Rudi Kovač

Hi there, I'm Rudi and this is the story of my life in about 10 <p>s.

I knew how to assemble and play games on an old Spectrum ZX before learning to pronounce my name (I have to thank my uncle for this).

I wrote my first lines of code when I started speaking mIRC scripts and Eggdrop tcls (a LONG time ago, I think I was about 13).

I then started developing web stuff [mostly in PHP (♥) and MySQL] around 2003, when I was about 15. The best part is that even after all these years, I still meet and learn new stuff every time I start working on a new project. That's why I ♥ it!

Fluent in HTML, CSS, PHP, JavaScript (including libraries like jQuery) and MySQL (though I also worked with Postgres, MSSQL, Oracle and DB2). I also met with Django (python) and Ember.js (JS framework) a couple of times and I started learning ASP.NET MVC 5 at work.

Since I don't update this site very much I'm just gonna write down that I'm currently hacking mostly in TypeScript, node.js and React with a hint of Redux and hipster stuff like that.

I also like taking photos.

The cat in the photo below is Šekica and she's about my age when I was 13, so about 13. Still in a good shape, way to go, cate!

The cat in the photo below was Šekica and unfortunately she died a while ago at 14, despite being in a good shape till then, poor kitty :( I hope she is having a good time in Cat Paradise!

Feel free to hit me on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, LastFM, MySpace, About.me, CoderBits or anywhere else you you find me!

My latest project is Swipe (available in the App Store and Play Store). Sorry it asks you for a couple of lame permissions, those are required because of the tool in which I built the app, I definitely do not collect your data!

Thanks for reading, feel free to poke around, send me an email or buy me a beer!

Rudi

Web & Application Developer, SharePoint and Linux administrator.
November 2012 - present

New skills acquired: ASP.NET, Web Services, Oracle, SharePoint (design & admin).
Skills improved: C#, MySQL, Perl and Windows Server administration (Exchange, IIS).

This is my first »real« job. I started working at Dinit in the CRM department, where I had a lot of interaction with our customers (Diners Club franchises) and vendors (outsourced developers). This is where I learnt that things (even smaller ones) don't get done in a day or two, like they do when you work alone (or in smaller teams). Here I got a chance to improve my analytical skills by preparing functional specifications, business requirements and similar stuff. I also got a chance to mess around with Joomla, which powered our official website.

In 2014 Dinit decided to insource the development of most of it's applications, so I moved to the Application Development department, where I work now (I was the second developer they hired, yay).

Even though I am officially a developer, I find myself doing all sorts of things related to computers, like administering linux machines and administering our SharePoint farm. I actually like this, because I get to hang out with cool people from other departments. I have to admit though, that it can get quite tiring.

I have learnt a LOT of stuff in these years. OLAP cubes (datamarts, dimensions, measures), ETLs, BRDs and a lot of other things. I am really very grateful for all the knowledge my co-workers shared with me.

Windows Phone: 2011 - present
iOS: 2013 - present
Android: 2013 - present

New skills acquired: XAML, C#.
Skills improved: Java, JS, SQLite.

Wrote a native app in C# for Windows Phone and a couple of other ones in Cordova, obviously compatible with all of the three platforms. One of the apps got over 100.000 downloads in the first 3 months on the Play Store. Super proud!

Operator and customer support.
Summer 2010

Biggest challenge: outbound calls.
Skills improved: communication with customers, patience.

I have to admit this was a really interesting job, and something I never thought I could do. I learnt how to deal with angry people over the phone (and how to remain calm when you have no reason to). I also got rid of some of the fear I had when making phone calls. What I didn't like was that the office was almost underground, so we didn't get a lot of sunlight.

Cashier.
June 2010 - February 2014

New skills acquired: working with customers and handling lots of moneys.
Skills improved: maths, Italian and English.

Learnt to appreciate money. And a day job. When you work with literally thousands of Euros per night and sleep throughout the day, you realize how fast life passes by.. and I realized this was definitely not something I wanted to do for the rest of my life. I had a lot of responsibility, as every mistake costs money. And at 5am, after 7 hours of counting, you easily confuse a 50e chip for a 100e chip and lose 50e. Working in a suit was a nice experience though, met a lot of new people, practiced Italian and the salary was not that bad.

Web developer.
October 2009 – August 2011

Skills improved: HTML, CSS, JS and PHP.

Did some website coding, mostly simple things in PHP. Ajax was something fairly new at that time, so I seized the opportunity and started learning. I especially liked that you could change the color of the fields based on server responses, it was mind-blowing.

Computer Network Design and Installation.
Summer 2009

New skills acquired: network administration.
Skills improved: Linux and Windows server administration.

The place was being rebuilt and they basically needed someone who knew what a network looks like and wasn't too expensive to hire. Enters me, a student who liked hacking routers and setting up networks (wired and wireless). Didn't learn much as I already knew almost everything I needed to make it work, it was a nice experience though, as I actually set up something that went live and worked flawlessly for the next 5 years.

Web developer & Random Stuff.
July 2006 – February 2009

New skills acquired: integration of a payment system with banks.
Skills improved: HTML, CSS, JS and PHP.

This wasn't primarily a web development company but a printing house, so before coding websites I learnt how to prepare images for printing and plotting, how to paint wooden advertising boards and metallic constructions, how to engrave bottles, how to work with plexiglass and led lights, and most importantly, what real sandwitches taste like. Delicious experience.

Written in: HTML, CSS (Bootstrap), JS (jQuery) and PHP.
Database: MySQL.

An old project I recently started updating. Users can register and login, create lists, campaigns, compose plain or html email templates, which can be sent right away or scheduled for a later time. People can subscribe to lists and there is, of course, an unsubscribe option for them as well. The manager also features user classes, email and subscriber limits, a simple reporting tool, a bunch of email templates, two ways of displaying subscription forms (one can be custom styled and included to any site), attachments, an autoresponder feature, an account control panel, an administration control panel and more. Currently testing on about 5,000 subscribers.

Written in: HTML, CSS (Bootstrap), JS (jQuery) and PHP (Laravel).
Database: PostgreSQL.

The idea is simple: I wanted to create a big restaurant directory in Slovenia, powered by comments and ratings. I know this already exists around the world (e.g. foursquare did something like this) but I built it back in 2007, when it was a rather »new« concept. Right now it is big, listing about 2500 restaurants, bars, nightclubs etc, but (I guess) not user friendly enough. A more modern design would be a big step forward, with less complications when it comes to browsing and searching. If you have some free time and are willing to help.. feel free to contact me! I am not earning a thing from this and the number of visits is rather small (about 5,000 unique views per month), but I think this project still has a big potential despite the international competitors (I have a bunch of great ideas that could be added if I got some motivation).

Written in: HTML, CSS (Bootstrap), JS (jQuery) and PHP.
Database: MySQL.

A very simple URL shortening service. Used mostly by spam bots but I am really happy to see that there are quite a bunch of friends using it too!

Written in: HTML, CSS (Bootstrap) and PHP.
Database: MySQL.

Working on a new version w/ Ember, a simple prototype can be found here (source).

A simple site with song lyrics. This is also something that already exists, but it is an old project and was created mainly for users from Slovenia with a lot of Slovenian lyrics (the name, translated, says Sing Me). I think it was the second lyrics database in Slovenia at the time I created it, driving around 15,000 unique views per month. It is also the project that earned me the most money!

Written in: HTML, CSS (Bootstrap), JS (jQuery) and PHP.
Database: MySQL.

A project I started a few months ago with the idea of replacing the way too complicated SharePoint solution we have at work for tracking tasks, defects and change requests. It features a user management system (which uses LDAP to verify if new users are Active Directory users), user group, tickets, notes, attachments, etc. Currently it is very specific to the company I work for (because of the column names), but could be rewritten in a week to be more flexible, with custom ticket columns etc. I took some time to study SharePoint's database and there is, I think, a lot of room for improvement, at least when it comes to Lists. I might publish this to GitHub and see where it goes from there.

Written in: HTML, CSS, JS (MooTools) and PHP.
Database: MySQL.

One of my first projects ever, it is like my baby. A huge playground with a gazillion of features. It all started as a super simple site resembling IRC and ended up having almost everything interesting I could find around the web and reverse engineer. Features user profiles with profile pictures, status messages and other user data, profile comments, private messages (inbox, sent, drafts, archive, starred, trash), private and public folders (for photos, music, documents or any other type of files), friends, polls, news, events, favourites, playlists, blogs, songs of the day, last.fm integration, gazillion settings (including 7 different color templates, meteo stations, profile css customization etc), mms photo uploading, groups, a classified board, personalized weather forecast, quote database and a few games like user marketplace (you can buy other users and their value increases), weekly lottery, honor points.. And there is more, but I don't remember it all.

I was invited as a mentor to the participating high school students.

My role was to help them evolve and improve their ideas, make a business plan, do some market research, etc.

Two of my teams won in three separate categories and one of them even got the presidential prize.

I built Clothesline, a 'brand discovery website'.

Ever wanted to find new brands that would suit you but didn't know where to look? Well, this is the place you were looking for.

This time me and my teammate (Jason Chow) didn't win, but he prepared and delivered a really awesome pitch. There were 200 other great ideas and I suppose this one wasn't one of the best 6.

We did an awesome job anyway, you can check the fully functional site I built here: clothesline.shop.tm (source code).

Still, this was an awesome experience and I'm glad I got chosen as a participant. I met a lot of great new people.

Best cross-platform app.

Simplicy is really interesting music player, which we developed as an universal app and I was assigned to the part that would be the snapped view of the player in Windows 8. It really came out nicely, you can read more and check a couple of screenshots out on my blog.

We won the event, taking home a Lumia 1520 and FatBoy pillows!

2nd place in the university.

1st place - Best computer science project.

It was a nice project, I connected a proto-board with a RFID reader on it and an electric lock to a Raspberry Pi. I then developed a program that would read RFID cards and chips and recognize them. It would then match the card to those stored in a database and check if the user has access or not (that's how RFID locks works I suppose).

But I added another cool feature, the option to unlock the electric lock via a web interface (running on the RasPi), secured by a 2FA (SMS) and accessible via local network only.

Self-proclamed 1st place! I developed my first Windows Phone app in less than 48 hours. Linked to my project Lokali, it gets your location and lists the restaurants that are close to you, with their description, picture, reviews, a map and the option to upload new pictures to the gallery or share it via Facebook, Twitter and messaging. The first place was a stupid game that no one heard about ever again. This event "connected" me with Nokia, which gave me a free developer account and a Lumia 800 to develop on.

5th place in the university.

2nd place in the university.

Startup Days Ljubljana

StartupBus UK
//publish/ Brežice (Simplicy)
Startup Weekend Novo Mesto (CabShare)
Startup Weekend Ljubljana

Microsoft NT Conference
Startup Weekend Ljubljana

Microsoft Hackathon
Microsoft NT Conference
Startup Weekend Ljubljana
WOWZAPP Ljubljana

Platform: WordPress.
Skills required: HTML, CSS, JS and PHP.
Database: MySQL.

Powered by WordPress, I take care of the site, publishing updates and tweaking it when I feel it needs a refresh.
www.comunitapirano.com

Platform: Custom.
Skills required: HTML, CSS, JS and PHP.
Database: MySQL.

One of the biggest real estate agencies on the Slovenian coast. Frontend and email templates by me, plus lots of backend tweaks by me.
www.obala-realestate.com

Platform: Custom.
Skills required: HTML, CSS, JS and PHP.
Database: MySQL.
Tools used: Adobe Photoshop.

Frontend and backend by me, featuring news, events and a very small shop module.
www.fresh4you.si

Platform: Custom.
Skills required: HTML, CSS, JS and PHP.
Database: MySQL.
Tools used: Adobe Photoshop.

Front and backend by me. This is a very old project that I will refresh soon, probably porting it to WordPress with a custom template. News, events and a super simple calendar. Includes my email campaign thing and a very customizable event registration form.
www.skid.si

Platform: Custom.
Skills required: HTML, CSS, JS and PHP.
Database: MySQL.
Tools used: Adobe Photoshop.

Frontend and backend by me. The administration allowed users to add news, events, additional users with different classes and roles like designers, publishers, editors and a workflow between them. Very simple integration with a ticket merchant.
www.avditorij.si

Platform: Custom.
Skills required: HTML, CSS, JS and PHP.
Database: MySQL.

They recently refreshed their website with, in my opinion, a much worse design than the one I did. The frontend was done by me, with a support for 6 languages ("powered by cookies"). I will try to find a couple of screenshots.
www.sportniturizemportoroz.si

Platform: WordPress.
Skills required: HTML, CSS, JS and PHP.
Database: MySQL.

Simple WordPress theme I coded some time ago.

Platform: Custom.
Skills required: HTML, CSS, JS and PHP.
Database: MySQL.
Tools used: Adobe Photoshop.

Front and backend. Photoshop to HTML, news and events administration, timetable generator, attachments, avenues management, etc.
www.simcpiran.si

Platform: Custom.
Skills required: HTML, CSS, JS and PHP.

Simple frontend for a bed and breakfast in Piran. I integrated an online payment system on this site, powered by Intesa San Paolo bank.
www.miracolodimare.si

Skills required: CSS, JS and PHP.

Developed an upload script in JS + PHP that allowed uploading and ordering multiple photo prints via internet.
www.focus-foto.si

Skills required: CSS and PHP.

Backend: simple shop module, add/edit items and display them.
www.trgoagro.si