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Notes from the build

Engineering decisions, practical guides and occasional opinions — on-device where it matters, and cloud where the job needs shared data.

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How to sort your Android app drawer into categories

An app drawer is a list in install order pretending to be a filing system. Three ways to sort 120 apps, the six buckets that survive contact with real use, and what to do with the ones you never open.

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Does a free Android scanner app have a page limit?

When someone asks for a scanner with "no page limit", they usually mean one of three different caps. How to check each one before you install, and where the limits actually live.

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Why an on-device studio builds a cloud POS

Three apps keep the work on the phone. CafePOS deliberately does not. The rule was never local processing at any cost — it is choosing where data has to live for the job to work.

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The best screen time apps for Android in 2027

Hard blocks, breathing pauses and puzzle breaks do different things to you. What each Android screen-time app actually does at the limit, and how to pick one that survives week two.

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GST billing for cafes: what the bill has to carry

A cafe bill is a tax document before it is a receipt. Here is what belongs on it, how composition differs from regular registration, and where POS setups usually go wrong.

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Foreground app detection without QUERY_ALL_PACKAGES

How ScrollBreak notices when a protected app becomes active, why the accessibility service is the only reliable route, and how to do it without declaring broad package visibility.

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How to stop doomscrolling without deleting the app

Deleting Instagram is the advice everyone gives and almost nobody keeps. A practical look at friction, why hard blocks fail, and what actually changes a scrolling habit.

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What “no tracking” has to mean in 2026

No cookies on the site, no accounts in the apps, and analytics only behind a consent gate. The specific commitments behind the phrase, and how to verify them.

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On-device OCR: searchable PDFs without a server

How ScanLocker turns a photo of paper into a searchable, password-protected PDF using ML Kit and local libraries — and what that costs in binary size and complexity.

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