the blogging photographer
If you haven't guessed by now, my name is Vasili. Sometimes my name can be butchered for its pronunciation so I just tell people to put the sound va and the word silly together, and that seems to do the trick.
I wouldn't describe myself as eclectic because although I have a couple hobbies, they work very well together. Three of my favorite things to do are web development and design, photography, and cooking and baking.
Almost every single person who knows me (and even some who don't), knows me for having that "really nice camera". I sometimes think I'm a little obsessed with my Nikon D90 but it's such a great camera and the Nikkor 50mm f/1.8 lens that I mainly shoot with creates absolutely stunning bokeh, something I know I'm obsessed with. Even after the picture has been taken, there's so much that can be done with it using tools such as Lightroom and Photoshop. But that's not why I love photography. I love photography because I'm able to capture the moments people don't see or the ones that I don't want to forget.
I can play with my love of photography by taking pictures of the various things I cook and bake. If I'm inviting to some social gathering, the people who know that I'm going always know that I'll be bringing something delicious. Whether that be chocolate mousse, peanut butter cookies, my raved about cheesecake, or something of their picking. Just like photography is able to capture moments that I want to last forever, food is able to bring together people and just make things better.
As for my plans in college, seeing as how I'm 18 and a senior in high school, I have a couple picks. I'll be majoring in biochemistry or computational biology with either double majoring in business or a business minor. I'm currently looking at Duke or UPenn, with others being Columbia and Cornell.
Entrance into the Internet World
I first discovered the world of web design and developer, along with all its wonderfulness, about three years ago when I decided to put up some answers for my friends. I don't know what possessed me to do it but from that one Freewebs page, I became hooked to the web design world.
It took another year and a half for me to be developing websites that did not include high contrast colors, and didn't break the validator. I stumbled upon this thing called PHP, a server-side language, which just captivated my attention just like HTML and CSS had. I was even more determined to learn this new mysterious language. It remembered me of algebra, which I really enjoyed at the time.
I learned enough to get me by in creating a simple guestbook script. I didn't want that, though; I wanted to create a blogging software. At the time, I was working with WordPress, but didn't really like how the templating worked. It took that other year and a half to get the now CMS to how I wanted it... kinda. I also seem to be updating it and changing some things. For me to have a motivation of sorts, I decided to sell it on CodeCanyon under the name Articulate Articles.
I'm now continuing learned hidden secrets of PHP and its security vulnerabilities. My HTML and CSS knowledge grows everyday with the emergence of newer version (HTML5 and CSS3). My knowledge of JavaScript isn't that great and I haven't had a chance to finish reading my book on it. I am also going to start learning Objective-C so I will eventually be able to create my own Mac app, or an app for my iPod Touch.
What's a “duove”?
Enough about the blogging software for this site! I purchases duove.com in May 2009 as a gift for myself for completing my first AP test, the World History exam. I scored the highest, a five, I found out, that July.
The name doesn't mean anything. It's just a made up word that I liked because of how the letters fell together. I knew I wanted to have the letters “d” and “v” because I think they are the most awesome letters ever. I belief I started with the word dove and just added a “u” to it.
