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Swing Monterey Bay
Overview:
Swing Monterey Bay is a community
organization dedicated to the recognition and
promotion of vintage forms of jazz dancing through
educational and social events as well as performances
and demonstrations. A challenge to the organization
was how to disseminate information about events
of interest to its members, events that were listed
in a large number of sources covering a wide geographical
area extending all the way to the San Francisco
Bay Area and beyond. Moreover, a resource was
also needed to focus on the local Monterey and
Santa Cruz areas, both for residents and visitors
to these Monterey Bay communities. NuMotion Media
was enlisted to develop a unique website that
would meet these goals and provide a portal to
information about swing dancing and aggregate
the multiple newsgroup feeds covering events in
the region. |
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Visit the site.
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It was specified that the site must:
- Aggregate newsgroup listings from multiple sources.
- Provide a calendar for local events that is easy to maintain.
- Provide a categorized directory of links to different resources.
Solution:
1. Aggregate newsgroup listings from multiple sources.
We implemented a program using
dynamic Flash and an XML parser to display headlines
from the various newsgroups around the area that were
frequented by the site's users. By using Flash, each
group could be selected using a drop-down menu, and
no page refresh is required. An option was also provided
to allow the users to display all of the recent posts
on one page.
2. Provide a calendar for local events that is easy
to maintain.
We implemented a calendar to display
local events, and, using JavaScript and dhtml, added
the ability to view details for the events by rolling
over the brief description with a mouse. For the client,
we designed an administrative console that allows
for easy maintenance. We also developed custom routines
for managing recurring events and utilized highly
optimized database techniques to boost performance.
3. Provide a categorized directory of links to different
resources.
We implemented a categorized directory
of links to different resources, allowing visitors
to the site to contribute links and rate them. Also,
the directory shows statistics such as the most popular
links and the newest links. The administrative console
provides the client with a way of managing the links
and their categories, as well as validating user-submitted
links and corresponding with the users who submitted
them.
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