Projects

Back in April, I was asked to assist Mystery Dog Rescue with their web site and their push for the Big Give 2017. My boss has fostered puppies for them and we are now on the second litter of kittens for them, so we thought it might be a fun day to help out. We got their food from https://twitter.com/bluebuffalo.

For the Big Give 2017, I designed a specialized microsite that we utilized to point people to on social media discussing the needs of Mystery Dog Rescue, and hourly prizes that were given out to the largest giver during the campaign.

It was a huge success. In past Mystery Dog Rescue Big Give campaigns they have struggled to hit their target goal and usually only make one-thousand dollars. This year, because of an aggressive social media and prize strategy, we were able to raise $3,495. Just narrowly missing their target of $3,500. Still a success.

Because of the success of this campaign, I was asked to join the Board of Directors for Mystery Dog Rescue. I am the Board Member At Large, and my main duties are to maintain the web site, and the social media presence and to assist at any adoption events that MDR may hold. This works out perfectly, because I have been looking for ways I can volunteer within the community and then this falls into my lap. I get to use my technical skills to help little puppies and kittens find their forever homes. A really great way to spend a Saturday.

I am working on a redesign of the MDR website to add some functionality that it desperately needs and a way to keep the site constantly updated, with either new pet photos or with news of events that are coming up. Additionally, there is currently not a way to get foster parents to sign up to take an animal into their home, or for volunteers to sign up to join us at any events. These I think will be the main challenges I will focus on.

One of my big goals for 2017 was to make an app.

Tonight was a big night for me. I have been doing an iOS development course on Udemy. I just finished section 2 of the course.

And I made my first app.

It is a very simple app. All it does is take the input age of your cat, converts the string into an integer, multiplies it by the number of years that a cat has to people and then outputs that number down below.

With a cute picture of a kitten to boot.

I guess technically this is the second app I have made, the first tho was much simpler and only did the most basic of input and output.

You can input a string, and the app outputs it into a label box.

Tomorrow we start Swift Playgrounds, which allows you to work with code without having to run the slow iOS simulator.

Should be fun.

I am enjoying the challenge this course offers so far, and am excited for it to get a bit more challenging. Especially when we start making clones of popular apps. It will be neat to see the mechanics behind instagram and snapchat.