On 23rd of April 2015, Mihai Șucan passed away due to metastatic cancer caused by RDEB.
General information
- Name:
- Mihai Şucan
- Email:
- Please use the contact form.
- Address:
- Arad, Romania
Interests
Web application development, open web standards, accessibility and user experience.
Education
- 09/2011 - 06/2013: Graduate student at the „Aurel Vlaicu” University of Arad, pursuing a Master's degree in Computer Science.
- 09/2008 - 06/2011: Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Sciences at the „Aurel Vlaicu” University of Arad. Graduated top of the class.
- 09/2004 - 06/2008: (High School) Grupul Școlar de Transporturi Auto „Henri Coandă”, Arad, Romania.
Experience
- 07/2010 - 2015: Independent software consultant at Mozilla Corporation
- I work with the Developer Tools team on the default Firefox developer tools - the Web Console, Scratchpad and others. This work involves JavaScript programming, XUL, XHTML, CSS and Gecko API knowledge. Occasionally I also do C++ patches.
- 08/2006 - 2014: External beta-tester for Opera Software
- This work is done on a volunteer basis, and it involves communication with the Quality Assurance team and some of the developers at Opera. I periodically test internal builds of the web browser on Windows and Linux. My bug reports range from user interface related problems, display problems, to specific web standards implementation violations, such as HTML or VoiceXML. Besides testing the web browser, I experiment with the integrated email client, and I contribute in-depth reviews and suggestions to internal technologies.
- 06/2009 - 08/2009: Google Summer of Code 2009 for Moodle
- Over the summer of 2009 I have worked on the development of a paint tool, named PaintWeb, for the purpose of integrating the work into the Moodle virtual learning environment. The goals of the project have been achieved, and now PaintWeb can be used inside Moodle and TinyMCE. For more details, please read the project specification.
- 04/2008 - 05/2010: PaintWeb - an online painting application
- This is an online painting web application I worked on together with my twin brother. The project is open-source, released under the GPL v3 license. This web application is currently client-side based, using JavaScript and HTML 5 Canvas.
- 11/2006 - 03/2010: Tutorials for Opera Software
- I wrote articles on some of the newest web programming topics for Opera Software which are published on the Opera Developer community web site. The technologies presented in my articles range from VoiceXML to the latest HTML 5 and SVG.
Web sites
- 11/2009 - 07/2010: „Aurel Vlaicu” University of Arad
- Developed the „Aurel Vlaicu” University of Arad web site, as part of the Bachelor of Science thesis. This web site features its own Content Management System, developed in PHP which includes multiple blogs, photo galleries, a flexible contact form, a file manager and more. The new web site was recognized as an important improvement by the Romanian Academic Society.
- 03/2009: International Conference on Computers, Communications and Control 2010
- Developed the ICCCC 2010 web site for the Agora University. The university holds an international conference on computers, communications and control every even year, where researchers present and discuss the latest state of the art technology in the fields of computing and networking.
- 08/2008: The "Nicolae Vasilescu Karpen" Technical College of Communications from Bacău
- This project required the development of a new web site for the "N.V. Karpen" Technical College of Communications from Bacău. The new web site provides a far better user experience than the previous one and it includes a lot more actively-maintained content. On the technical side of things, the new web site loads much faster while having a more appealing interface. For the back-end I used my own CMS (Content Management System) which allows the client to update the web site whenever he/she needs to.
- 11/2006 - 02/2007: web development for SC GAUSS SOFT MP
- Developed chisineucris.ro and primariasebis.ro. Both sites make use of PHP, mySQL, HTML, and CSS. For these sites I made a CMS which allows the owner to completely modify the site structure, content, and newsletter.
- 04/2006: MathWeb Search - Web development
- Developed the web front end for the semantic search engine. Implemented a PHP client for the search server that does fetch results and displays them. Technologies used: PHP, XHTML and CSS for the layout.
- 11/2004 - 03/2005: Web development for SC Varbittour SRL travel agency
- Varbittour.ro made use of PHP, mySQL and Flash. When released, the HTML+CSS layout were standards compliant. The site featured an advanced Content Management System which gave the client complete control over the site content, newsletter, user accounts and site structure.
- 01/2003 – 05/2003: Web development and design for Seer Systems Inc.
- Developed the SeerMusic.com web site which had its own forum, account system with user profiles, online gallery of songs created by artists, voting poll, search facility, jukebox and news. Technologies used: PHP, mySQL, and Flash.
- 02/2002 – 07/2003: Web development and design for SC Security Prod SRL
- Developed several web sites, including dispecerat.ro. These made use of mySQL, PHP, HTML, JavaScript and Flash.
Soft skills
Computer skills
- Extensive experience with: ECMAScript / JavaScript, (X)HTML 5, CSS, DOM, XUL, PHP, mySQL, XML, RSS, Atom, XHTML+Voice, SISR, SRGS, and VoiceXML.
- Had experience with: C/C++ and STL, Java, C# in Mono, Perl, LaTeX, SVG, JSGF, SSML, XML Events, Flash + ActionScript 2, OpenSearch and Bash.
- Experienced with source code version control systems: Mercurial, Git, SVN and CVS.
- Operating systems: Linux and Windows.
- Experienced with educational software: Wolfram Mathematica, The Geometer's Sketchpad.
Languages
- Romanian: mother tongue;
- English: fluent in written and spoken;
- French: intermediate level.
Articles and presentations
- February, 2010: SVG or Canvas? Choosing between the two
- In this article I explore the differences between SVG and Canvas and present a few examples to help web developers decide which technology is best for the functionality they are trying to implement in their web application. I wrote this article for Opera Software.
- August, 2009: GSOC 2009 conclusions
- The slides I used during a talk at the Linux and Virtual Learning Environments 2009 seminary, which was hosted by the „Vasile Goldiș” Western University. I presented the work I did for Moodle over the summer during the GSOC program.
- July, 2009: Keyboard accessibility in web applications
- One of the most important features to implement on your web sites for ensuring accessibility is keyboard controls, but this gets rapidly more complicated when the complexity increases, and you start getting into scripted web applications. In this detailed three part series, I offer a complete solution for providing keyboard accessibility to complex web applications, using my Canvas-based painting application as a starting point (PaintWeb). I wrote these articles for Opera Software.
- February, 2009: Creating an HTML 5 canvas painting application
- This is a practical example for using the new HTML 5 Canvas element. In this article I present how web developers can start developing their own Canvas-based painting application, beginning with the basic events setup and ending with the implementation of three basic drawing tools. The code is based on my open-source project PaintWeb. I wrote this article for Opera Software.
- January, 2009: HTML 5 Canvas - the basics
- A tutorial for web developers which provides a gentle introduction to the new HTML 5 canvas API. I wrote this article for Opera Software.
- September, 2008: PaintWeb presentation
- A technical presentation I wrote about my open-source project PaintWeb. I gave a talk about the project with these slides at LVLE 2008 which was hosted by the „Vasile Goldiș” Western University.
- May, 2008: How to make a Voice controllable SVG game
- This article explains how to add Voice interactivity to a game which makes use of SVG. I wrote this article for Opera Software.
- November, 2006: How to add voice interactivity to your site
- This tutorial explains how to add Voice interactivity to any web site. I wrote this article for Opera Software.
Recognitions
- February 7, 2008: I placed third at a national Romanian contest of informatics and history.
- September 22, 2007: My brother and I ranked first at the ProInfo national contest with the ROBO Design v5.0 web site.
- May 27, 2007: My brother and I ranked third at a national Romanian contest of applied informatics with the ROBO Design v5.0 web site.
- May 17, 2007: My brother and I ranked first at a Student's Scientific Contest within the „Aurel Vlaicu” University of Arad. We presented our web site, ROBO Design v5.0.
- September 29, 2006: I placed third with the CSS 3 Speech demo in the CSS 3 summer contest organized by css3.info.
- May 21, 2006: My brother and I ranked first at a Romanian national contest of applied informatics with the PRO-Net web site (at CIA 2006).
- May, 2005: My brother and I placed fourth at a Romanian national contest of applied informatics, with the fourth version of the ROBO Design web site (CIA 2005).
Contributions
- In-depth reviews, comments and suggestions contributed to relevant mailing lists for the following specifications: XBL 2, HTML 5 and Web Forms 2. Most of my feedback prompted the editor to make changes to the specifications as requested.
- Language file translations (from English to Romanian), to various projects: IEs4Linux, NSIS and PS Tray Factory.
- Various articles contributed to Wikipedia, including a complete article about the Opera Internet Suite in Romanian.