App Development: Odds and Ends

Providing insights into a career of apps and utilities that I've conceptualized, designed, and developed; complemented with developmental journeys, findings, observations, and challenges encountered along the way.

  • Triple Web App Revival: Keep Track; Pick-a-Meal; Guess Right

    Triple Web App Revival: Keep Track; Pick-a-Meal; Guess Right I develop web apps for continual daily training and as a way to stay productive—and because they can sometimes produce fun and useful tools to use in life. Sadly, two of those utilities, and one of my games took to the sidelines last year. Fortunately, however,…

  • Solve for ‘x’ with the Equation Calculator

    Tweet Tweet !!: The “Equation Calculator” is the best “solve for x” calculator I’ve come across: https://www.symbolab.com/solver/equation-calculator … and it takes full URL calculations https://www.symbolab.com/solver/equation-calculator/%5Cleft(x-25000%5Cright)%5Ccdot0.05%3D0.25x complete with step-by-step solutions. (#Symbolab; #Eqsquest)  — Keith D Commiskey (@kdcinfo) October 17, 2019 Although learning the Solver on a TI-83 or -84 is just as helpful (especially being that’s allowed…

  • Opera Browser Disables Keystrokes in other Apps [O-63 / W-1809]

    Recently I’ve been experiencing intermittent issues in trying to use certain keystrokes in a few of my more common Windows-based applications. The two primary shortcuts I found that I cannot use are Ctrl-Shift-Home and Ctrl-Shift-End. These two shortcuts should highlight from the current cursor position to either the top or bottom of the available selection…

  • Pet Ref App: A Customizable Reference Tool

    Introducing the “Pet Ref App“: A customizable reference tool. The Pet Ref App is an all-in-one location for pet-related notes and meds. Easy to use, the web app can be used in vet offices, by students in pet-related fields, or as personal notes or school references. Now Open! As of Thursday, August 22, 2019, the…

  • Memory Recall: An Interview Thought

    At least a few hundred JavaScript algorithm challenges after taking Harvard’s CS50 course, I realized that I use (my brain uses) a “trie” type of knowledge retrieval approach, as compared to someone who can do more of a “dictionary” type of memory lookup. That is, my recall works better when I’m creating and analyzing code…

  • Front-End Development Certifications x2

      Two more freeCodeCamp certifications completed, with one more at 70%. Responsive Web Design JavaScript Algorithms and Data Structures And although I’m only at 37% with Harvard’s CS50W: Web Programming with Python and JavaScript, and 23% with Google’s ‘Master web development’ courses (via Udemy), I’m considering running through another Vue series (via Laracasts), being the…

  • Pros and Cons of Visual Studio Code vs. Sublime Text 3

    Pros and Cons of Visual Studio Code vs. Sublime Text 3 Below are personal observations with the VS Code editor as compared to the Sublime Text editor. VS Code: A lightweight IDE Visual Studio Code (VS Code) Sublime Text: A customizable code editor Sublime Text 3.0 (ST3) VS Code: Pro and Cons Pro: TypeScript insights…

  • Does your butter expire next week?

    Expired To Be is a quick and convenient way to set and be reminded of expiration dates (free and open source). New Features available in version 2: Sort your list by expiration item name, expiration date, or ‘days left’ (until expiration notification). Set a ‘backup item date‘.Easily swap out expired items with a replacement date using the convenient blue…

  • TypeError: Undefined: Redux 4

    Redux 4 > createStore > compose The Error TypeError: Cannot read property ‘apply’ of undefined [node_modules/redux/es/redux.js:523] The Problem and Solution If you’ve gone through a tutorial in which they suggest adding the Redux Dev Tools in your store.js like this: window.__REDUX_DEVTOOLS_EXTENSION__ && window.__REDUX_DEVTOOLS_EXTENSION__() But they’re using it inside of a compose(), you could receive a…

  • Tech Schools: Full-Stack JavaScript

    Would anyone know of any good 6-12 month tech schools in the US that offer job placement? Looking to specialize in Full-Stack JavaScript. — Keith D Commiskey https://keithdc.com

  • Expired To Be: Now Available Most Anywhere

    As a gift to the month of April, Expired To Be is now accessible from any browser! 🙂 What is… ‘Expired To Be’ is an app where you can set reminders for ‘things that expire’. Initially only available from the Chrome web store as a Chrome browser extension, it can now be accessed from any…

  • Expired To Be 1.4 Released

    ‘Expired To Be‘ is a Chrome extension available on the Chrome Web Store. This Chrome browser extension allows you to enter expiration dates with ‘alarms’ (measured primarily in days) for any items you’d like to be reminded of. New features added in X2B 1.4:   – You can export your existing expiration items.   –…

  • Expired To Be: A Chrome Browser Extension

    Expired To Be A Chrome Browser Extension Set and be reminded of expiration dates. ‘Expired To Be’ is a Chrome extension available on the Chrome Web Store. Get notified of expiring items for things you don’t think about too often; like butter, medicine, or the supplies under your sink. As a developer, I spend most…

  • Character Counts V2

    The Chrome Web Extension “Character Counts” has been updated. Current Features: 1. Count the number of selected characters on a page. 2. Convert an ASCII(char) string* between normal ASCII, ASCII (Int), and Binary. * A string is represented by characters, words, and/or entire sentences. New Feature: 1. Choose if your conversion input (source) string is…

  • I··C··D··O··T··S (––and––lines––)

    I··C··D··O··T··S··: A Web App Game tl;dr – take me to the game already! ICDots is a board game for 2-7 players who will take turns selecting lines to form boxes. Scoring is 1 point per box pinned. Line colors have no distinction other than one is horizontal and one is vertical, and the alternating colors…

  • Dances with Vars

    Dances with Vars: Spans… Spans… Your name is Spans? Spans Div… Spans with Divs… Your name is “Spans with Divs”!?! — Keith D Commiskey https://keithdc.com

  • >Testing Dark Humor:

    “`describe(‘psychotic’, () => { it(‘puts’, () => { basket: “lotion” } expect(null).toEqual(“Precious”)) }“` I had originally posted this on Google+, but thought it fitting for my blog as well. I would also share on Twitter, but you can’t format Twitter messages, so it’d lose it’s coded `unit testing` humor hook. — Keith D Commiskey https://keithdc.com

  • Foundation 6 Install – 2018-01

    [2018-01-07 / 08 – Sun / Mon] Setting up a new VirtualBox VM with Ubuntu 16.04.3 (guest) on a Windows 10 MSI laptop (host/parent). I was recently reintroduced with Foundation 6, and I decided it would be a good opportunity for a little redesign of my portfolio. This guide became a byproduct of my setup…

  • A Little Node…

    Figured I’d take a break from my daily JavaScript adventures (w/ Codewars) and learn a little Node with Express and MongoDB. Although it says 30 minutes, after downloading, creating an account, and installing Postman, learning what it is and how it works, then doing all the same with mLab (MongoDB), then figuring out why MongoDB…

  • Front-End Development Certification Achieved!

    291 Coding challenges later… Free Code Camp Front-End Development Certification achieved! The last project assignment was to build a Simon Game: I built Simon 20 – complete with 3 speed levels, and a cheat mode! Initial functional development was completed in 8 hours. But follow-up tweaks and enhancements cost another 2 days, so it went about 3…