Blog.

When in doubt, just do marketing.

I'm at a fork in the road, where I could do more product work, or I could create web pages to get more traffic.

Feature Images Are Done. Also, Phoenix is Dope.

I've had several starts and stops with various web frameworks over the years. Phoenix is my favorite by far.

Love Hate Relationship with Modern Computing

In terms of moral, felt very unproductive today. I've noticed steep drops in energy after two intense work days...

SEO As I Understand It

I've found the fish, I just need to build the net.

A Short Term Marketing Checklist

A few weeks back, I spoke about a new project that I've been working on called FlyerFalcon. I'd like to discuss how I'm thinking about product development these days...

Perfectionism is a Bootstrapper's Worst Nightmare

I've been feeling pretty burnt out. Not because I don't love what I do, but because I just care so darn much...

I started building something new

In August I started building something new. It started as a small side project while learning a new stack...

Things you shouldn't do when building a startup

I made some mistakes and you should too

Improving my sales funnel with product usage videos

I started using a tool called Screen Studio, which makes visually appealing desktop screen recordings easy to produce.

Minimizing product scope, focusing on product improvement

I'm working through Firebase and RevenueCat SDK removal, making the kit more focused and flexible, with emphasis on UI.

Fixing LCP and reducing vendor dependencies

Search rankings were getting killed due to some poor landing page load times. I fixed these, and need to find a new tool for support chat.

Subscription Starter Kit: Initial App Layout and SwiftUI Navigation

Development of the SwiftUI Subscription Starter Kit is under way. First steps are getting the home and settings screens in place, plus some basic navigation controls.

Subscription Starter Kit: A minimal SwiftUI boilerplate with in-app subscription capabilities

Now that we have a RevenueCat integration, lets ideate a boilerplate for building iOS native utility apps backed by a subscription business model.

SwiftStarterKits' RevenueCat Integration: The Story So Far.

Shifting gears back to product work, SwiftStarterKits is going to soon deliver on its promise of amplifying development of subscription apps with the help of RevenueCat.

Shipped SwiftStarterKits Documentation

There's finally a starting point for documentation and guides on using SwiftStarterKits effectively.

Practical SQLite3 Reference For Developers In A Hurry

As it is with all computer related things, I occasionally find myself needing a reminder on how to achieve certain database related tasks. Let this be a living reference for working with SQLite3. No guarantees are made regarding completeness.

Building a Documentation System with Common Lisp and Pandoc

Lets look at the current landscape of existing documentation engines, then ignore all of it and write our own using Common Lisp.

Working on a Documentation System for SwiftStarterKits

SwiftStarterKits is slowly but surely getting docs and developer focused guides.

Developer Ergonomics with Common Lisp

Common Lisp is an incredible tool for writing software. Let's explore some simple ways to amplify productivity.

March 2023 Update

I released Version 1.2 of SwiftStarterKits, surpassed 1000 monthly website visitors, and took a much needed Spring break.

February 2023 Update

SwiftStarterKits got a LOT of product updates and website additions in February. Also a big uptick in passive search engine traffic.

My Bicycle is Eating my Mind

Our technology has gotten too damn noisy, and it's holding us back.

January 2023 Update

January was tough. However I succeeded in overhauling the entire SwiftStarterKits website and product vision. Also metrics and life updates.

Learning to Cold Email and Shrinking Product Scope

It's been a light month on product work so far, but I've been hard at work learning to talk to customers, and finding focus for the overall vision for SwiftStarterKits.

December 2022 Update

It's a brand new year! But first, I'd like to take a moment to reflect on this past December, touch base on SwiftStarterKits' latest metrics, and talk about this new writing habit that I'm going to solidify in the form of a monthly newsletter.

Firebase iOS App Template Launch

An overdue progress update on SwiftStarterKits. I'll talk about shipping the latest starter kit, Firebase edge-case handling, and some new tools I've picked up.

Designing an Upcoming SwiftUI App Template

A short design exploration, while brainstorming the first free SwiftStarterKits app template.

My First Startup Pivot

Some soul searching on what to focus on next for SwiftStarterKits.

Cheese by JG, an iMessage App Collaboration

An iMessage sticker pack collaboration with artist JG Debray.

Building an iMessage App

A small side project in building and releasing a standalone iMessage app.

Shipping a New Product Page

SwiftStarterKits release 1.0.4 included a new product page, an overhauled home screen, and some under the hood website improvements.

Day 0 of Building a Software Business

Building an app template and mobile app infrastructure business, and my goal to be transparent about it.

A Fresh Start

It's been a while. Here's a quick overview of what I've been up to for the past 5 years.

Translating Your Bash Configuration to Eshell

One of the mental barriers I had in making the switch over from iTerm2 + Bash to the Emacs Eshell was translating my .bash_profile into Emacs Lisp.

Key Value Observation in iOS 11

One of the most exciting additions to the Foundation library in iOS 11 that somehow flew under my radar was the new Swift syntax for key value observation.

Using the Builder Pattern on iOS

Some of the most involved and repetitive code we write is the instantiation and configuration of objects. So why ever do it more than once?

Since May

A lot has happened in the past 6 months, here's a summary of my recent life.

Bits and Colors in Swift

While perusing Apple’s Swift language guide, I came across an interesting section regarding bit manipulation.

Swift's Comparable Protocol

Adopting the Comparable protocol allows for a custom type to define its own rule for the <, <=, >, >= infix operators.

Swift's Equatable Protocol

The mathematical operators utilized by Swift are just functions with special names. For example, the ‘==’ operator tests equality between two types.

Application Coordinators in Swift

This past week I came across an interesting talk post by Soroush Khanlou introducing the idea of using coordinators when building iOS apps.

UIStoryboard Woes

Since their introduction, UIStoryboards have been a hot topic in the iOS community. Some people love them, some don’t. I’ve gone through stints of Storyboard use, but generally have come to avoid them.

What will make you a better software developer?

How to we define “better” in the context of software creation? There really isn’t an obvious metric to define such a thing.

String's, Emoji's and Generator's.

A core feature of any programming languages is the ability to model and manipulate text. When defining a variable that represents text, we traditionally call it a string. In Swift, strings are a series of encoding-independent unicode characters.

Understanding Swift's SequenceType Protocol

One of the great features of Swift’s collection implementation is the first party support of various “higher order” functions like map, filter and reduce.

My Year in Programming

Starting a blog has been on my todo list for a while now, I can finally check it off! I thought that a good place to start might be a look back at my year I...