Projects

Another M365 course - In progress#

Basically the same course as the one I teached in August, however this one is a bit more in depth, longer,  and I feel like I now know what to expect from complete novices.
The course was about MS Outlook and it's goal is to train for a secretary position.

Notable achievements: I believe I'm getting the hang of teaching :)

Law firm website, still in progress#

Objective: Create a fully-fledged website for local law firm in Bologna. The website must be performant and rise up the Google Search results.

Context: Last time I made a website for a client, she was very pleased with the work, so much so that she made my name with some partners of hers. In the meantime I got better at both front-end and back-end technologies, so it was a pleasure to put my newly acquired skills to the test. Even though I started the project buying a template off Enwato that I ended up not using, the website turned out very pretty. Most importantly, it is fast: the homepage weighs about 500kB from start to finish and I'm making use of Octane to drastically lower the load times. Seo is 100/100, best practices also, Accessibility is a 95 only because the client asked for a color combination with little contrast, unfortunately. Performance is 99 on desktop and 95 on mobile: there are some optimizations yet to be made, like reducing Bootstrap's size by using Sass, but yeah I believe we're golden at the moment.

Stack: Laravel, Blade, Filament, SQLite, Bootstrap 5.

Hosting: Hetzner Cloud, provisioned by Forge.

Notable achievements: I believe I'm enjoying optimization more than ever.

I teached in a M365 course - Aug 2024#

Not much to say about this one, CFI needed a teacher for a M365 intro course, and I offered to teach how to use MS Outlook. This wasn't my bread and butter, so to speak, but yeah, I didn't scorn it either.

Notable achievement: my first time teaching a course in presence.

I teached in a Cybersecurity course - Apr 2023#

In April 2023 I had the opportunity to teach in a cybersecurity course for beginners. It was a very interesting experience, in fact I had to cover the absolute basics (which, alas, are still very much unknown to lots of people), such as password management, networks, online risks, frauds, and so on.
The course was 16 hours long and I did my best to keep the students interested by bringing real and tangible topics, as well as otherwordly (for them) hacker stories and facts.
I had some fun and it was very refreshing to be the one mentoring on a field I enjoy so much.
I was heavily inspired by Professor Massimo Carnevali's lessons in his "Security of Computer Systems on the Internet" course: definitely a turning point in my academic career.  

"Stack": MS PowerPoint and a webcam.

Notable achievements: I will probably do it again.

Law firm website: avvocatoangelanatati.it - Feb 2023#

Visit the project at www.avvocatoangelanatati.it.

Objective: Create a fully-fledged website for a local law firm. The website must include an admin panel, offer adequate performance, feature an attractive aesthetic, and have good SEO.

Context: Initially, the intention was to preserve the existing WordPress website. However, due to it being clunky and slow, the client and I decided to recreate the website from scratch, migrating as much content as possible from the previous instance (posts, media, etc.). The site was built using a relatively agile approach, with frequent meetings to gather valuable client feedback before deployment. Initially, various CRUD operations were custom-written, but this backend was later replaced with an admin panel built using Filament, making it easier to release additional features.

Stack: Laravel, Blade, Filament, SQLite, Bootstrap 4.

Hosting: Website owner's Aruba shared hosting service.

Notable achievements: I refined my skills in both frontend and backend development and successfully built an engaging landing page. The client was very pleased with my work :)

A Python-based GUI to emulate cloud storage folders as mapped network drives - oct 2024#

Objective: Write a Python-based tool for emulating cloud storage folders as network drive connections for backwards compatibility purpuses (such as hardcoded locations within Excel files). 

Context: This was originally a tool I made for a long gone client, which I decided to rewrite to keep busy. It provides a GUI to select various folders within SharePoint synced directory, mapping them to a virtual network drive. Have a look at the repo to learn more.

Stack: Python, GUI made with tkinter.

Repository: GitHub.

Notable achievements: The original script solved a serious backwards compatibility issue that impacted my client's effort to migrate to a cloud solution from a classic on-prem infrastructure.

My very own blog: gandomullac.dev - Jul 2024#

Visit the project at, well, you already are visiting it.

Objective: Publish a half decent portfolio.

Context:  My previous "blog" was simply an HTML file with a list of projects that I threw together in 5 minutes. This time, I aimed to create an engaging portfolio while refining my skills in Laravel, CI/CD, and exploring free serverless hosting solutions.
I chose to use a Laravel app to build and export a fully static website because I really enjoy the stack and wanted to experiment with it in an unconventional way: a big thank you to Spatie and their awesome laravel-export package!
2024Q4 update: since I've got myself a Hetzner Cloud Server, I ended up retiring the CloudFlare setup for a Forge provisioned one 

Stack: Laravel, Blade, Filament, SQLite, plain CSS & JS.

Hosting: Cloudflare Pages initially, now Hetzner Cloud.

Repository: GitHub.

Notable achievements: Top score in every Lighthouse test, slick design and had fun.

Delizia di Fossadalbero website: castellofossadalbero.it - Jun 2022#

Visit the project at www.castellofossadalbero.it

Objective: Build a website for local cultural attraction and restaurant.

Context: As it happens most often than not, basic WordPress sites do suck. I was tasked to redo one such website. Considering the mix of cultural interest of the Delizia di Fossadalbero, and its business as a restaurant / inland resort, I had to mix an elegant style with a modern approach. I am no designer, but I'm pretty happy with the result.

Stack: Laravel, Blade, Filament.

Hosting: Aruba's shared hosting service.

Repository: GitHub.

Notable achievements: The admin panel was polished enough that my client's communication agency didn't have any problem with it. I guess that's something.

Audio rental company website: lineasonora.it - 2022#

Visit the project at www.lineasonora.it.

Objective: Build a basic landing page for my brother's company.

Context: There's not much to say about this one: my brother, who runs an audio rental company, needed a basic website. I took whatever useful I could find on sites such as getbootstrap.com to build the initial template and worked my way up from there.
I've been told I'll have to upgrade it in a couple of months, and certainly will not use plain HTML again, I'll probably end up reusing the stack I built for my blog (Laravel and Filament to export static pages), but that's a task I'll tackle when needed.

Stack: Plain HTML and CSS.

Hosting: Cloudflare Pages.

Notable achievements: It was my first time using Cloudflare Pages, also made my brother save some money.