Andrew Ford is a software engineer, mentor and an educator from Tauranga, New Zealand.

Apps I Make

Health Scan Express

Turn your scales and blood pressure monitor into smart devices that sync with Apple Health.

FastTempo

A fasting timer for iPhone and Apple Watch. Track your fasting window, see when you started, and know exactly when your eating window closes.

SlideVids

Generate complete slide deck videos from an outline with AI narration. No recording. No editing.

Latest Articles

  • Sweating the details

    After 200 commits and 3 months of daily use, I finally released FastTempo — my fasting timer app for iPhone and Apple Watch. Here is why I waited.

  • From zero Swift to the App Store

    How I built an app with zero understanding of Swift to a published app in the iOS App Store

  • The Git Feature I Wish I'd Known About Years Ago (And How Claude Code Makes It Easy)

    Git worktrees let you work on different branches at the same time without the stash-switch-repeat cycle that kills productivity. Learn how I created a custom Claude Code command that sets up parallel development environments with just a simple natural language request.

  • Get Instant Notifications When Claude Code Needs You

    Learn how to get instant push notifications when Claude Code needs your attention using hooks and ntfy.sh - never miss when your AI assistant needs input again

  • Automate GitHub Security Updates with AI Agents

    Learn how to automate GitHub security notifications using Comet and GitHub Copilot. Transform hours of manual work into 15 minutes of automated maintenance.

  • 25 Years Coding: What I Should Have Done Instead

    A reflection on how 25 years of coding experience has led to the realisation that structured communication, not code itself, is the true valuable artifact in the age of AI-generated programming.

  • Creative process with AI on iPad

    Exploring how iPadOS 26 and AI tools like ChatGPT enable a focused, keyboard-free creative workflow.

  • Vibe Coding to Create the Software You Want

    Discover how vibe coding with AI tools can help you build custom software that fits your workflow. Learn how to create a PopClip extension for instant Markdown formatting on macOS using AI agents, and build tools that adapt to your work instead of forcing you to adapt to them.

  • Build a Blog Chatbot with RAG and LangChain

    Learn how to build a fast, lightweight AI chatbot for your blog using LangChain, RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation), FAISS, and Netlify Functions. This guide walks through indexing markdown content, setting up a vector store, and deploying a serverless chatbot with OpenAI—all without heavy frameworks or databases.

  • More Articles…