I was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes last week. Man, I was absolutely floored when the doctor told me. I didn’t know the first thing about diabetes, so my first instinct was to Google “diabetes rochester ny” to try and find local people blogging about the disease. I came up empty, and that gave me an idea.

I had originally started the Contrary Cook to document my new (mis)adventures in cooking, but now I’m taking the blog in a new direction. Instead of learning how to cook to just improve my health at 40, I’m learning how to cook to save my own life at 40.

I designed & coded the website, and managed the online marketing for Transcat.com while I was employed by Innovative Solutions. In 2008, the website was named a Rochester Business Journal “Best of Web” finalist.

Jim Walker, Transcat’s Director of Sales and Marketing, had this to say about my contributions to the site:

“Results tell it all. With Mike’s combined expertise in both web design and online marketing, our online business tripled after one year. It was also a pleasure working with Mike.”

While I was at it, I gave her site a little face lift and re-coded the entire thing with standards-based XHTML and CSS. A complete separation of presentation from structure – design from data. Here’s the “Before” shot. This project was a soup-to-nuts website redesign and e-commerce implementation completed in just 28 hours. Not too shabby.

This is just a little personal project that provides me with an excuse to play with my new camera and spend as much time as possible on Canandaigua Lake. My family has owned one of these little boathouses for years and I thought it would be fun to document their history and allow others to submit photos and favorite memories. A fun way to relax and do something creative at the same time!

The Responsible New York site went live this morning. I designed this one for Tom Golisano and his political reform committee. They are a really great bunch of people to work with. I am looking forward to adding more features and functionality in the upcoming weeks (like polls, discussion forums, video, and RSS feeds).

AV Solutions is a multi-media systems integrator and service provider located in Rochester, NY. Their parent company is Toshiba Business New York. I did the web design and development for their current website.

I designed this one for Morgan Communities while I was working for the talented folks at Innovative Solutions. I created the graphic/web design, designed the information architecture, and coded the XHTML/CSS while the programmers at Innovative used .net and AJAX to create a state-of-the art apartment rental Web application. I highly recommend Innovative Solutions for all of your Web application, networking and out-sourced IT needs. They are are a great bunch of folks to work with.