Derek Jensen - Envato Tuts+ Profile

Derek Jensen

Web and Mobile Dev Chicago, IL

Derek Jensen is a lifetime nerd that calls the Chicagoland area home. He is your typical family man that loves activities with his wonderful wife and three amazing children. He is huge sports buff (both playing and coaching) and loves football, baseball and basketball. He loves just about any technology he can get his hands on but spends most of him time on the server side of the world. His day job consists of writing highly transactional backend web services, data access layers, and n-tier applications using the .NET Framework in C#. At night, when he's not spending time with his family, he enjoys authoring Tuts+ Courses and creating ASP.NET MVC web sites and mobile apps for clients.

www.startwritingcode.com/

Courses

FREE
Build a React Website With a Bootstrap Template
Often, as web developers, clients come to us with an idea of what they want their project to do or look like, but don't have any concrete examples. In those...
Derek Jensen
27 Mar 2020
Code
1.6 hours
FREE
Next-Level React Apps With Hooks
Web technologies are always changing, and React is no exception. In the last several releases of React, we have been introduced to a new way of writing...
Derek Jensen
17 Sep 2019
Code
1.8 hours
FREE
Getting Started With Django
If you like the elegance of the Python programming language, Django is the web framework for you! Django is a powerful but pragmatic framework, with an...
Derek Jensen
23 Aug 2019
Code
1.8 hours
FREE
Code a REST API With Koa and TypeScript
Have you been creating Node web apps or APIs and want to try an alternative to the same old tools and frameworks? Tired of the endless stack of callback to...
Derek Jensen
30 Apr 2019
Code
1.9 hours
FREE
MySQL Databases for PHP Developers
Data access is a fundamental topic for any kind of web development, especially for PHP. Usually, we have tools like PHPMyAdmin that handle the process of...
Derek Jensen
30 Nov 2018
Code
1.5 hours
FREE
Practice PHP and Learn: File Handling
If you want to create a PHP application, chances are that you'll need to read and write files sooner or later. Whether you're reading a config file or...
Derek Jensen
16 Nov 2018
Code
54 minutes
FREE
Practice PHP and Learn: Forms
If you already know the basics of the PHP language and have created some simple scripts or applications, you might be wondering about your next step. To keep...
Derek Jensen
12 Oct 2018
Code
53 minutes
FREE
Build an App From Scratch With JavaScript and the MEAN Stack
Full-stack web development requires coding both a front-end for the browser and a back-end server. Using JavaScript for both parts of the app makes life a...
Derek Jensen
26 Sep 2018
Code
3.4 hours
FREE
Create Your Own Alexa Skill
Technology is getting more and more integrated into everyday life. Now, with devices like Amazon Alexa, software is moving into users' homes and lives in a...
Derek Jensen
29 Aug 2018
Code
1.7 hours
FREE
Customize Your GitHub Pages Site With Jekyll
Have you ever had a great idea for a content-based website or blog? Sure! We all have. But it's hard to find time to build a full-featured, good-looking...
Derek Jensen
29 Jun 2018
Code
1.6 hours
FREE
Code a Vue.js App With TypeScript
Vue.js is one of the newest and most popular front-end frameworks and is a great choice for new projects. And TypeScript is a cutting-edge, optionally typed...
Derek Jensen
28 May 2018
Code
1.5 hours
FREE
Connect a Database to Your Python Application
Most apps will need a database for the back-end, but the specific database you choose shouldn't make much of a difference to your app's architecture. With...
Derek Jensen
21 May 2018
Code
1.3 hours
FREE
Create a Free Website With GitHub Pages
Have you ever wanted to build a simple website quickly and easily, without a lot of fuss? It's easy to code some HTML, CSS, and JavaScript to promote...
Derek Jensen
26 Feb 2018
Code
50 minutes
FREE
Build a Web App With the Flask Microframework for Python
Whether you need to create a quick website for a friend, a flexible web service for a client or a large, enterprise application, Flask is worth checking out....
Derek Jensen
3 Jan 2018
Code
2.1 hours
FREE
Code a Quiz App With Vue.js
Single-page web apps are more and more in demand, but they can be hard to build with vanilla JavaScript. Thankfully, there are some powerful frameworks that...
Derek Jensen
6 Nov 2017
Code
2.3 hours
FREE
Code a watchOS App With Swift
In this day and age, people are getting more and more connected by the minute. This used to mean just phones, but devices and form factors continue to evolve...
Derek Jensen
31 Oct 2017
Code
2.3 hours
FREE
Code a Swift App With Realm Mobile Database
Almost every mobile app needs to store and retrieve data. It's great to build a distributed app that connects to cloud-based data stores, but you can't...
Derek Jensen
25 Sep 2017
Code
1.9 hours
FREE
Swift Design Patterns
As you grow your skills as a coder, it's important to go beyond language syntax and functionality. Design patterns have evolved over the years to solve...
Derek Jensen
11 Sep 2017
Code
3.5 hours
FREE
Code a Custom Drupal Module
Drupal 8 has made it easy to create engaging, content-driven websites for you and your customers. You have been following along with our courses on Envato...
Derek Jensen
27 Jul 2017
Code
1.4 hours
FREE
How to Build a Custom Theme for Drupal 8
Drupal is a CMS (content management system) that allows you to quickly and easily create content-driven sites for yourself and your customers. Using existing...
Derek Jensen
12 May 2017
Code
2 hours
FREE
Taming Python With Unit Tests
As developers, we've learned not to code without a safety net—especially when we're learning a new language! That's why we write unit tests. In this Coffee...
Derek Jensen
3 Apr 2017
Code
9 minutes
FREE
Learn to Code With Python
Python is a powerful language that is easy to learn and excels at many different types of computing. It is used to run large, well-known websites. It is used...
Derek Jensen
9 Mar 2017
Code
7.6 hours
FREE
Beginner's Guide to Building Sites With Drupal
Creating websites is hard. It takes a lot of code to build a website, but a lot of it is similar from site to site. Clients rarely ever want the same things,...
Derek Jensen
24 Feb 2017
Code
3.7 hours
FREE
Code a Side-Scrolling Game With Swift and SpriteKit
Once in a while, it's important for us as developers to go back to what made us excited about computers in the first place. For Derek Jensen, that is gaming....
Derek Jensen
31 Jan 2017
Code
1 hour
FREE
Rethinking APIs With Falcor
Falcor is a JavaScript library that reimagines the coding of APIs. Using Falcor, we are able to allow our consumers to be very specific about the data that...
Derek Jensen
16 Jan 2017
Code
59 minutes
FREE
Create a REST API With Django
Python has long been known as a user-friendly language for learning software development. But just because it is easy to learn doesn’t mean that it isn’t...
Derek Jensen
11 Jan 2017
Code
1 hour
FREE
Testing REST APIs With Postman
Over the last several years, REST APIs have swept the web development community, from indie shops to large companies. While we're getting better at creating...
Derek Jensen
30 Dec 2016
Code
10 minutes
FREE
Create a Time Travel watchOS Complication
As developers, when we hear about a new technology or framework, we're often excited to take advantage of all of the new features. With the latest...
Derek Jensen
21 Nov 2016
Code
17 minutes
FREE
Go Fundamentals for Building Web Servers
In today's software industry, we are constantly stretched to the limit to create robust, high-performance applications. This is where the Go language shines....
Derek Jensen
8 Nov 2016
Code
2.2 hours
FREE
Pokémon GO Style Augmented Reality: Markers
Recently, Pokémon Go has taken the world by storm. One of the most interesting and engaging parts of this game is the use of augmented reality, or AR. AR is...
Derek Jensen
21 Sep 2016
Code
43 minutes
FREE
Data Handling With Python
Python is a powerful language that is easy to learn and excels at many different types of computing. It is used to run large, well-known websites. It is used...
Derek Jensen
18 Jul 2016
Code
1.7 hours
FREE
Introduction to Xamarin for iOS Apps
It's time to take another look at mobile development with Xamarin. Recently, Microsoft made the big announcement that it would purchase Xamarin. So what...
Derek Jensen
20 Jun 2016
Code
49 minutes
FREE
Create an Apple TV App With Swift
As time goes on in the world of development targeting the Apple platform, we continue to find new and exciting ways to engage consumers. The newest Apple...
Derek Jensen
9 May 2016
Code
41 minutes
FREE
Create an Apple TV App With JavaScript and TVML
The newest Apple platform allows us to engage our audience while they are sitting in their living room, or anywhere with a television. With Apple TV, you can...
Derek Jensen
23 Mar 2016
Code
42 minutes
FREE
Build a News Aggregator With Django
If you like the elegance of the Python programming language, Django is the web framework for you! Django is a powerful but pragmatic framework, with an...
Derek Jensen
5 Feb 2016
Code
2.2 hours
FREE
How to Use Swift on Linux
Swift is a new programming language from Apple, originally designed for creating iOS, OS X and watchOS apps. Swift is a compiled, type-safe language which...
Derek Jensen
1 Feb 2016
Code
39 minutes
FREE
watchOS 2 From Scratch
Building watch support into your app is a great way to stand out in the crowded App Store. To do so, you'll need to learn how to target watchOS 2 and...
Derek Jensen
21 Dec 2015
Code
1 hour
FREE
Upgrade an App to watchOS 2
With the recent announcement of watchOS 2, many developers have been eager to learn all its new features and functionality. We'll be covering those features...
Derek Jensen
10 Nov 2015
Code
40 minutes
FREE
Up and Running With Swift 2
Swift is a new programming language from Apple, designed specifically for creating iOS, OS X and watchOS apps. The designers of Swift drew from the best of...
Derek Jensen
9 Oct 2015
Code
4.8 hours
FREE
Unit Testing With Swift and XCTest
The process of creating an iOS app doesn't stop with the creation of functional code. At some point you will need to verify that the code you have written...
Derek Jensen
13 Jul 2015
Code
1.8 hours
FREE
Crawl the Web With Python
In a recent business venture, I found it necessary to collect bulk data from different online sources in order to centralize it and make it easier for people...
Derek Jensen
2 Jul 2015
Code
55 minutes
FREE
Create Cross-Platform Mobile Apps With Xamarin.Forms
As mobile developers, we want to create the polished user experience that a native app can provide. At the same time, we'd like to share code across...
Derek Jensen
16 Jun 2015
Code
3.1 hours
FREE
Getting Started With WatchKit
We are embarking on a very new and exciting opportunity as iOS developers. We now have the chance to target a brand new platform: Apple Watch. As with any...
Derek Jensen
11 May 2015
Code
2.2 hours
FREE
Game Development With Swift and SpriteKit
If you are anything like me, you were probably interested in computer games when you were younger. I can still remember spending a lot of time wondering how...
Derek Jensen
1 Apr 2015
Code
2.6 hours
FREE
iPhone App Development With Swift
Whether you are a seasoned iOS developer or just getting started, it pays to learn how to use the Swift programming language for your next app. Swift is the...
Derek Jensen
3 Mar 2015
Code
3.2 hours
FREE
The Swift Programming Language
At Apple's annual WWDC in 2014, it announced the creation and release of a brand new programming language: Swift. The idea is to use this language going...
Derek Jensen
30 Dec 2014
Code
3.5 hours
FREE
SOLID Design Patterns in C#
SOLID Design Principles are a set of five concepts which help developers write flexible, maintainable code. In this course, Derek Jensen will take you back...
Derek Jensen
16 Dec 2014
Code
1.5 hours
FREE
Multi-Platform Apps In C# With Xamarin
So you’ve probably been hearing quite a bit about Xamarin these days. You’ve heard about the ability to create mobile apps that target iOS as well as...
Derek Jensen
16 Sep 2014
Code
3.1 hours
FREE
Building iOS Apps in C# With Xamarin
Xamarin is changing the way we write mobile applications. If you're a C# developer looking to get into the world of mobile, you can easily get started...
Derek Jensen
18 Aug 2014
Code
3.1 hours
FREE
Introduction to SignalR
I don't know about you, but I have gotten tired of the same old request/response architecture of HTTP and your typical websites. Yes, with the advent of...
Derek Jensen
24 Jul 2014
Code
3.2 hours
FREE
Building Android Apps In C# With Xamarin
Do you want to push your career as a C# developer to new heights? Of course—who hasn't! It's time to dive into the world of mobile development. A few years...
Derek Jensen
26 Jun 2014
Code
4.3 hours
FREE
ASP.NET At Your Service: Web API
In these days of cross-platform and highly distributed application development, how do you stay relevant and needed as a developer? You place yourself...
Derek Jensen
7 May 2014
Code
4.8 hours
FREE
Advanced C#
Don’t let the word “advanced” scare you any longer. Derek is here to show you that, with just a bit of guidance and some very simple examples, even...
Derek Jensen
2 Feb 2014
Code
3.9 hours
FREE
Perfect Workflow in ReSharper
Are you struggling trying to figure out how to improve your productivity? Do you have a good handle on the C# language, but still feel like it takes you...
Derek Jensen
6 Jan 2014
Code
3.3 hours
FREE
Learning TDD in C#
So you want to use TDD in C#, but don’t know where to start? This course is all about figuring out how this TDD thing works, presenting it in such a way...
Derek Jensen
29 Oct 2013
Code
3.7 hours

Tutorials

What Are Dictionary Comprehensions in Python?
In this video tutorial from my course on Data Handling With Python, I'll show you exactly what dictionary comprehensions are and how you can use them.
Derek Jensen
26 Jun 2017
Code
What Are List Comprehensions in Python?
In the world of Python, a list comprehension is nothing more than a shorthand way to create a new list. In this short video from my course on Data Handling...
Derek Jensen
15 Jun 2017
Code
Get Started With an iOS App Template in 60 Seconds
CodeCanyon has hundreds of iOS app templates that you can use to jump-start your development. This video will show you how to install and customize a...
Derek Jensen
4 Nov 2016
Code
Get Started Creating an Apple TV App With Swift
In this lesson from my recent course on creating an Apple TV app with Swift, we will create a tvOS project and explore its project structure. You will be...
Derek Jensen
16 Jun 2016
Code
How to Use Swift on Linux
Over the years, Apple hasn't always been at the pinnacle of openness. Apple was actually originally founded by creating a closed system. One could argue that...
Derek Jensen
22 Feb 2016
Code
An Introduction to Xamarin.Forms and SQLite
At some point in your mobile development career, you are going to need to deal with data. Dealing with data means more than processing and displaying...
Derek Jensen
11 Feb 2015
Code
An Introduction to Xamarin.Forms and Messaging
Ever since Xamarin 3 was introduced, there's been quite a bit of buzz around it. The idea of being able to create a mobile application, including the user...
Derek Jensen
29 Nov 2014
Code
Getting Started with Xamarin.Forms: Customizing User Interface
As you continue to progress in the ways of Xamarin.Forms, you will become more and more familiar with the out of the box controls. At some point, though, it...
Derek Jensen
24 Oct 2014
Code
Accessing Native Features with Xamarin.Forms
One of the biggest misconceptions that arose when Xamarin.Forms appeared on the scene was that developers would no longer have access to the individual...
Derek Jensen
19 Sep 2014
Code
Getting Started with Xamarin.Forms: Layout Options
It's true that Xamarin.Forms makes creating cross-platform mobile apps much simpler. You now have the ability to not only share the logic of your application...
Derek Jensen
18 Aug 2014
Code
Getting Started with Xamarin.Forms: Basics
Over the last several years, developers have finally been trained how to handle building cross-platform mobile applications. The basic idea is to break the...
Derek Jensen
13 Aug 2014
Code
An Introduction to Xamarin: Part 3
If you've been following along with Xamarin at all, then you're well aware that you can now create Android and iOS applications using C#. This is incredibly...
Derek Jensen
21 Jul 2014
Code