Movable Type Ltd
Information Design & Management
Advice – Design – Development
Information Systems & Database-driven Websites
- Creative tailor-made solutions to your information needs
- Movable Type has a wide-ranging portfolio of work with large/complex information sets, from classic
database applications and database-sourced websites through to XML work, visualisation, data migration
projects, and general consultancy and advice.
- Emphasis is always placed on usability, both of systems (including websites), and the information
they present.
- If you have information which needs taming, organising, or managing, please contact me at
ku.oc.epyt-elbavom@ofni
- Sample projects
- These are a selection of the projects I’ve worked on. In many cases, you can see the websites on
the Internet.
- Track.Trail
- event tracking
- Welsh Prose 1350–1425
- searchable website of medieval Welsh manuscripts
- Premier Sport
- online booking system & course management
- Journal of Illustration Studies
- academic journal of illustration studies with dedicated content management system
- Belle Group
- management reporting, website, data migration
- Sheffield Flood Claims Archive
- website presenting 7,500 digitised compensation claims following the 1864 flood
- British Fiction 1800–1829
- searchable website of this significant literary database
- eAIP
- XML-based aeronautical information publications
- Corvey
- website supporting research into this Georgian-period library
- EATMP/ROAD
- using Visio to generate Gantt charts from Access databases
- ARDEP
- details of European Air Traffic Management research & development
- Profile
- Chris Veness
- Useful scripts:
- These are client-side scripts which I’ve made available for general use – or you may just want
to check my programming style...
- Distance between pair of latitude/longitude points
- Calculates the distance and bearig between a pair of points specified as latitude and longitude
(eg 530902N 0015040W) using the ‘Haversine’ formula.
- Converting OS Grid Ref’s & lat/long points
- Converting Ordnance Survey grid references (eg SU387148); to/from latitude/longitude points
involves some hairy maths, but the coding is reasonably straightforward.
- Tiny Encryption Algorithm
- TEA is a simple DES-style encryption algorithm which is easily implemented in JavaScript, and
good for encrypting anything you want stored or transmitted confidentially.
- SHA-256 cryptographic hash function
- SHA-256 (and SHA-1) are widely-used cryptographic hash
algorithms for purposes such as encoding passwords
which shouldn’t be stored or transmitted in clear, creating digital signatures, etc.
- AES encryption
- AES is industrial-strength encryption, but surprisingly simple to implement.
Things should be made as simple
as possible, but no simpler 
—
Albert Einstein
- the simpler a system is, the easier it is to use – it is usually easier to build a mental model
of the system, and then to see how to achieve a task or locate information
- the simpler a system is, the easier it is to maintain and develop further
- of course, if it is too simple it won’t do the job!
This has been a guiding mantra in all my work. In fact, Einstein said (in
1933), “The supreme goal of all theory is to make the irreducible basic elements as simple and as few
as possible without having to surrender the adequate representation of a single datum of experience”
– but I think the popular version successfully applies the principle to the original quote!
