Welcome to dulcetware, a website I have set up to support my design of online apps. I use Ruby on Rails to code applications that will run in an online environment and therefore accessible to user of desktop PCs and Macs, tablets and smartphones without downloading any programs.

My first project was Home-Time Stuff, an app I designed with my daughter to help her with numeracy and encourage reading and sensible PC use. The app includes:

• Count Abacus, a mental arithmetic quiz
• Times-Tabler, a times table quiz with the facility to generate and print random and non-repeating multiplications of any selection of times-tables from 0 to 12
• General Knowledge, a series of random questions of grouped difficulty requiring typing short answers rather than multiple choice
• Book Reviews, an app that permits uploading of book reviews in a standard format to encourage reading and appraisal of what has been read

Progress is measured by an accumulated score, called the Stuff Stat, and the awarding of virtual prizes created by other users of the app.

In addition, there is facility to send public messages to other users and to follow certain users so that their messages appear on a live feed on the following user’s home page. Users can also have fun creating their own prizes that might be awarded to other users, as well as creating their own questions to test other users in the General Knowledge quiz.

Since the app is focused on children aged 10 and below, particular attention is paid to security. Adults sign up on their children’s behalf, using the adult’s email address and a unique user name for the child. A numerical key code provided offline by the site administrator is also required so that signing up is essentially by invitation. A password linked to the adult’s email address is required to log in.

My second project was the Roleplaying Games Online Tools, a damage per round calculator for comparing different attack or spell strategies. It uses some quite “interesting” maths, namely polynomials, to model multiple dice rolls.

The online tools also include a random encounter generator, that replicates the Pathfinder 2e rules for generating encounters based on party level and difficulty, and also generates appropriate treasures. It comes complete with a plot generator with which to frame your encounters for a zero-prep GMing experience!