About

I'm a mobile app & backend web developer.

I believe code and design should be kept simple - for the sake of user as well as the developer (and any developers to follow).

Here I am on Stack Overflow!

I also really like tacos a lot.

Work

Developers make code for people, not for computers. Good apps don't need instructions.

For the past year I've been making apps and doing backend dev for NET Nebraska, Nebraska's NPR and PBS network. In my free time, I work on Beerwolf - my homebrew beer recipe maker.

NET Nebraska Android App

In October 2013, I started work on an Android app for NET. The initial requirement was for Android users to be able to watch Nebraska high school sports tournaments that NET broadcasts, starting Nov 11.

The app fetches a JSON array of our live and on demand content from our server and sorts it into categories. The tricket part, however, was implementing closed captions for videos (an FCC reg says that any online content which is broadcast on TV must also have captions in the online version). Here's what I learned: Android does not yet have a native, stable implemntation of captioning for videos. So I had to roll my own. In about three days. My version fetches an .srt subtitle file from our server, and displays it in a TextView via a Java Runnable.

Version 2.0, currently under development by me, will feature a slicker layout for tablets, categories for NET original series like Big Red Wrap Up, and endless scrolling so the user can fetch more content from THE PAST! Right now, 2.0 is running only on my phone and Nexus 10, but I'm happy to show anyone who asks nicely.

I've also been working on an iOS App to show livestreams from the Nebraska Legislature, which will be availble in the Apple App Store in February 2014.

Backend Development

I also do a lot of backend dev work for NET. We have a lot of video and audio content that goes through a lot of processing aside from just serving to our public site. In the past year, I've developed

• A Python script to convert .vtt subtitles (for iOS) to .srt subtitles (for Android devices and the web). The script also checks for updated versions of videos & subtitles, and embeds subs in the videos as a subtitle track with MP4Box.
• A Python script for finding and syncing our original content to our Amazon CDN storage.
• A PHP script to fetch, print and cache JSON arrays of our web content for use in our mobile apps.
• A Java program which analyzes and aggregates the log data we get from Amazon.

Nebraska Ethanol Board simple CMS

I first dipped my toes into computering while at the Nebraska Ethanol Board waaaaay back in 2007 as a staff assistant. And updating their website involved using Macromedia Dreamweaver 2004 (yes, it was till Macromedia, not Adobe, back then) to edit any of around 100 static HTML pages.

It was pretty ugly sometimes. The pressing feeling of "there's got to be a better way! is actually what led me to pursue development in the first place.

By the time I'd left in 2012, I'd completely overhauled their website with a new design and new dynamic backend with a PHP-based CMS. Even though it was the first huge web project for me, the nice thing is I don't get lost in my old code when I revisit it - I still do the occasional freelance bit for the Ethanol Board.

Beerwolf

I brew my own beer -- all-grain, 10 gallon batches, on my driveway. To formulate recipes and predict the finished beer, I wrote Beerwolf - here's the old version from a few years back.

In what free time I have when I'm not actually making beer or gardening or taking care our our chickens, I work on a responsive version of Beerwolf. Excuse the completely unstyled home page yet - for me it was more important to get the mathy bits working so I could, you know, make and look at recipes from phone.

By the way, I have the Hammer Hand Pale Ale on tap at home right now and it's delcious. And I'm not beneath bribing potential employers with beer. And yes, the recipe is named after Helm Hammerhand.

Contact

billydefrain@gmail.com

402-770-9864