In 2012 eMeals began the process of building its mobile apps for iOS and Android. Built on Amazon Web Services, the applications were designed on the core concepts of backend simplicity and scalability with minimal cost.
In April of 2013 eMeals released its first mobile app on iOS. The application hit the #1 spot in the Food and Drink category with 10's of thousands of downloads in the first week and achieved a 4-star rating.
Two months later, in June of 2013, we released eMeals for Android. The application was again snapped up and gained a 4-star rating.
McAfee Family Protection began life as a partnership for a licensed re-brand of Safe Eyes. Over the next several years it took on an identity of its own. The software was internationalized and localized into 13 languages and was integrated with systems that allowed it to be branded and installed in the factory process of OEM PC vendors like Dell, Acer and more.
In 2011 we released an Android version of McAfee Family Protection which filtered the default browser on Android phones and tablets.
The PC, Mac and Android versions of McAfee Family Protection where integrated into the McAfee All Access product, which was awarded a PC Magazine Editors' Choice award in 2011 and 2012.
When the iPhone launched it was clear that the way people accessed the mobile Internet was forever changed. It was also clear that Safe Eyes needed to be extended to cover smartphones. Mobile had been a part of the original vision of Safe Eyes as far back as 2003, so we were ready for it and able to move quickly. Safe Eyes Mobile became the first parental control solution for the iPhone and iPad.
It wasn't an easy path. In the early days of the App Store, Apple wasn't sure they wanted to allow 3rd party browsers on the iPhone at all. After several months in the app review process, we finally received approval from Apple and Safe Eyes became one of the first 3rd party browsers to be offered on the App Store.
Safe Eyes Mobile was removed from the market by McAfee in 2013 as their strategy changed directions.
Platforms
BFP eCommerce Platform
2004
Summary
Behind any great Internet business is great eCommerce software. At InternetSafety.com we built our customer management software from the ground up. The system, which become known as BFP, was built to handle all customer accounts, support tickets, invoicing, physical inventory, purchase orders, affiliates, partners, reporting, and much more.
Over its life, the sytem processed 10's of millions of dollars in transactions. After the acquisition of InternetSafety.com, much of the BFP system was integrated to the McAfee Consumer backend.
Safe Eyes Parental Control Software
2003
Summary
In 2003 my brother and I birthed a product called Safe Eyes. It was created to be a cloud-based parental control solution with the tamper resistence of server-based filtering and the flexibility to be deployed on any Internet connection. The original vision was to create a hosted filtering solution that could be used to protect computers (both PC's and Macs), mobile phones and entire networks. In 2003 it was an idea ahead of its time as there were no smartphones or clouds.
Over the next 9 years I had the awesome opportunity to bring the entire multi-platform vision to reality while building the #1 rated parental control solution. Safe Eyes was used by over half a million users in more than 150 countries. The innovation driven by the Safe Eyes team redefined what parental controls could be and forever changed the Internet safety space.
In 2010 Safe Eyes was sold to McAfee, who still has the prduct on the market today.
Awards
Consumer Reports #1 Pick (2005)
PC Magazine Editors’ Choice Award (2006 & 2007)
Laptop Magazine Editors’ Choice Award (2006)
Good House Keeping Seal of Approval (2011)
SafeBrowse.com was the first project I undertook, along with by brother Shane, after college . Originally the company was established to provide filtered dialup services in the Atlanta area. About a year after launch, we hooked onto a national dialup backbone and started providing service nationally. In 2001, we started providing white labeled dialup services to virtual ISPs and grew that business to over 70 ISPs.
Everything at SafeBrowse was hosted in leased data center space. Our software systems were built from scratch and integrated into our custom virutal ISP portal. We developed a filtering platform that allowed users to select what categories of content they wanted removed from their Internet feed, a first of its kind.
Despite our success we could see that dialup wouldn't survive. Broadband was on its way and we needed to pivot. Taking what we knew about Internet filtering we created a piece of software that any family could use to protect their children on any Internet service and Safe Eyes was born. The ISP business gradually declined until we turned off the service in 2008.
