Phelipe Silva

While working out in the field I realized that carrying a heavy safety manual book just wasn’t going to fly anymore. So I decided to make an iPhone app with the manual with advanced search and super efficient navigation. I broke down the navigation system of the manual and implemented an interface design for quick search. THE EM 385-1-1 ON STEROIDS!! This enables field personnel to always have access to vital information. I have a passion in Applying technology in areas or professions that desperately need it. I am a firm believer that technology can be applied to any field of work and area. I got together with a programming buddy, Layne from college, and developed it. The development took a couple of months. Now you can do an index word search and find what you’re looking for in seconds. Not only can you find the keyword your looking for but also navigate definitions, acronyms, figures and tables instantly. One of my favorite features of the App that the book manual doesn’t offer, is instant index word search with a few finger taps.  You can also bookmark pages with notes. There was a lot of copying and pasting of the actually manual PDF that needed to be done…. tedious work. I am glad to be finished . We wanted the app to be as custom as possible, but yet keep the original PDF format. I created a sweet video showing how it works. check it out. Blackberry app and Android app is the next project that’s in the works now. Want to see more apps? Click here (www.govapps.mobi) to let me know.

EM 385-1-1 iPhone App from Phelipe Silva on Vimeo.

Well I graduated in december and got a job with the Army Corp of Engineers. I’ve been working with them since feb. I am currently located in Reno Nevada and i work in Base one hour north of Reno. I’m on a rotation program where every 6 months we work in a different field. In August i’ll be moving to Sacramento for 6 months. I’ll be looking forward to that. Anyways, my experience with working with the government has been edifying. I have been able to learn a lot about construction and a lot about the development and process of construction projects. I’ve been trying to balance my life with working hard and playing hard. I sometimes drive to Utah and go long-boarding down my favorite canyon (Provo Canyon). I go to sacramento when i can to hangout with my friends. And Me and my roommate will sometimes go on a adventure of searching for a cheap guitar in pawn shops in Reno. There are many pawn shops here and they seem to do very well. I was kind of interested in how they are ran and what their profits are like. I talked to one pawn manager that manages a franchise pawn shop and he said that the company does around 50,000 dollars a month. This is an exception business plan if you ask me. The only problem with it is that it isn’t very passive income since it requires a lot of hard work to manage such a business. Even though it’s not ideal its still something interesting to know.

I’m half way through my last semester and I have been enjoying it. So I created a iphone app called screentacts awhile ago and I recently made it free and a bunch of people have been adding it. I’m glad to see that more people can actually enjoy it now since its free. Its funny how that works! I wasn’t really making any money when I was charging it so it wouldn’t have really made a big difference. During this last semester i’ve been working on my application for Grad school. My dream is to get into a top PhD program in the future and then teach after. What i am doing now is studying a lot for the GRE and started a study group where we study together. Recently though i have been teaching the math portion. Thanks to my smart Vietnamese roomate I can also rely on him to help me in case i get lost. He is always there in the class supporting me and help me learn more about math and other subjects. My goal is to be in the 90 percentile for the math section and 80th percentile for the english section. I only have acouple more weeks to study for it so i’m getting a little antsy. Its funny how it works. Finally i’m graduating from college with a bachelors. Anywayz I just felt like i haven’t blogged in awhile so it feels good to get back on track.

Funny blog. I dig. The link is… http://strengthmission.blogspot.com/

So over this break i’ve been trying to stay busy. While playing soccer i got a herniated disc on my neck so i haven’t really had much success with the whole staying busy part because of my constant fatigue. Luckily the doctor said that in a couple of months my neck will be completely healed and i will be able to go snowboarding again. For family vacation this Christmas we went to Cancun! Cancun rocks! One day i will have a house on the beach of akumal. I will rent it out when i’m not there. This is a picture of akumal. While we where there we swam with turtles. I mean we’re talking about some pretty dang big turtles. Overall it was a good trip and I’m glad we went. When i got home i made a new little blog for me to share some of my insights on ideas that I think about it. The link is gonna be a site where i’m gonna share my insights and information that i’ve been gathering about the apps on the iphone. Since I have an iphone and I’m completely obsessed with it. It is completely rad. Steve Jobs did an amazing Job with apple. Although think they still have a lot to go since they have so much potential it will be exciting to see what happens.