Welcome to my digital corner!
I’m Jozef Jarosciak, and this blog began as a personal space to organize my ideas and thoughts, but over time, it has evolved into a platform where I share insights on various topics, including architecture, cloud computing, big data, databases, security, operating systems, blockchain technology, software development, and information technology.
A bit about what I do: I work as an Enterprise Architect. My role involves shaping the structure of business and technology systems, tackling everything from strategy and governance to design and technology choices. In a way, it’s like being a city planner, but for digital ecosystems. While my main focus is on enterprise architecture, the variety of the work often sees me stepping into other technical roles as well. It keeps things interesting, to say the least!
As for my education, I earned a Master’s degree with honors from the University of Liverpool in England, specializing in areas like IT Project Management, Information Security, Cloud Computing, and Big Data. Along the way, I’ve picked up a handful of certifications, including TOGAF and some Microsoft certifications, which help me keep growing in this ever-changing field.
Outside of work, I enjoy digging into technical challenges, coding, and exploring projects that spark my curiosity. I am a big believer in open source, and most of my work can be found as open-source releases on GitHub. You can also find me LinkedIn.
Here are a couple of my leisure projects:
UsenetArchives.com
This is one of my more recent projects, serving as an attempt to restore the Usenet text archives into web searchable form. The site was featured in the Vice magazine and it is currently one of the most extensive archives of Usenet newsgroups on the Internet, archiving almost 800 million Usenet posts from early internet days (1984 until now). Free-of-charge access is possible via the web interface, without a requirement for a third-party Newsreader
Canadian Mortgage Calculator
This is an open-source Canadian mortgage calculator that takes into account that loan interest in Canada is compounded semi-annually, rather than monthly as it is in the USA. Also online at Mortgage Calculator
Text Entry Assistive Cloud-Based Platform
The primary goal of this Open Source prototype was to create a web-based real-time text analysis engine, which based on inspection of the entered text offers predictive suggestions to the end-user. The project wants to show that smart predictive technologies can speed up the process of creative writing as well as improve user experience and overall user productivity. Screenshot of the prototype’s automated research engine:
Video Demo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HM33M4QMMos&t=70s
Python Conversion of photos on disk to Excel Travel Log with a Google Map
Over the past 2-3 decades, my family has accumulated tens of thousands of photos from our travels worldwide. Despite organizing them, recalling the exact dates and locations of specific trips can be challenging. Fortunately, most modern smartphones and digital cameras embed GPS coordinates and timestamps into photos, which allowed me to streamline this information and develop a Python GUI application to help with this task. By directing the app to your photo directory, it scans and extracts EXIF data, converting it into:
- Excel Travel Log: A list of locations sorted by month and year.
- Google Map: A visual representation of our travels, with pins showing detailed dates and times of visits.
Below are screenshots from the PythonPhoto2Location app, illustrating the four steps in which the code transforms a collection of photos into an Excel file and Google Maps visualization.
Here is a 2-minute long Video outlining the app functionality:
Open Source Bananagrams Solver in JavaScript, PHP & MySQL
During some free time over the holidays, I embarked on a project to develop a programmatic solution for Bananagrams. I created various MySQL dictionaries using Aspell, styled the page with HTML and CSS, and developed the backend in PHP. The solver logic was implemented in a JavaScript web worker. This endeavour led to the creation of two websites: ScrabbleDB.com and BananagramSolve.com. For a detailed overview of the process, you can refer to the GitHub repository and watch the YouTube demo.
JavaScript n-Block Tangram Puzzle Solver
I recently also developed a Block Puzzle Solver that calculates solutions for tangram-style puzzles using monominoes, dominoes, triominoes, tetrominoes, and pentominoes within user-defined areas. The solver supports block rotation and reflection. It offers two modes: a fast version that uses random unique block combinations and a slower version that tests all possible combinations and permutations. Future plans include incorporating more complex polyominoes, such as heptominoes and octominoes, and supporting user-defined areas of any shape. You can access the solver online at Block Puzzle Solver.
Other projects
- AWS Lightsail Backup and Clean Up Script – Open Source script to automatically backup an Amazon AWS Lightsail snapshot and then remove old AWS Lightsail snapshots.
- DuckDNS Client – DuckDns Updater is a Windows tray application that allows you to keep your dynamic hostname’s IP address up-to-date (and in sync) with DuckDns DNS service at www.DuckDns.org
- and many more that can be found on my GitHub.