Project Url: http://www.vdak.nl

Projectmanagement: connectedconcepts.nl

Project delivery: Jun 19, 2010

Description: Van Daalen Assurantiën is a company that provides insurance, mortgages, loans, etc. They were in need of a new website and I took care of the design, hosting, e-mail, cms and development.

The website holds more than 40 different forms with numerous validation rules. The customer has total control over the content via the CMS that the website was built on.

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I usually just use IMAP for my e-mail within Outlook on my office computer and IMAP with Thunderbird when I’m home on my laptop with Ubuntu, but my laptop gave me some troubles at home so I took my girlfriends laptop and fired up my webmail.

Damn!, Squirellmail is so incredibly ugly and gui-unfriendly compared to Horde or any other webmail project you come across. Not only do the themes stink, but it misses out on several basic functionality like sieve filtering and per-user SpamAssassin preferences.

I had some spare time on my hands so I went looking for a Squirellmail alternative. Very quickly you will find that there aren’t that many (good) webmail clients around. There is GoogleMail, Horde, Roundcube, Zimbra and a few lesser known ones. GoogleMail isn’t an option since we don’t like to host our e-mail elsewhere, Zimbra isn’t because it is more of an collaboration suite then it is a webmail client and Horde isn’t an option once you compare it to Roundcube

RoundCube is an excellent open source experience for an AJAX webmail, and what will really attract you to Roundcube is its advanced user interface with drag and drop functionnalities which make it very easy to organize your email. RoundCube Webmail is written in PHP and requires a MySQL database. The user interface is fully skinnable using XHTML and CSS 2. Roundcube also offers extensions in the form of plugins. This enables you to use SpamAssassin options per-user, Sievefiltering per-user, etc.

Roundcube was definitely the webmail program the fitted our needs most. We quickly installed it next to our Squirellmail installation. The installation was super-easy and super-fast. Then installed the ManageSieve and SpamAssassin plugins and I thought we were good to go.

Then a colleague mentioned that he couldn’t set a auto-reply from within RoundCube. He was planning to take a few days off and wanted to set an out-of-the-office notification. I quickly looked in the RoundCube repository for a auto-reply function but it is only available for a specific Windows mailserver. On the forums of RoundCube the programmers state that there will be no such official plugin or feature made available since they think it is not something the webmail program should manage.

I disagree.

I think users should be able to set their auto-reply message from within their webmail and not having to go trough Usermin or Webmin to do so.

Since SquirellMail DID have the auto-reply functionality available and SquirellMail also runs on PHP and MySQL I decided to just take that plugin and port it to RoundCube. I wrapped the whole thing in a RoundCube plugin format and voila, it works brilliantly.

The plugin writes a file to the users homedir where the SendMail server picks it up and fires the ‘Vacation’ plugin that sends an auto-reply.

Anyone who wants the plugin can download it here.

Update – If you can’t use FTP to put the forward files you may try using the squirrelmail_vacation_proxy program. Not that I do not support this program nor the use of it.

You may download it here.

Update – There is now a SourceForge project concerning this plugin. You can download the files there and contribute to it as well.

Support and questions can also be put in the projects forum.

Comrads

Purmerend, may 2009 – Since the beginning of this year ING and Postbank merged as one. Comrads put the combined ING brand identity into ING Merkwereld: one complete system with all basic elements for every brandexposure you can think of. The ING Merkwereld platform also takes care of the production process that is highly automated.

The ING Merkwereld platform enables all ING employees and external ING contacts to browse and download (media)assets. All actions are regulated trough an extensive permission system that features multiple roles, groups and document rights.

 
Read the complete article in Print Buyer 05/09 (Dutch).

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Project Url: http://www.nibincasso.nl

Project delivery: May 22, 2008

Description: NIB Incasso is a major debt collection agency in the Netherlands. It is always innovating in the way they contact their debtors.

NIB Incasso presents their clients with a a-la-carte concept for debt collection. Their clients can choose from several building blocks to create a work flow that fits their own ways best. They can choose between numerous letters in a specific order, calling from debt-collectors to the debtors, sms, etc.

They asked me for a new way and I came up with the following concept: ideal E-mail

E-mail is the one thing that is missing from the flow and it is so much cheaper than a letter on expensive paper with a stamp. The concept was quickly approved and developed by myself with the following screens / steps:

Step 1: NIB Incasso gets debtor information from their client and put it in the debt collection system

Step 2: The debt collection system will generate a batch of e-mail addresses with corresponding invoice details for all clients who have iDEAL E-mail in their workflow

Step 3: The e-mail is sent out to the debtors

	Step 4: The debtor receives the mail with customized text (this text can be different for all clients and clients can have several sorts of letters)
	Step 5: The debtor clicks on the link in the text or on the header image to go to a personalised landingspage where they can pay the invoice online via iDEAL (Dutch payment provider)
	Step 6: The debtor’s original e-mail represents the current invoice status
	When the e-mail is older then 14 days the header automatically states that they can not use that e-mail anymore to pay their invoice. This is because NIB incasso sends them a new one with higher costs after 14 days or the client has requested a next step in the workflow after that time.
	When an invoice is not found or the encoded URL is being altered the viewer gets a screen that states that there is no status information.

This was all done with the GD library and a bit of PHP code. The trick is to link the email image to a serverside php script that will get the base image and print in the rest of the details of the debtor with GD.

function statusImage ($SourceFile, $Begunstigde, $Saldo, $Omschrijving, $Kenmerk, $Klantkenmerk, $Betaaldatum, $DestinationFile) {
   list($width, $height) = getimagesize($SourceFile);
   $image_p = imagecreatetruecolor($width, $height);
   $image = imagecreatefromjpeg($SourceFile);
   imagecopyresampled($image_p, $image, 0, 0, 0, 0, $width, $height, $width, $height);
   $white = imagecolorallocate($image_p, 255, 255, 255);
   $grey = imagecolorallocate($image_p, 128, 128, 128);
   $black = imagecolorallocate($image_p, 0, 0, 0);
   $font = 'Vera.ttf';
   $font_size = 8;

   imagettftext($image_p, $font_size, 0, 494, 31, $white, $font, $Begunstigde);
   imagettftext($image_p, $font_size, 0, 494, 44, $white, $font, $Saldo);
   imagettftext($image_p, $font_size, 0, 495, 59, $white, $font, $Omschrijving);
   imagettftext($image_p, $font_size, 0, 495, 72, $white, $font, $Kenmerk);
   imagettftext($image_p, $font_size, 0, 495, 85, $white, $font, $Klantkenmerk);
   imagettftext($image_p, $font_size, 0, 495, 98, $white, $font, $Betaaldatum);

   if ($DestinationFile<>'') {
	  imagejpeg ($image_p, $DestinationFile, 100);
   } else {
	  header('Content-Type: image/jpeg');
	  imagejpeg($image_p, null, 100);
   };
   imagedestroy($image);
   imagedestroy($image_p);
};

if ($paid=='Openstaand') {
	$SourceFile = '/httpdocs/images/nietbetaald.jpg';
	$Begunstigde = ':  '. $row_dossierdetails['dossier_begunstigde'];
	$Saldo = ':  '. $row_dossierdetails['dossier_saldo']. '  EUR';
	$Omschrijving = ':  '. $row_dossierdetails['dossier_nummer'];
	$Kenmerk = ':  '. $row_dossierdetails['dossier_klant'];
        $Klantkenmerk = ':  '.$row_dossierdetails['dossier_klantkenmerk'];
	$Betaaldatum = ':  '. $row_dossierdetails['dossier_factuurdatum'];
	statusImage ($SourceFile, $Begunstigde, $Saldo, $Omschrijving,
        $Kenmerk, $Klantkenmerk, $Betaaldatum, $DestinationFile);
}

elseif ($paid=='Betaald') {
	$SourceFile = '/httpdocs/images/betaald.jpg';
	$Begunstigde = ':  '. $row_dossierdetails['dossier_begunstigde'];
	$Saldo = ':  '. $row_dossierdetails['dossier_saldo']. '  EUR';
	$Omschrijving = ':  '. $row_dossierdetails['dossier_nummer'];
	$Kenmerk = ':  '. $row_dossierdetails['dossier_klant'];
       	$Klantkenmerk = ':  '.$row_dossierdetails['dossier_kenmerk'];
	$Betaaldatum = ':  '. $row_dossierdetails['dossier_betaaldatum'];
	statusImage ($SourceFile, $Begunstigde, $Saldo, $Omschrijving,
        $Kenmerk, $Klantkenmerk, $Betaaldatum, $DestinationFile);
}
elseif ($paid=='Vervallen') {
	$SourceFile = '/httpdocs/images/vervallen.jpg';
	statusImage ($SourceFile, $Begunstigde, $Saldo, $Omschrijving,
        $Kenmerk, $Klantkenmerk, $Betaaldatum, $DestinationFile);
}
elseif ($paid=='Geen informatie beschikbaar') {
	$SourceFile = '/httpdocs/images/geenstatus.jpg';
	statusImage ($SourceFile, $Begunstigde, $Saldo, $Omschrijving,
        $Kenmerk, $Klantkenmerk, $Betaaldatum, $DestinationFile);
}

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Project: Finish-profiles

Project Url: http://www.finish-profiles.com

Project delivery: Dec 08, 2008

Description: Finish-profiles creates steel profile plates. It delivers several types of profiles and also constructs small buildings with it.

I created the front-end from a PSD and developed the complete back-end system for this website with the e-mail marketing module, content management system and flash brochure reader.

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Project: Lighthouse-interactive.com

Project Url: http://www.lighthouse-interactive.com

Project delivery: Nov 22, 2008

Description: Lighthouse Interactive, part of SilverBirch Inc.’s (SVB:TSXV) is a fast growing publisher of interactive entertainment with offices established in Toronto and Montreal, Canada, Haarlem, The Netherlands and London, England. Visitors can view the latest information about new Lighthouse-interactive games, view gametrailers, view and search games within a certain price range and interact via forum or poll.

I created the front-end from a PSD complete with self made flash animations and developed the complete back-end system for this website with the e-mail marketing module, content management system with archive and staging, flash / gametrailer player (auto feeded from CMS), advanced search filters, forum and poll module.

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Project: Loopbaan.nu

Project Url: http://www.loopbaan.nu

Project delivery: April 10, 2008

Description: Loopbaan.nu is a provider of online careers and recruitment resources committed to long-term relationships between organizations and individuals.

People that are looking for a long term job can search through the database based on specific search criteria. They can then contact the employer directly via the website.

Employers can buy a plan that allows them to post a specific number of jobs for a specific time depending on their subscription. They also have the option available to send an SMS to all possible job candidates with the link to their job offer.

Every morning the system automatically matches jobs and possible candidates and e-mails all candidates with jobs that might be interesting for them.

I created the front-end from a PSD complete with self made flash animations and developed the complete back-end system for this website with the e-mail marketing module, content management system, iDEAL payment gateway and SMS gateway.

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Project Url: http://www.otomoto.nl

Project delivery: Jan 09, 2008

Description: Nissan OTOMOTO is a local Nissan car dealer. They show several occasions on the website along with Nissan commercials that are pulled from the global Nissan website.

I created the front-end from scratch and developed the complete back-end system for this website with the curl grabbing of news and models from the global website, content management system and statistics

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Project Url: http://www.tjadenadvies.nl

Project delivery: Jul 20, 2007

Description: Tjaden Grondmechanica is a company that deals with Geohydrology and more

I created the front-end from a PSD and developed the complete back-end system for this website with the e-mail marketing module, content management system and GD processing for automatic title generation.

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Project Url: http://www.sportraadamsterdam.nl

Project delivery: May 07, 2007

Description: Sportraad Amsterdam is a internal organization of the city of Amsterdam in the Netherlands. It advises the city of Amsterdam and corporations in the city of Amsterdam about sport policy and (building) sporting facilities. On this website the sportraad introduces themselves and keeps an archive of all their white-papers.

I created the front-end from a PSD complete with interaction design and developed the complete back-end system for this website with content management system, image gallery with automatic GD scaling of images, flash texts automatically feeded from CMS, sifr  and secure intranet.

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