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<h1>Contents</h1>
<ul>
  <li><a href="#dayjob">The Day Job</a>: Online Architecture as a Day Job
  <li><a href="#guestbook">Guestbook</a>: Simple Guestbook perl script.
  <li><a href="#hexcol">Hexcol</a>: Hex colour calculator for web pages.
</ul>

<p>

<hr>

<!-- THE DAY JOB -->
<a name="dayjob">
<h1>The Day Job</h1>
</a>

Much of <b><i>The Day Job</i></b> is spent sitting in 
<a href="%%docs%%/misc/gallery.html#office">The Office</a> in
front of an Indy tapping away like a woodpecker on speed.  When I'm not 
hacking or slurping from the 
<a href="%%docs%%/misc/gallery.html#mug">Sacred Mug of Coffee</a>, 
you'll probably find me messing about with some graphics, touching up a 
photo, fiddling with a font or doing a bit of 3d modelling. 

<p>

<i><b>Hackery</b></i> and <i><b>Imagery</b></i> you might say.

<p>

<h2>Hackery</h2>

<ul>
<li><b>User Authentication System</b><br>
	Starting with the GDBM library, I
	developed <i>Relic</i>, a pseudo-relational database library in C which
	in turn provided the basis for <i>Angel</i>, a user authentication 
	library.  It supports hierarchical groups, multiple user/group 
	membership and (configurable) inherited membership between super-groups
	and sub-groups.  In short, it means we can configure a suitably complex
	membership and administration hierarchy for our web site(s).  An
	NSAPI (Netscape Server Application Programming Interface) library 
	followed thereafter to interface the
	authentication functionality directly into our web server and a number
	of Perl 5 objects were created to provide authentication access for the 
	various Perl scripts that run under the server.

	<p>

<li><b>Online Classrooms</b><br>
	As part of the <a href="http://www.peritas.com/training">
	Peritas Online Training</a> system, I developed a number of web-based tools
	to implement the required functionality to provide training across the
	Internet: Chat Rooms, Bulletin Boards, User Management Systems, etc., all
	working in conjunction with the underlying user authentication system.

	<p>

<li><b>Product Catalogue</b><br>
	The Peritas <a href="http://www.peritas.com/cgi-bin/store">Product 
	Catalogue</a> is a web-based interface
	to the Peritas Course Planning Guide, giving instantaneous online access
	to the hundreds of training courses that Peritas run including pricing
	and availability information.  There's nothing overly complex in the 
	implementation but it's a good example of a value-added web product.

	<p>

<li><b>Search Engine</b><br>
	Whilst I can't take credit for the underlying
	search engine technology (it's Netscape's implementation of Harvest), 
	I can claim to have re-written the awful sample code and implemented
	my own functionality to provide fast and simple access to the 
	<a href="http://www.peritas.com/cgi-bin/search/search">search
	engine</a> for Peritas Online.

	<p>

<li><b>Source Control and Web Page Management</b><br>
	As part of the drive to produce consistent and managable
	web pages, not only for ourselves but also for our clients, the 
	<b>Template::Html</b> Perl 5 module and corresponding utility, 
	<b>mkpage</b>, came into existance.  It's a life saving tool that
	allows us to attach standard footers, headers, common menu systems, 
	graphics, filenames, modification dates, etc., etc., into our web 
	pages, much as might be acheived by Server Side Includes, but offline
	and with bells on.  All my pages, the Peritas Online pages and those
	created for our <i>Client Zones</i> are built and managed this way.
	<p>
	The library and tools will hopefully be released into the public domain 
	one day <i>Real Soon Now</i>.
</ul>


There's also the <a href="#guestbook">Guestbook</a>, the 
<a href="#hexcol">Hex Colour Converter</a> and a few other web-based tools 
and utilities that come to mind, but seeing as they've got their own section 
further down the page, I'll pass on them here.  You can also check out the
<a href="%%docs%%/code">Code Junkie</a> pages for other non-work and/or
non-web related software I've written and made available for download.

<p>

<h2>Imagery</h2>

The other side to <i><b>The Day Job</b></i> involves the graphic design 
and creation of web pages (and formerly, Multimedia Training graphics and 
user interfaces).

<p>

Pictures speak louder than words, so check out some example of what I
do when the creative mood strikes:

<ul>
<li><b>Home Pages</b><br>
	For a start, the graphics and layout you see around my Home Pages
	is all my own work.  Things like the arrows, the 
	<a href="%%images%%/abwlogo.gif">abw logo</a>, 
	<a href="%%images%%/pointer.gif">Pointing Pete</a> (top left of the 
	<a href="%%docs%%/">home page</a>), the 
	<a href="%%docs%%/misc/cool.html">Cool Award</a>, 
	the various icons, the photos, etc., have
	all been produced with a number of favourite tools, most noticeably
	Adobe Photoshop and a Wacom A3 Graphics Tablet that I absolutely
	could <i>not</i> live without.

	<p>

<li><b>The Font: ABWScrawl</b><br>
	Yup, the font's of my own design, too.  Created with Macromedia 
	Fontographer, it goes by the name of <i>ABWScrawl</i> because, well,
	<i>I</i> created it and it looks like a <i>scrawl</i>.  Obvious really.
	Actually, it looks not entirely dissimilar to how I write with a pen
	(when I actually use one).
</ul>

For more examples of graphic work I've done, check out the 
<a href="%%docs%%/#artist">Digital Artist</a>
section which looks at Ray Tracing, 3D modelling, Photoshop work, etc.  
<p>

<hr>



<!-- GUESTBOOK -->
<a name="guestbook">
<h1>Guestbook</h1>
</a>

<ul>
	I'm sure you've come across a Guestbook before and this one's nothing
	special.  The basic script will generate a form for the user to fill
	in and submit, and then process the form, writing a guestbook entry to
	a file.  The same script also handles the display of previous messages.
	This version also allows the guestbook owner to mark certain messages
	as "favourites", and when browsing the guestbook, the user can decide
	if they want to see all message or just the "best" entries.

	<p>

	The Guestbook is a Perl 5 script requiring the CGI module and the
	Date::Format module as well as Perl 5 itself.  These are all available 
	from the CPAN archives:- see the <a href="http://www.perl.com/perl">Perl 
	Language Home Page</a> or contact your local sysadmin or Perl guru.

	<p>

	One important caveat to using the Guestbook code concerns file 
	permissions.  Most web servers (the program that actually runs the
	script and delivers the generated page to the user's browser) assume
	a different user identity when executing CGI scripts.  This may be 
	"nobody", "www" or any other user, depening on how your server was 
	configured.  Because the script needs to write to a guestbook file, 
	it is important that the permissions on the file permit it to do so.  
	
	<p>
	
	The most effective solution is to run the script as 'setuid'.
	That is, the script adopts your own user id when it runs.  There are
	some potential security problems with making the script itself setuid.
	The solution to this is to use a small C program (which can safely be 
	setuid) which runs the Perl script itself.  The Perl script (e.g. 
	"guestbook.pl") should be owned by you and have permissions 500
	(-r-x------).  The wrapper program, once compiled (something like
	"cc -o guestbook guestbook.c"), should also be owned by you and have 
	permissions 6555 (r-sr-sr-x).  The guestbook.pl Perl script can reside
	anywhere on your filesystem (as long as you edit guestbook.c to indicate
	the full path to it) and the compiled guestbook wrapper program should
	reside in your cgi-bin or should be executable by the server (check with
	your server adminstrator if you're not sure how to do this).

	<p>

	Once you've got a few guestbook entries, you can go through and mark
	some of them as "favourites".  The guestbook file stores each entry on
	a seperate line.  The first character of the line is a '0' by default.
	Edit the guestbook file and change the '0' to a '1' for each message 
	you want to mark as a "favourite".  When you select "Best Entries"
	from the Guestbook, you will see only those message marked '1'.  The
	normal "Read Guestbook" option shows all messages regardless.

	<p>

	You may freely copy, distribute, use and modify the code in 
	condition with the terms specified in the source code.

	<p>

	<ul>
	<li><a href="%%guestbook%%">Sign or Read</a> the Guestbook
		(my own modification of the basic script)
	<li><a href="guestbook.pl">Source code</a> for the Guestbook.
	<li><a href="guestbook.c">Setuid C wrapper</a> for the Guestbook.
	</ul>
</ul>

<p>

<hr>



<!-- HEXCOL -->
<a name="hexcol">
<h1>Hexcol</h1>
</a>

<a href="%%hexcol%%"><img src="%%images%%/online/hexcol.gif" 
width=117 height=160 border=0 align=right alt=" Screen Shot "></a>

<ul>
	Hexcol is a simple Perl 5 CGI script that converts decimal RGB 
	triplets into their corresponding hex values.  The user is 
	presented with a 3 field form to complete (for Red, Green and Blue 
	values) and on submission, the hex triplet is displayed along with 
	a swatch of the specified colour.

	<p>

	Requires Perl 5 and the CGI.pm module.  These are available from 
	the CPAN archives:- see the <a href="http://www.perl.com/perl">Perl 
	Language Home Page</a> or contact your local sysadmin or Perl guru.

	<p>
		
	You may freely copy, distribute, use and modify the code in 
	condition with the terms specified in the source code.

	<p>

	<ul>
	<li><a href="%%hexcol%%">Hexcol</a> in action.
	<li><a href="hexcol">Source code</a> for Hexcol.
	</ul>
</ul>

<p>


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