About me

I have skills you may need

Hi there. I am Igor, a PHP/Web developer with passion and pride for what I do. I was born and raised in Slovakia - a small landlocked country in central Europe. When I reached the age of 26 I moved to Ireland, where I earned Bachelor degree in Business Information Systems. After the graduation I started playing with the idea of moving south. So after seven years spent on Emerald Island I moved to Australia where I started my degree at University of Western Sydney. I successfully graduated and earned Masters degree in Information and Communication Technology. The years at UWS were the toughest I have ever experienced. Not because of school but mostly because of having 2 casual jobs and a full time study. The great advantage I had against the other classmates was that I already knew most of what we were taught.

My biggest hobby are computers and Internet. I love everything about web and web technologies. I love exploring new ways and approaches for improving web site functionality, security, speed and user experience. I usually spend long hours on doing what I love to do (my record so far is over 40 hours with short breaks for making coffee, lol). Web development is not just a job but more like a hobby for me. I love when I get stuck with some unsolvable issue and keep torturing my brain by thinking how to solve it until I find the proper solution. The feeling once I solve such issue is priceless.

I like to travel. During time spent in Europe I visited almost all European countries, except for Scandinavia. In Australia I was lucky and I landed a job with employer who allows me from time to time to work remotely. And that is the time which I like to spend somewhere in South East Asia. The change of climate and place usually boost my productivity. Also my own time management plays a big role. To work when you feel like you want to, instead of when you have to, is definitely a very strong success factor to properly and effectively accomplish job for everyone.

Experience

I created my very first website sometimes in 1997 with Netscape Composer. It never went online but gave me good overview how things work. Even better overview I gained by creating another website sometimes in 1999 using Trellix web. It didn't take long to discover a lot of duplicate code generated by WYSIWYG (as every WYSIWYG does) and that discovery made me want to clean it and leave only parts which are really necessary. To shrink HTML file size by 60%, when mostly dial up modem connection was available was a great speed improvement.

Clean up of WYSIWYG mess, countless trials and errors by removing part of HTML code and checking what has changed learned me more than just a basics of HTML and after few months i decided to rewrite the whole website from a scratch without help of any WYSIWYG. These were also days when I used WYSIWYG editor for the last time and started writing HTML with plain text editor.

In the early 2000s came into game PHP and MySQL and shortly after also CSS. My very first experience with PHP was setting up a script which was logging visitor's IP addres and other relevant data into MySQL database. Later in 2003-2004 I started discovering PHP-Nuke, probably the best CMS of it's times and it's enhanced derivate - PHP-Nuke Platinum. Working with PHP-Nuke gave me solid knowledge of PHP & MySQL and enough confidence to work with any PHP based project.

Sometimes in 2010-2011 I started working with MODx - not very widely used, but in my opinion probably the most flexible Web Development Platform ever created. In the same time I started experimenting also with Wordpress, Joomla and Drupal, but none of these seem to me as flexible as MODx. Beside these major CMSes I also played around with Social Engine, PHP BB, VBulletin and many other more or less known platforms.

In 2015 while working for a company providing services for Working Holidays visa holders I was assigned a task to develop a web application allowing to communicate with the database of customers, with membership area, and live updates between the membership area and the database which was also used by internal custom developed CRM. Since the administration part (CRM) used by 6 offices in 3 countries was all custom coded, I found it easiest to create also a custom made CMS which perfectly fit all requirements.

I never stopped working on my custom CMS started in 2015 and currently it is roofing 10 websites with over 60 000 registered users (August 2020). It has a lot of automation processes, API connections to various services like Google Cloud, Webmaster Tools, Analytics, Ads, Adsense, Cloudflare, Vultr and many others. Include almost 70 custom developed modules for various purposes. My experience over the two decades since web development became my hobby is as follows

Skills & What I Use

Since I started being interested in web development I have used many tools which I am not including in this list because they are either gone, outdated or replaced by better ones. I am also not including skills I have almost forgotten e.g. java - haven't used it for 10 years

Backend

PHP

PHP

Since 2004
MySQL

MySQL

Since 2004s
Bash/Shell

Bash/Shell

Since 2014
Security

Security

N.1 priority
Tunning

Tunning

Speed & performance

Frontend

HTML5

HTML

Since 1999
CSS3

CSS

Since 2003
Javascript

Javascript

Since 2011
Responsive Design

Responsive Design

Since 2010
PWA & TWA

PWA & TWA

Since 2019

Frameworks

Bootstrap

Bootstrap

Since 2013
UIKit

UIKit

Since 2016
Materialize CSS

Materialize CSS

Since 2016
jQuery

jQuery

Since 2010
Smarty

Smarty

Since 2013

Platforms

MODx

MODx

Since 2011
Wordpress

Wordpress

Since 2015
Joomla

Joomla

Since 2015
Drupal

Drupal

Since 2014

Operating Systems

Windows

Windows

Since 1992
MacOS

MacOS

Since 2015
Debian

Debian

Since 2016
Ubuntu

Ubuntu

Since 2016

Software

NginX

NginX

Since 2017
Apache

Apache

Since 2010
NodeJS

NodeJS

Since 2019
MariaDB

MariaDB

Since 2017
Sublime

Sublime

Since 2014
Visual Studio Code

Visual Studio Code

Since 2018
Dreamweaver

Dreamweaver

Since 2008
Photoshop

Photoshop

Since 2005
Illustrator

Illustrator

Since 2016

Tools

WSL

WSL

Since 2020
Git

Git

Since 2019
Grunt

Grunt

Since 2015
NPM

NPM

Since 2015
Composer

Composer

Since 2015
Serverless

Serverless

Since 2019
PHPMyAdmin

PHPMyAdmin

Since 2004

Other

Google Search Console

Google Search Console

Since 2004
Google Adsense

Google Adsense

Since 2009
Google Ads

Google Ads

Since 2015
Google Cloud

Google Cloud

Since 2017
Google Analytics

Google Analytics

Since 2009
Matomo

Matomo

Since 2017
Cloudflare

Cloudflare

Since 2019
JIRA

JIRA

Since 2015
Own Cloud

Own Cloud

Since 2017
Slack

Slack

Since 2015
Microsoft teams

Microsoft teams

Since 2019

My Works

 
All About Philippines
All About Philippines

All About Philippines

Travel

Australian College of Natural Therapies
Australian College of Natural Therapies

Australian College of Natural Therapies

Education

Australian National College of Beauty
Australian National College of Beauty

Australian National College of Beauty

Education

APM College of Business & Communication
APM College of Business & Communication

APM College of Business & Communication

Education

Billy Blue College of Design
Billy Blue College of Design

Billy Blue College of Design

Education

CATC Design School
CATC Design School

CATC Design School

Education

Free Asia Dating
Free Asia Dating

Free Asia Dating

Dating

Movie 2 Watch
Movie 2 Watch

Movie 2 Watch

Entertainment

My Asian Match
My Asian Match

My Asian Match

Dating

MC Photography
MC Photography

MC Photography

Photography

My Filipina Date
My Filipina Date

My Filipina Date

Dating

My Ladyboy Match
My Ladyboy Match

My Ladyboy Match

Dating

My Thai Date
My Thai Date

My Thai Date

Dating

My Transgender Match
My Transgender Match

My Transgender Match

Dating

Slovak Guide
Slovak Guide

Slovak Guide

Travel

Southern School of Natural Therapies
Southern School of Natural Therapies

Southern School of Natural Therapies

Education

THINK Education
THINK Education

THINK Education

Education

Torrens University
Torrens University

Torrens University

Education

William Blue College of Hospitality Management
William Blue College of Hospitality Management

William Blue College of Hospitality Management

Education

Work n Holiday
Work n Holiday

Work n Holiday

Services

Hit me up!


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