About Michael Toppa

I have been developing and managing mission critical web applications for more than 11 years, solving both enterprise level and smaller scale challenges. My freelance work includes projects for Booz, Allen & Hamilton, Deutshe Bank, IBM, Smith & Hawken, and several small businesses and non-profit organizations. I have worked as an employee for E-Trade, Ask Jeeves, Stanford University, Georgetown University, and the University of Pennsylvania. My expertise ranges from object oriented programming, to web site usability, project management, documentation, and analyzing business needs. More...

Solving the Unicode Puzzle
By Michael Toppa

In this php|architect article, I provide an introduction to Unicode, the industry standard for representing text from languages around the world. My article is a step-by-step guide for configuring PHP, Apache, and Oracle to work together to deliver a multi-lingual website. Read the article (PDF)...

Search Toppa.com

Recent Posts

• Introducing Kai’s Candy Company
• Making an HTML Table Using Arrays of Column Data
• Deko Boko - A reCAPTCHA Contact Form for WordPress
• Customizing WordPress: Limiting Categories on Your Home Page and Sidebar
• Shashin 2.1 - Easier Steps for Displaying All Album Photos
• Welcome to the New Toppa.com
• U Penn Higher Education Web Symposium
• …And …And …Shashin 2.0.4
• …And Now Shashin 2.0.3
• Shashin 2.0.2 - Critical Upgrade

Archives By Topic

• WordPress & Blogging (33)
• Web Design & Programming (24)
• General Technobabble (24)

Current Client Project

Body of Knowledge
Personal Fitness Training

I'm developing a WordPress plugin that will allow customers to schedule appointments with BOK Fitness via calls to the Google Calendar API. This approach is a good example of developing a custom application that is based on free, best-of-breed applications like Google's. This is much less expensive than developing a solution from scratch, and delivers a broader range of functionality than would otherwise be affordable for a small business.

Nothing But Words
My Personal Blog

My personal blog is partly a travelogue, with extensive blogging of the 5 months I lived in Tokyo with my family in 2007. It's also how I keep friends and family up to date with stories and pictures of life with my family in the suburbs of Philadelphia. More...

CGI Programming with Perl

I taught an introductory web programming class at San Jose Community College for 2 semesters in 2000. Perl has evolved since then, so my lecture notes are outdated, but they can still serve as a useful introduction of core concepts if you are new to web programming. More...

RSS

Web Architect

Posts on Programming and WordPress

Nothing But Words

My Personal Blog

Single Feed for Both