Adrian Holovaty

WashingtonPost.Newsweek Interactive

Editor, editorial innovations
Arlington, Va. (telecommuting from Chicago)
September 2005 -- Present

At WPNI, I work on special projects, building database-driven sites and making site improvements. I'm the sole developer in my "department," working closely with journalists and the design team to implement ideas quickly.

Highlights:

• U.S. Congress votes database
• Faces of the Fallen

World Online

Lead developer
Lawrence, Kansas (telecommuted from Chicago for the last year)
December 2002 -- September 2005

Oversaw development of all technology for the three industry-renowned Web sites LJWorld.com, Lawrence.com and KUsports.com. Played a central role in shaping all technical aspects of the site, including building the publishing systems, creating database applications on deadline, constructing (X)HTML/CSS templates, parsing data feeds and making technological decisions. Administered nine Linux and Mac OS X Web servers running Apache, PostgreSQL and MySQL.

Highlights:

• Built the content-management system for Lawrence.com, which includes an events calendar, a user-registration system, a weblog system, an advertising system, e-mail and cell-phone notification capability, and hooks into databases of local musicians/bands, sound clips, video clips, drink specials, restaurants/bars and movie showtimes. All content is editable via a single interface. Lawrence.com is regarded as one of the most exhaustive local entertainment sites on the Web. Since I left, this CMS has turned into a successful commercial product, Ellington.
• Cowrote a Python Web framework that made building Web applications fast and easy. This evolved into Django, which we open-sourced in July 2005.
• Migrated 10+ years' worth of content from a legacy publishing system into the new one, written for LJWorld.com. Data munging is fun.
• Built the 6News Lawrence weather site. Given the site's design mockup, I coded it into XHTML and a CSS-based layout. This was back in the days of Netscape 4, before CSS-based layouts were mainstream.
• Created a wide variety of innovative tools for our sites, including SMS/text-messaging tools and customized NCAA bracket interfaces.
• The sites I worked on all won major industry awards during my tenure, and they were covered by The New York Times, NPR and IT Conversations.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Product developer / assistant database editor
Atlanta, Georgia
January 2002 -- December 2002

Produced database-driven projects. Created and implemented sitewide section templates to improve design consistency, cut page load, facilitate better navigation and cut production time. Designed interactive JavaScript games and utilities.

Highlights:

• Worked with a special-projects reporter to build the AJC Nursing Homes guide, a nationally unprecedented database of hard-to-find information about every nursing home in the state. (It has since been taken offline. I'm not sure why.)
• Assembled an online database of Peachtree Road Race results, given a deadline of five hours. In that time, I acquired the data as flat text, cleaned/normalized it, imported it, wrote a program to generate thousands of HTML files and Web-posted them. The end product: Race results were sortable by runner name, age, hometown, home state and nationality. (This project also has been taken offline.)

The Columbia Missourian

Infographic artist
Columbia, Missouri
August 2001 -- December 2001

Designed information graphics. Compiled, researched and reported.

Highlights:

• How anthrax attacks (GIF, 25KB)
• Flight 587 crash (GIF, 62KB)
• How DVDs work (GIF, 177KB)

Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive

Database intern / Weekend producer
Arlington, Virginia
June 2001 -- August 2001

Compiled and manipulated databases. Designed database-driven Web sites and created applications to build and maintain them. Fixed bugs in existing database projects written in JSP. Helped decide story placement and updated the Post's home page and news digest on Sundays. Published breaking wire stories.

The Maneater

Online editor
Columbia, Missouri
August 1999 -- July 2001

Maintained student newspaper's Web site. Created design, navigation and scripting of the site single-handedly. Trained and oversaw online production staff. Worked with editorial staff to produce Web-only content. Created database-driven content-management system in Perl/MySQL. Won Associated Collegiate Press Online Pacemaker award, distinguishing themaneater.com as one of the best online college newspapers in the nation.

Highlights:

• My content-management system, since replaced, offered browsing and searching features that most professional news sites didn't even have at the time.
• Oversaw the migration of 5 years' worth of flat HTML files into the CMS.
• Created the Issues in-depth section (since removed), a Web-friendly archive of hot news topics.

The Columbia Missourian

Copy editor
Columbia, Missouri
January 2001 -- May 2001

Edited stories and page proofs for the News, Opinion and Taste sections.

The Columbia Missourian

Columnist
Columbia, Missouri
September 2000 -- April 2001

Wrote a weekly computer question-and-answer column.

The Columbia Missourian

Reporter
Columbia, Missouri
August 2000 -- December 2000

Covered the media/technology beat. Worked weekly general-assignment shift. Won Best of Semester award for best in-depth story package.

CopleyNet (now SuburbanChicagoNews.com)

Online intern
Joliet, Illinois
May 2000 -- July 2000

Aided production of the Web site for 19 Chicago-area newspapers. Used editorial judgment to decide story placement. Produced online special features.

Chicagocrime.org

Created the site, which is a freely browsable database of crimes reported in Chicago. It was one of the original Google Maps hacks, created by reverse-engineering the Google Maps JavaScript before Google released an official maps API. The site received the $10,000 2005 Batten Award for Innovations in Journalism, and the New York Times Magazine named it one of 2005's best ideas.

The site is entirely automated; it updates itself daily by screen-scraping the Chicago Police Department's Web site.

Highlights:

• Crimes along a route: Draw a line on the map to see crimes along the route.
• Find your beat and district.
• Every city block has its own page (example), with its own block-specific RSS feed.

Django

Cowrote Django, an open-source high-level Python Web framework that encourages rapid development and clean, pragmatic design. It lets you write high-quality Web apps very quickly, with very little code.

I'm involved in all aspects of the framework, including making design decisions, code hacking, answering questions on mailing lists and marketing.

Holovaty.com

Design, code and maintain a (formerly?) popular weblog devoted to the technical aspects of news Web sites.

Highlights:

• Created the site's publishing system in 2002 and pioneered several innovative features, such as Google search-term highlighting and smart anchoring.

Trodo

Developed free trading site in PHP -- from database design and application design to the coding. Highlights included a registration system, search engine and cache system. It was launched in 2002 and is now defunct.

Various hacks

From time to time, I release small side projects/hacks on my Web site. See my projects page.

O'Reilly European Open Source Convention (EuroOSCON)

Brussels, Belgium, September 2006

Keynote: "Journalism via Computer Programming"
Speaker: "Django"

O'Reilly Open Source Convention (OSCON)

Portland, Ore., July 2006

Speaker: Who's on the O'Reilly Open Source Radar?
Presenter: "Journalism via Computer Programming"

Media Giraffe Conference: "Democracy and Independence: Sharing News and Information in a Connected World"

University of Massachusetts at Amherst, June 2006

Speaker: "When Web Data Makes News"

University of Missouri School of Journalism graduation ceremony

Columbia, Mo., May 2006

Commencement speaker

2006 American Society of Newspaper Editors convention

Seattle, April 2006

Panelist: "Embracing The Web: Doing Better Journalism in the 21st Century"

SKUP Norwegian journalism conference

Tønsberg, Norway, April 2006

Presenter: "Database journalism"

U.S. PyCon 2006

Dallas, February 2006

Presenter: "Using Django to Supercharge Web Development"

Snakes and Rubies

Chicago, December 2005

Presenter: "Django"

Illinois GIS Association conference 2005

Oak Brook, Illinois, November 2005

Presenter: "Behind the scenes of chicagocrime.org, and how to use Google Maps"

2005 Online News Association conference

New York, October 2005

Panelist: "What's still new in new media"

2005 Citizens Media Summit

College Park, Md., October 2005

Panelist: "Making tech tools work for you"

Northwestern University "Storytelling and New Technology" symposium

Evanston, Illinois, November 2003

Panelist: "Case Studies in New Media Education"

University of Florida Symposium on Converged Journalism

Gainesville, Florida, February 2003

Panelist: "Interactivity and News Audiences"

NAA Connections 2003

Orlando, January 2003

Panelist: "Redesigning for Reach"

2002 Online News Association conference

New York, October 2002

Panelist: "Beyond Publishing: Engaging the Audience with Databases and Technology Tools"