About me

Hey 👋, I'm Peter aka "Spekulatius" or "cookie man 🍪️" by now. Originally, I'm from Leipzig, Germany 🇩🇪️ / 🇪🇺️ but spent most of the last decade living overseas in New Zealand 🇳🇿️, the Republic of China 🇹🇼️ (commonly known as Taiwan), Georgia 🇬🇪️ (the country, not the state), and Thailand 🇹🇭️. If travelling is something for you, you can find more on my blog with Ely called Magic Bus 🌏️ 🚐️. I've also written down my favorite movies for quieter evenings or days off.

I'm a passioned software engineer focusing on PHP using Laravel, Livewire & Filament as well as JavaScript development using AlpineJS, and VueJS. I've been running a little software development company called bring your own ideas Ltd. since 2015. I also like Chrome/Firefox extensions.

It all started with a old computer

I've been obsessed with computers since the day my dad brought an old 286 computer with 4 MB RAM from his work. This oversized and already back then outdated machine intrigued me strangely. I had a incredible urge to find out how it works and what makes it tick. Still without internet I started investigating what file types are there, what they are good for and how they made up the Windows 3.1. I broke and reinstalled the operating system more times than I can count.

After a while I started learning to teach myself coding in C with a book I got somehow. A very frustrating and slow experience. What is the use in building another calculator if your operating system already has one? Something was missing to give this logical power a proper use and purpose.

One day my dad installed a little white box with three blinking LEDs and with some cable called "the modem" and showed me "the internet" — I found what was missing to give this machine a purpose. The ability to connect with anyone on the planet (my thought back then) and share thoughts and files was incredible impressive. I learned making websites using a resource I found online: a website called SelfHTML. SelfHTML became my "go to" resource as neither GitHub, Stackoverflow or even Google existed. Back then SelfHTML used to look like this:

Many nights and some arguments with my parents about the heavity phone bills later I had my first website online. It was filled with many spinning and blinking gif and fullfilled no purpose at all. But I felt like I accomplished something and building stuff for the internet has captured my mind since this day.

What drives me?

Three major drivers defined my life: a strong sense for freedom and independence, a deep interest in business as a way of achieving personal freedom and, of course, the previously mentioned deep interest in web technology. These three have constantly influenced my major life decisions from my career choice, to leaving Germany, building side project up to until now, starting this website as personal log and knowledge archive.

I hope you find useful little hacks, tips on my blog and of course solutions for your problems here. If you got a question for find something outdated please get in touch.

What to stay tuned?

If you want to read more about my projects, software engineering or bootstrapping side-projects you probably like my side-project newsletter too.