A Puzzling Development
By early 2018 I had already published a few fairly basic Alexa Skills, but my first attempt to build a fully robust Alexa Skill was "The Oddly Uncanny Fannee Doollee",…
90 Day APLA
If you haven’t noticed, the foundation of my Alexa Skills leans heavily towards pop culture. For a while, I contemplated delving into the television phenomenon "90 Day Fiancé" as the…
Fannee Receives Recognition
I was delighted to discover that my Alexa skill, "The Oddly Uncanny Fanny Doollee", earned a spot as a recommended learning tool for children. In a sea of available kids'…
Alexa and the Matter of Cat Facts
On June 1st, 2020 I visited the Alexa Skills store and did a search for “cat facts”. The result of that search yielded an astonishing 15 pages of Alexa Skills. With an…
The Resonance of Sonic Branding
In the symphony of media, the three-note chimes of NBC and the static "ahhhh" of HBO have become auditory landmarks. Sonic branding, though not a novel concept, is poised to…
The Housewives Test
The Housewives Test is the fourth game I have built for Alexa. It was developed as part of Amazon’s In-Skill Purchasing Challenge. In-Skill Purchasing (ISP) allows developers the ability to…
Voice Summit 2019
After a long personal conference drought, I attended my second one this year; the Voice Summit in Newark, New Jersey. Unlike the Alexa Conference, Voice Summit featured voice technologies from…
Multimodal Alexa Being Seen and Heard
Since Amazon offers smart speakers with screen such as the Echo Spot and Echo Show, it needed a way to allow developers to offer a better visual experience to their…
I am a Certified Alexa Skill Builder
I’m Certified! I am thrilled to announce I am among the first to be a AWS Certified Alexa Skill Builder. Back in January 2019 Amazon announced the introduction of a…
Alexa Conference 2019
For quite some time attending tech conferences was part of an annual ritual for me. Through the years I have met some amazing people from around the world, many who…
Talking Trash, My First Alexa Game
With The Oddly Uncanny Fannee Doollee, a word puzzle for kids, under my belt I felt it was time to try to attempt a fully fleshed out game. Over the…
My BQ Making Progress
My Second Alexa Skill, My BQ has passed certification and is now available. My BQ was developed as way for athletes to easily discover the finish-time required to qualify for…
Telling Alexa What To Do
In early August I attended the Amazon Web Services Summit with a goal of getting a handle on developing for the Amazon Echo and Dot platforms. After word I published…
An Oddly Uncanny Children’s Skill
As I get deeper into Voice First development I am looking for ideas of projects that lend themselves to voice interaction. I decided to try and put together a fun…
My First Alexa Skill – K.I.S.S.
Throughout my years in technology I have been confronted with the reality that I need to always keep learning, staying on top of or ahead of what is new. Getting…
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