The Team
MarginLeft is the collaboration of James Daniels and Sky Mayhew: we started MarginLeft in order to combine our respective skills and provide our services to a geographic area sorely lacking in standards based design. After working for two years with local entrepreneurs and businesses, we discovered that the level of work we wanted to do was beyond the capacity of central Maine, thus we began developing our own web applications and began to offer our services on a global level.
James Daniels
James Daniels is a 22 year old web developer, mathematician, and wii-boxing champion. James is an expert in a wide variety of web programming languages, and has 8 years of experience with standards based development. He maintains a personal website JamesDaniels.net, and someday he might even use it for more than a file system. In his free time James is a research assistant at the University of Maine's Mathematics Department.
Sky Mayhew
Sky Mayhew is a 23 year old entrepreneur and web developer. He currently co-runs MarginLeft, tries to speak Japanese, occasionally writes in a blog, takes photographs and puts them on either DeviantArt or Flickr, resides in Bangor, Maine, loves gourmet food and cooking, and does not have a brother named ground.
Our Projects
Sophia: online course management system
Sophia Course Management system is universally accessible e-learning platform. By providing a low-cost alternative to the big box software, Sophia will help low-tech colleges, high-schools, and tutoring centers expand their educational programs to the web. Sophia will be the only hosted course management system that comes completely Section 508 compliant, and will include automated tools for distribution of accessible media, mathematics, and assessments.
Currently in closed beta, Sophia will be released publicly in June. For more info visit www.sophiacms.com, or email mail@sophiacms.com.
mCaddie: mobile golf scorecard & social network
MarginLeft is developing mCaddie in cooperation with mGolfCo., a Portland, me based startup.
mCaddie is a golfer-centric social network wrapped around an intuitive gps based scorecard, which is accessible from your mobile phone. mCaddie will provide club suggestions, distance to hole information, and will integrate satellite maps and course information.
A public beta will be available in May. For more info visit www.mcaddie.com, or email contact@mcaddie.com.
Open Source: from frameworks to video conversion
We have a number of tools that will soon be released open-source, all extracted components from projects that we have created: plugins for Radiant cms, a digital slide library which integrates with ViroCat, a Ruby wrapper for FFMpeg, and a CSS framework for iPhone web applications. Keep a eye on this site for future developments.
Services
We make websites that we would be proud to call our own, and treat each and every project as if it were ours. This means devotion to web standards, user experience, and quality. These may sound like bold words, but we believe our web development services have distinct value.
If you are a bulleted list type of person, let us comfort you by listing a small portion of our expertise:
- Cutting edge XHTML & CSS
- Web standards
- Ruby on Rails / PHP
- Graphic design
- Desktop software development
- Relational database design
- Web-centric copywriting
- Website usability
- Accessibility: 508 & WCAG
- Javascript / AJAX
- Typography
- E-commerce
- RSS / RDF / XML
- Application deployment
- Business consulting
- Cross-browser compatibility
Our policy is to only work with one client at once. This allows us to focus our entire attention on that client's needs. If you would like to work with us, please contact Sky or James via email anytime.
Projects We Are Currently Accepting Proposals For
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Website Development
MarginLeft has a proven track record for both original website development, as well as redesigns. Using standards based design and thoughtful information architecture we can develop an aesthetic and usable website that will increase traffic, boost conversion rates, and make future revisions cheaper and easier.
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Mobile Development
We are experts in mobile design and development. MarginLeft can help you create a mobile version of your site specifically tailored for the iPhone or Google Android. Check out some of our mobile related projects and let us prove it.
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Ruby on Rails
Interested in creating a Ruby on Rails Site? Stuck with a RoR site and need help extending it? Marginleft can help. We have worked extensively with both small and large RoR applications, developing custom apps as well as plugins for current popular applications such as the Radiant Content Management System
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General Consulting
Whatever your web problems are, we can provide the solutions. From javascript issues to seo to accessibility and Section 508 compliance.
Previous Work
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IONA Technologies Dublin, Ireland
The IONA open source community website was sorely in need of a redesign. We focused on information architecture and a simple design philosophy to develop a great looking site, while at the same time staying within the regulations of their corporate style guide. We developed a new site, integrated it with their Radiant cms, and customized their Atlassian Confluence wiki and Jive Software Forums.
- What We Did
- Original Design and Standards based code, Radiant cms integration, forum and wiki templates and custom cms integration
- How We Did It
- Photoshop, xhtml, css, Javascript, Ruby on Rails
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mCaddie Portland, me
MarginLeft is developing mCaddie in cooperation with mGolfCo., a Portland, me based startup.
mCaddie is a golfer-centric social network wrapped around an intuitive gps based scorecard, which is accessible from your mobile phone. mCaddie will provide club suggestions, distance to hole information, and will integrate satellite maps and course information.
A public beta will be available in May. For more info visit www.mcaddie.com, or email contact@mcaddie.com.
- What we did
- iPhone web-application, social network, XML API, iPhone native appearance.
- How we did it
- Photoshop, xhtml, css
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Last Ditch Racing Bangor, me
LDR came to us in desperate need of a method of updating content, and providing their fans with media. We completely overhauled their site and integrated their new design into the popular blogging engine Movable Type. To help build their community, we helped them develop pages on social networking and media sites.
- What we did
- New Design, Movable Type blog tempting, set up hosting, community involvement, podcasting and customized rss distribution.
- How we did it
- Photoshop, xhtml, css, seo, social networking, Flickr and Viddler integration
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University of Maine Orono, me
The University of Maine's it website. James stepped in for a much needed redesign of the website. Under James, both the code and the design received a complete overhaul, and has met with much success. Content wise, it is our biggest project to date.
- What we did
- New Design, New front and back end code, accessibility studies, usability studies, authored content, and managed the universities web development team.
- How we did it
- Photoshop, xhtml, css, php, Javascript, Usability Studies, Icon art
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University of Maine Orono, me
The English department approached us after their site was slammed in a department review. We worked closely with them to create a new design and to integrate a CMS. We created a fresh design, and wrote from scratch xhtml and css for it. We also heavily customized the Radiant cms, adding a more comprehensive user system that includes permissions and hierarchies.
- What we did
- Designed the website, coded the interface, customized Radiant, helped develop content, and served as effective web-masters during their long-term transition.
- How we did it
- Photoshop, xhtml, css, web standards, Ruby on Rails, Radiant cms
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University of Maine Orono, me
The Center for Research on Sustainable Forests at the University of Maine, came to us looking for a fresh, original website. As they were a new department they had no previous web presence, and this was a big step for them. They wanted both an attractive website that maintained some themes from the university, as well as a customized content management system. As with all university websites, their site had to be 508 compliant.
- What we did
- Designed proofs. Developed the xhtml template and the css. Integrated the site into a customized version of the Radiant cms, and taught them how to use textile and to upload content.
- How we did it
- Photoshop,xhtml, css, Ruby on Rails, Radiant, sifr
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meINBRE Salsbury Cove, me
The Maine Idea Network Of Biomedical Research Excellence (meINBRE). After the original designer quit, James stepped in to create a very nice looking site, and completely authored both the graphics and the code.
- What we did
- Original design, graphics, front end interface.
- How we did it
- Photoshop, xhtml, css/Table Hybrid, Dreamweaver Templates
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University of Maine Orono, me
We helped the University of Maine chapter of the acm develop a blog, online event calendar, and forums.
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Katahdin Rock & Gem Millinocket, me
Mom and Pop Jewelry store looking to branch out and establish an online presence. We helped them develop a visually pleasing web presence that emphasized the quality of their unique Maine gemstones.
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Traditional Turkish Carpets Troy, me
A complete re-design for a Turkish carpet store looking to boost their online image.
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OptiToti Orono, me
We created this website for an entrepreneurial college student looking to move away from eBay. While the website was never completely finished, we did create an original and attractive design, a standards based xhtml template, and the beginnings of a php and ajax based store.
- What we did
- Original design and the user interface.
- How we did it
- Photoshop, xhtml, css, Javascript
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Words Without Voices Portland, me
This website was the brainchild of an artist looking to create and online art competition. We developed sever iterative designs and developed a standards based front end. Finally, we coded a ruby on rails back-end that allowed for account management, picture uploading and conversion, and integration with PayPal.
- What we did
- Original designed and instructional graphics, Ruby on Rails back-end,
- How we did it
- Photoshop, xhtml & css, Ruby on Rails, ImageMagick, and usability studies
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University of Maine Orono, me
Centro is the Center for tourism in Maine. James did this site while working separately for the University of Maine system. It incorporates an original design, standards based xhtml, and full accessibility compliance.
- What we did
- New Design and new user interface.
- How we did it
- Photoshop, XHTML, CSS, Flash
Our Blogs
We are currently reorganizing our blogs, please check back later.
Contact Us
Feel free to contact us, and while we most likely won't be available to immediately take your call, if you leave a voicemail or email message we will try to get back to you as soon as possible.
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MarginLeft, llc
MarginLeft.com mail@marginleft.com+1 (207) 449-1002Download vCardOrono, Maine 0447320 Godfrey Drive
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James Daniels, cto
MarginLeft, LLC JamesDaniels.net james@marginleft.comPO Box 1572Bangor, Maine 04402-1572+1 (207) 659-1858Download vCard -
Sky Mayhew, ceo
MarginLeft, LLC SkyMayhew.com sky@marginleft.comPO Box 1572Bangor, Maine 04402-1572+1 (207) 944-2477Download vCard