I was born on Sep 24th 1974, in the town of Pirot in south Serbia (300km from the Belgrade, our capitol). The country was called differently back then, changed its name and size few times. Recently ('06) completed the two-centuries-long circle and once again is called just Serbia, as it always should've been. Its size though, is not finalized yet. I finished primary and high school in Pirot with highest possible grades.

In Sep 1993 I went to School of Electrical Engineering at the Belgrade University. Finished first year in time. Then got my first PC and joined the web revolution at its very beginning.

Up to Sep 1996 I became demoralized by the sorry state of the Faculty, eventually dropped after finishing 2.5 years. I think it's enough to say that at that point I could choose do I want to sign up into 3rd, 4th or 5th year of the studies. Got first full-time job as webmaster, using personal web site filled with supermodels photos as CV.

In Sep 1998 I quit the job, wanted to concentrate entirely on finishing the Faculty. But it was not my faith to fulfill that. Whole University and especially my Faculty reached the lowest moral point in its history. In second term of the third year NATO decided that bombing us is the right way. Went home to Pirot for those three months.

Thus in Sep 1999 I dropped out of University for good, started (continued) professional carrier and never looked back to formal education again.

It seems that all important points in my life are connected to September. If I get married on the same month, that conclusion would be sealed. With that said, its obvious I'm still (officially) single, although not on the market - Ana holds my heart. Well, it's not all September. Since March 10th, 2007, Ana and I are married.

On July 5th 2007, Aleksa was born and enriched our lifes in ways words can't relate.

Interests and hobbies

I was always interested in fine design, far before the web dimension. I have painted and sketched for the better part of my teen years. Haven't drawn anything in 10 years though - business work's a bitch.

I like epic fantasy books and movies and computer strategies. For the last five years, I play Age of Kings / Conquerors whom I consider the best multiplayer real-time strategy ever made.

I follow every Formula 1 race each year and am strong McLaren fan. I was fortunate enough to be at the Silverstone 2003 Grand Prix, the fabulous experience in every way.

My father planted a new vineyard, in the late 80's. It was his pride and joy for many years and left me a lot of legacy with it. I'm trying to keep it alive and kicking, making the best I can. My mom does a great job back home.

Professional, pro-bono, history making...my work.

SezamPro

In 1996 landed a job as webmaster of SezamPro, promising local ISP with unique public image. In two years, I built my name in the serbian web community.
Then I faced the first of many cross-roads: continue working or return to the faculty. I had three more years of learning to complete the damn thing and also three years until I would be forced (by law) to go to army service. For reasons far beyond the scope of this page, I quit the job and returned to school. Worked hard, but it was not meant to be, for the same reasons mentioned few lines back.

FreeSerbia

In 1999, NATO attacked my country. I joined the group of friends in building the FreeSerbia - Other voices from Serbia. It was a project with one aim: show to the world that not all Serbs are like Milošević and report the awful truth (© M. Moore), the way it was.

Other voices from Serbia

We started off on April 5th, the same day that regime killed Slavko Ćuruvija, the widely known independent journalist. It was chilling to start anti-regime web site on the same day they killed the editor of the most popular daily newspaper. Throughout the war and for the good 1.5 years afterwards I worked for FS, in the web team. It was an interesting experience in the interesting time. Eventually, after the regime collapsed on October 5th, 2000, I thought that is was enough and went to fully return to normal life, to start creating a life as it should've been.

cyberPIXIE

In the late 1999, I got a job at the local branch of Chicago-based cyberPIXIE, one of many dot-com bubbles that eventually burst. Towards the end of 2000, I could not see any viable perspective there, due to company changes. Another crossroad, another decision. I left in February 2001 (company was later bought by PCTel and the Belgrade division was shut down one year later).

BEG Finsoft

I went to BEG Finsoft, off-shore company for Finsoft Ltd, UK. It is an interesting environment to work in, on challenging projects involving teams of twenty or more people. Apart from 10 month break for the army service, I work in Finsoft ever since.
I'm sort of web standards evangelist here, heavily promoting the use of modern web design technologies. Results can be seen on our flagship product - Margin Maker betting platform - at clients like Stan James, Boyle Sports and many more. Careful eye will notice that my evangelism still has a good way to go.

Connecting dots

In 1997. I wrote a book called Web design - creation of quality Internet sites, published in Serbia. Got fixed fee for it, enough to pay me a LaserJet 5L that same year.

These days I'm regular contributor to the popular computer magazine in Serbia, PC. I write about semantic coding, CSS based design, usability and accessibility issues etc. I designed many of their CD and DVD presentations.

Whenever I was not fully employed, I did freelancing job through studio.aplus.

License for my work

CC-BY 3.0 This web site is a cave with many gems, more or less hidden. Unless otherwise stated, all XHTML/CSS/JS techniques published in my posts or in other site areas as licensed under CC Attribution 3.0 Unported license.

In some cases, you may want to waive the license and use the goods without attribution - this is possible and each work has appropriate information about it. If it doesn't, contact me and I'm certain we will reach an agreement.

The one thing that is not for sale nor will ever be is a design of this site. It's custom made for my content and it is not allowed to copy and use any part of it (overal layout, look & feel, images) in any way and for any purpose. Pirating and stealing is a bad practice and give you a bad reputation very quickly.
Be creative, be your own.

Contact

If you want to contact me, please use this contact form. It is the only sure way to get your message to me.

Thanks, donate..?

Everything on this site is free to use. If it helped you a great deal, let me know. You can also donate some money if you feel like it, although a warm thanks would do just the same.

Knowing it helped someone is very inspiring and spirit lifting.

Colophon

Everything said on this web site reflects my private views and opinions, not of any company or organization I am (or was) affiliated with. The first version of this writing was made in 2003, redone in August 2006. Small update in Mar and Sep 2007.

The web site is built on XHTML and CSS2.1. It should work and look just fine, for most people.

NB: A+ means the very top. The finest. Unsurpassable in every aspect.
That is the frontier I strive for. As my favourite movie line goes: "there's no points for second place".

Aleksandar Vacić