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App'ed programming

So I've built some cools stuff as a software engineer - applications with voice response, telephony and vision technology, web applications and GUI front-ends for medical devices. But I've had conversations outside of work where I've told people that I make software for a living and they excitedly say "Oh! Are you an App developer?" and then display the littlest bit of disappointment when I tell them I develop software for medical products- "oh well, that's nice too".

So in my efforts to make it into the big time, I'm delving into the world of apps. I recently became the proud owner of a Nexus 7 - since I'm way too cheap to pay for a Smartphone. This will, of course, affect my choice of platforms for my app. And as every designer, business analyst and marketer would point out, the platform doesn't matter. What you build is what matters. What problem gets solved, what human needs get fulfilled, what "niche gets scratched"? That's the key.

So, what to make? I've always got ideas, but I'd like something tractable, smallish, which will let me explore lot's of client-side tools and techniques and yes, which has some small kernel of need associated with it. And that I can run on my Nexus - and feel oh-so-cool!

Speaking of cool, my son has raced go-karts for the last 8 years. We've traveled around the northeast U.S. to races weekend after weekend and learned a lot in the process. And had some fun. And some success. And some disappointment.

It turns out, that even though a go kart looks simple, there are a lot of variables to play with to make them faster. Keeping track of all these variables is kind of a pain. Tire pressures, alignment, weight distribution and track width, just to name a few. Lot's of notes on paper and after awhile you develop setup sheets on paper to help organize your measurements and settings. But there's no easy way to search these notes, sort them, and all in all, they aren't as helpful as they could be.

I'm sure you know where I'm going with this. I want software to do this for me. I want it to be available on a smartphone, tablet or laptop because I might be home or at the track when I'm using it. It needs to work offline and online.

So, that's the direction I'm heading in. I think I've decided to do it with HTML5 - that can meet most of the criteria I've mentioned so far - multiplatform, online and offline - and it's all the technology I want to become expert in. Let's call it Winning Setups for now.

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