finest developers, in creating this tool. Through his patient mentoring I learned about foreign keys, triggers, views, and other things in SQL Server 6.5.

I later applied the many lessons I learned creating the Review Checklist in my other Datastream web sites.


Datastream Site Version 3

Datastream Site Version 3
Datastream Site Version 3
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This site was the last Datastream site I created that used frames. Launched late in 1997 and replaced October of 1998, it was originally fashioned after Microsoft's web site, hence the black topic bar along the top. It also included a "cover page." I am not a fan of cover pages personally, but I endeavored to make it useful to the end user, by providing a preview of a given sections contents when the user moved their mouse over it.

During the lifespan of this site, Datastream had its first T1 line installed. Shortly afterward we moved the web site in house on a server running Windows NT 4.0 and IIS 3.0. This move created several new learning opportunities; I started learning Microsoft Active Server Pages (ASP) and databases. My first challenge was parsing the leads forms. Previously, they sent an email to a special address we had set up where the leads were collected. They were later printed out and shipped to a company that handled our mailers and were typed into a database and sent back. I created some of my first ASPs that parsed the form and insert the data into a database. Implementing this saved Datastream roughly $400 per month in fees for entering the data.

As my experience and confidence grew, I took on more ambitious projects on this site. I wrote my first database driven secured intranet control sites that handled events and office location listings. These control sites allowed marketing employees to log in (against our Primary Domain Controller) and change office listings and events as needed. When a user signed up for a given seminar, he or she filled out the form and the results were emailed to the events staff. The most ambitious of my early database projects was my first Training scheduling system. The original training schedule used to be static HTML calendars. This became a painful to maintain as new classes were added and schedules changed. The new database driven schedule I created allowed for classes to be queried and results were displayed both as simple listings and visually represented as calendars with the days of a given class shaded in. It also had a simple mechanism that allowed users to sign up for a course (with a check or purchase order) that was sent via email to our training department.


Datastream Site Version 2

Datastream Site Version 2
Datastream Site Version 2 final revision
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My second Datastream site went through a number of design changes during its life span. The final version is pictured here. This was my first site that used JavaScript, in this case to change multiple frames at the same time. This was vastly cleaner and easier to manage than what I created with the 1996 version of the Snyder's Web. I also started getting more into learning advanced HTML table tricks and techniques. This web site was offered in both framed and non-framed versions for legacy browsers.


Datastream Site Version 1

Datastream Site Version 1
Datastream Site Version 1
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I was hired in July of 1996 completed this first web site in late August of that year. Content was simple static HTML. This site had minimal to no JavaScripts. All the graphics on this site were created in FreeHand and later touched up in Photoshop.


Datastream Site - Before Me

The Second Datastream Site
Datastream Site - Before Me
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This was the site as I started Datastream. Between the time I was interviewed and hired this site was prematurely launched. The premature launch created problems because sections of this site were not functioning. My first duties around Datastream included fixing some of those problems. It also provided good incentive to create and launch Site Version 1.


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