Logo Valentin Staubmann

Work

IQOQI

https://iqoqi.at

One of my main tasks at IQOQI is to develop and maintain various websites, including the institute's website and an intranet called IVA.
Starting from scratch, I established the IVA as a central part of our institute and it is now used to manage data from the administration and research areas. The IVA now offers a wide range of tools to simplify daily procedures and libraries to collect a wide range of data, from scientific publications to upcoming events.
Some of this data is visible on our website, so I started developing Joomla components and modules. I like the idea of how these systems are clearly separated but connected by a solid tie for what I used SOAP.

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The IVA

As a foundation for the IVA I created APM (Advanced PHP Managed), a LAMP driven framework.
I stick to PHP despite the plethora of modern technology available because it is easy to maintain, fast and portable.
The framework covers all my needs for authorisation using LDAP, database access, caching, exception and error handling. It also handles application level objects that take care of reports, AJAX requests and so on.

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In my opinion, this is the most rewarding part of the job.
You create a new file and at some point you have a bunch of files, libraries, styles, configs and a working "thing" that does exactly what you want it to do.

Servers

When I started at the institute, there was a website that was hosted by a third party and was very complicated and difficult to manage. After a while I convinced my supervisor to host the site himself and to use a different technology.
As my hobbyhorse at that time was PHP and Joomla, I used that to implement the project. In the beginning everything was on a server with a LAMP installation.
With time I implemented the authentication with LDAP and also installed an own server including backup server for it. Then the database came on its own server to improve the speed of the whole system.
As location for the servers we use server housing at an external provider. To improve accessibility I created space for all servers in the house. Including the procurement and installation of the rack and server hardware.
As server operating system I have always used Debian Linux, currently in version 12 Bookworm.

Some incidents, especially longer power outages, have caused me to rethink the whole system. Thereby the idea was born to virtualize our whole server landscape.

Now hosted externally again but with several virtual server instances adapted for the purpose, the system runs stable and is very well suited for scaling.

Sideprojects

ACM Automotive Cost Management

Since I am a car fanatic, I would also like to know the exact expenditures for it. That's quite an effort. I collect all receipts and enter them into an Excel file to generate various reports. But it can't be Excel, can it? That's why I got the idea to write a web application based on Laravel.

AirDesign

http://ad-gliders.com/

AirDesign the bright new star on the paragliding sky was founded about 2012. I'm proud that I could participate in the founding process of this company.
Naturally, my part was to create the website. Built with joomla and stuffed with extra extensions and custom modifications, it is now time to rethink, restructure and redesign the whole page.

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08. May 2014 The new page is up and online.

Hugin Sweda

Hugin Sweda Logo

After a few small contracts in similar areas I raised my skills in dealing with people and different situations by working in field service for a company what was selling primarily POS appliances and software. Also hard and software in the hotel industry.

My job consisted basically in installing the hardware client server systems, server rack systems for oracle cluster and software interfaces to other vendors for example Telephone, Aircondition or other POS systems.
Our business partners and customers came from all over Austria and therefore I had to travel a lot. But since I really enjoy driving it was a great opportunity to gather experiences from many different specifications and requirements. To meet so many diverse kind of people was also a great part of this work.

At some point in time I saw a chance to learn more about what it needs to drive a business, quitted my employment and started as small business entrepreneur. This was mainly to learn more about sales, accounting and self management. Funny detail, my main customer was my last employer Hugin Sweda. I did this work till I got the chance to work at the Institute for Quantum Optics and Quantum Information.

Disoft

Disoft LogoI got my first employment as IT technician and software developer at Disoft a small company in Innsbruck.

My former boss told me one day that the reason he hired me was because I took two upgrade training courses for HTML and Windows NT. Aside from the courses topic it was important to him that I was willing to learn. It was the time where Java Server Pages where getting popular and specially in this region nobody knew about this technology. So since every new employee would have had to learn JSP the willingness to do so was most important to him.

So I started my IT career from scratch by learning Java Server Pages. I got in touch with Java Script and later on also with pure Java.
Since at this time I was the only fulltime employee I also had to maintain the whole IT infrastructure including servers. This way I learned about Linux, Sun Solaris and Oracle. Retrospective it was kind risky of my boss to put me in charge for the systems in spite of little knowledge of the matter. But I learned quickly.

One of the most remarkable memories was to see the whole smartphone market come to life. At the times where no one would have had every dreamed of anything like an iphone I had an prototype in my hands from one of the first companies who tried to merge an handheld computer with an mobile phone. We wrote software for this device what everyone knows now as MMS.

Disregarding some troubles it was a very interesting time and I have learned a lot. Unfortunately the company is no longer in existence.