Marcel Kapfer

About me

Hi!
My name is Marcel Kapfer and I'm a creative being.

Coding

I learned Java as my first programming language back in 2014 and started a first project, the writtenMorse project. It provided tools to convert writtenMorse code to Latin letters and the other way around. (Btw.: The writtenMorse code itself is an “invention” of mine for better writing Morse code by using other symbols than dots and dashes). Later in 2014 I started to learn coding for Android, since I wanted to develop a writtenMorse app for the mobile OS. This app was published on the Google Play Store in mid December, just three weeks after my first contact with Android development. Additionally to that I learned a bit of JavaScript in 2014 for enhanced features on my websites.

In 2015 I expanded my knowledge by learning Bash, PHP, Python and a little bit of C. I also released a few font apps for the Cyanogenmod Theme Engine and some bash scripts to make my (and maybe also your) life easier. Rangitaki is another project that I started in February 2015. It was a blogging engine without any database dependencies, written in PHP, which tried to be lightweight, extremely fast to start with and easy to use.

Following this passion I joined the Ulm University in October 2015 to studying computer science to further improve my knowledge in this area. In April 2021 I earned a Bachelor of Science degree in the field of theoretical computer science.

I started learning more and more things about free (as in freedom, not as in free beer) software in the following years. I strongly support the idea of freedom in software and try to avoid non-free software were possible. One part of that is my decision to move all my project from GitHub to GitLab and my own Gitea instance.

Due to other activities in the recent years (and also the coming ones) I don’t have much time (and currently also not much interested) in developing software. I try to further maintain some relevant projects, but most of them have been archived.

At the moment, I work as a software developer at a small software agency in Ulm, Germany.

Photography

I got my first camera back in 2007 when I was ten years old, and this was when I picked up photography as a hobby. For some reason, taking pictures was always something that motivated me and so I brought my camera with me to many events, holidays and the like during the years. About 2015/2016, my interest faded a bit, and I focused more on other things, completely forgetting about photography.

In late 2020 this drastically changed when someone gave me an old DLSR camera. From day one, my passion for photography was back again, and I invested more time than ever. A bit later, in January 2022, I started an online course to improve my skills further and bought a modern mirrorless camera. That was also the time when I discovered the more “artsy” side of photography and started sharing my work on social networks like Pixelfed, Instagram, and VERO. After a heavy focus on macro photography, I’m currently quite involved in street photography.

If you would like to see some pictures or learn more about that, please visit my portfolio.

Graphic Design

I am a huge fan of eye pleasing works!

Therefore I started designing a few years ago, but I hadn’t jet time to do any major public work. As of now my experience narrows down to web design and a little bit of print design, but I currently expand my knowledge by taking online graphic design courses.

Composing

During my school time I had a lot to do with music and learned to play the piano. Later I started to focus more on finding my own style, which is is combination of Minimal Music and Impressionism and I also wrote down some scores. A first piece is written and more or less professionally set and also recorded. You can download and view both on the composing page.

Due a lack of time in the last years I didn’t have time to compose anything new. But one other piece is done and only waiting for its recording. Stay tuned!

Writing

To write about coding, politics, happenings in my life and also philosophy questions is something I’m interested in for years. Sadly due to many other tasks I wasn’t able to write much things. Next to the blog entries I have also published a few longer manuscripts.

Real Life

Away from my desk I loosely follow some hobbies. On one hand I like to read books of various kinds, including crime novels and science fiction / fantasy stuff but also some technical books. On the other hand I like visiting mother nature either for cycling, hiking or photographing.

Others

In case you are interested into what software and hardware I use, you can read my What I Use page.