Jacq van
Jaarsveld.
Athlete, engineer, and gamer from Cape Town. Building products and websites, making content, and tinkering with open source.
jacq@jvjacq:~$ cat about.txt
Athlete | Engineer | Gamer
Cape Town, South Africa
BSc Computer Science & Computer Engineering - UCT
jacq@jvjacq:~$ cat motivation.txt
lift heavy.
run far.
break limits.
jacq@jvjacq:~$ ls building/
astraeus
weblio
gnome_extensions
jacq@jvjacq:~$
A few things about me.
Who I am
I'm Jacq van Jaarsveld, a Computer Scientist with a passion for solving complex problems and crafting meaningful solutions. Organised and meticulous by nature, I thrive in environments that encourage continuous learning and improvement.
Born and raised in Cape Town, South Africa. During my free time I'm either working out, gaming, reading, watching anime, or hanging out with friends.
What I do
After earning my BSc in Computer Science and Computer Engineering from UCT, I started out as a Software Engineer building bespoke payment solutions in Java, Python, and SQL. I then explored data science, data engineering, and machine learning with Python, SQL, Docker, and AWS. Now I'm back in the payments industry as a software engineer in fintech, working across Linux, Docker, and the rest of the modern development stack.
Outside of my day job I've been getting deep into Linux and open source, building Astraeus, an all-in-one productivity app, working on Weblio, my web design studio, and publishing a family of GNOME Shell extensions. The more I build, the more the terminal feels like home. Maybe one day I'll use Arch (btw).
A few things I can do
Solve a Rubik's cube in under 20 seconds. Hold my breath for three minutes. Recite fifty digits of pi. Throw coffee capsules into the coffee machine. Type relatively fast. Edit photos and videos. Code in quite a few languages.
Things I'm building + creating.
Astraeus
An all-in-one productivity app, allowing you to manage your tasks, calendar, notes, and habits - all in one place. Built around a local-first Markdown vault you fully own, with optional device sync and AI enhancement.
Visit astraeus.app
GNOME Shell Extensions
A family of lightweight extensions for the GNOME desktop - hot corners, panel-click shortcuts, and lock screen tweaks. Open source and published on extensions.gnome.org.
View on GitHub
Weblio
My web design studio - helping businesses and professionals build modern, beautiful websites that they can be proud to share.
Visit weblio.studioGNOME Shell Extensions
Mostly small and focused extensions for the GNOME desktop.
Built for GNOME 50 and published on extensions.gnome.org.
Mouse Control
Configure hot corners, panel click actions, and workspace scroll all from one extension.
Lockscreen Control
Blur the wallpaper, dim the background, collapse notifications, and show a custom message on the lock screen.
Show Apps Hot Corner
Trigger the app grid by moving your cursor into a hot corner.
Show Activities Overview Hot Corner
Toggle the activities overview from a hot corner of your choice.
Show Desktop Hot Corner
Minimise everything and reveal the desktop from a hot corner.
Show System Menu Hot Corner
Open the quick settings / system menu from a hot corner.
Minimize on Panel Click
Left-click empty panel or dock space to minimise the active window.
Close on Panel Click
Right-click empty panel or dock space to close the active window.
Lock Screen Notifications Collapse
Keep the media player collapsed on the lock screen for a cleaner view.