About

Steve Maraspin

Quick portrait

My name is Stefano Maraspin, yet most people simply know me as Steve. I'm Italian, 32, software engineer. My main interest is software development, especially when it's based upon user centered design techniques or dealing with distributed environments. I'm co-founder and managing partner of M.V. Associates, a small consulting firm focused on e-commerce and enterprise web application development. I'm keen on the PHP language and I'm one of the founders of the Friuli PHP User Group as well as a PHP5 Zend Certified Engineer. If you're interested in such things, you can take a glance at our technical blog.

On this website I've collected some stuff from college years, as well as other things, mainly pertaining to my family and hobbies. Such include photography and traveling. Together with my wife Desy, we love to explore the world, experience new cultures and meet new people. All great opportunities for new insights and personal develpment.

Feel free to look around and take a glance at my blog or picture gallery. If you're really curious, you can also read my full biography, or check out my professional profile page at my company website or at linkedin.

Random Facts

Things you might not know about...

• So far I've visited 36 countries; looking forward to see this number grow
• I wrote my first shopping cart software in 1997
• My favourite pet is the pond slider (Trachemys scripta)
• I have been the president of Rotary-sponsored Interact and Rotaract clubs
• My lucky number is 14
• I swam with a manta ray in Australia
• My first computer has been an Amiga 500, in 1986
• While in India, I've had a chance to met Ramalinga Raju. That was before the scandal.
• I'm keen on basketball and baseball
• One night, challenged by a restaurant owner in Rome, I've eaten 1 entree, 2 pizzas and 10 desserts

Behind this site

History, technologies...

This is a personal website. It's been made mainly for family or friends who want to catch up, where strict web 2.0 isn't enough. It hasn't been throughly planned, revised or anything like that. So that I'm sure there'll be usability errors, poor graphics and most likely many other mistakes. My simple goal was to have something up running though. I wasn't looking for perfection or a piece of portfolio. In a few words, this website shall be considered as private stuff only, having little, if anything to do with my job. ;-)

I had started to develop this in 2007, while I was still working for Sata H.T.S. My position at the time didn't land me enough chances to practice hands on with PHP as I would have liked, so I started to work on this website, integrating Zend Framework, Wordpress and some other stuff. Unfortunately time was never enough, so that I had to wait until I resigned - and eventually launched my own startup company - to finally find the time to finish and publish this. Ironic, isn't it? Anyways, for the courious, here there's a partial list of technologies upon which this website this webside is based.