I Built an Android App at 79 With Zero Coding Experience.

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Here's How, and why the most important tool I used wasn't a programming language.

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I'm a lifelong gearhead. Have been since I was old enough to tell the difference between a flathead and a flat tire.
nOver the decades I've spotted more interesting abandoned vehicles down more back roads than I could ever count. Barn finds. Field finds. The occasional gem rusting quietly behind a fence with a "not for sale" sign that may or may not have been meant seriously.
nAnd for just as many decades I've played the same maddening game.
nI spot something. No time to stop. I make a mental note to come back later when I have more time. Then "later" arrives and the vehicle is perfectly clear in my mind?-?a '66 Mustang fastback, blue, peeling paint on the roof, weeds growing up through the wheel wells?-?but where? Which road? Which town?
nGone. Completely gone.

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I called this problem "Where Did I See That?" and I lived with it for decades. Until one day I decided I didn't want to accept it anymore.

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The App I Needed Didn't Exist
nThe old saying goes "There's an app for that", except when I went looking for a solution there was not an App for that.

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Something simple?-?take a photo, stamp it with GPS coordinates, jot a quick note, make it searchable later. It didn't seem like much to ask.

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I couldn't find exactly what I wanted. So at 79 years old, with zero coding experience and a stubbornness my family will confirm borders on pathological, I decided to build it myself.

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Let me be clear about what that means. I didn't know Javascript from Guava Juice. I had never heard of an API. The word "database" meant something you bought software to manage back in the nineties. I was starting from absolute zero.

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What I built?-?six months later?-?was a real Android app. Firebase authentication. PayPal subscription payments. GPS geotagging. Voice-dictated and typed notes. ZIP export with formatted HTML field reports. A free tier and a paid tier and a payment flow that works reliably across devices.

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This Ebook is the story of how that happened. and the tools that made it possible

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A 79 Year old Gearhead, An AI Co-pilot, and a Real Android APP. Impossible? I Decided to Find Out.

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