Movable Type Ltd

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

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!