Marek Wojcik - Career
Youth and Studies
Although I was supported by my family I was living alone and on my own in Wroclaw (Wroclaw, Lower Silesia, Poland), a big city of then about 600000 inhabitants.
I was 15 then.
That has been a good foundation for my whole life. In my opinion it is the most important thing one can learn at this age - responsibility.
The five years of technical high school – with specialization in industrial automation and electronic control techniques I finished with Matura/Abitur.
Even then I was already most interested in electronics. In –then- communist Poland I was able to build devices, which were hard or impossible to buy on the open market. Problems with the supply of electronic elements were no hindrance, but a goal to reach my aim with what was available to me. Creativity was asked for.
What I did build?
Well, power amplifiers for musicians, hi-fi amplifiers for private use, digital clocks – at least one of them (my father's) is still running after 40 years, then control devices for different applications, electronic wipers and ignition control for cars (something like the great-grandfather of modern board computers :).
The following years from 1975 to 1980 were a most beautiful time for me!
Always working on new electronic projects I finished my studies of electronics and automation systems after four a half years at the technical university of Wroclaw with diploma. That was the most difficult field of study in Poland at this time.
After my studies in Poland
Immediately after my studies I got a job as a technician servicing radios and TVs.
Then followed two years at the hospital of the University of Wroclaw as specialist for medical electronic devices.
I installed and serviced a Hewlett Packard computer system in the cardiologic department, and was present in the operation room at pacemaker implantations for the technical surveillance of the monitoring systems and metering the sensitivity of the heart.
When the era of Solidarność began almost everywhere was euphoria.
At last, we could take our fate in our own hands. On the other hand we knew what kind of danger we were in.
I was elected chairman of the local Solidarność in my department in the hospital.
In the December of 1981 the status of war was declared in Poland.
And I, as electronic, wanted to help by doing anything to establish democratic surroundings. A friend came to me proposing to take part in establishing Radio Solidarność, which was to operate from the underground. That was quite the right thing for me – to break the monopoly of the censure in this way!
What followed were eight months of bone breaking hard work. In a team of excellent technicians we built FM-transmitters with a reach of about 7 miles. My job was to build the modules, the power supply and the delay timer.
Because of security reasons these devices were built to be used only once – theoretically. In reality we re-collected most of them from the roofs after the transmissions – despite the risk.
And as I had a car I was under way organizing things quite often.
25 years later a memory plate in honor of all co-workers of Radio Solidarność was erected in the center of Wroclaw.
in honor of all co-workers of Radio Solidarność was erected in the center of Wroclaw.Vienna until 2000
My wife and I moved to Vienna in 1982.
Schock Electro-Optic 12/1982 - 8/1983
My first job in Vienna was in a small electronics business in Alt Erlaa. We built switching power supplies for Siemens AG for the Olympic Winter Games in Sarajevo 1984. That was in 1982. We had one small SIRIUS PC to our disposition, with 5 1/2 inch floppy drive, but neither hard disk nor software.
My responsibility was the production, technical control and quality control. My contract was resolved when the production ran out.
Austro Schnee 9/1983 - 12 -1984
The following two and a half years I worked for a Viennese company writing programs in COBOL.
Their main agenda was snow sweeping the sidewalks in the winter time, but other jobs of house keepers were done too. I have developed several programs organizing the workflow in the office, among others a program to optimize the routes for the drivers of the snow plows using the spatial relation coordinate system of the Vienna City Board (RBW).
Europrocess GmbH 1/1985 - 8/1985
This was a software house where again I was writing programs in COBOL for Wang computer – now it were commercial programs for stock, orders, order processing and similar themes.
Elektronik und Computertechnik 9/1985 - 5/1991
The next six years found me developing hard- and software.
My most important job was the development of a printer interface for Wang computers. Seems to be an easy task but was not. Wang Systems had implemented a proprietary communications system to block such undertakings. Research and development of this interface took two years to get to a successful usable result. I thought up a dual processor system with DRAM storage and PLDs (Programmable Logic Devices). For more details please read Wang Printer Emulation - a Story of Success.
This interface was sold to over 1000 customers worldwide. In the year 1990 a German computer journal declared it the best Wang Interface.
Except for Wang I developed a few more simple interfaces in between. And emulators for Philips matrix printers as well as for Nixdorf and Siemens were my products too.
NetSoft Hard- und Software Entwicklung und Vertriebsges.m.b.H. 4/1992 -
In the year 1992 I decided to go my own way by opening my own business. And so I founded NetSoft Hard- und Software Entwicklung und Vertriebs Ges. m. b. H. in April 1992.
GiroCredit jetzt Erste Bank AG 7/1992 - 2/1998
For the GiroCredit bank I have made a lot of programs in FoxPro for DOS. A data base of shares puts all shares for a selected company into a tree structure. A controlling program for automatic surveillance of selected financial transactions, further a program to register the working hours in a networkable data base, with entry and exit times, holidays and other absences.
United Nation of Vienna UNOV 2/1993 - 3/1994
Two projects for the UNO in Vienna:
- a Data base for a Phone Billing System – written in Foxpro, to analyze in- and outgoing telephone calls. This program was used for the billing of all in the UNO building located firms and UNO organisations. Software module to recognize telephone calls (by differentiation of the two sources) between the Viennese UNO departments and the UNO head quarter in New York.
- the installation of a virtual network for exchange of information concerning the needs of the Organisation for Humanitarian Help in Bosnia in the time of the Yugoslavian War. Details of my adventures can be found in My Stay in besieged Sarajevo.
Magistratsabteilung MA46 Gemeinde Wien 11/1995 - 2/2011
Ma46 is the Department for Security in Traffic of the Vienna City Board.
Unfall Analyse System - UAS (Accident Analyzing System), an enormous data base and statistic functions for analyses of accidents with personal injuries in Austria as well as research of their causes. This program was written in FoxPro for DOS (later updates and supplements in Visual FoxPro) and fulfills every wish concerning statistics of accidents. I developed this project with its supplements in the span of all together over ten years.
Surgery Dr. Passegger 11/1995 - 2/2002
Dr.med. Passegger has a surgery for X-ray and ultrasound. I supplied him with the necessary IT-system – computers, operating systems, software, network, communications system between computer and developing machine (to copy a patient's relevant data from a data base into the X-ray photo). Last not least I built a new program for the administration of the patients' data (in Microsoft Access VBA).
Realia AG 09/1996 - 11/1999
A real estate company needed a networkable Microsoft Access data base applikation for interested clients. In addition several small applications were generated for them.
Reference
ICE GmbH Schweiz 10/1997 - 4/1999
Remote commissioned Project Thread - a Fast Fourier Transformation, a feasibility study. Determination of thread density (number of threads / cm) in fabric images. A line scanner provides data in 256 gray levels. These are analyzed by FFT. As a result, the thread density is delivered.
The program was written in C++.
A second project for them was a data base in Visual Foxpro for storing impulses sent from a remote control. An infrared receiver was connected with a parallel Centronics interface. The program detects the system of the signals and stores them in a data base. A learning function as well as the transmission of infrared signals direct from the data base was implemented too.
Ludwig Boltzman Institut 3/1999 - 10/2003
Project View Research Analysis – a most interesting program (written in C-language) for accident research. A special helmet was built for the driver of a car or tram. This helmet was supplied with two cameras, one of which filmed the view of the driver; the second filmed the pupil of the driver itself at the same time. My task was to superimpose both films into one, and as a result a crosshair was to show the exact spot the driver was looking at at the very moment.
In order to fulfill this task I had a lot of consultations with mathematicians from the Vienna University for Agricultural Sciences. I finally applied a correlation of the second degree. The program aids in the evaluation of the results, e.g. dimensioning of the response times etc.
sample result
Max Mobil (now T-Mobile) 2/1998 - 6/2001
Customer Management System KMS.
Max Mobil was the first private mobile phone company in Austria.
I got a commission to do some software development for the then young company in February 1998. In a team of about 30 programmers I was responsible for tools programming. We built a Customer Management System in Visual Basic with ODBC connection to an Oracle data base, and made some supplements and extensions to it. This project took over three years. Among my most important tasks were tools for bonuses, the administration of 'Mäxchen' (the first loyalty program in Austria), and tools for data base administration. And my last task in this team was an editor for Oracle data based tables.
Bundesministerium für Wissenschaft, Verkehr und Kunst (Federal Ministry for Science, Transport and Arts) 6/1996 - 1/1997
Project Online Input for the data base of Property Damage.
Assigment in german
Traffic accidents with property damage were to be registered in a central data base in uniform shape throughout Austria. This program is used by the police and the gendarmerie. The goal here was to make these data available for the research of the accidents, in order to effect appropriate action following scientific research of those accident black spots.
Vienna after 2000
We have a new century!
And I got no complaints at all referring to Y2K problems with my programs!
Nevertheless I visited all of my customers to double-check that everything was all right in this instance.
Scientific Games 9/2001 - 11/2002
This international group with branch in Vienna deals in winning games, online games and hardware such as terminals. I developed some projects for them. Programmed in Pascal and SQL Plus, Oracle data base, for operating system VMS.
Sugery Dr. Neubauer 4/2002 - 6/2011
Dr.med. Neubauer has a surgery for neurology. I supplied and installed the whole IT-System, service inclusive. Apart from the network system I developed and enhanced a new program for administration of patients in Microsoft Access VBA.
Bräuer & Seebacher 5/2002 -
For this auto body and paint shop I supplied and installed the whole IT-System and do the necessary servicing. Apart from the network system I wrote some programs for their office, e.g. a fax program in C++ which shows incoming faxes on all work stations.
NetSoft Hard- und Software Entwicklungs- und Vertriebs Nfg. KG 1/2003 -
I changed the legal form of my company. As from January 1st 2003 it is a limited partnership.
ARC Seibersdorf Research GmbH 4/2003 - 7/2003
Project Intelligent Antennas
This had to do with hard- and software development again.
It serves to localize the exact position of mobile phones. The phase shift between transmitting stations and the mobile phone is measured and thereby the position of the device is determined. My task was to develop the software to control the upload of microcode. Programming was done in C++ and assembler, the OS was Linux.
Siemens PSE 6/2004 - 5/2005
In the Siemens company I generated software for Webasto heaters for cars. We were a team working on the project, my task being to draw up the software release, to test it, and to write some modules myself.
Used were CM Synergy with WinMerge, Assembler, C, C++ and Visual Basic
reference in german
BlackBetty Mobilmedia GmbH 6/2005 - 5/2009
I got commissioned to write a Java Book Reader for mobile phone – a program for the display of books in graphic format for all customary smart phones. An animated menu to be controlled by the jog-buttons was included. Multimedia content like texts, pictures and sound files can be used mixed together with links (in the book). A search function, text marks and other useful options enhance the product.
The tools for accomplishing these options I developed in Visual Basic .NET and C#. Services for Billing system in PHP. Linux Server Configuration, BackUp by Cronjobs, and much more.
A1 Telekom AG 6/2009 - 2/2013
Design, development and service of the complex Frontend Application (TWIST). Billing of Voice- and Nonvoice products. Workflow, invoice- and test invoice development, agreements and administration. Analysis, development and software implementations. Data base enquiries, finally adjustment and implementation of the A1 software after the merger with A1.
Reference in german
Applied programming languages: Oracle PL/SQL, Visual Basic .NET, ASP .NET, PHP, Perl
Project FileExplorer 3/2013 - 11/2013
This FileExplorer I have created for my own purposes as I needed a reliable tool to quickly find data following a specific criteria among millions of others. The project was generated using C# Framework 4.5, a system service generating index files was developed too.
The Optimal Photo e.U. 6/2013 - 11/2015
This project I did accompany from the very beginning. The platform Optiphot.com for photo contests was developed in the short span of three months (first published version on October 24th 2013) by my son Lukas Wojcik. My part mostly lay in the organization of the management of the project. Anyway I have written some tools for data backup and information of the administrators and moderators if reactions to events were required; all in all two programs, one for PC (in C# .NET) and the second one for Android (in Java). Both of these programs have a similar watchdog function by displaying the actual Value of Parameters and alert if necessary. Both versions I wrote in PHP, they call services on a Linux Server. Value of Parameters and alert if necessary. Both versions I wrote in PHP, they call services on a Linux Server.
The backup program is a frontend PC program which automatically makes the necessary data backups via SFTP. For the Linux server I have developed some cronjobs and batch scripts.
and alert if necessary. Both versions I wrote in PHP, they call services on a Linux Server.Zürich Versicherung AG 1/2014 - 3/2014
For the insurance company Zürich AG in Vienna I programmed a row of WCF services. The Zürich AG had developed a new mobile application for their clients which needed data from a server. I used C#, WCF, .NET 4.0 and SQL.