Projects

Significant Projects Completed

Freelance Work

bcFramework

I’ve developed a structured, reusable set of code that I use when creating new websites. The framework uses several open-source projects like PEAR, Smarty, and FCKEditor. The framework provides basic user administration, payment functions, and page editor functions. Its under continuous development and I use a Subversion Repository for version control

Open Source Speedtest

Created a speedtest application written in PHP and Perl that measures the connection speed between server and client. It has been released as open source and is available at http://www.brandonchecketts.com/open-source-speedtest/

Various Websites

I’ve provided programming for many websites:

Webpipe.net

IPTrack

Series of perl-based scripts that listen to NetFlow data originated by Cisco Routers. The scripts save information about the traffic flows into a MySQL database. The database can then be queried for historical and current bandwidth usage information. Source code has been released on http://dev.webpipe.net/iptrack/ (although Webpipe uses a newer version that provides many more features)

TranMon

A series of Perl-based scripts that retrieve JavaScripts source files from Webpipe’s various Tranzeo wireless access points and customer premise equipment. The scripts can be integrated into Cacti to provide various graphs for maintaining and monitorimg Webpipe’s wireless network. This project has also been released as open-source and is available at http://dev.webpipe.net/tranmon

DetroitCity.com

Dynamic social networking website centered around the “underground music” industry in Detroit. The site makes extensive use of Dynamic HTML and AJAX technology. I developed the database structure, most of the PHP “logic” of the site, and much of the JavaScript AJAX functions.

IPAdmin

A custom web-based IP Address administration database. Frontend uses AJAX to make saving assignments as easy as a spreadsheet. It also includes a number of web services that other applications can use to interact with the database.

Bandwidth shaping appliance

Created Webpipe’s “gateway” server for their wireless network. This server includes a PHP based front-end for easy administration by Webpipe’s employees. The backend uses a series of custom Perl scripts that run various “tc” and “iptables” commands for firewall and bandwidth shaping functions. Also creates the DHCP config file for the DHCP server. The program also communicates with the web services developed with the IPAdmin application to keep proper track of IP Address assignments

Flying J

Server swapout scripts

Developed Bash scripts to dramatically reduce downtime and decrease user-error during server replacements. The scripts interacted with various processes, ftp’d files between servers, and exported databases to reduce downtime from several hours to about 30 minutes.

Wireless Handheld Rollout

Worked closely with development deparment to roll out wireless handheld devices. My role involved “hardening” the Windows CE OS which I did by installing Perl on the devices and writing perl scripts to make changes to the OS. I also wrote some perl and PHP scripts that remotely connected to the devices to perform software upgrades, and retrieve and parse XML log files.

Modernized MP-RAS

Flying J uses an old version of Unix developed by NCR called MP-RAS on many of its servers. The OS has has had only minor upgrades since it was developed. I worked to install modern GNU applications on the OS, and get modern versions of Apache and Sendmail installed and configured. Also overhauled “sudo” privlidges to better refine permissions and eliminate security risks.

Various reports and automation scripts

Developed dozens of reports that queried all kinds of data sources, including MySQL, Oracle, MSSQL, Informix databases, and flat-files. Scripts were written to aid front-line help desk in searching through log files and databases to complete common tasks.