~

About me

Welcome to my personal website. My name is Michal Vanko and I'm a programmer . I am developing software for more than half of my life and I love it! Sometimes I stream working on my side projects and building a community of like minded people. Here you can find blogs of my thoughts and journeys, as well as links to my socials where you can see other content.

• web development

  Extensive expertise in creating performant, live web applications and websites.

• game development

  Creating games with passion. Capable of producing each aspect of a good game with profesional sound and creative mechanics. I consider games as multidisciplinary art.

• mentoring & consulting

  I offer consulting sessions to assist you in developing higher-quality software and share insights from crafting robust, professional web applications. Schedule a session with me and elevate your projects together.

• 8 November 2024

  #News #Development #Rust

  My first published Cargo crate

  I’ve become obsessed with cameras, during our Tenerife trip, where I got to use a borrowed mirrorless camera for the first time. After that, I researched which camera I’d buy for myself for five months. While watching all the reviews, I was interested in the exposure settings for each picture presented. I’ve displayed many photographs in our Tenerife vlog with my wife. I’ve decided that I’d like to show those exposure settings in my other videos as they might inspire other photographers. I’ve tried many image editors and tools, but not one was able to fulfill my demands on how I’d like to display those settings underneath each picture. Many tools supported some kind of framing, however it was always in a limited way. I knew straight away that this would be a cool and small side-project that I could create. I could use my favorite technologies and have good content for my streams. At first, I thought, that I would have to render the text right into the image. It will however be in some aspect a deformation to the quality of the original image. There was also a question of how should the text be displayed in a way that for any image size, the text will be of a similar or determinable size.

  ---

• 5 November 2024

  #News #Development #Rust

  This site has been rewritten again

  Hey world, After a few months of work, I can finally present to you a new style for this site. The style isn’t the only thing that changed. I’ve completely rewritten how this site is produced. With the front-end tech world spinning too fast I’ve noticed this cool little library called HTMX that takes front-end development back 10 years and provides a completely different look at how web development could’ve been done.

  ---

• 29 August 2023

  #News #Keyboards

  I built my 3rd custom keyboard

  When I was young and still had time to play games on a regular basis I got myself an 80% mechanical keyboard from Cooler Master. I didn’t want to waste any space with a useless num-pad. For a very long time, I was very satisfied with the keyboard. It still serves me today. It has cherry brown switches. I got very used to them, but I always wanted to try something different. A few years later I found the r/MechanicalKeyboards subreddit. I was amazed by the collection of custom-made keyboards and the variety of switches and other customization that is available. I decided to make my own split orthodox Redox keyboard with very light switches so I could type fast. At least that’s what I was thinking, but after a few days, I realized that those switches were a mistake. There are so many articles on the internet about how to pick switches, but I guess it’s just finding what is good for each person by experience. At the same time, I’ve switched to the Colemak layout. This one was perhaps the best choice that I could make at that time. My wrists were hurting and the ease of typing words with much less friction really helps out today. The time of struggle was definitely worth it.

  ---

• 11 May 2020

  #News #Keyboard #Colemak

  Transition to Colemak keyboard layout

  So it has been 3 months since I’ve made a full transition to only writing on Colemak keyboard layout. Now that I am in the middle of the adaptation period is time to sum up what was causing the most problems and what went smoothly. Lazy explanation would be that it is something between QWERTY and Dvorak. It keeps the most used shortcuts unchanged and moves the keys that are most frequently used to the middle. At the time of writing this it is the 3rd most used keyboard layout after those 2 mentioned above. To get to know Colemak better I’d visit the official website.

  ---

• 6 November 2024

  #Development #HTMX #Hyperview

  Renaissance of Hypermedia Systems

  My goal for this year was to make a presentation. I’ve told this to my friend Lukáš Orgován and he offered me an opportunity to come present at their workplace with him. This was a great event and I’m so glad I could attend. I’ve chosen a topic very close to my heart and wanted to show a different approach to building mobile and web applications. The presentation is in Slovak with English subtitles.

  ---

• 27 April 2023

  #Presentation #Keyboards

  Keyboards & ergonomics of 21st century

  I’ve finished another custom keyboard build this year. It got me motivated to share my experience with custom keyboards with the community. I’ve got in touch with a friendly community in Poprad by recommendation. I haven’t done any presentations for a few years. My positive keyboard experience re-ignited my passion. Hopefully, it sparked some ideas and someone finds my tips helpful.

  ---

• 4 February 2023

  #DevBreak

  DevBreak #5 Joys and concerns of Engineering manager with Pavol Dudrík

  In this episode, I’ve invited my friend Pavol Dudrík to talk about what motivates us and makes us happy about the work of the Engineering manager. This job combines two views, and the transition from engineer to manager is often full of pitfalls. We want to share our experience and dispel misconceptions often associated with managerial positions in IT. This episode aired on the 4th of February 2023 and is in the Slovak language.

  ---