entrepreneur – Zack Matthews

Raspberry-Pi: Motion light switch

My latest little side project has been utilizing a Raspberry-Pi to turn on lights via motion detection. Here’s a quick run down of how I got this working. What you’ll need: – Raspberry Pi w/ Raspbian – Webcam – Hue lights – Motion (https://github.com/Motion-Project/motion) First things first, head over to the motion github page to get that installed on your Pi. This will do all the heavy lifting (why re-invent the wheel here?) as far as motion detection goes. Motion will let you specify a script to execute if it recognizes motion in a specific area of the screen or...

August 24, 2017

android / android / communications / entrepreneur / entrepreneurship / Experience / iOS / networking / programming / Projects / SIP / socialmedia / VoIP / WebRTC

PUC – Personal Universal Communicator

Once again, Christmas has come and gone. I’ve been working all year to deliver on the Universal communications app aimed at not just the accessibility community but to everyone. We want the PUC project to be the end all be all for communications. We have so much room to improve (who doesn’t?) but we want to share our work with the world. From being one of the first to implement the new FCC mandated real time text, to high quality video, HD voice, multi-media messaging and more, PUC is the ultimate communications platform. Having been the Sr. Software Engineer for...

December 27, 2016

Algorithms / Data Structures / entrepreneur / entrepreneurship / Experience / iOS / programming / Projects / tools

iOS Tools [5.0+]: FXKeychain – The stress-free, easy to use Keychain wrapper

FXKeychain, by nicklockwood just saved me about an hour of brushing up on the latest changes to Apple’s already slightly complicated password manager library, Keychain. What would otherwise be a bunch of convoluted C calls with ARC complications and a myriad of other caveats, FXKeychain provides a ridiculously easy to use wrapper that resembles something intuitive that we should all be somewhat familiar with: Dictionary syntax. To insert a value into Keychain: [FXKeychain defaultKeychain][@”password”] = sipAuthPassword; To retrieve a value: [FXKeychain defaultKeychain][@”password”]; That’s it! Somebody give nicklockwood some love!

March 28, 2016

Algorithms / android / data structures / Data Structures / entrepreneur / entrepreneurship / Experience / microcontrollers / programming / Projects / raspberrypi

Pi Zero Update and the future of computing

Just wanted to give everyone a quick update on my experience with the Pi Zero so far. I haven’t done any circuitry or wiring, but have been crushing up on my breadboards / circuits. However, I did set up a hole in my firewall to setup SSH, VNC, and a WeMo switch to power my Pi remotely. All in all, this was a really cool experience to learn more about networking, terminal, and how to maximize computations with limited memory / CPU power. Diving a little deeper, I wanted to see if I could whip up a quick IoT app last week. In...

March 28, 2016

android / android / entrepreneur / entrepreneurship / Experience / iOS / networking / programming / Projects / socialmedia / tools

Raspberry Pi’s, Photons, and the magical world of Computer Engineering

Very often we can find ourselves in a career rut no matter the industry. We do the same things, learn similar skills to what we know, and are far too frightened to branch out to try something new. As a means of fighting complacency I’ve wanted for a long time to jump into the world of microcontrollers / hardware, but there has always appeared to be such a high barrier to entry. This article is for the Software Engineer who has been unsure of the hardware world but has an interest in giving it a go. My goal though this...

March 4, 2016

Algorithms / android / data structures / Data Structures / entrepreneur / entrepreneurship / Experience / iOS / networking / peekintomymind / people business / programming / Projects / socialmedia / Uncategorized

Press: iD Tech Updated Success Story

So grateful to iD Tech (Programming Academy) for the kind words and update of my story with them. iD Tech has had one of the greatest impacts on my career and I would recommend them to anyone looking to spend a summer learning about or teaching others about Software Engineering. To learn more about iD and read about my experience with them check out the updated story over at iDTech‘s site.

February 27, 2016

Algorithms / android / android / entrepreneur / entrepreneurship / Experience / iOS / networking / programming / Projects / tools

Android Project: Fork of Google “Meter” live wallpaper

Though I’m still working full time I couldn’t help but get my hands dirty with some code over our Christmas break. I wanted to create something I would use on a daily basis as well as have that “cool factor.” Thus spawned the idea of modifying Google’s data centric live wallpaper “meter” for Android. My fork currently adds a settings page that can be configured to do a GET from two URL’s and display that information atop of your Android Desktop. My initial use case for this is to display system status from my office and home Macbooks such as...

December 30, 2015

entrepreneur / entrepreneurship / Experience / networking / people business / socialmedia / tools

A challenge to the insecure entrepreneur: You gave me my career

I get it. Being an entrepreneur can be discouraging. In fact, it can very often end up costing you everything you own. Family and friends may not understand the reasons you pursue the things you do. They don’t see the vision, the greater picture. People say you’re crazy. My word to anyone who is discouraged with where they are at, overwhelmed with finances, or any other worries that have come your way because you chose to pursue your dreams is this: You gave me a career. The reason I can work a salary based Software Engineering position today and provide...

December 12, 2015

Category: entrepreneur