ABOUT ME

I was born on 10th November 1985 in Istanbul, Turkey. My parents are originally from Izmir city. I graduated from Trakya University Edirne Vocational College Industrial Electronic section in 2005.

After a few failures at Vertical Passing Exam for bachelor degree, i decided to enter the National University Exam for start again from beginning because of it was a better option at that time and i won the Marmara University, Faculty of Technical Education, Electric section which leads to be a teacher of Electric. But because of my military duty time has become late, i've had to freeze my education before the start and went to my unit. (I don't know why i didn't force myself to continue the education. I could find a way to postpone the military duty whereas. Maybe it was seen better to me instead of education life again.)

The first three months (training period) of my military duty was in Tokat 48th Regiment Command of Infantry Training. Later 12 months of my professional duty was in Hatay Narlıca 2nd Border Battalion Command of Infantry. I can say clearly, the hardest but also most beneficial as physical & mental days of my life was passed in military. Patience, anger management, not being tired, stay cool and powerful whatever the conditions, having courage and resistance to beat every kind of difficulties were the most valued legacy to me from my military life. I understood well why our elders says "the man who didn't accomplish his military duty is not deserve to be a family man."

After i returned to home, i was able to continue my education but i couldn't because of i had no passion left for it and also because of i had to work full time at that time. So, i began my professional career as an IT Specialist at a Fair Organization Company in Istanbul. Later then, i worked for a digital advertising agency as Operation Specialist for apx. 4 years. After the company was fall into bankruptcy, i worked at similar positions in 2 different companies more. I left from my last job in February 2020 by my own decide. Finally, i started as Software Development Executive in a global advertisement company in December 2020. 1 year later, i've been promoted to Software Development Manager in the same company and still continue to this role today.

I always liked the electronic toys and video games since my childhood. With playing them hours and hours, i was also interested how did they been make. Not sure because of that days or not, i always had a passion to create somethings. Actually i had this feeling long before that days, because i remember that i was trying to build a house with woods in our house's garden when i was probably 9 or 10 yrs old.

When i take a look to my past education life, i see no any extra skills i gained from it to highlight myself inside the millions of other people who desperate for get a job. It still open to discuss whether there are education institutes can handle this perfectly or not at present. But my education life enlightened somethings in my mind; i had been aware at least what i interest and what i do with passion.

Yeah..i have to be a designer, a system creator. From my highschool days that i draw command schemes of electrical engines that will do some duties into the paper, then make connections between contactors, timers etc. and finally watching its working like charm when i pressed the button; from my university days that i draw command schemes of electronic circuits that will do some duties into the copper plates (i was generally draw like factory automations), smelt it in muriatic acid+perhydrol solution, then soldering contactors, transistors, resistors etc. onto it and again watching its amazing working; i have come to present that i design and build websites, desktop & mobile apps that do various type of duties now.

I met computers first time when i was 13-14 yrs old. with the desktop computer my father bought that has Intel 80486 CPU, 512MB of HDD, 16MB of EDO RAM and 128KB of VGA. Operating system was Windows 95 and there was no any extra software installed. By the time i using it, i had mastered the Windows well. I was witnessed that installing Windows 98 (i tried because i was thought it might be accelerate the computer a little bit more) took more than 24 hours; aside starting up OS, even right click "new" menu on desktop was took over 45 secs and and winamp plays a simple mp3 file with lagging. Probably i thought it is enough for torture and i sent to heaven my dearest computer by turning 110/220V switch from 220V to 110V. :-)

Later then i had got a used Celeron, Pentium III and a brand new AMD Athlon based desktop pc (built by myself) when i was working at an internet cafe. I gained great experience about softwares, hardwares and perhipheral devices like printers & scanners during using these computers especially. My English skill that i developed since middleschool has a big role at my quick progress on computers.

Designing and programming were the subjects that i could find opportunity to work in last 10-15 years of my life. My first experience was the making a mod for one of my favourite RTS (Real Time Strategy) pc games Command & Conquer Generals Zero Hour (2005). I was started to work with editing textures by Photoshop (also designing and creating new textures from scratch) and editing game's configuration files that have .ini extension. I used the Photoshop first time for this work and then mastered it in a short time.

I met programming and web world via a book named "10 Adımda Web Tasarımı (Web Design at 10 Steps)" in March 2011. I knew almost nothing about web technologies at that time, what i knew is only theoretical. I was actually thinking that i'll completely learn everything about it when i bought that book, but it only describes to build a Flash based simple web site. When i learn something new, my method is usually trying to add my own ideas to it, change somethings and do different than examples. With this perspective, i built the web site described in the book with my own design and i really loved it. But when i researched differences between Flash based websites and standart html sites, especially when i went into depths of Flash, i noticed that building a Flash based website is absolutely not a good way. Because, Flash was actually a swf formatted movie clip which been playing by a Flash Player and means nothing for search engines. (I was witnessed once that Google crawls contents of Flash based websites that get their contents from external XML files, but mostly was not being recommending for seo anyway.) Maybe its best feature for that time was having a framework for providing to create rich multimedia contents like animations, special effects and games etc. I was learned the basics of ActionScript (programming language of Flash) while learning Flash by the book and took first steps into the programming world there. Even the words like command-control-programming are enough to awaken somethings in my mind, seeing myself when making somethings with them was making me love and tie to them stronger and letting me learn faster. Thus i mastered the actionscript in a short time and became skilled up to create anything i want with it.

I was created lots of app, game and website trials with Flash but my mind was still at building a standart html website. I thought this is an issue that should take care of and decided to learn it too. Because of my deep interest to this kind of works, i learned html, css and javascript concepts that i previously knew as only theoretical in a shorter time than my guess.

I was able to build a standart html website after i mastered html, css and javascript, but then i encountered with two more concepts; static and dynamic websites. Static sites means that their contents can be edit and update only by an html editor and requires some html knowledge. They have no CMS (Content Management System) and database connection. As an advanced version of websites (can also be named as Web Applications), Dynamic sites have these kind of constructs and lets people who don't have any programming knowledge or skill edit and update the contents of them. When i learned this and noticed that i can only build simple static websites, i decided to get into this and found a video course that covers one of the server-side web programming constructs; ASP (Active Server Pages). The name of the person who prepared this course and shared on the internet was Ömer Akı, a Computer or IT Teacher (if i remember correct) from Bolu city. In this course, he was showing to build an ASP based news website with Access database by using a program named DreamWeaver. I was proceed again with adding my own ideas, changing design and trying different things. I had been successfull and got it well. But this time my mind was stuck on a point; i built that website with the help of a program, with the help of its toolbox, it means to me i was actually built it without learn the programming language. In other words, i was deceiving myself. Yes, i was able to build an ASP based dynamic website with that, but this was not a professional approach, at least for me.

I believed that i should handle this and was preparing to learn its language (it was Visual Basic i guess) but then i noticed that it has become an old technology and then decided to learn the .NET framework with its recent technologies. I discovered the related course via a news that published in a technology portal named CHIP Online. (Link of that news is still active, you can find here.) Microsoft Turkey has started a project named "Açık Akademi (Public Academy)" which presents interactive multimedia, video and pdf courses that covers multiway programming (desktop, mobile and web) been using latest .NET technologies as completely free with the support of Ministry of Transport, Maritime Affairs and Communications. I registered to course without delay and began with "basic web design" education like learning it first time. My goal was the take everything from all courses include the ones i already have knowledge and overcome my possible shortcomings. I was sorted the courses in my opinion to learn better and faster. If i don't remember wrong, some courses have already cautions like "you must complete .. course to begin this course".

After i completed the basic web design course, i learned that i must learn C-Sharp (C#) language firstly to begin "building dynamic web applications with .NET" course which my ultimate goal. I knew that C# is one of the modern popular programming languages and i was already planning to learn it one day; noticed so that day has already came. :-)

C# was seemed very similar to actionscript that i learned from Flash, thus i felt no difficulty when learning it. Even, C# seemed easier to me than actionscript. In fact, many of programming languages look similar in logical base. Therefore, anyone who have some knowledge at one of them can learn the others with no difficulty.

I supported my C# learning with the books i bought from internet and with the different trials i did after each example in order to make my knowledge stronger. In programming, analytical thinking and creating successful algorithms are important as knowing language. In other words, problem analyzing, solution and solutions (alternatives) creation skills needs to be improved. Because those are the natures of programming and programmers will always encounter with them.

After C# education, next one was SQL (Structured Query Language) course. I used SQL rarely at my earlier ASP based website trials and had only beginner level knowledge. SQL is actually not a programming language like C#, actionscript or javascript. As its name suggests, it is a query language and has commands to provide us insert, fetch, edit (update) or delete the datas in the databases. Because of its operational functions like insert, update and delete, SQL too has been considered as a programming language in programming world.

Processes like sending data to database, fetching, updating and deleting was giving a different pleasure to me. My interest was increasing and i was learning faster when i doing that. Finally i mastered SQL too as i expected.

It was time to begin the "building dynamic web apps with .NET" course. Although this was a more advanced construct than ASP i learned earlier (also been calling "Classic ASP"), it was seeming very similar in the way of app development process. Applications was being creating with the help of a program (Visual Studio) and its tools by dragging & dropping objects (calling as "web forms objects") into the pages. Honestly, it was really a useful and easy to learn development environment. The websites that have pages ends with .aspx at the address bar of browsers are the websites that built by this version of .NET (ASP.NET Web Forms).

After i completed this course too, i was able to build every kind of dynamic websites and web applications. But there was an issue for me again; i was still doing development with the help of a program (Visual Studio) and its tools. In fact, it is certainly not an issue. Thousands of developers from all around the world are still developing personal-commercial applications with this way. Just I couldn't accepting that way, my desire of "create something from scratch" was making it an issue. The point i can go further, the depth i can dive shouldn't be limited with that. And the final course named "Advanced Level of Programming with ASP.NET MVC" had also confirmed this.

When i began to this last course, I said "that's what i'm looking for" at the first lesson yet.. Yeah, .NET MVC was based on the logic of app development from scratch by coding, as you can guess. MVC (Model-View-Controller) is an app development method. Its purpose is basically separate a web application into 3 main parts and make the development process as simple and clear.

MVC has an approach alike my lifestyle and personality. I always care to be organized at every matter in daily life and try to do my works in a certain order and plan. Even my house and furnitures are as organized as may not expect from a single man.

After i completed the final course, i kept going to gain experience and learn innovations with a project i wanted to build long ago by building it and applying-testing all my skills and experiences. In time, i realized that my knowledge, speed, algorithm creation and analytical thinking skills were improved considerably and arrived to present with it.

Alongside my this knowledge on design and programming, i also gained great experience on digital marketing by working in the sector for apx. 6 years. I use various tools and platforms like DV360, Adform, AppNexus, Gemius, Sizmek, DoubleClick, Google Ads, Social Media (Facebook/Instagram) Ads and Analytics professionally with the knowledge also on media planning-buying, publisher relations and reporting processes.

I try to keep my eyes on the current and new technologies as much as i can in the continuous progress of today's world. There are tons of free and paid resources like video courses, articles and researches, documents and e-books on the internet. That's i designed and created my this digital home to add more values to it by sharing all my experiences, knowledge and everything that i think useful for people.

Here you'll find articles, solutions and tutorials about my professions as well as entertaining and useful contents about the video games (especially flight simulators) with the notes from my daily life also.

If you've read until here, you know me better now. Huge thanks for your patience and interest.

Kaan Çamur

"The ones who set out not to rest never get tired."
Mustafa Kemal ATATÜRK