Hey, welcome, how are you? Good? Glad to hear it. You’ve found the online portfolio of Joshua Gross, so why don’t you have a look around? I think you’ll be pleased with what you see.
But who am I, exactly?
I’m a freelance programmer and designer with a passion for developing new ideas. Lots of ’em.
(And I’m for hire, if you’re curious.)
ajax instant messenger (ajax im)
A completely browser-based chat client that includes one-on-one, and multi-user messaging, as well as a buddylist. Created from the ground up, this was one of the first entirely AJAX messenger clients ever built.
Snapherd
A unique photo (camera phone and digtial camera) game based around catchwords.
moowheel
MooWheel allows a user to display connections between concepts in a flowing, circular format. A unique and elegant way to visualize data using Javascript and the <canvas> element.
moocirclepack
Circle packing for Javascript. A great visualization that allows a user to represent data in a structured-but-amorphous format.
ajax chat
A very basic multi-user chat script with AJAX; has the ability to follow a user from page to page, and retain chat data.
mp3 streamer
Simple MP3 streamer using AJAX for the display, PHP for the backend, and Flash for audio playback; this was built for a client. Streamer doesn't use images (at client's request), so all buttons are generated on the fly using <canvas> elements.
tapefailure
Unique analytics service that recorded user's sessions as they browsed a website. Site owner could playback recordings, as well as view various aggregated statistics based upon the recorded data. Now defunct, replaced by VisTrac.
tagboard
One of my earlier projects. Allows users to post text on a board at any angle, in various fonts and colors.
letterboard
Akin to the magnetic letters often found on fridge doors.
The concept.
You’re the shit.
At least, you should think you are.
So often, it seems, I get down on myself about work or life, that I’ll just completely lose my momentum on whatever task or project I was working on. Consequently, a lot of time is spent trying to regain this momentum; this is quite a bit of wasted time that I could have spent being productive.
This article follows a similar train of thought as my last post, Qualifying “Web Karma”: It shouldn’t be a game. I’ve always had a fascination with communities and I’ve noticed, as perhaps many others have, that communities often gain momentum over time to a point where they are expanding at an almost unholy rate. You can clearly see this kind of growth in Digg, Reddit, and even (to a limited extent, currently) Hacker News, if you’ve watched them over time.
