Ionic, Capacitor, Web Native Expert

Energy 2022: My Annual Theme and Manifesto

Sun, 30 Jan 2022 11:20:55 -0700

I’ve never enjoyed new year’s resolutions. Not only are they challenging to stick to, but as the year evolves, I believe your goals and motivation evolve too. This year, inspired by Trevor McKendrick, I’m creating an annual theme and manifesto instead.

Upon reflection, 2020 and 2021 felt incredibly draining. The global pandemic, becoming a father, weight gain, work stress, and more contributed.

However, life was at its best when I had the energy to enjoy it. Since lack of energy leads to being tired, sick, and stressed, it was easy to come up with a theme for this year.

2021 Year in Review

Sun, 30 Jan 2022 10:23:55 -0700

For reference, previous years: 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2014, 2013, 2012.

It’s a new year and I’m back to writing! Starting with my 2021 annual review, my ninth review post.

What went well this year?

Bought a new, bigger home. A few months into Henry joining us, we were quickly overwhelmed with how cramped our home felt, especially with all the baby stuff exploding everywhere. We had a baby during the pandemic, so we figured, why not buy a new home too?! We found a fantastic place that was well taken care of, had tons of upgrades (the owner thought it would be her “forever home” - ope!), and that’s only 12 mins west of our old place, which means we can remain close to downtown Madison. I’m proud of owning this home. After years of hard work, hustling on nights and weekends to learn, grow, and improve my career, this feels like a physical manifestation of my success.

2020 Year in Review

Sun, 30 Jan 2022 10:20:55 -0700

For reference, previous years: 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2014, 2013, 2012.

Yes, I’m publishing a 2020 annual review in 2022.

If you were alive in 2020, you’d understand why.

More to come soon…

A bias for action is the secret to moving fast

Tue, 21 Sep 2021 10:23:55 -0700

I recently celebrated my 3rd anniversary working at Ionic. This one is particularly special since I’ve now lived and worked in Madison, Wisconsin, as long as Seattle, my previous residence. Time has flown by, and with the struggles of the pandemic, I never got around to writing a 2nd-year anniversary post! However, you can check out my 1st-anniversary post here, where I detail how a Twitter tweet landed me a dream role.

Project Dolly Dev Diary #1: Landing Page

Thu, 27 May 2021 10:23:55 -0700

This is part of a series of “developer diary” posts that offer a window into the development of my new mobile app, codenamed “Project Dolly.” The app will offer a simple way to keep in touch with friends and family via automated reminders. Sign up to get notified when the app launches for free on iOS and Android.

Previously, I covered how I began this app project by writing a launch narrative document before writing any code. With that doc in hand, I was ready to begin some initial marketing.

Project Dolly Dev Diary #0: Copy before Code?!

Thu, 20 May 2021 10:23:55 -0700

This is the first in a series of “developer diary” posts that offer a window into the development of my new mobile app, codenamed “Project Dolly.” The app will offer a simple way to keep in touch with friends and family via automated reminders. Sign up to get notified when the app launches for free on iOS and Android.

When I started working on the initial app idea, I first focused on marketing instead of software development.

Announcing Project Dolly

Sun, 02 May 2021 20:23:55 -0700

I’m excited to announce the development of a new mobile app project, codenamed “Project Dolly.” The app offers a simple way to keep in touch with friends and family via automated reminders.

Join me in making “It’s been too long” a thing of the past. Sign up to try the upcoming free iOS and Android beta.

Listen to the audio version of this post via this voice tweet:

Farewell, PhoneGap: Reflections on my Hybrid App Development Journey

Tue, 11 Aug 2020 20:23:55 -0700

Adobe has officially announced the shutdown of PhoneGap and PhoneGap Build.

In the context of the hybrid app development world, this is the end of an era. It’s certainly the case for me: it sped up my transition from .NET to web development, and ultimately led to me landing a wonderful role at Ionic. A heartfelt thanks to the team(s) at Adobe and those in the community who supported me along the way!

Top 4 Professional Lessons of 2019

Sat, 25 Jan 2020 20:23:55 -0700

2019 was an intense year of professional growth. Working at a startup challenged me to improve across many areas.

Here are my top 4 lessons learned:

1) Move fast. Then go faster.

I’ve traditionally had a methodical work style - taking my time to polish my work and ensuring all the details are just right. While quality work is essential, I’ve learned that you can deliver it while moving fast. The key is to identify what truly matters, then ship that. Often, 80% effort is good enough.

2019 Year in Review

Sun, 05 Jan 2020 20:23:55 -0700

For reference, previous years: 2018, 2017, 2016, 2014, 2013, 2012.

Time for my 7th year in review post. 2019 was a difficult year, with a lot of highs and lows. Ultimately, I’m trying to look at it as a foundational year - setting me up for what I believe will be an epic 2020.

House and Dog Adoption Woes

At the start of 2019, I was in a bad place.

We bought a home in September 2018 in a great neighborhood, close to downtown Madison. Great, right? Unfortunately, we were immediately hit with a very serious, unexpected issue that cost us tons of money and emotional energy, taking over 6 months to resolve. Having to go through it while starting two new, intense jobs and during the worst parts of Midwest winter only added to our stress levels. While we expected to have repairs/issues come up over time (it’s a older home after all), we weren’t prepared to get blindsided right after moving in. Viewing the situation in a positive light, it forced me to become exponentially more handy than I ever expected.

Bringing the 'Yes, and...' Principle to the Workplace

Tue, 13 Aug 2019 05:23:55 -0700

I’ve been having lots of fun taking Improv comedy classes lately. It’s been a unique way to grow my communication skills, public speaking confidence, and dynamic presentation abilities. It’s personally satisfying while also feeding back into my DevRel work at Ionic.

One of the fundamental principles we’ve learned is “Yes, and…”

When interacting with a peer on stage, the idea is always to respond to them in a way that helps move the scene forward.

Always Read the Comments

Fri, 28 Jun 2019 05:23:55 -0700

“Never read the comments” is a familiar maxim told to technologists building products.

It makes sense, right? Users typically only leave feedback after they’ve either had an extremely poor experience or a positive one.

However, there is value in reading online comments if you frame them correctly.

Identify New Product Champions

Building a strong relationship with individuals who are passionate promoters of your products is a crucial strategy for growing a business. You can often find them in the comments! Look beyond traditional “comment boxes” to social media, forums, Slack groups - any online space where communities gather. They’re the ones answering questions about your products, sharing your content, and seeking you out at conferences.

Celebrating One Year at Ionic

Thu, 27 Jun 2019 05:23:55 -0700

“Lisa, I… think I just found my dream job.”

The Best-laid Plans…

Late one April night, my wife and I were in the midst of packing up our Seattle apartment. It had been a fun three years, but it was time to move back to the Midwest. Specifically, our sights were set on Madison, Wisconsin.

Our plan was to sell (almost) everything we owned, drive across the country from Seattle to Madison, drop off our remaining stuff at my in-law’s place, then backpack around Europe for a few weeks. After Europe, we’d begin looking for new jobs. We’d been saving and meticulously planning for years to pull it off.

The Easiest Way to Keep Product Documentation Up to Date

Fri, 07 Jun 2019 05:23:55 -0700

Documentation.

The backbone of successful and beloved products, but difficult to keep up to date given how quickly products evolve. Not to mention dreaded by software developers, who would instead write code.

Given these challenges, I’ve found that the easiest way to keep product documentation up to date is:

While working on a product, update its documentation simultaneously.

At face value, this appears simple enough, but often isn’t.

Why This Approach?

When building your product or creating a demo, chances are you’re focused on a specific area or “theme.” This includes installation/setup, hosting, interacting with the CLI, debugging, UI theming, backend API integration, etc. Updating documentation simultaneously is much faster when the related product concepts are fresh in your mind. This is often the reason why developers shy away from documentation updates - it’s left to the end of the current task or sprint, making it easy to fall to the wayside. Or worse: “when we get to it” which, spoiler alert, is often never.

From Bottom-Up to Top-Down Missionary

Fri, 12 Apr 2019 20:23:55 -0700

Author’s Note: Many people share their accomplishments publicly, only showcasing the successful end result. In reality, the road to personal growth is never as smooth as it appears. In my “Behind the Curtain” series, I shine a light on the reality of the hard work, successes, and failures encountered in my career.

Before joining the startup world last year, I spent most of my career in consulting, most recently at Slalom - a strategy and technology consulting firm headquartered in Seattle. As a “gun for hire”, so to speak, I was brought on to help our clients execute the software engineering aspects of strategic business initiatives, like helping Starbucks overhaul their loyalty rewards program.

2018 Year in Review

Sat, 15 Dec 2018 20:23:55 -0700

For reference, previous years: 2017, 2016, 2014, 2013, 2012.

They say that time moves faster as you get older. Our 2018 proves it! We left Seattle, went to Europe for 5 weeks, got new jobs, and bought a house in Madison, Wisconsin.

Let’s recap. What say you, Samuel L. Jackson?

Goodbye, Seattle!

After 3 fun years in Seattle, we decided to move back to the Midwest to be closer to family. Living in Seattle was a (mostly) good experience for us, but in the end, it wasn’t Home. We recommend a visit if you’ve never been: Pike Place Market, whale watching, Mount Rainier, Olympic National Park, and taking a ferry to a neighboring island are just the tip of the iceberg. I plan to write a “Seattle Guide” very soon by the way, in order to capture our favorite hiking spots, restaurants, and more. Can’t wait to share it with all of you!

Moves, Blues, Death, Triumph: My Pluralsight Course Retrospective

Wed, 24 Jan 2018 20:23:55 -0700

Author’s Note: Many people share their accomplishments publicly, only showcasing the successful end result. In reality, the creation process is never as smooth as it appears. In my “Behind the Curtain” posts, I intend to shine a light on the reality of the hard work, successes, failures, and struggles encompassing knowledge work.

I signed a contract agreement with Pluralsight on February 24th, 2015 to create my first developer-oriented online video course, PhoneGap Build Fundamentals. The course went live on July 11th, 2017, over two years later. This is a look back on what ended up being a long, challenging, but ultimately satisfying journey.

2017 Year in Review

Sat, 13 Jan 2018 20:23:55 -0700

2017 was a very eventful year, full of ups and downs. Thankfully, it was wonderful overall, with many challenges and growth along the way. For reference, other years: 2016, 2014, 2013, 2012.

Personal

January and February were a whirlwind of fun. It began with surprising my wife with a trip to LA during the first weekend in January. Following that, we attended two weddings for close college friends.

Major Loss

And then, in late February, an email out of the blue:

How to Convert a 1 Star App Review into 5 Stars

Sun, 10 Sep 2017 20:23:55 -0700

Photo by [Riccardo Annandale](https://unsplash.com/photos/7e2pe9wjL9M?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText)

It’s been written about for ages: customers generally only leave reviews for extremely positive experiences or extremely negative ones. Negative reviews are inevitable, but there are proactive and reactive measures you can take to mitigate and prevent them. The following are strategies I’ve used to successfully convert poor app reviews into great ones.

Reactive Approaches: From 1 to 5 stars

Every company receives bad reviews from time to time. Are you prepared to address them?

Angular: Accessing Class Variables within Custom Validators

Thu, 31 Aug 2017 20:23:55 -0700

Angular’s built-in validators are great (Required, MinLength, MaxLength, etc.), but you’ll often find yourself needing to test unique UI control use cases. Enter custom validators, a powerful way to accomplish this:

validUsernames: AllowedUsername[];

constructor(private fb: FormBuilder,
            private apiService: ApiService) { }

ngOnInit() {
    this.form = this.fb.group({
        // Attach a custom validator to the userName control
        "userName": [this.userName, this.usernameValidator]
        }
    );
}

private usernameValidator(c: AbstractControl): { [key: string]: boolean } {
    // check a property of c, the Control this validator is attached to
    if (c.value === "bad value") {
            // if a bad username is detected, return an error
            return { 'badValueFound': true };
        }
    }
    
    return null;
}

This works just fine if you only need to test using the properties of the AbstractControl - how about testing for valid usernames via a local array object or by making an HTTP API call?

PhoneGap Blog Guest Post: Hybrid Apps are Overtaking Native

Tue, 15 Aug 2017 20:23:55 -0700

I’m happy to share that I’ve written another guest post for the PhoneGap team’s blog:

Hybrid Apps are Overtaking Native

In the post, I cover the most popular concerns about hybrid app development from a fresh 2017 perspective: performance, design, frameworks, and tooling. Bottom line: if you last tried PhoneGap/Cordova several years ago, it’s time for another look!

I’m really proud of how this article turned out: over 16,000 views and tons of comment replies as of late August. Check it out on the PhoneGap blog.

"PhoneGap Build Fundamentals" Pluralsight course released!

Tue, 11 Jul 2017 20:23:55 -0700

I’m excited to announce that my Pluralsight course, PhoneGap Build Fundamentals, is now live! This course will teach you the fundamentals of creating cross-platform mobile apps using Adobe’s PhoneGap Build cloud service and HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.

Please leave any questions or feedback on the Discussion tab. Thanks for checking it out!

Here’s a longer description of the course:

The demand for mobile application developers is extremely high. However, learning each platform’s native programming language and toolsets can be a significant, time consuming challenge. Fortunately, there’s a better way! In this course, you will reuse your existing HTML, CSS, and JavaScript skills to create mobile apps. Leveraging Adobe’s PhoneGap Build cloud service, you’ll build a complete app from scratch that is app store-ready. First, the course will cover the structure and configuration of a web-based mobile app. Next, you’ll discover how to make the app feel native by adding plugins, how to test on mobile devices, and how to troubleshoot real world issues that may arise. Finally, you’ll learn the entire app store submission process, from signing up for a developer account to releasing an app on all the major platforms. By the end of this course, you’ll be comfortable creating professional, web-based mobile applications using PhoneGap Build.

List of Supported PhoneGap Versions on PhoneGap Build

Mon, 01 May 2017 20:23:55 -0700

As you’ve probably noticed, PhoneGap Build shows a helpful reminder when the Default version of PhoneGap has been updated:

Seeing the platform-specific version numbers (iOS, Android, Windows) is useful for, among other things, troubleshooting purposes. Perhaps a plugin works with iOS 4.2.5, but after upgrading to 4.3.1, it stops working.

Where is this list published? As it turns out, the page link is a bit hidden, mentioned briefly in a couple of spots in the documentation:

Startups: Consider Building Native Web Apps!

Thu, 27 Apr 2017 20:23:55 -0700

As a startup, competing with well established, larger, incumbent companies is incredibly difficult. Among their many advantages, they’ve had more time and resources to build amazing products.

On top of that, your customers don’t care about the size of your company.

They expect a world-class experience, while assuming that:

You have an army of developers, ready to react to their suggestions immediately.
You can provide 24/7 social media/customer support.
Your products should be free, forever.

It’s tough out there! You need any advantage you can get. For your technology stack, consider using web technology (HTML/CSS/JavaScript) to build your web, mobile, and desktop apps. When combined with Cordova/PhoneGap, you can use a single codebase to build mobile apps for every major app store! Most importantly, this “native web” approach means you can:

Just Say No to Plugin Fuzzy Versioning!

Fri, 14 Apr 2017 20:23:55 -0700

On PhoneGap Build’s Plugins documentation page, it mentions fuzzy versioning: picking the latest version of a plugin when building an app. It’s enabled using the tilde operator:

<plugin name="com.phonegap.plugins.example" spec="~2.2" />

I strongly recommend against this type of versioning. Yes, this ensures that you always have the latest major version included in your app, but it’s a matter of control - once you’ve incorporated a plugin into your app, you’ve tested it and you know it works. I’m confident in version 2.2.1 here…

Moving netkow.com from Tumblr to Hugo & Netlify

Thu, 16 Mar 2017 20:23:55 -0700

Netkow.com has received a big facelift! I’ve moved off of Tumblr and am now using Hugo (static site generator) and Netlify for hosting and SSL.

Backing Up Tumblr

Before I could move over to a new hosting stack, I needed to back up my Tumblr content (close to 80 blog posts). This was the most difficult part of the migration, as it wasn’t as easy as I had hoped it would be. Tumblr has an API which can be used to export content and several free tools use it, but many of them are dead/abandoned.

In Memoriam: Brandon J. Nelson

Tue, 07 Mar 2017 00:00:00 +0000

[Lisa and I delivered this eulogy at the wake for Brandon’s family on March 5th, 2017.]

Hi. For those that don’t know, my name is Matt Netkow. I’m here today with my wife Lisa, also a close friend of Brandon’s. I worked at SAVO with Brandon for a few years and we remained good friends after he left for Slalom Chicago. He eventually referred me to Slalom Seattle, so we’ve been connected through many avenues these past few years.

2016 Year In Review

Sun, 01 Jan 2017 00:00:00 +0000

I had a great 2016! Like any year, there are always ups and downs, but I really enjoy reflecting back on everything, especially the positive things I’ve accomplished. It’s incredible how much you can do in a year! Here are the highlights.

Personal

A complete focus on health, exercise, and wellness completely transformed me for the better. I feel a million times better mentally, sleep better, and have the best mobility/strength in years. There’s much more work to do be done, but that’s OK - 2016 was all about laying the foundation. It’s a marathon, not a race, after all!

Revenge of the CSP: iOS 10.2 and UIWebView Issue Resolved

Tue, 20 Dec 2016 00:00:00 +0000

This past weekend, I upgraded my iPhone to iOS 10.2. All was well, until I happened to open one of my PhoneGap apps and saw some weird freezing issues. Upon further investigation, they were Content Security Policy issues, seen in Console output as:

Refused to load frame ‘gap://ready’ because it violates the following Content Security Policy directive: “default-src *”.

For reference, in PhoneGap Build, I’m using PhoneGap version cli-6.3.0 (iOS 4.2.0 / Android 5.2.1 / Windows 4.4.1).

Celebrating 1 Year at Slalom Seattle

Sun, 04 Dec 2016 00:00:00 +0000

“No worries on PTO/working-offline around the holidays…we’ll work something out that fits your schedule.”

I had just nervously spent 30 minutes crafting the perfect email, asking my new manager (whom I had yet to meet) about time off and working remotely during the holidays. Above is his quick, one line response. Could it really be that simple? It was late October 2015, and I was about to start a new role at Slalom. Due to coordinating flights home with family, I wanted to get ahead of the question. As it turned out, it really was that simple!

"It's Not You, It’s Me": Start Using NPM for PhoneGap Build Plugins Now

Sun, 13 Nov 2016 00:00:00 +0000

In just a few days (November 15th, 2016), PhoneGap Build’s plugin directory is going away in favor of Node Package Manager (NPM). No need to panic! There are several paths you can take to move over to NPM.

Option 1 - “I’m using a popular plugin”: Use NPM referral link

In a great move, PG Build has given us the option to see the plugin’s equivalent on NPM or submit a suggestion ourselves.

"United States of Me"

Wed, 09 Nov 2016 00:00:00 +0000

This is a shopping cart filled with garbage at the end of our street. It’s been sitting here for over 2 weeks. In our neighborhood, where condos go for $800,000, no one seems to give a shit that garbage is all over the place. Our neighbors don’t return our “hellos” when we greet them.

If this happens in one of the most affluent Seattle neighborhoods, is it any surprise what happened last night? Apathy is at an all-time high. Selfishness too - “The United States of Me.” One FB friend posts concerns about how her disabled clients might lose their ACA care, while another laments that his costs are going up. “Fuck you, got mine!” rings true.

Slalom Speaks 2016 Talk - "Time to Find Your Calling"

Wed, 26 Oct 2016 00:00:00 +0000

I’m very excited to share my Slalom Speaks talk, “Time to Find Your Calling”! Taking place on 9/29/2016, “Slalom Speaks” is our annual TED Talk-style event that brings together bright Slalom minds to deliver passionate and idea-focused talks to inspire, foster learning, and promote conversations that matter.

For almost 1 year now, I’ve been attending Slalom Seattle’s Toastmasters meetings. It’s a wonderful concept - dedicated speaking practice in a safe, fun, and friendly environment. We meet Wednesdays from 7 to 8am, before we head off to work at our client sites. Some scoff at getting up that early, but honestly I find it incredibly energizing and look forward to it every week.

BeerSwift: Launch Week Retrospective

Wed, 19 Oct 2016 00:00:00 +0000

I launched BeerSwift, a new iOS and Android app for Untappd, a couple of weeks ago. It was an exciting launch, as it was the first time that I put all of the marketing books/tips I’ve learned to good use! (Huge shoutout to Justin Jackson for his book Jolt!, a large inspiration for the marketing strategies I tried.)

Overall Thoughts

I’m very happy with how the launch went. Making something that people love is incredibly rewarding! I definitely could have used more time to prepare though. I took on too many personal and professional commitments leading up to the launch - next time I need to focus on just one thing.

Introducing BeerSwift - Faster, Easier, Offline Untappd check-ins!

Sun, 16 Oct 2016 00:00:00 +0000

I’m happy to share my latest mobile app, BeerSwift, now available on the App Store and Google Play. Focusing on faster, easier Untappd check-ins, it’s optimized for experiences:

At Breweries: Enjoy relaxed tastings with friends
At Beer Festivals: Track large amounts of beer amidst big crowds and slow/no Internet
At Parties: Avoid appearing anti-social by quickly tracking beers

Add beers to your Queue, rating them as you taste. At your convenience, check them into Untappd all at once!

The Complete Guide to Creating a Custom Plugin for an AEMM Project

Thu, 13 Oct 2016 00:00:00 +0000

I was recently tapped to assist with a project that involved creating mobile apps using Adobe Experience Manager Mobile (AEMM). I know PhoneGap/Cordova well enough, and AEMM uses PhoneGap, so why not?!

I was asked to incorporate a custom plugin (one that AEMM does not already support in their platform) into the AEMM app. This proved quite challenging, so I found myself taking copious notes as I trial and errored various steps. This guide takes you from start to finish! Special thanks to the handful of Adobe folks that assisted me and reviewed this guide.

Cut Your PhoneGap Build App Size In Half With This One Weird Trick!

Mon, 22 Aug 2016 00:00:00 +0000

I’m in the midst of wrapping up my first Pluralsight course on PhoneGap Build Fundamentals and stumbled upon this today: if you include a special file into each icon and splash screen image directory, PhoneGap Build will only include the platform specific icon/splash files in each app binary created.

For years now (and I suspect I’m far from the only one), I’ve assumed that PG Build already does since, since we specify the image file paths in the config.xml file. Nope! All images are always included. Include a PGB Omit file with no file extension (.pgbomit) into each icon/splash directory. I tested it with the app I’m building for the course:

Excellence In All Things

Sun, 19 Jun 2016 00:00:00 +0000

(Dedicated to all the fathers out there who lead the way, especially my own, who inspired this post. Happy Father’s Day!)

It’s putting back the lone grocery cart that wasn’t yours in the parking lot before the wind blows it into someone’s car.

It’s stopping to pick up the soda can in the woods instead of stepping over it.

It’s obeying the speed limit, even with miles of open farmland in front of you.

“.NET Core Overview” Brown Bag

Mon, 06 Jun 2016 00:00:00 +0000

We’ve recently began a weekly development brown bag series at Slalom Seattle. It’s a great way to share what we are learning with the larger group, especially since as consultants, we are all across Seattle, staffed at different client sites.

This was my first presentation, a follow-up to Microsoft’s 2016 Build conference, on .NET Core. Core is a ground-up rewrite of the .NET framework. Notably, it’s open source, cross-platform, and modular.

While not quite enterprise-ready yet (RC2 currently available and no v1.0 release date set as of June 2016), it’s an exciting move by Microsoft. Here is the talk; note that the audio is a bit rough due to recording over GoToMeeting & I speak very informally, but I think you’ll enjoy it.

Building Upon Success Through the Domino Effect

Mon, 23 May 2016 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve been reading “The One Thing”, a book that preaches focusing on one thing at a time in order to achieve extraordinary results. By doing so, your success will build gradually, in a kind of domino effect. I believe this has been the case for me and it inspired this post.

I’ve been reflecting recently on my life and career. I’m all together not entirely satisfied, so naturally I’m working on fixing that. I’ve realized that of all the people that I look up to, do I know how they got to be so influential/successful/interesting? Whether it’s a mega celebrity or your company’s CEO, often we just know them from their biggest, most public achievements.

Celebrating 10 Years of Programming Experience

Mon, 16 May 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Ten years ago in Fall 2005, I began pursuing a computer science degree at Marquette University. My first programming class taught Java. Prior experience had included using DOS commands to run “Command & Conquer” and “Doom” on my parent’s Windows 95 PC and a BASIC class that I took in high school, taught by a gym teacher who knew as much as we did. So frankly, not much!

This post is inspired by several groups of people: those who ask me about software development and learning how to program, are curious about my apps/accomplishments, and Ramit Sethi, famed entrepreneur of IWillTeachYouToBeRich.com. In a recent email, he wrote about how people love to believe that success is effortless and just happens:

Appearance on Talking Devs Podcast

Sat, 30 Apr 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Excited to share my first podcast appearance today on The Talking Devs podcast. I met Chris Bohatka at That Conference years ago and have since kept up with him mostly via Twitter. When he approached me about being the first guest on a new podcast project he was starting, I of course said yes!

We had a lot of fun recording this. Despite clocking in at 1 hour+, we could have kept going! We cover a lot at a fast pace: moving from Chicago to Seattle, starting a PhoneGap mobile app business in the context of Fitwatchr, and my upcoming Pluralsight course on PhoneGap Build. Check it out!

Microsoft Build 2016 Recap

Sat, 02 Apr 2016 00:00:00 +0000

I had the pleasure of attending Microsoft’s Build conference this week in San Francisco. It was a fantastic experience - certainly one of the better years to go.

Overall Conference

For the most part, the conference itself is run very well. Great wifi coverage, decent mix of sessions, and large spaces for recharging, collaborating, and socializing. At $2,200 just for the conference ticket plus the insane cost of San Francisco city itself though, unless your company is paying it’s pretty much a non-starter for an independent developer. Unfortunate perhaps, but the targeted audience here is definitely enterprise developers.

Android - 404 Not Found (from cache)

Thu, 24 Mar 2016 00:00:00 +0000

I encountered a frustrating issue the other day after upgrading to PhoneGap version cli-5.2.0 on Android. My requests to Fitbit’s API began to fail, resulting in 404 errors. I was incredibly stumped - the exact same code worked fine on iOS. I ran the code on my iPhone and my Android tablet and pulled up both requests side by side. All details in the requests were the same: URL, HTTP method, etc. Everything except the status code - 200 OK for iOS and 404 Not Found (from cache) for Android.

Chicago & Seattle Apartment: Wired vs. Wireless

Sun, 08 Nov 2015 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve lived in a variety of apartments & condos over the past few years. With each move, I have to figure out how to set up the local network, computers, Xbox, etc. Some folks might find this annoying, but I absolutely love it! It’s a fun challenge, especially figuring it out when space is tight. Additionally, I’m a proud cord cutter so the major goal is always to use all of my content on the TV sans a cable subscription.

Joining Slalom Consulting!

Sat, 10 Oct 2015 00:00:00 +0000

I’m excited to announce that I will be joining Slalom Consulting as a Consultant next month!

It is a bittersweet decision, as I’ll be leaving The SAVO Group, my first job out of school. It’s been an amazing six years; I could not have kicked off my career in a better role. I’m grateful for all the opportunities I’ve had through the years and the people I’ve met.

Here’s to the next step!

Moving to Seattle, Part 1: Bittersweet

Sat, 29 Aug 2015 00:00:00 +0000

I haven’t written much at all this year thus far, but with good reason: I seem to find new ways to overload myself. On top of my app business, SAVO, and my Pluralsight course, I’ve been planning a cross country move - to Seattle, Washington!

My wife, an RN, has been pursuing her masters over the past 3 years to become a Nurse Practitioner. She began shortly after we got married - never a dull moment with us, believe me. Of course, she’s done with this program now, and do we settle in to comfortable boring married life? Nope. Admittedly, we had always talked about moving to a different city over the past few years, but it wasn’t until the beginning of this year that it turned more serious. With her impending graduation, she’d need a new job tailored to her advanced degree, but where to go? The USA is huge, with lots of amazing cities, so as you can imagine the thought was both exhilarating and terrifying.

Q1 2015 Recap!

Tue, 07 Apr 2015 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve been quiet silent on here the past few months. Winters in Chicago can be miserable, driving all of us indoors. However, just because it’s cold out doesn’t mean we can’t be productive! Over the years I’ve come to enjoy them, using the extra indoor time to my advantage to get a lot of projects done.

Passive Income

This was a major focus. Dave and I added two apps for Misfit and Withings to our activity tracker-focused Fitwatchr line, expanding us to 4 total apps. Reaching 10 apps or more is a major goal this year. Additionally, I developed, marketed, and launched a beta for BeerSwift, a new mobile app focused on better Untappd beer check-ins. It’s a niche-within-a-niche concept, so it probably won’t be as popular as Fitwatchr, but that’s ok! Testing it at a couple of beer festivals with friends was tons of fun and showed me that the idea is sound.

Matt Netkow: Now a Pluralsight Author!

Mon, 30 Mar 2015 00:00:00 +0000

I’m excited to announce that I have been accepted into Pluralsight’s Authorship program!

Pluralsight provides expert online video training for developers, IT admins, and creative professionals. I’ve used them for years now at work to get up to speed quickly on new technologies/concepts successfully.

I’ve been working on hybrid mobile apps for almost 3 years now and have learned so much! I love teaching/mentoring others, so Pluralsight seems like a natural next step. I will be primarily focused on mobile app courses, specifically hybrid mobile apps (HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript). My first course will be PhoneGap Build Fundamentals, in which I do a deep dive of Adobe’s PhoneGap Build service. Like most developers that participate, I will be creating courses on nights/weekends whilst I work my day job with SAVO.

Announcing MisfitWatchr: Convert your Misfit Shine or Flash activity into WeightWatchers Points!

Mon, 02 Feb 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Connect your Misfit account, calculate your daily activity points, then launch the Weight Watchers mobile site to log them:

MisfitWatchr is a great solution for Weight Watchers members, but everyone can enjoy the app, regardless of weight loss program!

PhoneGap Build: "Certificate doesn't match profile" fix found

Sun, 11 Jan 2015 00:00:00 +0000

After a couple of months without building my apps on PhoneGap Build, I came back to the site only to see build errors. Very strange, as all of my certificates and keys were valid. On the PhoneGap community forums, others had the same issue.

TLDR; Re-export your developer certificate (.p12 file) from Keychain Access on your Mac in addition to creating a new Provisioning Profile from developer.apple.com.

The PhoneGap Build documentation for “Certificate doesn’t match profile” states that you should try regenerating the provisioning file. However, I found that exporting a new copy of my developer certificate from the Keychain app did the trick!

Retrieving Android Keystore Alias for New PhoneGap Build App

Thu, 08 Jan 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Unlike the more complicated key/certificate setup that iOS requires, Android publishing is much simpler. You generate a keystore file that identifies you as the Developer once, then reuse it with every Android app that you create. Simple.

When you add a new Android app to PhoneGap Build, then choose to add a signing key, you see the following:

“Title” can be labeled as anything, but “Alias” cannot. It must be the alias name you provided when creating the keystore file originally. If you specify the wrong name then attempt to build the app, it will fail. If you’re like me and forgot it long ago, are you out of luck? Fortunately, no.

SAVO Blog: The Art of Putting Your Customer’s First: Cross Functional Teamwork

Mon, 05 Jan 2015 00:00:00 +0000

I just realized that I forgot to cross-post this here! Another post I did on the SAVO blog a couple of months ago:

The Art of Putting Your Customer’s First: Cross Functional Teamwork

While not technical at all, it’s still worth a read if you work on a team. Enjoy.

2014 in Review

Thu, 01 Jan 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Wow, time flies… it feels like I was just writing the “2013 in review” post! This is my 3rd year doing annual reviews. Here are the previous years:

I believe that in addition to spending time with friends & family over the holidays, it’s important to reflect on the previous year in order to continue to grow - physically, mentally, and spiritually.

SAVO

I reached 5 years of service in July - wow! To be honest, I never imagined staying in my first job out of school for this long, but the perks, culture, and opportunities to grow have been amazing. Some highlights:

Announcing BeerSwift - Faster beer check-ins for Untappd

Mon, 22 Dec 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Untappd is an app that provides a social aspect to one’s beer drinking experience: log which beers you’ve had, connect to your friends, and see what they are drinking. It’s a great app! There are so many craft beers available today, making it hard to remember what you’ve had and what is good, so I mostly use it for tracking purposes.

Today, I’m officially announcing BeerSwift, an app that connects to the Untappd platform. The main idea is to complement the Untappd experience by providing faster, easier beer check-ins. It will be very useful for power users, tracking beer flights, and events where you taste a lot of different beers. I’m still in the planning phase, but here are the features most likely to end up in version 1:

Netkosoft Reaches 15,000 Paying Users, Launches Jawbone UP Mobile App

Mon, 17 Nov 2014 00:00:00 +0000

An exciting weekend: we’ve reach 15,000 Fitwatchr users! With this week’s Apple approval, Upwatchr is officially launched and available on Android and Apple iOS. I wrote a post on Built in Chicago, a major community hub for Chicago startups, about the launch. Check it out here.

Announcing Upwatchr: Convert your Jawbone UP activity into WeightWatchers Points!

Sat, 25 Oct 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Connect your Jawbone UP account, calculate your daily activity points, then launch the Weight Watchers mobile site to log them:

Upwatchr is a great solution for Weight Watchers members, but everyone can enjoy the app, regardless of weight loss program!

Learn more on the official Upwatchr site.

Fitwatchr, 1 year later: $26,000 profit and 14,000 users

Fri, 17 Oct 2014 00:00:00 +0000

One year ago, David Lapekas and I released Fitwatchr, a mobile app that converts Fitbit activity into Weight Watchers points. Following in the footsteps of other indie developers and entrepreneurs that I look up to such as Patrick McKenzie, Nathan Barry, and Pat Flynn, I’m very excited to share our experiences openly.

Humble Beginnings

The idea for Fitwatchr began after I bought a Fitbit device a few months after joining Weight Watchers. I thought it would be useful if I could convert my Fitbit exercise into Weight Watchers activity points. Activity trackers were just starting to take off, and so the more I thought about it, the better the idea sounded. I decided from the beginning to create the app for multiple platforms and decided on a PhoneGap approach. A few months of work during nights and weekends later (my front end skills were iffy at best, so this added time), I had a prototype built. I partnered with Dave to handle all art and marketing efforts.

The Developer's Core Concepts 2014

Wed, 17 Sep 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Recently, I’ve been mentoring junior developers, offshore resources, and even answering questions about coding with friends that are just getting started. It got me thinking - what concepts cover everything one needs to be a well rounded developer?

This assumes at least some level of experience with programming/computer science and is aimed at those just starting out in industry after earning a CS degree or coming back to development after a period of absence.

Simple Programs

While it’s tempting to start off with web projects, I feel that JavaScript and working with the challenging DOM introduce the wrong type of complexity right from the start. Beginning with an object oriented language (I’m biased towards Java or C#) helps keep a tight focus.

Version Control: It doesn’t matter which one, as long as it’s used in the first place.
Logging: Use a 3rd party library here; no need to reinvent the wheel. The idea is not how to log, but rather to learn which information is important to log, so that debugging in the future is easier.
Storage: This can include the file system and eventually, databases.
Connecting to external services: Many use cases require extracting data from 3rd parties and manipulating it. Picking either a REST or SOAP API is a good start.
Unit Testing: Even in 2014 this is ignored, but shouldn’t be. Code coverage should be as close to 100% as possible.
Inversion of Control (IOC) and dependency injection: These are a bit advanced, but should be covered as soon as the developer is familiar with the other core concepts.

Web

From browser quirks to understanding the DOM and the rapid pace at which web technology changes, programming for the web is a very challenging endeavor. It’s also the most rewarding, though. The capabilities of the web stack open up unlimited possibilities for employment and innovation.

The Basics (HTML, CSS, JavaScript): These fundamental languages will always be used. Furthermore, they are now being used in other platforms besides the browser, including server-side (Node.js), cars, smart watches (Pebble), and mobile apps (PhoneGap), making them highly valuable, reusable skills to have.
HTTP: This includes understanding how the client-server model works and all the protocols that go with it. You can’t truly become an expert on building websites, the DOM, and calling APIs without it.
One design pattern: The current most popular one is Model View Controller (MVC). Model View View Model (MVVM) is great too.

Recommended Books

It’s not hard to find books on software development, methodologies, and best practices. Knowing which ones are worth the time though is. Here are my favorites that have contributed significantly to my career:

The Pragmatic Programmer: My all-time favorite that I tend to read about once per year. Each chapter focuses on one specific software practice, with a pop-out checklist at the back of the book.
The Passionate Programmer: This is focused more on developer soft skills. The greatest lesson in here is that in order to truly grow and help your company, you must learn at least a bit about the business side of things. Tons of gems in this one.
Code Complete: Over 20 years old but a classic. Focuses on development best practices that, while examples are in C/C++, are truly language agnostic.
The Art of Unit Testing: A very succinct look at unit testing: what it is, why you should use it, and full examples. Also included is dependency injection, which I am a huge fan of.
Head First Design Patterns: Part of the “Head First” programming series, this covers design patterns in an easy to follow manner with examples in Java.

Am I missing anything? Please let me know in the comments.

Open Source PhoneGap Build App Template Now Available

Sun, 14 Sep 2014 00:00:00 +0000

It started innocently enough: I built a proof-of-concept PhoneGap app that could connect to a Fitbit user’s account using OAuth. Satisfied with the results, I kept going, adding feature after feature until I had a completed app. Unfortunately, despite the relatively simple codebase that PhoneGap apps consist of, I still ended up with a monster on my hands! It was time to refactor. Through this process, I completely rethought how to separate concerns (UI, API, storage, plugins) in a PhoneGap app. Here’s the complete breakdown - I’ve open sourced the template too!

Root

First, create a new root directory for the app (or just pull down my starter template, of course!). In this example we’ll use “app” as the App name. Within here will be everything related to the app, including code, tests, and app platform certificates:

\www: All assets of the app, including code, image icons/splash screens, and PhoneGap Build configuration files. You don’t have to name it “www” or separate the app code from tests/certificates/other metadata, but if you do, there are three benefits:

You can zip up the folder and upload it to PhoneGap Build without unnecessary bloat being added to the compiled app.
Should you decide to move away from the PG Build service and wish to compile the app manually using a specific platform SDK, you’re all set - PhoneGap/Cordova files are always placed into a “www” folder.
It will automatically be ready for use with the PhoneGap Developer App, a great tool that allows you to debug your app locally on a real device. Each time you save a file from within this folder, the files get reloaded on the test device. This is a lot faster than uploading to PhoneGap Build, waiting for the app to build, then reloading it!

.cordova: PhoneGap App configuration files. This can be ignored if you don’t intend to use the PhoneGap Developer App.

\tests: All JavaScript unit tests.

\certs: All the app platform keystores and certificates that are used to digitally sign your app.

\www folder contents

index.html: This is the single page app itself. It should contain only HTML and CSS, and link to separate JavaScript files. You may have a bit of initialization code, though. For example, using KendoUI Mobile:

var app = new kendo.mobile.Application(document.body, { transition: “slide” });

// other initialization steps, such as reloading previous app state from localStorage, etc.

config.xml: The one file that PhoneGap Build uses for configuration when creating your app. Included in this are the platforms to build for, deployment preferences, icon/splash screen image references, permissions required (Internet access, location awareness, etc.), and plugins used.

icon.png: You can create many icons for each device resolution, but there must always be an icon in the root of the app code directory at 512x512 pixels.

splash.png: Similar to icon.png, if you use splash screens in your app a root image must reside in the main directory.

\icons folder: This contains all icon sets, neatly arranged into separate folders for each platform (\android, \ios, and on).

\splash folder: Exactly like the icons folder, but for splash screens.

\img folder: This contains all static images used in the app, from loading gifs to other custom pics.

\styles folder: This contains all CSS files.

\scripts folder: This contains all JavaScript code libraries. Within here, I have the following:

\kendo folder: While technically containing both CSS and JavaScript, this is the open source Kendo UI Mobile framework used for creating a single page application.
controller.js: The main app controller that ties all app dependencies together, including UI interaction, user management, and data storage (localStorage, databases).
phonegapAppPlugins.js: All PhoneGap plugin helper code. This IIFE encapsulates plugin API’s here rather than incorporating them directly so that you can test/run your app in the browser (where they are not available of course). I built this with extendability in mind, making it easy to add other plugins as necessary. Check it out on GitHub.
dataRepository.js: This encompasses any data source. In my case, it was the Fitbit API calls. Using dependency injection in controller.js, I can now use any 3rd party API that I wish or test locally by not calling any external service.
viewModel.js: If you happen to use a MVVM style when building an app, it’s helpful to split the view model code into its own file.
Other JavaScript files: Any other code libraries.

Finalized structure: (generated using ‘tree /F’ cmd)

This is how I structure my PhoneGap Build apps. If you have any ideas on how to enhance this, please let me know in the comments or submit a pull request on GitHub.

Traveling to Quebec City, Canada

Mon, 08 Sep 2014 00:00:00 +0000

My wife and I love traveling and have decided to dedicate ourselves to seeing as many places as we can. Up until now, I haven’t blogged about our travels, which is a real shame because it’s a great way to look back on the trip years later (hard to recall everything unless it’s written down!) and also to share the experience with friends and family.

This August we visited Quebec City, Canada for 6 days and loved it! Overall, it was an amazing destination and we highly recommend it for either a quick getaway vacation or a longer stay. Canada is a beautiful country filled with very friendly French and English-speaking people. The flight from Chicago was a quick 2 hours and only 1 hour ahead. Some highlights from the trip:

The City

Quebec City is stunningly beautiful. Tons of vegetation (trees, etc.) and flowers. It’s the cleanest city I’ve seen thus far - not one speck of trash anywhere! Coming from Chicago, this was immediately noticeable. It’s said to be the closest thing to visiting Europe without actually going there. I agree - the buildings, architecture and cobblestone streets all have a European feel to them. This makes walking around even more fun since there’s something different to see around every corner. We mostly stayed in a bed and breakfast, Marquise de Bassano, just a couple of blocks from the main town square:

We had a great room: queen sized bed, private bathroom, and delicious breakfast each morning. The owners were very friendly and accommodating. One aspect we really like about staying in B&B’s over hotels is not only lesser cost, but the people you meet while staying there. We had breakfast with couples from Colorado, Paris, Montreal, and Sweden. Sharing stories about other trips and their lives in general is fascinating and really opens one up to appreciating other cultures.

Each day of the trip we explored different parts of the city. It’s very hilly compared to Chicago but fortunately for me (haha), we had very cool weather for August (and lots of rain!) so that helped keep us comfortable. There are lots of parks in the city - this is the main square:

This is a cool alley:

From there there were great views of the St. Lawrence river on one end that included a really neat type of elevator called a Funiculaire that you could ride to go between upper and lower Quebec (also walkable but very steep). Additionally there were lots of shops, art galleries, and restaurants. Along the edges of the river, they’ve kept the old cannons used hundreds of years ago against invaders:

It’s incredible to think about the history that has occurred in the city - America just doesn’t compare! On our first full day, we went to the Museum of Civilization. The two coolest exhibits were a permanent one showcasing the city’s history and one on Haiti’s culture and art. Haiti’s was focused on their voodoo religion which is very dark, very sexual (lots of phallic symbols), and at times very creepy. This piece was one of my favorites: the artist created a life-sized baby doll head that he wore around town, capturing himself amid ordinary scenes of daily life:

My Setup when Recording Technical Presentation Videos

Wed, 03 Sep 2014 00:00:00 +0000

After presenting on hybrid mobile apps a few weeks ago at That Conference, I wanted to make a video of the talk not only to share with others but also for posterity’s sake. I don’t know much about video recording honestly (codecs, bitrates, etc.) but I managed decent settings that look great without producing a huge video size. Here’s what I used:

CamStudio for audio/video screen recording. It’s free and works well enough. Note that there aren’t any editing features, though. For video options, I chose the XVid Codec for recording a high quality (1080p) video that didn’t result in a huge file size. The default codec, Intel IYUV, produced a massive 125MB file for a 10 second video, whereas XVid’s was 8MB. Big difference! Here are the video settings:

"Creating Hybrid Mobile Apps" Video Now Available

Mon, 01 Sep 2014 00:00:00 +0000

If you missed my talk on Hybrid Mobile Apps a few weeks ago at That Conference, never fear! I’ve recorded a video of it, below. Please feel free to provide feedback or ask questions. I’m available to present this talk at other conferences and user groups; don’t hesitate to get in touch. Enjoy!

That Conference 2014 Recap

Sat, 30 Aug 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Wow! Another fantastic That Conference experience. This was my third time in a row going and I couldn’t have been happier with how it turned out. Some highlights:

My first public talk! I’ve been wanting to speak for years but the timing was always off or I procrastinated. I spoke to a packed room about developing Hybrid Mobile apps, leveraging my experience building Fitwatchr. The audience was very engaged, asking lots of questions both during and after my presentation. I was nervous at first but had practiced extensively (about 10 times) so once I got going, I was in the zone and spoke fluidly. I really enjoyed the experience and look forward to giving the talk again. I plan to record a video of it, as well. The biggest lesson learned is that it takes a lot more time then you’d think to put together a well made, focused, hour long talk. I thought it would be hard to come up with 1 hour’s worth of material; quite the opposite, in fact! I had to cut out a bunch of content. Overall, it took me about 30 hours of effort to plan, research, create, tweak, and practice my talk. I have a new found respect for speakers now!
Kids activities: Each year, the number of full families that attend is noticeably increasing. This is fantastic not for the water park aspect, but for the exposure to programming/development. We have a severe lack of engineering/science graduates in the U.S., so getting children interested in science by bringing them along to Mom or Dad’s conference is a great way to remedy this. This year, kids actually gave talks (and I thought it was cool that I gave one! ha!) and also had more adult-lead sessions to attend. If I have kids someday, I will definitely be exposing them to programming.

Adobe App Design Course Presentation

Fri, 20 Jun 2014 00:00:00 +0000

A few nights ago, I had the pleasure of presenting to an Adobe Education Exchange class on “App Design”, specifically using Adobe tools like Brackets and PhoneGap Build. It’s a neat concept - a 2 week course, taught 100% remotely over Adobe Connect at night (7pm CST in this case). I was happy to spread the word about PhoneGap Build!

I presented for 10 minutes on how I used tools like PhoneGap Build to create Fitwatchr and gave some advice for beginners. Afterwards there was a 5 minute Q&A session. This was a lot of fun! There were tons of questions regarding how Fitwatchr works and even a bunch on the mobile industry, the state of wearable technology, and more.

Why I Charge for my Mobile App, Fitwatchr

Tue, 17 Jun 2014 00:00:00 +0000

The prevailing strategies to monetize mobile applications in 2014 involve the inclusion of ads, in-app payments, or charging a flat fee - typically $0.99. When I was deciding how to charge for Fitwatchr, I read many articles on various approaches. I didn’t expect to reach the volume of users needed to make decent money with ads, which is typically thousands with high engagement, so that option was out. In-app payments seemed inappropriate as well, since I didn’t like the idea of presenting the most useful features behind paywalls. Therefore, I decided on charging a flat $2.99 for the app, as I loathe the bottom barrel $0.99 price, which I will discuss later. I’ve been charging for Fitwatchr for about 9 months now to some success - we’ll hit 10,000 users by mid summer 2014. Without the obvious reason of a monetary incentive, I’ve also encountered some real benefits to charging for an app:

Development Tips when using PhoneGap Build Plugins

Tue, 03 Jun 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Plugins are an incredibly useful way to bring native functionality to PhoneGap apps. Once you start including them though, complexity can skyrocket, mainly because you are now dependent on actual devices to test. This can lead to frustration as feedback loops are increased. To help shorten these, follow these tips:

Practice safe programming practices: add a check that the plugin exists before attempting to use it:

if (window.plugins !== undefined && window.plugins.myPlugin !== undefined) {

Creating a Windows Phone 8 app with PhoneGap Build

Sat, 10 May 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Like many, I began with an iOS and Android version of my PhoneGap app. As of April 2014, adding the third option, Windows Phone 8, lacks complete documentation (PhoneGap Build) or is confusing because of too much documentation (Microsoft!). Once you figure out what to do, it’s actually quite easy. Follow my minimal guide to get your app configured for PhoneGap Build and deployed to a Windows Phone 8 device.

KendoUI Mobile Tip: Add Data Icon anywhere within ListView Item

Thu, 01 May 2014 00:00:00 +0000

In Kendo UI Mobile’s ListView demo, the “data-icon” attribute is added to each list item element, in order to create an icon image from Kendo UI’s standard set of icons:

<ul>
    <li data-icon=”toprated”><a>Boston</a></li>
    <li data-icon=”toprated”><a>Chicago</a></li>
</ul>

The example above positions the toprated icon on the left side; what if you want to position them somewhere else or even dynamically? Initially I tried to add the data icon to the far right by putting it on a simple span tag. This doesn’t work though:

Leveraging the PhoneGap Developer App as a PhoneGap Build user

Tue, 29 Apr 2014 00:00:00 +0000

The PhoneGap App is a great new addition to Adobe’s suite of PhoneGap tools. It allows you to seamlessly push new code to a native device, resulting in much faster development, whether you are building PhoneGap locally or in the cloud. What is not immediately obvious is how PhoneGap Build users can leverage it, if at all. Well, fortunately, we can!

Unfortunately, you can’t just point the tool at your existing app directory like I’d hoped and run it. You’ll need to run the “phonegap create [my-app]” command first (where [my-app] is the name of the app and subsequent folder that is created). This creates a bunch of template files and folders. The key here is the “www” folder: this is where your existing Build code should go.

SAVO Blog: "4 Tips to Increase Clients' Success"

Fri, 04 Apr 2014 00:00:00 +0000

My April blog post for the SAVO blog is now live. It was a fun article to write, as it forced me to reflect on the points I made. Do I “practice what I preach”? I like to think so; of course, there’s always room for improvement. Enjoy.

4 Tips to Increase Clients’ Success

Creating a Top 5 iOS Fitness App using PhoneGap Build

Wed, 02 Apr 2014 00:00:00 +0000

I reached out to PhoneGap a month or so ago, asking to be featured and/or write a guest blog post. They were fantastic to work with and very excited to share my post:

Creating a Top 5 Fitness App with PhoneGap Build

It’s a bit technical as I give an overview of the capabilities that PhoneGap Build offers, but worth taking a look if you are interested in the current state of HTML5 web apps in 2014 and beyond. Enjoy!

Book Review: To Sell is Human

Mon, 24 Mar 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Awhile ago, I mentioned beginning a series of technical book reviews. I will be focusing primarily on tech books, but occasionally there will be a more business-minded review. Developers who understand sales, marketing, and business have a distinct competitive edge over those who don’t, so I look forward to sharing what I find here.

My company has their Sales Enablement Summit coming up in April. One of the keynote speakers, Daniel Pink, is a well-known bestselling author of various sales and marketing books. Since he’ll be speaking for us soon, I decided to check out his latest book, “To Sell is Human”. The idea that hooked me was in the summary: everyone is in sales now, regardless of their role.

Tips for Moving from PhoneGap Build 2.9 to 3.x

Sun, 23 Mar 2014 00:00:00 +0000

I’m in the process of upgrading Fitwatchr from PhoneGap Build version 2.9 to 3.3 (the latest available on the Build service as of March 2014). Here are some notes on potential “gotchas”:

Debugging, plugin, or random app issues: Occasionally when testing on a mobile device, you may experience odd issues like plugins not working when they worked previously, logging not displaying in the debug window, etc. When this happens, it’s best to start fresh with a new build: remove the app from the device, rebuild it, and start again.

Top 5 Opportunities to Create using Technology in 2014

Thu, 06 Mar 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Carmack, the famous developer behind the Doom video game and most recently CTO of Oculus Rift, said this 20 years ago:

“In the information age, the barriers [to entry into programming] just aren’t there. The barriers are self imposed. If you want to set off and go develop some grand new thing, you don’t need millions of dollars of capitalization. You need enough pizza and Diet Coke to stick in your refrigerator, a cheap PC to work on, and the dedication to go through with it.” - John Carmack

SAVO Blog: “A Sales Rep’s Guide to Tech: SSO”

Mon, 03 Feb 2014 00:00:00 +0000

My next blog post for SAVO is now live, in which I discuss Single Sign-On (SSO). SSO is a fundamental part of the computing world - from Web to intranets and more. Most people use several SSO applications every day and will never notice. Check it out!

A Sales Rep’s Guide to Tech: SSO

Writing Tech Book Reviews in 2014

Mon, 13 Jan 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Like many, I read a ton of tech material in order to keep up with the industry. I just realized that I’ve read some fantastic books over the past couple of years - many of which have really helped shape my career - they would make for excellent blog posts! I can’t believe I didn’t think of this sooner.

Here are the books I’m looking to review over the next few months. Most likely I’ll focus on the ones I most recommend, including:

SAVO Blog: "A Sales Rep's Guide to Tech: API"

Fri, 10 Jan 2014 00:00:00 +0000

In my next SAVO company blog post, I talk about APIs. This is the first of a recurring series where I’m going to demystify common technology terms. I’m really excited about this one since I have always struggled to explain what I do as a software developer to friends and family. APIs factor heavily in my work but until now I haven’t really found a way to explain them in a simple manner. Enjoy!

2013 in Review

Wed, 08 Jan 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Hard to believe another year is over - what a year it’s been!

Work

I started off the year by being presented the “Outstanding Services Innovator” award for 2012. In 2014, I’ll reach 5 years of service at the SAVO Group - it’s been an amazing journey. Other highlights:

Launching CRM Opportunity Pro: My team created this at the tail end of 2012 into the Spring of 2013. By mid summer, our Product team took it over and it was re-branded as a major SAVO product. It was an incredible opportunity to work on a large cross-functional team effort.
Trip to New York City: On a random summer Thursday I was told that I was needed for a 1 day meeting in NYC the following Monday. Making the most of the situation (I’ve never been to New York!), I flew in Sunday morning and spent the entire day running around Manhattan trying to see as much as possible for basically 12 hours straight. I surpassed 30,000 steps (14 miles) of walking that day (thanks Fitbit!), seeing Central Park, Twin Towers site, and the Statue of Liberty. I barely scratched the surface and hope to go back again soon.
Promotion to Senior Developer: In the Fall I was promoted to Senior Developer (from “Developer”), my second promotion in 4 years. Continually amazed by the opportunities at SAVO!
Leadership: Continued to leverage my passion for technology and development to complete goals, take on lots of extra projects and strengthen relationships with other teams.

In 2014, I’m looking forward to expanding my role in the business, my understanding of sales/marketing, and contributing/developing new products.

Fitbit Force review

Tue, 10 Dec 2013 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve written a review of the Fitbit Force over on our Fitwatchr blog. Verdict: It’s great! Exercise is much more fun with a Fitbit device.

Read it here on the Fitwatchr blog. If you’re interested in the Fitbit Force, it can be purchased from Fitbit.com or Amazon.com.

SAVO Blog - 3 CRM Integration Features Necessary for Sales Enablement

Mon, 09 Dec 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Below is my first post on the SAVO company blog. I talk about the three most important features you need to include if your CRM integration is going to successfully enable your sales team. It was a great exercise in writing something for a different audience - I’m planning on contributing more posts in 2014.

Read it here.

Every Developer Should Ship a Side Project

Mon, 25 Nov 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Reason #1? Users. Specifically, interacting with them.

Releasing software to the world is scary and wonderful at the same time - especially the very first time. The difference between privately used software and public software that anyone can use is huge!

I’m fortunate to work with customers directly every day at my job, but many developers do not. Working on a side project helps build up your customer service/people skills, which are necessary for successful career advancement. Once your software has been released, it’s no longer yours! You share it with potentially millions of strangers. Strangers that, whether you want it or not, will give you honest feedback. Love, hate, and everything in between. Handling it and developing a tough skin is part of the learning experience.

PhoneGap Build Template project on GitHub

Fri, 18 Oct 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Fitwatchr is built on the PhoneGap Build platform, a fantastic resource for creating mobile apps that run on multiple devices.

I’ve uploaded a new template library onto GitHub that provides a great way to get started with the platform. It offers a simple structure and leverages Kendo UI Mobile. Get it here.

Any questions, please contact me!

My First Venture into 3D Printing

Mon, 07 Oct 2013 00:00:00 +0000

The Harold Washington library, located in Chicago just a few blocks away from me, has opened a 3D printing lab. I was able to go a couple of weeks ago and had a great experience!

3D printing is the process of creating a three-dimensional object from a digital model. It’s an additive process, wherein successive layers are laid down in order to create the final shape (rather than cutting away at a larger initial shape). This is becoming increasingly popular as printer costs come down (currently $2-3k or so) and more people are made aware of the technology. While the tech is still evolving, right now it’s possible to create all sorts of neat things - from jewelry to working tools.

Fitwatchr now available for iPhone and iPad!

Fri, 04 Oct 2013 00:00:00 +0000

I’m excited to announce that Fitwatchr is now available on the App Store for both iPhone and iPad.

Fitwatchr retrieves your daily Fitbit device activity minutes and breaks it down by 3 levels of intensity - useful for collaboration with popular weight loss programs.

Current Features:
- Connect your Fitbit account to Fitwatchr
- Exercise, then sync your Fitbit device
- Use Fitwatchr to see daily earned activity minutes across 3 levels of intensity

Promotion to Senior Software Developer!

Mon, 30 Sep 2013 00:00:00 +0000

I am excited to announce that I’ve been promoted to Senior Developer at SAVO!

I started at SAVO just over 4 years ago as a junior developer coming straight out of college. When I began, it was just my manager and I, flying pretty much under the radar of the rest of the company, doing custom development jobs here and there. I was brought in when my manager needed assistance on a long multi-month project for a large pharmaceutical company. 4 years later, that project is still being actively used and built upon (last update went out thursday night!).

Getting Started with a new 3rd Party API

Mon, 09 Sep 2013 00:00:00 +0000

3^rd party APIs offer tons of creative possibilities for developers. Despite that, getting up and running with a new one can be painful, as each provider seems to implement either authentication or request handling slightly differently.

When working with a new API, I like to approach it in the following way:

- If the API will be an integral part of your application, start by exploring it first, before designing or implementing any other functionality. If for some reason you get stuck (lack of support or clear examples, beta APIs that are constantly changing), you want to minimize wasted effort. Read documentation and see samples of the data you can receive. Some providers even have online tools that allow you to run requests in the browser – these are especially handy.

Midwest GiveCamp and That Conference 2013 Recap

Tue, 03 Sep 2013 00:00:00 +0000

The 2^nd annual “That Conference” software development conference held in the Wisconsin Dells was a few weeks ago and I personally think it was even more successful than last year. I met a lot of great people and attended some fantastic sessions.

This year I was able to come up to the Dells the weekend before the conference for Midwest GiveCamp. I was fortunate enough to work with a great team on a web application for Humanitarian Toolbox, a newer charity focusing on disaster recovery via software solutions, building a system for tracking and assigning volunteers during disasters. In less than 2 days, we built a fairly solid version 1.0 that I’m happy to say I contributed to and hope to continue contributing to. Code is available on GitHub.

Fitwatchr - Architecture Overview

Fri, 09 Aug 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Throughout the entire year I’ve been focusing heavily on web development, especially JavaScript. When I decided to create another mobile app a few months ago, building it with web technologies made sense! Here’s a breakdown of the tech used to build Fitwatchr:

HTML5, CSS3 - The entire app is a web based SPA (single page application). The only HTML consists of one main file, with divs for each tab.
Knockout.js - for easy control of dynamic HTML views
QUnit - for unit testing and practicing a TDD development approach.
KendoUI Mobile - An absolutely amazing HTML5 framework. This is the real bread and butter, which gives you the ability to give your app a native looking experience. This allowed me to focus on the core functionality of the app and not the design as much.
PhoneGap Build - PhoneGap is an open source framework used to build native apps that are written in HTML5 and JavaScript. PhoneGap Build is a cloud-based service by Adobe that allows you to upload your code and have it create the finished apps for you. This was crucial for building both the Android and the iPhone/iPad version of Fitwatchr using one unified codebase.
PhoneGap Build plugins - On the occasion that there is some common functionality not available to you via PhoneGap, you can leverage community-submitted plugins (Java or Objective C native code that exposes JavaScript endpoints). I used ChildBrowser for the browser window that opens up during the Fitbit authentication process.

Initial thoughts on these design decisions:

Announcing Fitwatchr: Convert your Fitbit activity into WeightWatchers Points!

Thu, 08 Aug 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Connect your Fitbit account, calculate your daily activity points, then launch Weight Watchers mobile site to log them:

Update 2/23/2014: Fitwatchr has been updated to include an expanded focus - everyone, regardless of weight loss program, can enjoy the app.

More background details:

A while ago I joined WeightWatchers. They have a pedometer you can buy that tracks steps and thus calculates earned activity points; neat, but I wasn’t thrilled that it was tied to their platform (plus a monthly sub fee!). Incidentally, a couple of months after that, my company sent out a notice about allowing us to purchase Fitbit activity trackers. Fitbit is more than just a pedometer - it counts steps, stairs, and sleep patterns along with a very healthy community with forums, groups, etc. I bought one and love it!

Tips for creating MVP's on the cheap

Fri, 26 Jul 2013 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve been working on side projects for about 3 years now. During that time I’ve figured out good ways of avoiding racking up fees for software, services, and hosting. If you like to prototype quickly and pivot often, these tips are for you!

Code can be written using a free IDE (Notepad++, Eclipse, Sublime Text). If web-based, online tools like jsFiddle are very handy for quickly trying ideas in a browser.

Always Be Hacking

Tue, 30 Apr 2013 00:00:00 +0000

The thought behind the phrase “Always be selling” is that you should constantly be marketing yourself to others, since you never know where the next customer will come from. What about new ideas/inspirations?

I propose that you should “always be hacking” as well - never stop learning, growing, and thinking about improving the world around you:

Keep aware of your surroundings at all times. At work. At home. Out in the world. Note situations that are frustrating or that slow you down - can they be improved in some way? Can that manual task be automated without a negative time cost?

FixMyQ Android app Post Mortem

Wed, 10 Apr 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Just over 2 years ago, I published my first smartphone application: a Netflix Android app that helped me solve the problem of losing track of expiring Instant Queue movies. This app was my first independent effort and by far my most successful to date. As of mid-April 2013, I’ve hit 1,300 active installs and 7,600 total installs.

Key Lessons Learned:

Build something useful/Solve a problem you’re interested in. If you are generally excited about the work, you’re more likely to stick with it over time and see it all the way through. Users/installs don’t happen over night, but will come over time if you build something useful. The rush of seeing that first download, then the fifth, then hitting 100+ downloads is incredible and the learning experience that comes with dealing with users is priceless!
Building an app around a popular product or company helps with traction. Spending some time searching the app stores can be very insightful -how many apps relate to my idea? How popular are they? When I started, there were only a handful of results for “netflix” - Netflix didn’t even have an official app yet! Getting in early was great; by the time the other apps showed up, I had significant download traction and was a top search result. Thus, if possible, get something out there before it becomes too saturated. If that isn’t possible, my next point can help.
Focus on differentiation. This is the first thing I focus on with designing new applications because of what I learned developing FixMyQ: figuring out how to provide a unique, compelling experience that is similar yet different from others. With FixMyQ, I noticed that others were simply copying the main Netflix features - searching for movies, showing instant/dvd queues, etc. I found a useful, unique twist: showing the user’s instant queue but instead of normal details (actors, release date, length) I solely showed title and expiration date with an option to sort the queue by movies that were expiring next (the idea being that if you see them at the top of the queue, you’re more likely to watch them before they expire).
Pick the right app platform for your goals: I originally chose Android over iPhone (even though iPhone was more popular) as it was more “open” than iPhone and I could develop on a PC (I still find the Mac requirement a big annoyance 3 years later). Now, Android has overtaken iPhone in terms of user install base and a new contender, Windows Phone, has emerged.
Monetization strategies: Currently in 2013, it has now well known that Android users tend to not buy apps vs. iPhone users that more consistently do. While I never got around to this, ads on Android and a fixed cost on iPhone seem to be the way to go.
Development tool issues: 3 years later, Eclipse/Android is still a major pain to work with. Granted, Google has made great strides to alleviate the pain of getting started, but even now I’ve recently had multiple friends almost give up on their apps because installing Eclipse/Android SDKs are mind-numbing. As my buddy Brandon Nelson told me, “I feel like I’ve gotten so much accomplished when all I’ve really done is open Eclipse, run my app, and see nothing crash.” Indeed, Brandon, indeed. :)
Beware relying on 3rd parties. Without a signed contract with a company, they can change their data/APIs that your app relies upon without notice. This happened to me a few months back - again, the purpose of my app is to notify users of instant movie expirations. With no notification, Netflix removed the main API endpoint that I was using - effectively rendering my app useless. Backlash was strong in the comment section, naturally. One month ago, they announced that no more public API developer keys would be handed out. This time, the comment section was closed. Twitter, Facebook, and other popular services are starting to tighten up their APIs as well, leading many to question the value in building apps that rely on these services.

Where do I go from here?

Back to Basics with CloudSpokes and Meteor.js

Wed, 06 Feb 2013 00:00:00 +0000

I’m starting off 2013 by going back to basics re: my web development skills - attempting to master the core technologies - HTML, CSS and JavaScript. I’m focusing now on JavaScript, by far the most intricate and difficult of the three. I recently discovered the CloudSpokes Coding Challenges and thought it would be a good excuse to work hands-on with JS.

I just wrapped up my submission for CloudSpokes’ First Time Submitter Challenge for January 2013. I built a lightweight web app used to track the status of projects.

My First Desktop PC Build

Sun, 06 Jan 2013 00:00:00 +0000

I built my first desktop PC over the past couple of months with the help of some of my coworker buddies. It was a fantastic experience - I was able to build a fast, powerful Desktop for less than the cost of a mid-range laptop (excluding the cost of monitors). I focused on 3 areas: software development (good CPU, lots of RAM and an SSD), gaming (2GB GPU), and media (1TB HDD for movies/tv/games).

2012 in Review

Thu, 03 Jan 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Work

I’ve come a long way in my 3.5 years with The SAVO Group - this year was certainly the busiest but also the most rewarding. Highlights include:

Leadership: I was placed in charge of the design/architecture of a bunch of our largest projects, which forced me to better the methods our team uses in designing and implementing reusable packaged solutions. On top of that, the biggest challenge of the year was being placed in charge of a team of outsourced developers that assisted with our larger projects. It has been a big success so far - we are delivering high quality software at a much faster rate!
Additional Projects: Winning the SAVO Innovation Challenge, creating an internal Google Chrome extension, and a strong focus on training/personal development (attending That Conference and ALM Chicago, DiSc/Leadership on-site training, Pluralsight, etc.)
Skills: More web development technologies (ASP.NET MVC, JavaScript, Salesforce.com), Office Automation (Excel, PowerPoint, OpenXml).

Personal Development Projects

Excel Add-in (Plugin) Development Tips

Sun, 04 Nov 2012 00:00:00 +0000

My current side project involves creating an Excel Add-in for Excel 2007 and 2010. Here are some useful tips and “gotchas” that I came across/experienced:

Incredibly helpful: Searching the web for Excel help can be a painful experience - follow the VSTO team’s advice! Enable the Developer ribbon, start recording a macro, complete an action, then view the resulting VBA code. It will get you most of the way!
Use .NET 4.0 for the Excel Add-in. An immediate benefit is not having to include a bunch of Type.Missing arguments - this is automatically handled for you.
When debugging, always close the Excel application instead of choosing “Stop Debugging” from Visual Studio.
As a result of many debugging sessions with Excel, it can decide to “hard disable” your Addin, which causes it not to load when debugging (with no error messages!). Here’s how to fix it.
Unit testing an Excel Add-in is very limited, so decouple your logic into separate class libraries wherever possible.
Use a for loop to iterate through collections of Excel objects (Ranges, Cells, Worksheets, etc.) instead of a foreach loop. Otherwise, the order of the elements can be incorrect or even skipped!
Across the Web (looking at you, MSDN!), Microsoft Office applications are often referred to by their version numbers instead of year numbers. Excel 2007 is “Excel 12.0”, Excel 2010 is “Excel 14.0”, and Excel 2013 is “Excel 15.0”.
To switch from debugging in Excel 2010 to 2007, see here.
If you do not use Excel 2010-specific features, your plugin will just work with Excel 2007.

"EverNoble" wins That Conference 2012's Hackathon for "Best Use of Azure"!

Wed, 15 Aug 2012 00:00:00 +0000

I am currently at “That Conference”, a brand new 3 day software development conference located in the Wisconsin Dells. Last night, I participated in a 4 hour hackathon - my first ever! Categories included “Best Use of Twilio”, “Best Use of Windows Azure”, and “Best Summer Camp theme”. My app won first place for “Best use of Windows Azure”!

It’s easy to forget things if you don’t write them down, so I use Evernote for organizing my thoughts, daily todo’s and projects. What if you have a thought/idea/note that you want to remember, but for some reason WIFI is not available? What if you don’t have a smart phone? My app allows you to send a text message to a special number, which then creates a new note in Evernote with the text message body.

Notable Details:

Built on multiple services: a Windows Azure-hosted ASP.NET MVC3 web application, Twilio (for text message/SMS capabilities), and the Evernote Web API (to create a new Evernote note)
4 hour sprint (7pm to 11pm, but judging/presentations took us to 12:30am!)
Famous (in tech) Microsoft community manager Scott Hanselman as a Guest Judge
Prize: free beer tickets for Happy Hour (ha!) and a Sphero device

Technical Implementation:

"SAVO Desktop" Wins SAVO's Innovation Challenge!

Tue, 12 Jun 2012 00:00:00 +0000

I am pleased to announce that my team has won 1st place in the Q2 2012 SAVO Innovation Challenge!

Last week, my team presented our app to SAVO’s Senior Leadership Team, which includes the heads of all departments as well as the CEO. After a bit of a rocky start (my laptop could not connect to the Internet), the SLT was greatly impressed with our application. We were the only team with a cross-departmental team (two of us from Consulting and one from Sales) and combined our software development skills with sales/business knowledge to create a simple, elegant solution. The SLT will be supporting us as we work towards creating a Consulting offering for our clients.

Introducing SAVO Desktop: Real-time SAVO Updates via Notifications

Wed, 25 Apr 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Last Fall, SAVO’s management team introduced the first of many Innovation Challenges - employee side projects whose goal is to “showcase innovations that are very focused… and address a specific business problem.” First, second, and third place cash prizes are handed out for top entries. Today, two of my coworkers and I submitted SAVO Desktop - a Windows desktop application designed to provide real-time notifications relating to SAVO content that the user has “subscribed” to (think “following” a la Twitter).

ALM Chicago 2012 Highlights

Thu, 01 Mar 2012 00:00:00 +0000

“It will get harder before it gets easier.”

Those parting words were spoken to me by Benjamin Day and Chad Albrecht, two speakers at last week’s ALM Chicago conference. The intent of attending the conference was to learn more about Agile Development methodologies in order to apply them towards improving my team’s development processes - it was a great success. Below are some key takeaways from various speakers combined with my own thoughts:

KinecTunes Post Mortem

Fri, 16 Dec 2011 00:00:00 +0000

A few months ago, I created KinecTunes, a program which utilizes the Kinect to control iTunes.

What went wrong

There were two main issues that I didn’t initially account for:

Sensitivity to noise: Using the SDK example out of box resulted in the Kinect recognizing a lot of false positive commands. This was a big issue - it would randomly interpret lyrics in music as commands and begin to play a new song! Luckily, each time a command is interpreted, the confidence level is passed as an argument; by requiring 90% (or more) confidence, I drastically reduced the number of false positives to effectively zero.
Difficulty recognizing voice commands if it is too close to the computer speakers: The same problem occurs when using Kinect with the Xbox due to the TV’s volume being too loud at times. One solution for this (suggested by a user) is moving the Kinect away from any noise outputs as much as possible. Of course, this only helps so much.

What went right

Introducing KinecTunes - Control iTunes with Your Voice!

Fri, 08 Jul 2011 00:00:00 +0000

A few weeks ago, Microsoft released a SDK for the Kinect. As I had just gotten a Kinect, I was excited to check it out. I love the voice command feature of the Kinect (especially for Netflix on Xbox), so naturally I decided to make an app that incorporated them. I wanted something useful, something beyond just a workable demo. Today, KinecTunes is complete - the ability to control iTunes with voice commands!

"Play hard, work harder"

Fri, 01 Apr 2011 00:00:00 +0000

Hi there - My name is Matt Netkow and I’m a software developer who has a passion for learning and high quality work.

I graduated in May 2009 from Marquette University with a double major in Computer Science and Spanish. In four short years, I studied abroad in Mexico, completed an internship with Motorola, became President of the Spanish Honor Society, built an Electronic Medical Records system for the Medical College of Wisconsin’s Saturday Clinic for the Uninsured, and even got published.

About

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Hi there - My name is Matt Netkow. I’m a software developer who has a passion for learning and high quality work. On the side, I build cross platform hybrid mobile and progressive web apps using web technologies combined with the Ionic Framework and Capacitor.

Nowadays, I work for Ionic leading their developer relations team. For my full work experience, please see LinkedIn.

Contact

At times, I am available for custom development projects and mobile strategy guidance - please contact me if interested via email: matt {dot} netkow {at} gmail {dot} com

Fitwatchr

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Fitwatchr retrieves your daily Fitbit device activity minutes and breaks it down by 3 levels of intensity.

Fitwatchr calculations are approximate and based on data taken from your Fitbit device.

If you encounter issues or have feedback, please email info@fitwatchr.com.

Fitwatchr Auth

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Please wait!

MenuWise - Your Culinary Dining Companion

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Coming Soon to iOS & Android

Never Feel Lost at a Fine Dining Restaurant Again

You’re at that highly-rated restaurant you’ve been dying to try. The menu arrives, beautifully crafted but filled with mysterious ingredients like “guanciale,” “sumac,” and “miso-glazed kohirabi.” Sound familiar?

MenuWise is the mobile app that transforms uncertainty into culinary adventure.

How It Works

Snap. Scan. Savor.

📸 Snap a photo of any menu or dish name
🔍 Instant insights on unfamiliar ingredients and cooking techniques
🍽️ Visual previews showing what dishes typically look like
💡 Smart recommendations based on your taste preferences

Features That Make Dining Effortless

✨ AI-Powered Recognition - Advanced image processing identifies ingredients and dishes instantly

My Wedding

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Redirect to http://uw.theknot.com/view/9578283852562249/6945546

Projects

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

I’m currently focused on mobile app development through my company Netkosoft, but I have been known to dabble in all sorts of software/hardware projects. Most notable projects include:

Fitwatchr: Advanced Fitbit calorie tracker (Active development)
iOS, Android, and Windows Phone; >30,000 lifetime downloads

Fitwatchr began as an app that converts Fitbit activity into Weight Watchers activity points. Now, it features advanced calorie tracking that can be used by anyone looking to lose or maintain their weight.

Speaking

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

I’m available for speaking engagements on various software and career topics. All slide decks and demo code are available on GitHub. Some talks I’ve delivered:

Time to Find Your Calling

Slalom Speaks - September 2016 - Seattle University, WA

On a recent vacation, I met Paul, a self reliant, local winemaker. At 91 years old, he does things “his way”. I found his passion for excellence inspiring! I cover his embrace of authenticity through my tasting experience, his winery tour, and his stories about his life.

Thanks for Signing Up!

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Thanks for signing up to receive notice when my Pluralsight course “PhoneGap Build Fundamentals” launches! I’ll also periodically send PhoneGap tips and articles.

We need to confirm your email address, so please click the link in the email we just sent you.

While you wait for the course, check out some of my top PhoneGap tips (View All):

Just Say No to Plugin Fuzzy Versioning

“It’s Not You, It’s Me”: Start Using NPM for PhoneGap Build Plugins Now