I write about .NET, MAUI, and open source development on my blog at allanritchie.com. Subscribe via RSS.
25+ years of software delivery · 50M+ open source downloads · Microsoft MVP every year since 2017
I run ShinySoft Technologies — a .NET consultancy for businesses whose software runs on people, vehicles and hardware away from a desk. If it involves a device, a background process or a network that comes and goes, it's the work I've been doing for a quarter century.
| Engagement | What it looks like |
|---|---|
| Fractional CTO | Senior technical leadership without a full-time hire — architecture and technology strategy, roadmap, build-vs-buy and cost control, hiring, code review and team mentoring |
| Team Augmentation | Drop-in senior engineering that ships from day one — embedded delivery alongside your developers, unblocking stalled or inherited codebases, standards and CI/CD practices that stick |
| Idea to Product | Discovery and business analysis that turns a rough concept into a scoped, costed, buildable plan — feasibility, prototypes, architecture proposals and a phased delivery plan with real estimates |
- Mobile & cross-platform — production .NET MAUI, iOS and Android apps, including the background, offline and lifecycle work most teams get wrong
- IoT & Bluetooth — BLE central and peripheral, device fleets and hardware integration. We wrote the libraries the industry uses for this
- Fleet & field operations — location tracking, geofencing and telematics where connectivity is not guaranteed
- Cloud & web applications — the ASP.NET Core services and APIs behind the device, built to deploy cleanly and hold their shape when the fleet all reports in at once
- Application modernization — WebForms, WCF, Silverlight, Xamarin and aging .NET Framework codebases moved onto current platforms without stopping delivery
- AI, done deliberately — data foundations, MCP servers over your existing systems, and in-app assistants and voice. Started where it pays, measured against real cases, with your people still accountable
Fleet management · Warehousing · Commercial real estate · Construction management · Medical devices · Contact centres
If your business runs on people, vehicles or hardware away from an office, we've shipped something like it.
📅 Book a call · 🌐 shinysoft.biz · ✉️ allan@shinysoft.biz
| Project | Description | Links |
|---|---|---|
| Shiny Mobile | Cross-platform framework for Bluetooth LE, GPS, geofencing, background jobs, notifications, HTTP transfers, data sync, contacts, and calendar — now with Extensions.AI tooling across the stack | Website · GitHub · Forums |
| Shiny Mediator | Mediator pattern for .NET with middleware pipeline and source-generated contracts | GitHub · Docs |
| AI Conversation | All-in-one AI conversation service for .NET with push-to-talk voice, wake word activation, and persistent chat history | GitHub |
| Speech | Cross-platform speech-to-text, text-to-speech, and audio capture with pluggable cloud providers | GitHub |
| DocumentDB | Multi-database document store spanning SQLite, PostgreSQL, MongoDB, CosmosDB, SQL Server, and more with a LINQ query builder and vector search | GitHub |
| Shiny Controls | UI control library for .NET MAUI and Blazor — tables, trees, overlays, chat, image editing, camera, barcodes, and more | GitHub |
| SwiftDotNet | SwiftUI for .NET everywhere — write declarative UI once in C# and render it as real native controls via SwiftUI, Jetpack Compose, GTK4, WinUI 3, and HTML/DOM, plus a self-drawing SkiaSharp backend | GitHub |
| MAUI Shell Extensions | Navigation simplification with source-generated routes, deep linking, and typed parameters | GitHub |
| App Extensions | Attribute-driven service registration, persistent key/value stores, hosting modules, and the AOT-safe Reflector source generator | GitHub |
| Push Extensions | Server-side push dispatch for .NET — APNs, FCM, Web Push (VAPID) and WNS with targeting, topics, and dead-token pruning | GitHub |
| Firebase | First-party Shiny bindings for Firebase Cloud Messaging and on-device Firestore in .NET MAUI | GitHub |
| Health | Apple HealthKit and Android Health Connect integration for .NET MAUI with a unified cross-platform API | GitHub |
| OBD | Vehicle diagnostics library for OBD-II adapters with Bluetooth LE transport | GitHub |
| Music | Unified API for device music library access on Android and iOS — playlists, lyrics, metadata, and ShazamKit | GitHub |
| GeoSpatial DB | Geofencing library using SQLite R*Tree indexing | GitHub |
| Face & Document Intelligence | On-device face enrollment/recognition (ArcFace ONNX + vector search) and native document scanning | GitHub |
| Printing | Thermal/receipt printing over BLE and TCP (ESC/POS, TSPL) plus OS-native print pipelines | GitHub |
| MSBuild Permissions | Auto-generates Android manifest and iOS plist entries from csproj | GitHub |
| Localization Generator | Strongly typed wrappers around IStringLocalizer from .resx files | GitHub |
| Shiny Aspire | .NET Aspire integrations for Orleans ADO.NET storage and Gluetun VPN | GitHub |
| MAUI Platforms | Community backends for Apple TV and macOS support | GitHub |
| App Templates | CLI and Visual Studio templates for Shiny-powered applications | GitHub |
| AI Skills | Claude/agent skills that teach your AI how to write code against every Shiny library | GitHub |
Docs: shinylib.net · Documentation repo NuGet Profiles: aritchie · ShinyLib
| App | Description | Links |
|---|---|---|
| Canadas Wonderland Ride Times | Live wait times showcasing Shiny Mediator and background jobs | GitHub |
| Disney Bots | Controlling Disney droids with .NET MAUI, AI, and Shiny BluetoothLE on iOS, Android, and macOS | GitHub |
| Heads Up Clone | Party game with accelerometer gestures in .NET MAUI | GitHub |
| Bluetooth Digital Scoreboard | BLE client/peripheral demonstration | GitHub |
| Mediator Sample | Request/response handlers and event publishing example | GitHub |
| Where Are You | Background GPS tracking with Orleans backend | GitHub |
| Beat The Bank | Voice-powered trivia game with speech services | GitHub |
| KML Recorder | GPS tracking app with CarPlay and Android Auto support | GitHub |
| TUNE Games | Music guessing game from personal library | GitHub |
| Plex Suggest | Recommendation engine for Plex libraries (MAUI app and CLI) | GitHub |
| GitHub Mon | Cross-platform desktop dashboard for monitoring GitHub repos, built with .NET MAUI Blazor Hybrid and Shiny | GitHub |
| MAUI UI 2026 | What a modern .NET MAUI UI looks like with Shiny Controls | GitHub |
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I dedicate significant time to open source development and community contributions. If you utilize Shiny in a commercial or professional project, please consider supporting this work through GitHub Sponsorship.