32 posts tagged with "homol-works"

I like making things a lot more than I like promoting them. So this week I gave the promoting part to a Grok Bot. My Homol Works bot now helps market Barry, Backseat Games, Memento Mori and the open-source tools — and Homol Works finally has social accounts of its own.

The one rule: nothing gets posted without my OK.

What happened​

• Set up Homol Works on X, a Facebook Page and Instagram, all with the same bio: Staying curious and hopefully creating more than I consume. With AI, we're only limited by curiosity and creativity.
• The first posts went out on all three: the Backseat Games 1.5 Halloween launch
• Every Monday morning the bot drops a weekly content batch in chat — four or five ready-to-post ideas with captions, hashtags, and what screenshot or clip to pair with each — and I keep, cut or rewrite them
• This week's picks are scheduled: a Barry collage on Wednesday and a Memento Mori "one week at a time" post on Thursday, with a Happy Halloween from Barry and a Thanksgiving road-trip blitz coming up
• The same bot now curates this weekly blog, too: it combs through my commits, Cursor chats and bot activity, recommends stories, and drafts the post after I say keep or drop

The TikTok aside​

I also made a Homol Works TikTok. On my very first login, it told me I was banned. No posts, no followers, no crimes — just banned. The appeal is in. Until then, the dad jokes stay on the other three.

SHIP LOG: Memento Mori · Store 1.1.0 · headed to the App Store

Memento Mori has had no ads since launch. Version 1.1 is the first step toward it paying for itself: a few small, non-personalized banner ads, and a one-time $3.99 Remove Ads purchase for anyone who'd rather not see them. This morning I saw a real ad running in the app on TestFlight, so 1.1 is headed to the App Store for review now.

What's in 1.1​

• Banner ads on This Week, Memoir and Stats — Calendar and Dreams never show ads
• A one-time Remove Ads in-app purchase for $3.99, plus Restore Purchases under Settings → Ads
• Ads are non-personalized, and everything else still stays on your phone
• A little goal-UI polish along the way

How it came together​

• RevenueCat handles the purchase and entitlement, on top of StoreKit; I set up the IAP in App Store Connect, the RevenueCat product and offering, and baked the RevenueCat iOS key into TestFlight builds
• AdMob serves the banners; the app was approved in AdMob this morning and the first live banner ad unit is wired in through a TestFlight environment variable
• AdMob needs to verify the developer website, so I published app-ads.txt right here on homol.work
• Most of this was a back-and-forth with Cursor in my Memento Mori workspace ("is RevenueCat a website?" was a real question I asked)

What's next​

Submit 1.1 for review, then double-check Remove Ads and Restore on the store build. I'll post again when it's live.

Memento Mori on the App Store — 1.1 with the ads and the Remove Ads option arrives once Apple approves it.

A week of showing up in public. homol.work got reframed around curiosity and Creations, Barry got a whimsical new splash page and the start of an AI-assisted character library, Memento Mori 1.1 is headed to the App Store with banner ads and a $3.99 Remove Ads option, ThreeWill Feud went open source, and Homol Works finally has social accounts (TikTok had other ideas).

Highlights​

• homol.work: The site is reframed around curiosity and creating, with Creations, product heroes, a credentials page and social links.
• Barry: It has a whimsical new splash page, it's now on Kindle, and an AI-assisted character library is underway.
• Memento Mori: Version 1.1 adds banner ads and a $3.99 Remove Ads option, and it's headed to the App Store.
• Backseat Games: The 1.5 holiday themes are live, with a skeleton, a pilgrim and a snowman in Hangman.
• ThreeWill Feud: It's now a public, MIT-licensed repo with configurable games.
• Automation: Homol Works has its own social accounts and a weekly content routine, and a couple of Grok Bots are helping run my work week.

Learn More​

• homol.work Makeover — Builds Became Creations — curiosity framing, three product heroes, a credentials page, social links
• Barry's New Splash Page — A Teaser, Not a Spoiler — text-free story crops, handwritten type, ages 2–6, Kindle
• Building a Barry Character Library with AI — turnaround, expressions, six outfits, Astronaut Barry, and the rules that keep him Barry
• Memento Mori 1.1 — Banner Ads and a $3.99 Remove Ads — RevenueCat, AdMob, app-ads.txt, headed to the App Store
• ThreeWill Feud Goes Open Source — pack-driven boards, a Forms importer, configurable endings, MIT
• Homol Works Goes Social with an AI Marketing Assistant — X, Facebook, Instagram, a weekly content batch, and a very short TikTok career
• Bots Running the Work Week — a roadmap bot that opens docs-only PRs, and a bot for timesheets and retention scoring

SHIP LOG: Backseat Games · App Store 1.5 · Built with Cursor

Backseat Games 1.5 is live on the App Store — Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas looks you can buy separately, plus Hangman that finally matches the rest of the doodled roadside.

Right after 1.4.0 went live, the next train was seasonal: families should be able to buy a full holiday look before travel. Classic stays free. Each season is its own one-time IAP — preview in the Store, buy once, apply anytime in Settings.

What’s new in 1.5​

• Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas theme packs — home heroes, sky bleeds, seasonal logo beats, critters, and holiday bingo icons
• Each pack is a separate IAP; Classic remains the original road-trip look
• Hangman moved off formula line draws onto doodled sprites, so misses feel playful and the figure can wear the season (hitchhiker, skeleton, pilgrim, snowman)

Holiday looks​

Hangman that can wear a season​

Go play​

Backseat Games on the App Store

Free to download and join. Classic theme is always free. Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas are optional one-time unlocks. More on the Backseat Games home, privacy, and support pages.

Backseat Games 1.4 hit the App Store mid-week, then 1.5 shipped with Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas theme packs plus a doodled Hangman. On the ThreeWill side I ran a live Feud board at QAD and pushed ThreeWill Operational Dashboard Data Sync + store packaging forward — with a small Azure Maps follow-on on a client SPA.

Highlights​

• Backseat Games: 1.4.0 went live with Hangman, Color Catch, and the five-sign hero; Barry’s Kindle editions got a blog home too. Then 1.5 landed on the App Store — Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas as separate IAPs, Classic still free, and Hangman rebuilt as themed doodle sprites.
• ThreeWill Feud: ran a live host + audience board at corporate QAD — share one tab with the room, drive it from another; survey-imported rounds for that event, any answer bank for the next one.
• ThreeWill Operational Dashboard: Store package must-fix (dashboard naming / site-scoped listing), Data Sync product docs + CareLogic POC connector, and a demo-seed path for a human-services customer demo; AGENTS.md + knowledge/roadmap docs landed so the repo is cloud-agent ready.
• Client SPA follow-on: fixed Azure Maps uniqueId query and geocode URI on the facility geo path from last week (teammates kept reference-data admin, Functions jobs host, and notes SQL moving).

Learn More​

• Backseat Games 1.5 Is Live — Holiday Themes and a Doodled Hangman — seasonal packs on the App Store, separate IAPs, sprite Hangman
• ThreeWill Feud — Live Board for QAD — two-tab live architecture, survey-loaded rounds, reusable board

SHIP LOG: Backseat Games · App Store 1.4.0 · 2026-10-16 · Built with Cursor

Backseat Games 1.4 is live on the App Store — two new road-trip games on the host board, Hangman Solo that feels like the rest of the car, and a five-sign hero that finally matches what you can play.

What’s new in 1.4​

• Hangman and Color Catch join License Plates, Sign Game, and Travel Bingo — five games on the roadside signpost
• Hangman Solo with Easy / Medium / Hard from a local word list, cream road-dash letter tiles, and a hitchhiker drawing that grows as you miss
• Host chrome painted so the new games read as real signs, not stickers

The polish pass landed on TestFlight earlier this month (Hangman roadside solo); today that train is on the public App Store.

Go play​

Backseat Games on the App Store

Free to download and join. One-time host unlock if you want to run the lobby. More on the Backseat Games home, privacy, and support pages.

The paperback launch put Barry on a shelf. This week he also fits in a Kindle — same chores-vs-imagination picture book, same oversized-hoodie kid, now as an eBook you can open in seconds.

Barry has a lot to do today. Mom says so.
Between chores and shopping, only a big imagination will save the day.

What happened​

• Published Barry as a Kindle eBook alongside the premium-color paperback on Amazon: amazon.com/dp/B0HKGHVKTL
• Kept the Homol Works home at /barry as the place for tone, favorite pages, and what’s next — Amazon stays where you buy (print or Kindle)
• Took another step on the “digital Barry” path promised at paperback launch: short reads and screen-friendly formats, not only ink

Paperback or Kindle​

Pick the format that fits the kid (or the kid you used to be):

• Paperback — premium color for the coffee table and bedtime pile
• Kindle — same story for travel, grandparents’ devices, and instant gifting

Both live on the same Amazon listing. /barry still has the cover, spreads, and the “more Barry coming” roadmap.

Get Barry on Amazon

Hangman got a real roadside solo loop on TestFlight, a client SPA picked up facility address + radius search with Azure Maps, and I started leaning hard on GrokBot to talk to my Cursor workspaces — while Homol High kept the week-of-10/12 packs moving and teammates kept audit, contacts, and document uploads moving.

Highlights​

• Backseat Games: painted Hangman and Color Catch onto the host hero as real signs, then gave Hangman Solo a local Easy/Medium/Hard word list, cream road-dash tiles, and a wooden hitchhiker drawing — 1.4.0 is on TestFlight (App Store live expected later this week).
• Started heavily adopting GrokBot: bots that chat with my Cursor workspaces and help orchestrate work inside them (Homol Works marketing, Homol High, ops dashboards, and more).
• Homol High: shipped week-of-10/12 Day Pack v3 (Mon–Fri) — Jacobs Geometry Chapter 2 Week 2 with the Homol test Friday 10/16, atomic-theory / periodic Chem, classical WH start, and ELA launching 1984.
• Memento Mori: stopped tinting ornate tab PNGs into solid circles and loaded chrome sooner after the post-launch restore pass.
• On a client SPA engagement: facility address + pinpoint radius search with scripted Azure Maps geocoding landed (my slice); teammates continued audit logging, contact management, resumable large-file uploads, document download/zip, and API input validation (details stay internal).

Learn More​

• Backseat Games — Hangman Gets a Roadside Solo Loop — local difficulty lists, hitchhiker drawing, five-sign hero
• Facility Radius Search with Azure Maps — geocode, SQL geography filter, Maps-down resilience

Memento Mori actually went live, Backseat Games grew two new road-trip games (and had to bump versions again because Apple closed another train), and Homol High switched Geometry onto Jacobs while shipping the week-of-10/5 packs.

Highlights​

• Announced Memento Mori as live on the App Store (launch post), then bumped marketing version to 1.0.1 so post-release TestFlight uploads can continue, and restored ornate chrome PNGs after the deferred-preload / SF Symbols-first pass.
• Added Hangman and Color Catch to Backseat Games, then bumped the App Store marketing version to 1.4.0 after Apple closed the approved 1.3.0 train — same recovery pattern as last week, this time with the new games on the next number.
• Homol High: switched Geometry to Jacobs (chapter-test Fridays only for Homol Geometry worksheets), moved ELA onto a daily 3-part novel log with Tuesday/Thursday Home Ec hours, and shipped week-of-10/5 packs (Jacobs Chapter 2 Week 1 plus the atomic-theory start).
• On a client SPA engagement: standardized REST conventions, URL-based API versioning so v1 and a sample v2 can coexist, reference-data endpoints, and authorized document download / multi-select zip landed across several merges (details stay internal).
• For a property-management SharePoint engagement: branded property listing web part plus list customizer, property import, Entra-driven leadership stamps, and grouped list views (details stay internal).

Learn More​

• (no deep-dives kept this week)

SHIP LOG: Memento Mori · App Store · 2026-10-01 · Built with Cursor

Memento Mori is live on the App Store — a private life-in-weeks calendar for seeing your 90 years clearly, setting three goals each week, and staying present without handing your data to the cloud.

What it is​

Your life as a grid of 4,680 weeks. The ones you have lived, the one you are in, and the ones still ahead — not to alarm you, to help you choose how to spend this week.

• This Week — three goals: work, friends & family, personal
• Life calendar — mark meaningful weeks, add notes and reflections
• Dreams — a life list you can break into steps
• Memoir — weekly reflections that accumulate as you go
• Home Screen widgets — life progress, goals, and dreams-vs-time without opening the app
• Private by design — data stays on your device; export a backup anytime

Version 1.0 is free — no ads, no IAP.

Why it shipped now​

App Store prep started earlier this summer: Skia calendar, brand-coin widgets, hub pages on Homol Works, then a long stretch of review hardening (widgets, SF Symbols chrome, post-tutorial boot). Today it clears the last gate — it’s actually downloadable.

The Memento Mori home on Homol Works has the screens, the widgets shot, privacy, and support. The App Store listing is where you install it.

Go try it​

Memento Mori on the App Store

If a widget goes stale, a reminder misfires, or something feels wrong for how you reflect — email me from the support page. v1.0 is a beginning, not a victory lap.