I've finally finished the 'Build a page of playing cards' Certification project on freeCodeCamp. Emojis included, Yay me! 😁 I had to resist the urge to make a small game and settle on having the cards change since the project was already taking to long 😂 3 more certifications till I can do the final exam and move onto JavaScript. Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfqPTWYGoVQ github: https://github.com/Gre-mie/freeCodeCamp_certs

So @Corbin Vanarsdall and I have been working on getting the Army Flight Logbook converted over to a subscription based model instead of a lifetime payment. Apple just approved it on August 1st, 2026. And since then, we have had 18 new user signups, and only 1 of them chose to go monthly. I think right now we have it set up for $35.99 a year or $3.99 per month. Link to the App if you want to see what we made: Click Here This is my first time going with an in-app subscription purchase because both Apple and Google are very picky I tried to avoid this as much as possible. For something that is digital, you must use them as a payment processor in order to gain access to the app. And I know that we wanted to be there for Google, we wanted to be there for Apple App Store, and we also wanted to make sure that they can go through our website as well. Now, both Apple and Google take 30% of what you charge unless you apply for the small business program that they have, and then they only take 15% And if people pay through the web, then you only have Stripe fees, which is WAY LESS than 15%. As far as payment portal numbers: 1 x Web 2 x Google Play 15 x Apple App Store Lessons Learned: Email Verification Issue: Now, we did have to go back and forth several times with Apple to get this approved. One of the things we had to work around is the email confirmation setup, meaning that when Apple logs in as a new user to test the subscription, they're not going to check their email for a verification code. They don't have the time to do that. One of the ways that we had to go around that is to give them a username with a wildcard that would automatically bypass any type of email going out, along with the verification code that they would have to type in. Using AI: AI can really help you move the ball forward and take the comments that Apple gives you when they reject your app and determine what the next steps are needed to get that app approved.

I just finished the first ‘Responsive Web Design’ certification in freeCodeCamp, ‘Build a Survey Form’. 1 down 4 to go. The w3 website validator is amazing. Never knew divs weren’t supposed to go inside legends https://validator.w3.org/ Heres a link to the github for curious people, it also contains a few labs: https://github.com/Gre-mie/freeCodeCamp_certs

So I don't know if you guys have been following along with my Army flight logbook journey, but today everything went live, and a lot of major changes happened for this launch. I think we've been working on this update since this past April. And it is finally a great feeling that it's published, but that also came with some hurdles. - It was a big UI Change for people - You can't always find all the bugs - people will find them and let you know - Trying to be quick on the support tickets while hunting down the bugs and publishing fixes - It works on Apple devices, but not on Android devices One of the bugs today that was crippling Android users was the date picker. Anytime someone selected a date picker on their phone, the app would crash, but that did not happen in our simulators. That only came about from actual Android devices. And in our user base, I didn't really put much focus on Android, since it probably accounts for about 15% of users. So my lesson learned here is definitely to have some Android users test before the app goes live. Lol Special thanks to @Corbin Vanarsdall for helping with all the UX/UI design and the in app support system that he was able to get integrated. Apple Link for Army Flight Logbook: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/flight-logbook-army/id6469672888

While working through the CSS section on freeCodeCamp I kept getting ideas for side projects to explore different concepts. I’ve built many of these over the years but usually delete them as clutter. I also tend to delete old repos on Github so I don’t end up with a massive graveyard. But I’d like to share some occasionally and not have them disappear when people want to see them years later. So I decided to build a website to store my curiosity projects and throw it on Netlify. I planned to make a “quick” landing page that linked to everything. Since it's just a place to store small projects it doesn’t need to be perfect just something I understand and can expand on later. I find ChatGPT complicates things beyond my understanding, so decided to build it myself and had ChatGPT generate some colour pallets, they're very bland. My storage solution: Behold its splendor, Its magnificence, Its unbelievably-took-too-long-to-make glory, Its a box… I have another side project I'd like to work on and add before I launch it.