The Forest of Avon is one of 12 Community Forests in England and is part of the National Community Forest Partnership. The Forest of Avon staff had been using an Access database to manage their contacts and mailing lists. This wasn't entirely suitable for the purpose as it wasn't suited to being used by several people at once and needed some modification. I suggested that they moved to a browser based solution written in ASP and Access to take advantage of their existing IIS server and database.

The solution I built for them allows all the staff to search and update the database via their web browser. Each user has an individual login and can create saved contact lists from the results of an advanced search. These contact lists can be downloaded as Excel spreadsheets for use in mail merges. Lists can be combined, copied and refined.

As this was a bespoke build, I built in a number of other features in such as a document management system, so that files used within the organisation can be stored centrally on the server and accessed via the intranet, to avoid multiple copies of documents floating around as email attachments or on network drives.

skills and technologies used:-

• Microsoft Active Server Pages (ASP classic)
• Access
• XHTML
• CSS

what's this? i'm actually blogging again after a break of about six months - new site, new URL and everything. I'm not going to explain everything in this post, i'll save that for when I "offcially" launch rickhurst.co.uk

no i'm blogging today because I decided to drop in at caffe gusto up at the top of park street on my way to work to have a coffee and use the free wifi. goddam it's hot, but with the latin music and sounds of the cafe and non-english accents downstairs it seems about right, for a minute here I could be in spain somewhere, rather than just round the corner from work where I shall shortly go and ascend our many, many stairs and stand in front of the fan sweating for a while!

The European Law Firm website is a platform for a network of commercially orientated law firms across Europe. The site also has a members extranet where members can communicate and share documents and other information via a secure login. The public website and extranet are based on a bespoke Content Management System (CMS) written in php and MySQL.

I was asked to repurpose an existing database and CMS to create a new website and CMS. I enlisted the design skills of Fanatic Design to create the visual design of both the public facing website and client extranet and created these as XHTML and CSS templates. I then refined and extended the existing CMS to add the new functionality required by the project. Most of the information on the website is maintained by members of the network and the site Administrator, through the web using simple forms. Some of the content on the site is set up to use Macromedia Contribute templates.

skills and technoligies used:-

• XHTML
• CSS
• PHP
• MySQL
• RSS

DFR skate zine is a collaborative online skateboard magazine based in Bristol, UK. It is based on the Plone Content Management System, which allows non-technical users to contribute articles, photographs and video to be published on the site. The site also displays content from other websites by making use of incoming RSS feeds. The visual design for the site was provided by Iain Claridge.

skills and technologies used:-

• XHTML
• CSS
• Javascript (including use of Lightbox library)
• Plone skinning and content types (Archetypes)

Blog archives - everything written before Feb 2006 has been migrated over from my old blog "hypothecate"

(AKA let the name-dropping commence)

Over the past nine years, whilst working for various agencies and organisations I have worked on web projects for a diverse range of clients including: BT, Orange, Vodafone, FCUK, National Express, University of the West of England, NHS, Warwickshire Police, AlderKing, Lloyds TSB, Royal Bank of Scotland, Oxford University, South Gloucestershire County Council, Hyundai and Schlumberger.

Since going freelance/ forming Olivewood in June 2007, I have worked on projects for Netsight, Enable Interactive, Carlson Marketing, Morgan Wylie, European Law Firm, Fanatic!, Mason Zimbler, Everything Imaging, Kudos Business Technologies, VOSA, Forest of Avon, Avon wildlife trust, Uniq Plc, Aardman, Holistic Community, Griffin Marketing and Team Rubber. Case studies for some of these will be added either on this site or on the olivewood site when I get time. As an interim measure, I've started tagging blog posts that include projects i've worked on with portfolio:-

http://www.rickhurst.co.uk/category/portfolio/
(Note that this isn't everything i've worked on, just the ones i've been inclined to write about!)

an image

I am based in Bristol, UK

If you wish to get in contact with me, please email me: rick.hurst@gmail.com. I check my email regularly, and try to respond to all of them, but there may be a delay if I am particularly busy or taking time off.

Please note I do not publish my phone number on here due to the volume of sales calls I get.

Current availability
Due to ongoing and upcoming commitments, I am currently not looking for any additional work. If that situation changes I will update this page. Please feel free to email me with details of any non-imminent projects or contracts that you think I might be interested in, but I really can't take anything else on for the foreseeable future.

freelance web development services and consultancy

I am a freelance web developer based in Bristol, England, with over 10 years of commercial experience. I specialise in building accessible websites using web standards, and integration with database driven Administration, Document and Content Mangement Systems. I have expertise in XHTML, CSS, Javascript, Drupal, Wordpress, PHP, Python, MySQL and ASP (classic).

I can offer following services on a freelance/contract basis:-

• Highly Accessible website build, either from provided designs or designs sourced from a network of designers I work with. All sites are built with XHTML and CSS, using web standards.
• Bespoke Web Applications, including Document and Content Management Systems.
• Integration and Skinning of websites using popular web applications such as Plone, Wordpress, Drupal and phpBB.
• Redesign, additions or overhaul of existing websites
• On-site web consultancy
• Hands-on training in web development.

If you would like to talk to me about any of these services, please contact me.
Guest Lecturing/ Workshops
I am an occasional guest lecturer in web design at the University of the West of England, running a two hour CSS/ front end web build workshop. I have also run two Plone workshops for Bristol Skillswap
Olivewood Data Technologies
As of June 2007 I am co-owner and Technical Director of Olivewood - a software consultancy based in Bristol. We specialise in bespoke database driven web applications, but also provide web design and build, on-site consultancy to businesses and web design agencies. We are technology agnostic but have expertise in PHP, XHTML, CSS, Ajax, MySql.
About me
I grew up in east anglia, but now live in the south of the lovely city of Bristol, with my wife, son and 2 cats. I am an unashamed geek, living and breathing digital technology. I am a regular contributor to underscore - a very active mailing list for new media professionals in the Bristol and Bath area. To keep a balance on things I also dabble in music (mostly bass guitar), bicycling, surfing and skateboarding. I mix business with pleasure by running a skateboarding blog called "Too Old To Skate", a blog about mobile working, and a blog about music and recording