intro my views (AppsForce team)

Hello everybody! Edi Rak here, located in Sibenik, Dalmatia, Hrvatska(Croatia). Proud father of two brave young teenagers. And to keep things current. I enjoy spending time with them during this pandemic.

Now, like any other cheap screenplay we jump to the beginning of the story.
In the early ’80. past century my analytical but very naive five year old mind was ignited as I got introduced to LEGOs Space (yes I had that blue space lego guy with broken helmet and “We Were Building Spaceships!).

Growing up unaware of influences I got exposed to at that age. Like millions other children my home playground was set close to analogue black&white tv receiver during bad weather periods.
But the rest of the playful time I was on the treetops and running up&down rocky Mediterranean hills surrounding our neighbourhood at the town periphery. I loved going to countryside with grandparents in the field and vineyard. The area was teaming with folk spending time playing traditional sports. From bowling, cards, dirt football, amateur racing, being a local drunk, you name it. Life was all but urban and boring.
I was clueless at that time that soon video game arcades will get into my attention. And pair that with Richard Pryor hacking the bank in Superman 3. When saw that I knew right away how I’m gonna make my millions.

I was privileged by the fact my father worked on oil rig for Norwegians. So he bought for me Philips MSX2. He was clueless that there was no software and support available in our country for that home “micro”. Naturally I learned BASIC programming reading manual in Italian language, and hardware I/O ports from specs sheets.

All through elementary school I kept 1984. Computers Magazine edition as a child’s illustrated bible. And there is another important publication that kept feeding the already raging fire. It was a thick 1988. Conrad Electronics catalogue from Germany.

Through that time without realizing it Commodore C64 was my MTV and comics books I replaced with computer magazines, the gaming section naturally.

Right away from the start luck turned for the worst in the ’90. And newer improved significantly in my aspect. But I still had a plan. Learn assembler on C64 and crate a demo. Never happened. But developed a sense for machine language and cpu architecture.

I find next quote best suited to describe my state of mind in recent years: > Winston S. Churchill — ‘Any man under 30 who is not a liberal has no heart, and any man over thirty who is not a conservative has no brains.’ I’m no fan of any historical or contemporary and popular figures, but do appreciate Winston being honest and passionate here.

Q: What I’m I doing here?
A: I’m living a boy’s dream. In 7th grade of elementary school I was consumed by a vision of developing and publishing software and hardware.

Q: How did I get here?
A: Well, funny story. I posted about 5 or 6 years ago on Facebook that I’ll provide my hardware and software skills for FREE! And Davor V. said come and work with CodeTen.

Q: Why I’m my qualified?
A: I took several courses in programming some formal and most self-taught. MS BASIC in the ’80., broke my teeth on assembler in early ’90. during high school. After got myself into “The Faculty of Mechanical Engineering and Naval Architecture”. Left the college during first year. (And I see I did a good thing because even today I don’t like they’re website.) Spent following years experimenting with junk radios,electronic and C64 personal computer until MS DirectX 5 and Win98. Learned HTML at home and created my first static web pages on free hosting service (https://web.archive.org/web/20020606005520/http://www.inet.hr/~erak/). Soon after, got MS Visual C++ certification as a business applications programmer just before .net framework C# became a thing. During that time ADSL and FlatRate kicked in also. I got on board and started using DreamWeaver and Macromedia Studio (before it was Adobe), during that period fell in love with Fireworks and still think Freehand is the best vector graphics app out there. I think that at that period the classical concept of Desktop Publishing was over.

Qualifications:

Finished high-school for marine mechanical engineer , enrolled in “The Faculty of Mechanical Engineering and Naval Architecture”. Left the college during first year. (And I see I did a good thing because even today I don’t like they’re website.) Spent following years in working manual labour and odd jobs, techno&raving, went through military service, experimenting with junk radios,electronic and C64. Skipped the dos, learned ins’n’outs of Win98, learned HTML at home(when css was just a draft and “.png” was a decade long promise). Created my first static web pages on free hosting service (still accessible via https://web.archive.org/web/20020606005520/http://www.inet.hr/~erak/), played allot with FruityLoops VST plug-ins.
Right time to get into web design. I got on board and started using DreamWeaver and Macromedia Studio (before it was Adobe), during that period fell in love with Fireworks and Freehand (still think it is the best vector graphics app out there).

In 2002, got MS Visual C++ certification as a business applications programmer just before .net framework&C# became a thing. Worked in accounting office for a year. Soon ADSL and FlatRate kicked in.

In 2005 bought with partners first hosting and domains of which only https://edoga.biz.hr remains till this day(serving as my personal playground). So it was the right time to work out a capitalization strategy with a hope to create a software, service or a product. Why not build and sell a video game. OK, I got myself a 3D animation suite and went through included tutorial. Also acquired Gigs and Gigs of assets. Then life knock down my door and et violet I’m a father of two children now, for life. Went on a hunt for family sustaining job that got me working in sailboat charter for 14 seasons until I left it in late 2018.

Meanwhile figured out and experimented with WinXP lan networking also setup a public web server from my desktop, hardware home routers stuff(NAT, ports and forwarding, firewalls).

In early 2018 Andre invited me to join in the team (Slaven, Davor, Bojan, )again on AppsForce development. And I’m proud to say that what you see now of beta.AppsForce ecosystem is what we were working on last two years (I jumped of “the raft” for a few months during winter 2020, dodging burnout. I hate crunching, so I do it often.) I’ve done over a hundred tests if not a 1k on all apps, instances installs and setups, Trello couldn’t keep up with us.

So if anyone of you has any doubts about does hard work pay of. Take my example. I’m the underdog that managed in two years to become comfortable using git, ditching winduz for linux(wish have done it fifteen years ago), building from scratch five android apps (including assisting in development of animus mobile Q42019 (Cordova) version) using Ionic/Angular/Capacitor, getting TypeScript literate, helped bring myCRm, myAccounting, myDate, myEcom into shape, beta testing 88% what is in the beta.appsforce gitblit repository and provided elaborate feedback. And even during three months away I didn’t stop learning new stuff. I registered for print on demand service as a illustrator designer, prepared and processed my old drawings and photos for the merch. Casually played Fortnite competitive on Nintendo Switch pushing myself through hundreds of thousands of players to end up among top 5000 players. Upgraded my 10y old office Intel socke775 pc, upgraded three more rigs at home (so kids can do school stuff), switched ISP and payed of old one, learned using OBS and KdenLive video editing and streaming software, produced and uploaded 30 videos even using Windows Photos Video Editor just to see how far can I push it.
During same time this year cooked every day for me and kids(I don’t eat out, take delivery 5 time on average a month), backed bread every day, done laundry for us, opened and closed door/window for the damn cat going in’n’out, figure out what the hell does she want to eat.