Hello, and welcome to my website. My name is Branko Majic. I was born in Belgrade, Serbia (ex-Yugoslavia) back in 1984 (seems like an awful long time ago now, especially with so many things changed).

The main points of interest I have are technology (mainly IT), society, and arts.

I'm highly skilled in system administration of GNU/Linux-based systems and Free Software applications on both server and client side. In fact, I always prefer the Free Software solutions. My first contact with computers was the legendary C-64 back in 1991. Some years after that I got my first PC machine, a DX4 at 100MHz. Of course, DOS was prevalent at that time. When I've upgraded the machine to a Pentium, I installed M$ Window$ 95 (sic) on it. Somewhere around 1996 I got introduced for the first time to GNU/Linux, through Red Hat and Slackware distributions. At that time I just found them interesting, and played only a little bit with them (mostly Red Hat). Some years later I've switched to "classic" dual-boot with M$ Window$ 2000 and Slackware. As time passed-by I've found myself working mostly with Slackware, going to Window$ only to burn some CDs and DVDs, since my main storage partition was still under NTFS. Finally, during 2003, when I bought a new desktop, which I'm still using as I type this, I've backed-up my data from the NTFS partitions, wiped-out the whole thing, installed Gentoo on my new desktop, and Slackware on the old one. From then on I never looked back. Freedom matters, and I've grown quite rigid when it comes down to using Free Software instead of proprietary solutions.

I'm a communist and I'm proud of it. All my views on society are marked with this trait. I also like to emphasise that I've come to communism through ideas, and not to ideas through communism, since many people think that marxism/communism are dogmatic views, which couldn't be farther from the truth (this misconception was born thanks to many people who misrepresented themselves as communists, and opponents taking advantage of that fact). I'm highly disturbed by the direction the society is headed in general, and I'm afraid we've yet to see the modern dark ages. Differences between poor and rich are extending, Earth resources are being depleted, consumerism is encouraging production of useless junk - all in all, the Earth's going from bad to worse.

I enjoy reading books, preferring science fiction over other titles, and I'm a great admirer of Philip K. Dick (first cyberpunk author whose books I've read). If there's one thing I cannot live without, then it's the music. The music helps me get through the dark times and soothes my soul. I mostly like to listen to jazz, progressive rock, and progressive metal, with emphasises on good ballads with nice clean vocals. I'm a very capable singer, though I sing mostly for my own pleasure. Guitar is another interest I developed when it comes down to music, and although I'm not quite good with it, I enjoy playing from time to time, when I have time. And last, but not least, I'm also somewhat of a good writer when I get down to it (which really doesn't happen too often). Although I can write a poem here and there, I'm best with prose.

Through all these three areas of interest I try to emphasise the freedom. Freedom of software. Freedom of people. Freedom of art.

Currently I'm employed as a system administrator, concentrating mostly on GNU/Linux and products revolving around it. My ultimate goal is to work full-time on Free Software projects (possibly starting my own company when the time is right).

In my spare time I work on Free Software projects and play board games with friends. I'm also spending a lot of time learning about new technologies or working with things I haven't had a chance to work with. My main interests currently lie in the field of PKI and X.509-based infrastructures and services.

In addition to using the contact form, you can also contact me through my e-mail, which is conveniently my name at my domain. If you wish to have secure communication with me, I suggest using my PGP key.

I'm switching PGP key every year, so make sure you have a valid one. My current keys are (they can be obtained either through HKP or HTTP: