A lot of my previous development work was done under non-disclosure contracts and cannot be shown here, so here are the things I can show and some of my hobby projects.
SwiftUI iOS Apps
Fuel Price Conversion
We drove or RV up to Windsor, Ontario in the summer to enjoy the cooler climate and to visit with family living here. Due to the outrageous fuel prices, we’ve been very conscious of fuel prices, seeing everything from $4.62 in Austin, TX to over $6.00, with the norm being about $5.49. Once we drove over the bridge from Detroit into Windsor though, the advertised prices went from $5.49 to something like “194.9”. Huh? How much is that?
So I did some research, and figured out that fuel in Canada is listed in cents per liter. To complicate things, Canadian dollars aren’t the same as US dollars. So I decided to write a simple app to perform those calculations for me. I can type into either field, and it will calculate into the other taking the exchange rate into account.
Patriot
This app can be used to control the IoT devices in our RV. It interacts with the custom Particle.io Photon IoT controllers I have built using MQTT running on a Raspberry Pi.
RvChecklist
After several mishaps because we forgot to do something before heading out on the road, I decided to build a pre-trip checklist. I subsequently expanded it to provide checklists for various phases of the trip, and implemented it in such a way that checklist steps can be automated; for example, a switch can be installed to determine if awnings have been fully retracted.
Published Alexa Skills
Who’s On First
Baseball Skit: Who’s On First? This was my second published Alexa custom skill. It enables the user to perform the classic Abbot and Costello “Who’s On First?” comedy routine.
This is a fairly long routine, running about 8 1/2 minutes. This skill can interact with the user performing either side of the dialog, or work with another Alexa device to perform both sides. When interacting with the user, it uses Alexa cards to prompt the user for their next line.
US National Parks Game
US National Parks Game was my first published Alexa custom skill. This skill was featured on the Amazon Alexa Featured Skills website.
Github Open Source Projects
Alexa Particle Bridge
This project documents instructions and provides code examples for interfacing an Alexa skill with a particle.io Photon IoT device.
Alexa
Provides easy to use instructions for creating an Alexa skill.
Hows My Fuel
This is an older Objective-C iPhone app that I wrote to use GPS to track fuel usage while riding my motorcycle.
ParticleIoT
This is perhaps my most ambition project. This publishes the work I’ve done on my RV to automate lights and various other devices using a combination of technologies:
- iOS Apps
Two iOS apps provide control of IoT devices- Objective-C control panel app to run on older iPhones mounted to the walls
- Swift app to allow remote control of lights when not within Alexa’s voice range
- Alexa Smart Home Skill
The primary interface is using an Alexa custom home skill. It allows controlling multiple Photon devices through dynamic discovery of events published by each device. - Photon microcode
A library of C++ code makes it easy to create new IoT devices. Each device advertises itself and its capabilities on the MQTT network, making adding new devices quite easy.
PCBs
This project publishes the Eagle files for some printed circuit boards I designed for IoT work using a Particle.io Photon device.
Older Websites Archive
Leander KOA
This is a WordPress based website using a custom theme. I also created a companion iPhone app for use by our guests to help them find the park and locate nearby attractions and amenities using their phone’s built-in GPS.
Celestino Couture version 2
This is the updated Celestino Couture website. I converted it from Flash to Flex to enhance maintainability.
Celestino Couture version 1
The first version of the Celestino Couture website is an example of a Flash website and associated iPhone App. Flash enables the creation of subtle transitions and fades, but doesn’t run on the version of Safari installed on iPhone. So the same content is used to create a native iPhone application, utilizing all of the cool transitions and effects available on the iPhone. Definitely the best of both worlds.
Build a Church Website
This is a WordPress website. It uses custom artwork and theme that I created.
Build a Website Workshops
This is a SnapPages website. SnapPages makes it very easy to create and manage your own website. You probably don’t even need my help to use SnapPages!
The Rock Band
This WordPress website utilizes a custom theme and a plug-in I wrote to display properly formatted chord sheets.
The Rock UMC
Joomla was used to enable multiple authors for this church website.
Project MIDI
ProjectMIDI is one of my oldest websites. It was hand coded using PHP. Now days it would make more sense to utilize WordPress for a website like this. I used it to share my custom MIDI code with others long before open source was a thing.