Hey!! It’s been a while since I’ve posted something on my site here, and it feels neglected! September has been one of the best(one main reason and some others) and worst(due to one situation) months of my life outside of software creation, but that’s not entirely the reason why I haven’t posted anything in a few months. I’m good overall though and not on the brink of self destruction or anything like that. One of the reasons I haven’t posted in months is because we bought a house a few months ago(yay!) and I’ve been getting settled in and working on some things here and there. Thankfully it was a well done renovation so I haven’t had to fix much. Most of the updates have been personal preference projects and some security measures. Nice neighborhood, but you can’t really be too careful in the world we live in. Anyways, since this site is about my software let’s dive into a quick overview of what’s going on with my software creation.

˙Mobile app! I’m still working on the nutrition app that I’ve been working on & off with this year. I’ve completed the major process of obtaining verified information and organizing it into broad sections. Now I’m in the process of expanding the information and converting it into a educational format. At the rate that I’m working on it now I think I’ll be finished with this aspect of the app by sometime in November. I’ll be working on UI design after finishing that, but I do have the look of it in my mind so hopefully it won’t be too hard to convert. I’ve been working on straying away from my perfectionism mentality that can sometimes hamper me from moving forward effectively. I’m hoping to have the entire app finished and released by the end of this year.

˙Amazon Alexa! On another note I’ve been thinking about Alexa skills again. I joined an Alexa ISP(In-Skill Purchasing) challenge, but it’s not mandatory for me so I can back out without any penalty if I decide not to continue with it. I’ll either be updating one of my current Alexa skills with some additional useful content or creating a new skill with some additional expanded content. Also in regards to Alexa skills, I updated the thumbnail for most of my Alexa skill YouTube videos. I just added some minor additions but they look much better than before. Previously the thumbnails were just of a random moment in the video without any added images or text. I somewhat recently started using an app called Canva which is great for creating promo banners, headers, thumbnails & etc. One of the podcasts I listen to sometimes called “NPR How I Built This” has an episode with the story behind Canva which is really neat, and made me like the app even more. I’ve also been using it for creating some content outside of software, but I may post about later.

New thumbnails! (Click image to go to this Youtube playlist.)

˙New project! Also in my mind is my next startup, which is app related, but separate from 8-Bit Avrin Apps aka basically Avrin Ross. I’m really excited to start working on it more but I want to finish the educational nutrition app I’ve been working on first and then also the possible new Alexa skill or update that I mentioned above. I’ll post more about this startup once I’ve got more to show or when I’ve set aside some time to write about it.

Until next time ∞