How it all started...

I created my first website as my personal home page sometime around 1997 after I first tasted the addictive flavour of Internet. It was just basic HTML and simple JavaScript for mouse over effects. The page contained some funny info about me, list of my favourite music, movies, sports and meals. I also had my own 'members area' - obviously protected by password, which contained my Netscape bookmarks page. Yeah! Internet really got me.

Next web presentation was for my friend's music band My Dry Willow. Kind of a psychedelic rock band inspired by Led Zeppelin. That was a good time. The web was full of lyrics, newspaper articles as well as photos. Basic HTML plus JavaScript again. That was still around years 97-98.

Perl rulez...

And than no website projects for a long time. As I was working as a programmer (using FoxPro) and network administrator in hospital I was learning new technologies such as Perl, Oracle and of course Linux. With Perl as an amazing parser of text files I created an intranet system to access laboratory results through internet browser, so the output was HTML page and anyone in the clinicians were able to access those results hours before they got the paper version. I really enjoyed using the browser as an interface to access information and I wanted continue doing that.

While working in the hospital I was also studying towards a Bachelor of Science in Information Technologies at Jihoceska Univerzita in Ceske Budejovice. But then at the beginning of 2000 I got a new job as computer network administrator in a private company. Also realized that to study Java, Visual C++ and Visual FoxPro at the same time was a waste of time, so I left the University. I wouldn't have enough time to study anyway. My experience and knowledge was more valuable than a piece of paper.

PHP + MySQl = INFINITY

With the new job I met new friends and became interested in freeride mountainbiking. The desire to find some more of the freeride tracks made me to do a website for community of those people. It started as a small innocent project but ended up as one of the biggest portals about freeride mtb in the country. I was riding the bike, writing reports from competitions, taking photos and at the same time learning PHP, MySQL, CSS and building and filling the web. That was a good fun, even though it was a bit full on sometimes, mainly because I was still working as an administrator of 40 NT workstations and couple of servers. I learned a lot while programming projects like da-li-da.cz is.

That was start of making websites based on PHP and MySQL technology. The infinite number of posibilities and tricks limited only by my imagination was just what I was looking for and what I enjoy.

Just a little help for my friends...

Next projects were basicly made for my friends. Presentation of a band and music club is very similar, using photogalleries, gig schedules, discussion forums etc. It was always my initiative to create the website and it took a lot of time to do it as I was still learning. I also developed a simple content management system so all the websites can be easily maintained by their runners. It's mainly a front-end for the database so all the informations can be added, modified or deleted. It is up to me to change all other things as I am still in touch with my friends and I am keen to do the essential maintenance.

Sometime between all those projects I created a website for my friend's company www.salmon-gastro.cz.
The current version is not the one I created.

There is one more website of mine on the Net. It's dedicated to my friends who took me to a trip to Slovakian mountains. It was absolutly stunning four days mission. After I came back down I just had to put all the photos, diary and plan of the trip on the Net to share with other people. All the positive feedback is my reward for that work.

Arohanui Aotearoa...

In March 2004 I arrived to Aotearoa / New Zealand for kind of a break from all the computers around me and because my inner voice was calling for change. I have done a lot of travelling and I anchored in Marahau on South Island.

While I was wwoofing (WWOOF) in Arts Unique gallery I started to use my skills and so the artsunique.co.nz website came out of a little wooden caravan. That was really good experience to create something like that starting from scratch. The well build website has been modified by inexperienced people several times over the years thus current version is not working properly.

Just across the road is the Park Cafe restaurant and that was the next project. It's actually still in progress as I started from scratch again and I've been busy looking after the garden. But getting there...

Simplicity is Beauty

As you can see on all of my websites, the main aim is to create a simple and structured graphic design using small graphic elements to make the loading as fast as possible. Because there are still new technologies in the world of Internet I am still learning, so each new project is using something new or it's a little bit better from the previous one. I would be obviously able to completely redo some of the older projects and make them more up-to-date with current technologies and my knowledge, but it's not the priority at the moment. And it works well anyway...

Check out my portfolio to see what I've done.