Marcel R. G. Berger

Software architect, indie app developer, author. I build apps and run them myself. Apps for companies:

[Marcel R. G. Berger @marcelrgberger]

Port 22 open for fifteen minutes on a Civo firewall: phone, MFA code, browser, edit the rule. Same again to close it.

CivoCloudManager does it in one click from the Mac menu bar, for your current IP, with an auto-close timer (app running and online).
https://t.co/jZHcEfxLzK

[Marcel R. G. Berger @marcelrgberger]

How do you check work you don't fully understand yourself?

AI makes me faster at what I already know. It doesn't hand me skills I don't have.

For the parts that matter, that's what specialists are for. I run one: The App Architect.

[Marcel R. G. Berger @marcelrgberger]

Why does a Wyoming LLC use a .co.za domain?

https://t.co/XlGqjmS5kO was registered in 1997, not by us. Now: domain from South Africa, company in Wyoming, servers in Frankfurt and London, email on servers in France.

We take what fits, from any country.
https://t.co/JjiDPvCEvG

[Marcel R. G. Berger @marcelrgberger]

IRS, tax year 2023: 4.58 million partnership returns. 3.33 million of them were filed by domestic LLCs. About 73 percent.

Single-member LLCs aren't even in that count.

Niche is a strange word for it.
https://t.co/BtazpHrMVR

[Marcel R. G. Berger @marcelrgberger]

The S3 browser in CivoCloudManager signs its requests with AWS Signature V4, written in Swift on CryptoKit. No AWS SDK, no Electron.

Kubernetes goes to the API over client-certificate mTLS, so no kubectl either.

Native Mac app for Civo:
https://t.co/ttmjERyQpN

[Marcel R. G. Berger @marcelrgberger]

Supermarket wine shelf, a hundred bottles, no clue. Sommelio scans the whole shelf or the wine list and gives each wine a match score for your taste, with a plain reason. If nothing fits, it says so.

No account, first scans free. iPhone and Android.
https://t.co/5f0E49ui2a

[Marcel R. G. Berger @marcelrgberger]

Say your app developer quits tomorrow. Could you still get an update into the App Store next week?

Seven questions you should be able to answer without calling anyone. A ZIP of the source code is not a handover.

https://t.co/PiokVfrzSm

[Marcel R. G. Berger @marcelrgberger]

It's GLOVE.

The game gives you 60 seconds, every correct word adds ten seconds, and a streak multiplies the score up to six times. No ads, no energy meter, one-time unlock instead of a subscription.
https://t.co/LrXkvyeXHy

[Marcel R. G. Berger @marcelrgberger]

Three pictures, one word, five letters.

In SnapShots the images stay up for seven seconds in the first five puzzles of a round, then you build the word from twelve tiles. This is a puzzle from the game.

I'll post the answer tonight.

[Marcel R. G. Berger @marcelrgberger]

Who owns the code your developer writes?

With us: your repository from day one. With each paid milestone, the rights to the project work delivered pass to you, build setup included. Open-source parts and our existing tools keep their licences. § 8
https://t.co/HmYwtJC03P

[Marcel R. G. Berger @marcelrgberger]

A US LLC in the imprint? Sounds sus.

Check it yourself:
- Sheridan is our registered agent's address
- Filing ID public at the Wyoming Secretary of State
- EU businesses: reverse charge
- Servers in Frankfurt and London

https://t.co/zTaWWts7HP

[Marcel R. G. Berger @marcelrgberger]

Own an Android phone or tablet app nobody touched this year? Since 31 August Google Play only takes updates that target API level 36 or higher. The extension you can request ends 1 November.

What applies and what the update involves:
https://t.co/v76o2K3QzJ

[Marcel R. G. Berger @marcelrgberger]

Rebuilt all three websites and sorted out which one is for what.

https://t.co/5huNpEi9hs – the company behind it
https://t.co/VByNeP4FUe – apps built and run for companies
https://t.co/CWOjQdFSAz – my own apps, open source, the book

Client work goes to the middle one.

[Marcel R. G. Berger @marcelrgberger]

most apps replace a spreadsheet, not a problem.

the useful question before building anything: what would break first if this doubled. if the answer is "nothing, it would just be a bigger file", the spreadsheet is still right.

[Marcel R. G. Berger @marcelrgberger]

Ten days left. From 31 August, Google Play only accepts Android updates that target API 36. Apps still below API 35 stay installed, but stop being available to new users on newer phones.

Nobody sends you a mail about it. You can ask for an extension until 1 November.

[Marcel R. G. Berger @marcelrgberger]

An app is not finished when it works. The work that follows is the part nobody puts in a budget: new phone models, store rules that change without asking, and at some point the one person who knew how the process ran has left.

[Marcel R. G. Berger @marcelrgberger]

When a client asks how long it takes, the answer is rarely about programming. Six weeks turn into five months while three people wait for someone to decide who signs off on the wording.

[Marcel R. G. Berger @marcelrgberger]

Every second app request starts with "roughly like WhatsApp".

Chat looks simple on the screen. The hard part is what happens when the message does not arrive, the phone has no signal for two hours, or someone deletes their account.

The screen is never the expensive part.

[Marcel R. G. Berger @marcelrgberger]

when someone asks me to quote an app, my first question is never what it should do. it is what happens on the worst day.

no signal. wrong data typed in. the one person who knew how it works has left.

the good day is easy. you are paying for the bad one.

[Marcel R. G. Berger @marcelrgberger]

Spent a month reading ad numbers and drawing conclusions about demand.

Then I opened the ad group settings. One ad group. Exact match only. Search Match: off.

I had been measuring a market I switched off myself.