Mark Mizubayashi was born and raised on the island of Maui. He received a B.S. degree in Computer Science in the Spring of 2006 from San Francisco State University. He also obtained an A.A. degree from Maui Community College before entering San Francisco State University.

Home Island: Maui
Institution when accepted: San Francisco State University

Akamai Project: Web Development with 3D Weather Data Visualization
Project Site: Maui High Performance Computing Center (MHPCC)
Mentors: Thomas Meyer and Kevin P. Roe

Project Abstract:

One objective in web development is to create web pages with a user-centered design philosophy. The goal of this project is to modify a weather web page to improve its usability and effectiveness, and to create an anonymous contact form.  With the use of JavaScript, a web page was modified to allow for easier navigation throughout the website and to give users the ability to view it on smaller displays such as cell phones. Dynamic dropdown menus were created to display information.  JavaScript allows the web page to pre-load all images to allow users with smaller bandwidth to access the page easier.  A Hypertext Preprocessor (PHP), which takes in code and outputs a web page, allows for the creation of a contact form which will be linked to the original web page that will keep the webmaster’s email hidden. This will prevent robots from having the capability of scanning the contact form and recording the webmasters actual contact information. Overall, this work on MHPCC’s weather webpage was developed with the user in mind and with the user-centered philosophy.  The webpage gives the user the ability to view on smaller screens and allows the user to navigate through the page easier.  It also allows users to contact the webmaster without the possibility of robots accessing the contact information.