Been experimenting a lot with Mobile development recently and learned Flutter. I am currently trying to build a collectibles app for games like Pokemon Go. Was curious to see what you guys are up to these days!
I’ve been running https://kvdb.io as a side project for a while. This weekend, I woke up to a bunch of alerts that the server had run out of open file descriptors (rookie mistake, I never expected to receive more than a thousand simultaneous requests).
It turns out someone wrote a tutorial on how to automate COVID-19 appointment slot bookings and used KVdb to store SMS OTP codes. Never expected it, but a great surprise. Long tail of SaaS is just wonderful :)
I put together an email newsletter that curates HN stories which didn't reach the front page.
Every Friday, I send out a list of 50+ articles. I'm a typical HN reader so the interest profile ends up similar to HN. But I try to omit product/press releases and big corp stuff.
SInce I curate from the 'newest' section of HN, my newsletter has little overlap with other HN-based newsletter and digests. They cover 'top' stories. I cover stories that you probably missed.
If you'd like to read interesting stuff that went unnoticed by Hacker News, please have a look at my newsletter. It's at https://bengtan.com/interesting-things.
I got into scuba diving a year ago and every dive you're supposed to log data about the dive like duration, ___location, type of air etc. It's partly for safety, partly for curiosity, and partly to prove that you are as experienced as you say you are for advanced trips. It seems like 75% of people use paper booklets, 5% a myriad of shitty apps and the rest (like me) don't bother logging because it's so tedious.
So I'm putting together a really simple "Strava for diving" app in react native to suit my needs and then at the same time having a reason to learn a bit about go for the server.
Also @op one of my coworkers told me she built something to track some Disney collectibles game, and she gets thousands of users which is really cool, but you won't believe the entitlement from people asking for bug fixes on a free web app lol
This is great! I was recently thinking of creating something like this for my own personal use to follow a bunch of YouTube channels.
Would you consider making visited links a different color? That would vastly improve the experience for me, since I could see at a glance which content I have not viewed yet, if any.
I'm working on a new programming language that compiles to the JVM. It's statically typed and structural. Still in the very first steps of it but it's Turing complete and I've just nearly finished adding structs (custom types) that can describe variables or function parameters. The next step is Java interop.
Of course there's no plans to compete with other existing languages, but if I get far enough I'll use this language to work on some personal projects. I've learned a ton about programming language design so far so the project has already been a success.
Working on https://extensionpay.com — a service to let browser extension developers accept payments for their extensions. It's open source, free to sign up and start using, and works cross-browser.
I've been attempting the '12 projects in 12 months' challenge for a couple of months now.
Most recently I created a book written and illustrated entirely by AI (GPT-3) - https://grimtalesbook.com
I've almost finished a prototype of a physical product for people with a specific desktop PC case which I'm looking forward to launching (nothing technical, more for the DIY builder crowd).
There are a few more ideas that are queued up for the coming months. It's exciting knowing that there's a timeline for each project. There's no need to slog away losing motivation on a single project!
I bought a bunch of professional printing equipment at a foreclosure auction last year and have been printing and selling, amongst other things, dev-humor stickers and tshirts: https://geekshirt.se/
Also working on a Sticker Mule clone to teach myself Blazor.
https://traiggy.com
Traiggy is a simple (PWA) Progressive Web app that will help the plantation of trees around the world using blockchain technology.
It has 2 advantages:
- helping reforestation organization to audit and to gain insight and transparency on how their funds are getting spend
- allow local citizen to plant tree and get rewarded for doing it
Building a twitter community around Adverts from old technology magazines like Byte, Compute!, Crash and ZZap64. Mostly around 8bit computers and the retro computing scene, but also retro stereo decks, cameras and electronics. Most from 80s, 70s and older.
Discovering strange and wonderful creation that are lost in time. :-)
I am working on an open source non-profit project to facilitate loan-free education that will also help education institutions and its staff increase their income. More details of the project idea is at: https://loan-free-ed.neocities.org
Critic, feedback, improvements to the idea are most welcome.
Slowly plugging away at a resurrection of a very old MMO. writing the server software from scratch as the original was lost to time and life. Got client source and some server files so just reconstructing the server in Go.
I've always wanted to be able to do some development work on my phone, or my iPad. So I'm building a tool that let's me build and deploy backend APIs easily, and without much code.
I don't use social media much these days and prefer newsletters or RSS. I got tired of not going to art galleries or museums during the pandemic and thought others might like their inboxes being a bit brighter each morning.
I had a ton, but I just discovered LuaJIT and its C FFI was a thing and now I'm going to be going down that rabbithole and rewriting a lot of code for projects I haven't even started.
I hate these threads, by the way. I always want to have something cool finished by the time one pops up. "Writing vector and animation modules for SDL's float API that will eventually appear in a roguelike, or shooter, I haven't decided which" doesn't have punch.
I'm also working on and off on a HN client for Godot. It basically works.
Also working on the Anarki forum very, very slowly.
Unfortunately I'm a magpie and I'm distracted by shiny new toys, which right now is the fact that I can write C in Lua much more easily than I could write Lua in C.
Thank God none of this my job...
Oh, and I started a blog with Lektor that still has nothing on it.
Playing with a site that displays a bunch of stats about your (my) team's dev 'health' based on GitHub (eventually others?) PRs. Fun little web app so far and I like to see the things I think are good indicators. Next wave of work I'm thinking about after the base stats is to automate everything and proactively warn me to look at things that seem to need attention (PRs that are 'stuck', certain reviewers over/underloaded, certain authors not getting reviews at the same rate as everyone else, etc etc etc). I like it but I have far more ideas than time to implement them at the moment.
Made https://anonfeedback.io last weekend after looking for a way to get anonymous feedback from colleagues and not wanting to sign up for any service.
Trying, and largely failing to set up a solar-powered environmental station sending data via Lora and MQTT. My problem is living in the North of the UK where rain and solar don't mix. I'm not giving up hope though.
That timeline thing [0]. It puts all sorts of personal data on a timeline, producing a rich personal diary with photos, files, conversations, social media posts, geolocation, transactions etc. It's a way to back up and browse the data I generate.
It's kinda crazy that a few companies already hold this much data about you. Building this made me rethink of how I interact with those companies.
Product perspective:
I was using MyFitnessPal previously and got tired of all the bloat in the app. Weight Logger does exactly one thing and keeps you in charge of your data. I plan to add integrations with Dropbox, OwnCloud, Google Drive and Office 365.
Developer perspective:
For work I mostly do web apps where every inch of the (desktop) screen is covered with numbers and buttons. We churn out features and try to squeeze as much information on the screen as we can. In contrast, Weight Logger is about simplicity and working well on mobile devices.
It's also the first time in my career that I get to use my own app every morning. Surprisingly this gives me warm fuzzies about programming. I was at a point where I was starting many different hobbies (electronics, 3D printing, woodworking...) to escape somewhat emotionally dry world of software development. In day to day business we value pragmatism more than code we're really proud of. Feature requests come in before development is complete on the previous one. Weight Logger reminds me every day that it doesn't have to be that way and that I can still find positive experiences within software engineering.
I'm currently working on app that allows you to pay all your bills in a single click.
As the guy who pays all the bills in the house I have like 7+ bills to pay in a single time. I hate to pay it 1 by 1 so I created the app to solve that problem.
I use AutoPay but have the bills sent to me by mail. It wastes paper but makes it really easy to keep track of new bills coming in and which ones I've reviewed.
Working on a modular archiving tool that, so long as an appropriate archiving "kernel" has been written, will be able to archive files from compatible URLs without the end user needing to care which tool is used or how it's downloaded. (https://github.com/joshbarrass/UArchiver)
I'm also working on integrating this into a Telegram bot (https://github.com/joshbarrass/ArchiverBot) that will allow me to archive things to my NAS whilst on the go. UArchiver is provided with the URL and will just download the files without me needing to care how.
I've been too busy with other things to put major work into it recently, but both projects are in a functional state, just without tonnes of features or supported sites. Whilst it may not seem like much, I'm particularly pleased with the GitHub Actions pipeline I set up recently, which will automatically upload UArchiver releases to PyPi, and automatically build ArchiverBot Docker images and upload those DockerHub.
I recently made a Twitter bot that posts a daily random photo from my 13+ year archive of phone photos. A novel feature is auto generation of hashtags using the Imagga image recognition API to analyze the image. The hashtags are not always accurate but building the bot was an interesting learning experience.
I have been working for a few years now on Exomind[1], a personal knowledge management tool that takes the form of a unified inbox in which you can have your emails, tasks, notes and bookmarks organized into collections. I have an iOS and a web/electron client at the moment, and a simple Chrome extension for bookmarking. It supports basic extensibility via WASM applications.
Its backend (Exocore[2]) is built on top of a personal / private blockchain and is made from the ground up to be hosted in a semi-decentralized fashion on your own personal devices (your computer, raspberry pi, a cloud instance, etc.). It is written in Rust and has iOS, C and Web (WASM) clients.
I'm working on a workout app. Specifically targeted to programs with multiple circuits. I purchased one of Eric Leija's kettlebell programs and wanted an app that would allow me to follow the workouts without setting multiple timers. As I figure out the DSL I want to use for defining workouts, I may extend it to another app for powerlifting coaches to push workouts to their clients and track progress.
I’ve put aside most of the projects I’ve conceived/barely started but here are some of the ideas:
- Fully features user mode ISDN stack for Linux. This was going to include some reference applications like a softphone, softswitch and H.320 multiplexer.
- Hackish kernel-mode X.25 driver for Windows built atop existing serial hardware
- Custom DOCSIS modem built on a limesdr. Was going to try to go further and create a Ethernet drive so that I could plug a PC directly into my CMTS and get a connection.
- Reverse engineering the file system for an old piece of ISDN test equipment I have and maybe building some sort of FUSE interface for it.
- Turning my HP-85 into a controller for some of my old equipment since I was able to snag the serial and GBIP cartridges for it. Was also thinking about making an X.25 stack for it as well.
- A RS-449 <-> V.35 or X.21 converter since the few people who make them don’t seem to want to sell them to me. I’m not much of a hardware guy though so converting to X.22 may be easier since I believe the signals are mostly
compatible.
- Additionally there’s some technologies I’ve wanted to play with but haven’t really found a project for. I’ve been wanting to do some Smalltalk for a while. I wanted to do something with visible light communications (perhaps when 802.11bb is bit more developed) and for some reason I had the odd urge to do something crazy with OLE (yes, that OLE). I’ve also wanted to play with PLCs and maybe find something cursed to do with SmartNICs.
Some of these got a little more work done on them then others, but I just kinda lost interest in everything a while back for partially unexplainable reasons. I’m currently prepping to go back to school.
Iceberg Charts are an information format in which the most well-known/popular information is placed in the top tier, and each level down ever less known and finally obscure information is placed that only subject matter experts are aware of.
This makes it an interesting structure to explore and learn more about topics one isn't too familiar with.
Traditionally, icebergs are only presented in an image format, like in https://www.reddit.com/r/IcebergCharts/, but I wanted a site that made it possible to optionally add links and descriptions too
I created a simple, low cost alternative to square appointments called Unstuck (beunstuck.me). You can use it for managing virtual appointments (booking page, payment handling, creating event). I use it for my math tutoring business, and am hoping other tutors and content creators can use it to connect with their audience in a different way.
Becoming Studs Terkel for the gig economy. Working with people who have done different gig / freelance jobs successfully and asking them how they did it... (a no-bs, show your numbers alternative to the YouTube gurus...)
I have been working on a universal Calendar app for Apple platforms, as iOS, iPadOS, watchOS and macOS specifically; named Clendar -- it's Calendar without an "a", I know, I'm not good at naming. [0][1]
My goal is to learn SwiftUI and explore new technologies.
The app is now open source on GitHub as well, it's my way to give back to the community as I was learning it. [3]
My family plays a card game that includes 9 rounds with a cumulative score. This app is tailored for that, but I made it generic enough with a few basic settings so that it can be pretty universally applicable.
Saw another project like this, but built it out the way I wanted to see it work for me. Pretty much the only blogging/journaling practice that allows me to remain consistent.
I have had a chronic health issue, and I was needing to "rank" my daily symptoms. Most solutions I found were overly complex for my needs and without much of a focus on privacy. So I have taken those two tracks.
I would like to build it out more, while maintaining the simplicity, but want to wait on some feedback. So please do let me know what you think.
I would definitely recommend. The price is right. There are definitely some limitations, but I think that comes with the territory with what they are doing around privacy and simplicity.
I'm working on Asana CLI, at first I wanted to work on asanawarrior, but realised that I'd like to support more of the collaborative aspects of Asana in the terminal, so that's what I'm doing.
Also it makes sense to have work-related tasks and personal tasks split into two.
I am writing a basic database from scratch in C++, trying not to use any third party dependencies. I followed bits of the cmu videos to get started. It's not something I knew about before starting but it's a lot of fun and I got to learn a lot so far.
I also just recently saw this project https://cstack.github.io/db_tutorial/ which builds a database in C. I have not gone through it but it seems like quite a good resource.
For the overall design the CMU playlist is the most helpful.
I figured some results will be spammy, plus it could allow for a paid plan later down the line where folks could bypass having to take other people’s exams
I've been building a few nodejs + vuejs apps in order to round out my typescript skills lately, but my real side project doesn't involve a single line of code.
I'm writing a book about career advice for programmers titled "Junior to Senior" that will be published later this year by Holloway[0]. It's been years in the making and there's still some work left, but it's been encouraging to hear the positive feedback since I announced it publicly.
SmartEdit Biz -- an editing Add-In for Word and PowerPoint for business users to help in editing documents. It looks for things like excessive use of jargon and buzz words, word and phrase repetition, terminology inconsistencies and formatting issues.
It's a sister product to my existing creative writing Add-In but with a different focus and feature set.
Only a sign-up form exists at this time, but the creative writing Add-In gives a good indication of how it will work.
Initially I was marketing the platform to end-users that have just a few websites, but it receives more interest from web agencies that want to get userTrack for their own clients. Although my goal is to promote self-hosting and decentralization, I think enabling agencies to use a self-hosted solution instead of popular SaaS alternatives is a good start.
I've been cleaning my house, and binging old anime like dragon ball and sailor moon. Aside from that, dabbling in tabletop game design. Usually card focused role-playing.
I’ve been motivated many times in my life to change my diet to improve my physical and financial wellness. I’ve always found making these changes to be difficult and time consuming. I started building https://freshbatch.io to make it easier for myself and others who feel my pain. We’re opening it up slowly to private beta users this month if you’re interested in seeing more.
Big fan of Pocket, the article saver, but noticed that I wouldn't read much of the articles saved in Pocket. However, I do check my email multiple times a day, so my buddy and I made a tool to email a random Pocket article to ourselves once a day. We are able to get through 5-7 articles a week now. https://www.savedzero.com/login
If you're running Google Lighthouse manually, you might want to check out a tool I'm building - https://OnlineOrNot.com - it automatically monitors your page speed (as well as uptime, and soon Puppeteer checks). It uses Google Lighthouse v8.0.0 as of this yesterday.
We have a free tier with no time limit or credit card required, if you want to check it out.
I studying biology to grow mycelium and run data analysis on growth rates and metabolism of fungi via microscopy.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27362285
Anybody biology-savvy interested in collaborating, leave a comment.
I believe E-commerce do need metasearch engine. I launched it in couple of subreddits and got good feedback. Currently, I am working on following features
Do you have screenshots or a little write up? This sounds like something I could be interested in, but I don't want to download a phone app to see what it really is.
I've been working on J[ira]PT-3 (https://jirapt3.com/), a GPT-3 Product Management tool that writes your Jira tickets for you, turning user stories into fully-fledged feature tickets
I'm currently curating Initiator Creator, https://initiatorcreator.com which is a newsletter for all the professionals like us. Also, exploring React-Next-Firebase based projects.
Also experimenting with mobile development (for now a Progressive Web App) slowly building https://engramhq.xyz - the closest thing I can get to a brain computer interface
Interesting! I made something related, a tool to show multiple Twitch VODs side-by-side in sync: https://github.com/remram44/twitch-vod-sync (though to be fair I really built it to learn React)
I like watching tournaments on VOD so I can skip the long setup times and the tool allows me to compensate for players with different delays set on their streams.
Oooh cool. Good to know that there are other Twitch tools out there to solve similar problems.
Another problem I have with both live streams and vods is loading all of them into some sort of playlist for a particular competition/event. Obviously requires quite a fair amount of community driven work, and not necessarily limited to Twitch.
On second thought, maybe the onus is on competition producers/organizers to do this, plus I guess not that many people want to analyze multiple streams at once. But it's still annoying having to repeat looking up streams/channels/vods to watch for every tournament.
A generator of kleinian groups, featuring a dos-like terminal for non-iconizable commands and a Javascript transcompiler. I hope one day to embed the second into the first project.
I have been running scrapingdog.com as my side project. This is a web scraping api which can scrape any website in just single GET request. I launched this last year.
this week I've been hacking away on an advertising booking systems for people publishing email newsletters. I'd love to chat with people in this space! If you're interested, you can check it out - https://www.sponsaurus.com
I have been wondering whats the best way to store my important web links, since chrome's bookmarks arent organized in a good way, you have to scroll through a long list, and sometimes they are lost as well.
so i created a personal web link manager software for windows and works well with chrome.
the idea is, just create a topic, add the links related to that topic, every link has a title and comments with which they can be later found using the search bar,
an option of starred link is also added.
check the software here at the link.
https://github.com/PHANTOM9009/WEB-DICTIONARY.git
It turns out someone wrote a tutorial on how to automate COVID-19 appointment slot bookings and used KVdb to store SMS OTP codes. Never expected it, but a great surprise. Long tail of SaaS is just wonderful :)