Recently, our mobile team came across a problem with text sizing in our app when customers had the “Larger Accessibility Sizes” Display Text option on. After updating our app to more fully support dynamic text, we came across a cool solution to automate testing this for future releases. …
https://github.com/nektos/act The Act package offers a convenient way to execute your GitHub Action workflows locally. It’s a valuable tool when debugging or working on issues that either have a long runtime or are complex, saving you those precious minutes. Installation The installation …
Expo is a free and open-source platform for creating and building mobile apps using JavaScript and React Native. It is a popular choice among developers for its ease of use and its ability to quickly set up and run a mobile app without the need for extensive configuration. Expo provides a set of …
As a software engineer, staying organized and on top of your projects can be a challenge. Not only are there many projects going on at times, but how your work is managed can be split between tools. We use Jira, Confluence, and Github at work, I use Todoist to deal with personal tasks and projects, …
As a software engineer, staying up-to-date with the latest developments and best practices is essential for growth. One of my favorite (and what I feel is overlooked) methods for growth is reading books. We spend a large part of our day reading Stack Overflow and blog posts, but books have really …
As I move on to the next chapter in my career, I wanted to reflect on the past two years at Illuminate. Here are the lessons learned from moving to a 20 person startup from a 26k person company. TL;DR Things move fast. You can make an immediate impact on the organization. Your architecture will …
Starting back in July, I made the next move in my personal career. After meeting with one of my good friends, Alek, I decided to follow him to another Kansas City company, Illuminate. The one thing I had to really think about was stepping away from the app development world for a while. It has been …
This week I wanted to talk about how to use Safari’s Developer Tools with Simulators or iOS devices in Safari or in your application’s web views. This is something that can be extremely helpful when working in web applications or in apps that have a mixture of web and native content as do ours at …
As a mobile developer, having the right tools and setup on your machine can become a massive time saver and boost your productivity especially over time. While a lot of your development environment comes down to personal preference, these are the apps and plugins that are my “must haves” …
Here is a list of what I listened to throughout the past year.
I still cannot get over this week, from the awesome announcements, great sessions, labs, and all the amazing friends I made. I feel totally reenergized to bring back all this knowledge to my team and continue working on my own projects again. I am going to really try and make this a yearly trip. I …
Tired Morning, More Sessions and Meetups Another day full of sessions, great lunch discussions with Apple Education, and Accessibility labs reviewing our HealtheLife App. I am just overwhelmed with how great the Apple engineers have been and how great the sessions were. At the end of the conference …
Another Day of Sessions, Labs, and Buying Swag The majority of the second day was spent in more labs, sessions, and not being able to control my impulses buying swag. I had some awesome conversations in the HealthKit Labs with one of the doctors that worked on the Health Records Feature in Apple …
Starting the Day with Aaptiv The second day started with a morning HIIT workout with a audio workout app, Aaptiv. The workout was fun in a super cool venue and was another great way to meet people and get the day off to a roar. Afterwards there was a sweet coffee bar and breakfast snacks and drinks. …
Arriving in San Jose I got into San Jose late Sunday night and pretty much when straight to bed. The Fairmont has been amazing so far and is close to the conference which is nice. Registration and Pre Keynote Arriving at the convention center was something to behold, being my first major tech …
Over the past month, I built a small iMessage app that allows users to create editable lists in their conversations. The app itself is nothing too flashy, but it was something I hadn’t found a solid solution to and was a great excuse to get some experience with standalone iMessage apps. My wife and …
Over the past 4-ish years I have made a playlist for each season as a way to keep track of my favorite songs. Below are links to all of the playlists so far: 2018 Winter ‘18 Fall ‘18 Summer ‘18 Spring ‘18 2017 Winter ‘17 Fall ‘17 Summer ‘17 Spring ‘17 2016 Winter ‘16 Fall ‘16 Summer ‘16 Spring ‘16 …
Starting with last year, I have been trying to keep track of the books I read throughout the year. Here is my list so far for this year! Perelandria by C.S. Lewis The Consolation of Philosophy by Boethius The Inferno by Dante Alighieri Confessions by St. Augustine Selected Writings by St. Thomas …