John Spahr

Hi, everyone! To wrap up the month, I thought I would turn my attention to working on a GoFrench update. After working on it for quite a while, I am pleased to say that I have made quite a few improvements to it! First and foremost, I have made some major improvements to the UI. Not only does it look nicer now, but it also works much better on mobile devices. Hooray! The next big change I made was removing the news section. I felt like this caused more problems than it was worth, so I don't think it's too big of a loss. Finally, I've added easily-accessible links to tons of helpful French resources. They're nearly categorized in a hamburger menu now! You can check out GoFrench here . I hope you find it helpful!

Nearly two months ago, I finally got my first Mac: a late 2014 Mac mini. While I usually don't review stuff on this blog, I thought I would make an exception for this device. My hope is that this review will be helpful and fairly unbiased while helping you make a decision on whether or not to get one of these Macs. So, how does this miniature Macintosh hold up today? Design The Mac mini's design has remained largely unchanged over the last decade. There have been a few small updates and tweaks to it, but nothing particularly major. This means that the 2014 Mac mini features the usual premium and minimal aluminum casing with a white status LED on the front. Overall, I'd say this Mac mini's design has held up pretty well! It's very small, being only 8 inches wide and long, while only having a height of 1.4 inches. It weighs a little over 2.5 pounds, so it's not too heavy, either. These dimensions make for a very nice and compact computer, and I think it fits in wi...

Hi, everyone! It's been a while, but I finally got around to releasing a major new update for LifeBoard! Version 1.4 doesn't add one huge new feature in particular, but it does make many improvements to the app. What's new: Added new 'School' category. Introduced the ability to search for stickies without a category. Made numerous improvements to the user interface. Created a way to easily view the app intro again if you need to reintroduce yourself to LifeBoard. Fixed a bug or two. You can download the latest version of LifeBoard from the Play Store . I hope you like it!

Hi, everyone! It's been a while since I last wrote about Lynx, so I thought I would share what's new. Let's begin! Online Editor Updates: I have made some improvements to the look and feel of the Online Editor. The main example of this is how I have swapped out the emoji icons for Font Awesome ones, which is admittedly something I probably should have done a while ago. Better late than never, I guess! You can check out the Online Editor  here . Offline Editor News: What about the offline (Electron) version of Lynx? Unfortunately, I have actually ended up discontinuing it. While the Lynx Offline Editor did serve a purpose, it also limited what I could do with the online version, as keeping it up to date made working on Lynx quite a bit more difficult. While I regret to cancel this version of Lynx, I think it's for the best. Anyway, thanks for reading, and have a nice day!

Hey, everyone! A new ComplimentMe update has been released, and there's more to it than you might initially think. You see, while version 2.1 might seem like a pretty minor improvement over 2.0, it actually involved me rewriting a decent bit of the app's code. How come? In this post, I'll be going over how I nearly lost ComplimentMe forever and what it took to bring it back. Without further ado, let's begin! Our story begins with a stupid mistake... A while ago, I was trying to free up some space on my laptop's boot drive. I found a directory that was an old backup of a bunch of my projects. At the time, I was pretty sure none of them had ever been edited, and I believed that they were all just out of date versions of them. As a result, I made the fatal mistake of deleting this directory. A huge mistake. It was mostly true that I had never updated any of the projects in that directory. There was only one exception: ComplimentMe. When I later learned that I had delet...

Hi, everyone! Ever since I first started working on it over a month ago, I have spent countless hours creating and perfecting Violoncello for Windows. Featuring a slick and minimal UI, lots of customization options, and support for Windows versions going all the way back to XP, I am very pleased with how the Windows version of Violoncello has turned out. As a result, I am very excited to announce that Violoncello for Windows has finally been released! Violoncello for Windows is packed with features, some of which are found in the mobile version, and others that are not. Some of these include: Open in main browser: Easily open the page you are currently viewing in Violoncello in your default browser! Custom search engine: Choose from Bing, Google, DuckDuckGo, Wikipedia, or set your own. Lots of customization: Change the background and text colors, and choose a font. Bookmarks: Easily manage and visit bookmarks. Jump to top: Quickly jump to the top of a page. (0, 0) Those are most of the...

Hey, everyone! It's hard to believe that this blog is now two years old, but here we are! Over these last few years, I've gone from platform to platform, written over 200 posts, and have never managed to consistently write Weekly Updates (😅). A lot has certainly happened since I wrote my first post here on February 12, 2019. Anyway, thank you to everyone who has read my posts over the last two years. I've certainly enjoyed writing them, and my hope is that they have been fun and interesting to read. Happy second birthday, Tectra Blog! I hope to write many more posts in the coming years, and I look forward to seeing what happens next.

Hey, everyone! I wasn't expecting to release version 1.5 of Violoncello for Andtoid quite yet. However, my plans changed and I had time to work on it! This update adds quite a few new features while making a lot of refinements to the overall user experience. What's new: Introduced the ability to hold to view link URLs and copy them. Made several refinements and improvements to automatically showing and hiding the navigation bar. Added the option to show or hide navigation menus on sites. Removed the 'Helpful Links' section on the homepage. Made some small UI tweaks and improvements. Bug fixes. You can download the latest version of Violoncello from the Play Store . I hope you like it!

With the Windows version of Violoncello set to launch soon, I wouldn't blame you for wondering if my first iOS app will also be Violoncello. However, if you're tired of hearing about Violoncello, fear not! Unless something goes terribly wrong with the app I'm working on right now, my first iOS app will not be Violoncello. Will Violoncello for iOS eventually be a thing? Hopefully, yes! The reason it's not my first iOS app is because I want to start with something a bit simpler. Keep in mind that I am still very new to iOS development, so there's a lot that I still need to learn. As a result, I think that beginning with something less complex than Violoncello is probably a good idea. How about the release date? I'm still unsure when I plan to release my first iOS app, but I'm hoping it will be fairly soon. My main focus right now is getting Violoncello for Windows ready to be released, but I'm optimistic that the launch of my first iOS app is just over the...

Hey, everyone! A few weeks ago, I finally killed off Cello Browser. Not only did it lack some very important features, but it suffered from messy code written by my younger self. It was clear that Cello was in need of a replacement. As a result, I said goodbye to Cello and began working on a Windows version of Violoncello . After several weeks of working on it, I'm excited to announce that Violoncello for Windows will hopefully be coming very soon! Building a new browser The first step in the process of bringing Violoncello to Windows would be choosing the way I'd make it. Initially, I thought I would give UWP another chance, as I really liked how it looked. However, I quickly realized that this was a really bad idea. Not only would it make Violoncello exclusive to Windows 10 users, but it would also be packaged in an APPX file instead of a traditional EXE, making distribution more difficult and inconvenient. I would probably need to publish it on the Microsoft store, which was...

Hey, everyone! February is here, which means that it's time for another plans/goals post. Here's what I hope to do this month! App Updates As usual, I hope to release some app updates this month. The main app I hope to work on is Violoncello, as I have few neat ideas for features to add to it. If I have time, I might also consider updating one of my other Android apps. New Windows app I've been hard at work on a new Windows app these last few weeks! I'm fairly confident I will be able to release it sometime this month, as it is getting pretty close to being complete. We'll see! More iOS development Finally, I hope to continue working on my first iOS project and learning Swift! I've made a lot of progress, but my first iOS app probably won't be ready for a little while longer. Wrapping things up... I'm excited for February 2021! Keep in mind that these are my goals, so there is no guarantee that I'll be able to complete all of them. However, I will do...