Blog
Practical write-ups from the trenches — guides on the unglamorous parts of running a small tech business and shipping software for it.
Wiring Email, Text and Calls Into Your Own Portal
The integration work stopped being the expensive part. What you inherit instead is a compliance and reputation surface nobody puts in the quote — 10DLC registration, sender limits, and the fact that prospecting and client communication share one reputation.
BusinessQR Code Inventory Tracking: What the Products Cost, and What Building One Costs Now
What the QR inventory and asset-tracking products actually charge, which tier unlocks the API, and why the line between buying one and building your own has moved further than most comparisons have noticed.
Measurement56 Paid Clicks, 7 AI Referrals, One Opportunity
Seven weeks of Google Ads on a one-person consultancy: $810.83, 56 clicks at $14.48 each, zero conversions. Over the same period AI assistants sent seven people and one of them became the only real opportunity this site has ever produced. Every number, and why the comparison is not the one I expected.
EngineeringWhy a QR Code Can Look Perfect and Scan as Nothing
A QR code with one field misplaced still looks like a QR code. Fifteen bits in the corner decide whether a scanner can read the other four hundred, and nothing about the image tells you they are wrong. Here is what those bits are and how to verify a code before it goes to the printer.
MobileSix Apps, One Person, and an Agent That Ships Them
What it actually takes to let an AI agent run App Store and Play Store releases: the rules that had to be written down, the one thing it is never allowed to do, and why the tedious parts are the ones worth handing over.
MobileTwo Ways to Silently Drop Every Push Notification
Your test endpoint says the push was sent. Your phone disagrees. Both of the usual causes fail quietly and neither surfaces an error anywhere you are looking.
MobileThe Rejection No Grep Will Ever Find
Two Google Play rejections, four weeks apart, for the same reason: a launcher icon belonging to the app my app was forked from. Renaming fixes code. It cannot see inside a PNG.
Measurement111 Submissions, One Delivered, None Real
Four months of contact form data from a small consulting site: what the spam actually looks like, how a filter that logs its own rejections lets you audit it, and the uncomfortable thing the numbers say about the form itself.
InfrastructureYour GoDaddy VPS Is Lying About Outbound SMTP
Every outbound SMTP port on a GoDaddy VPS is transparently redirected to a local mail relay. The connection succeeds, so the usual diagnostics all say everything is fine — and none of your mail authenticates.
MobileThe Morning Every iOS Export Broke at Once
The archive succeeds and the export fails claiming your certificate is not in the provisioning profile. The certificate is fine. What is missing is the half of it Apple never had — and the fix is one flag on an import.
EngineeringOne Invisible Character Can Destroy an Entire PDF
pdf-lib's standard fonts throw on anything they cannot encode, and the throw lands while the whole document is being saved — so one character in one field loses everything. The obvious fix quietly turns a half-inch measurement into twelve inches.
MobileI Watched the App Store Reviewer Use My App
Fifteen days in the queue, then approved the same day it was opened. Here is how to tell whether review has actually started, where Apple reviews from, and the nine minutes I watched happen in my server logs.
Custom CRMThe Build Was the Easy Part
A financial services firm with about a hundred agents left a well-known CRM this year. Writing the software took less time than deciding what the stages should mean — and that gap is the whole reason buying stopped being the automatic answer.
AI & DevelopmentYour Sales Manager Can Write Code Now. That Is Not the Hard Part.
AI coding tools put the people with the most business knowledge within reach of the codebase for the first time. The evidence says the bottleneck moved rather than disappeared — here is where it moved to, who this actually fits, and an eight-gate test before you try it.
BusinessForty Years of CRM, and the Year the Argument Changed
From a DOS pop-up in 1984 to $41 billion a year, the CRM keeps solving the last generation's problem and creating the next one. For forty years the build case lost on cost and the buy case won by default. In 2026 that finally reversed, and the history explains exactly why.
AI & DevelopmentYour Developer Used AI to Build It. Here’s How to Tell If What You Own Is Production-Ready.
You paid for software you suspect was largely AI-generated. Ten things a non-technical owner can verify — repo ownership, tests, secrets, backups, monitoring — without reading a line of code.
AI & DevelopmentI Build Client Software With AI Coding Agents. Here's What Actually Changed.
I use AI coding agents on paid client work. What actually got faster, what did not, and what it means if you are the one paying for software.
Integration & AutomationWhat It Actually Costs to Make Your CRM and Accounting Talk to Each Other
Manual re-keying between a CRM and accounting has a price you can calculate. Here is how to run that number — and where native connectors, Zapier, and custom integrations each stop working.
Case StudyThe Spreadsheet That Ran a Label Factory
A wholesale label manufacturer in Tempe ran its daily operation on spreadsheet macros. How that became their own server, web portals, and a daily export file nobody has to think about.
BusinessWhat a Custom Internal Tool Actually Costs in 2026
Software quotes for the same one-paragraph description routinely vary 10x. My rate, how a first build is actually sized, and why you should only pay for the hours you need after that.
AI & DevelopmentThe GoDaddy Moment for AI App Development Is Coming
GoDaddy collapsed web hosting from sysadmin work to a credit-card checkout. Lovable, Bolt, and v0 are doing the same for web apps — the production stack for cross-platform mobile is next.
Digital MarketingAutomatic Tweets on Twitter
This article provides an overview for automation within Twitter, with a focus on automatic Tweets.
Mobile DevelopmentGetting Started Creating a Mobile App + Website
This article provides an overview for what accounts you’ll need and links to step-by-step instructions to create a mobile app and website.
Mobile DevelopmentUpload Missing dSYMs for iOS On Firebase Crashlytics
This article provides step-by-step instructions for addressing missing dSYMs on Firebase Crashlytics for iOS apps.
Mobile DevelopmentResign an .IPA File and Submit to App Store Connect
This article provides step-by-step instructions for resigning an .IPA file and how to submit an .IPA file to App Store Connect.
Digital MarketingLogo Design
After reading this article, you’ll understand how to get high-quality logo designs with no graphic design experience required.
Digital MarketingGoogle AdSense
After reading this article, you’ll understand the basics of Google AdSense and how to install on your website.
Web DevelopmentSecuring your Website using Let’s Encrypt
After reading this article, you’ll understand the basics of the security implications between HTTP and HTTPS. We’ll also discuss the role of Let’s Encrypt in enabling HTTPS for free.
BusinessBusiness Checking Account
After reading this article, you’ll understand the use of a business checking account, what documentation is required to open one, and some of the timing considerations needed for planning your business launch.
BusinessD-U-N-S Number
After reading this article, you’ll understand what a D-U-N-S Number is, why you need one, and how to get one.
Mobile DevelopmentCreating Mobile Developer Accounts
After reading this article, you’ll know the mobile operating systems and associated app stores worthy of creating and maintaining app store developer accounts.