
All of my side-projects from 2012 - jazzychad
http://blog.jazzychad.net/2012/12/31/year-in-review-side-projects.html
======
johnpolacek
Jeez, I thought I had a lot of side projects, but I think you have me beat.
You've inspired me to make my own list:

Scrollorama <http://johnpolacek.github.com/scrollorama/>

What The Heck Is Responsive Web Design
[http://johnpolacek.github.com/scrolldeck.js/decks/responsive...](http://johnpolacek.github.com/scrolldeck.js/decks/responsive/)

Scrolldeck <http://johnpolacek.github.com/scrolldeck.js>

Scrollorama2:SuperScrollorama
<http://johnpolacek.github.com/superscrollorama/>

Are You A Brogrammer <http://areyouabrogrammer.com>

BigVideo.js <http://dfcb.github.com/BigVideo.js/>

Channel of Awesome <http://dfcb.github.com/channel-of-awesome/>

Responsivator! <http://dfcb.github.com/Responsivator/>

stacktable.js <http://johnpolacek.github.com/stacktable.js/>

controldeck.js (2013) <http://dfcb.github.com/controldeck.js/>

~~~
typpo
Neat projects! A lot of useful things for developers in there. My projects for
this year are less developer oriented, just random things I thought were
interesting at the time:

Six Degrees of Bowie - <http://www.sixdegreesofbowie.com/> \- simple musical
influencers graph

web-workers-fallback - <https://github.com/typpo/web-workers-fallback> \-
webworker compatibility layer

Github Participation Graph - <https://github.com/typpo/github-participation-
graph> \- chrome extension that improves some github aesthetics

World of Loot - <http://worldofloot.com/> \- pinterest-style mmo wishlists

Asterank 3D - <http://asterank.com/3d> \- interactive visualization of
thousands of objects in our inner solar system

Facebook Unsee - <http://ianww.com/fb-unsee/> \- chrome extensions that stops
facebook from telling people when you've viewed a message

Asterank - <http://asterank.com> \- a database of asteroids that catalogs
their scientific attributes and potential economic value

GiftHorse - <http://gifthorse.us> \- gift suggestion engine that barely
generates revenue via amazon affiliate links

TextBelt - <http://textbelt.com> \- free outgoing SMS API

KeepDream - <http://keepdream.me> \- dream logging service

~~~
chrisjack
Your Asterank and Asterank 3d is pretty cool. How did you get the value of the
asteroids ?

~~~
typpo
Thanks. I estimated the value based on spectral class, which gives us an idea
of composition based on how they reflect light. I combined this with current
prices for materials mostly from the London Metal Exchange. Other costs such
as getting to the asteroid and mining overhead are factored in.

~~~
46Bit
This sounds awesome, nicely done.

I've been planning to do a hack like this to demonstrate the realities of
interstellar travel, modelled after a game I played as a child.

------
laktek
Here are mine. All of them are open source:

\- Punch - <http://github.com/laktek/punch> (my most popular open source
project)

\- Punch Blog Boilerplate - <https://github.com/laktek/punch-blog>

\- Extract Values (JS) - <https://github.com/laktek/extract-values>

\- Distraction Free Writing for Vim - <https://github.com/laktek/distraction-
free-writing-vim>

\- Go wrapper for Stack Exchange API - <https://github.com/laktek/Stack-on-Go>

More than that, I enjoyed blogging a lot in last year -
<http://laktek.com/2012>

8 out of those 24 posts, got featured in HN homepage. Those discussion threads
helped me to learn more and raise my bar. Also, I made lot of new friends
thanks to HN.

Thanks for all the inspiration HN. Looking forward for a great 2013!

~~~
nickbarnwell
Currently using Punch to build up an MVP and loving it so far :) Hoping to
contribute back a few boilerplates and helpers in the near future

------
freework
I don't mean to be negative, but I've never been impressed with people who
have dozens of side projects. Instead of writing 10 crappy side projects, who
not make 1 great side project?

My side project, at the time is called Giotto:
<https://github.com/priestc/giotto>. It's a python web framework. I started it
in April, and still commit to it almost every day.

~~~
hnriot
That's very negative, despite the disclaimer. And from what I've seen of the
above, people aren't writing ten crappy side projects, many of them are
excellent.

Staying focused on one thing is fine too, but for many of us, we like to
dabble in many things.

If Giotto is your way of learning python and building another (python) web
framework then that's fine too. One difference is that many of the above side
projects are new and do things that we didn't have prior to someone building
them, meanwhile yet another web framework a la bottle et al is really
contributing very little new.

~~~
freework
Its not about size, its about length of development. Great software takes more
than a few days to create. I think the most direct indicator of software
quality is number of commits. A project with 10 commits is probably full of
bugs. A project with 400 commits has probably had enough chance to adapt
really well to whatever problem it is supposed to be solving. Its not a direct
correlation, but its usually true.

I've had co-workers who had 50 github repos all filled with 30 line "projects"
with 5 commits each. Those types of projects don't make you a better
programmer. Work on the same project all year. That will make you a better
programmer. Craft the project. Let it adapt. Test it, deploy it. Tweak it.
Deploy it again. Seek feedback from users. Tweak it some more. Going through
that process _will_ make you a better programmer.

~~~
luckysh0t
Sounds more like the day job than a side project.

------
reidrac
That's a good list!

When I start a side project I tend to forget that after it's "done" I have to
maintain it. In fact I've been delaying the inevitable and I should kill a
couple of them ASAP (hey, that's a good new year's resolution!).

My 2012 list is quite short:

\- A web based crossword app, content automatically generated from wiktionary
entries; the puzzles require some review before can be queued (~30 minutes per
week): <http://crucigramas.usebox.net/>

\- Run CGI apps under Python WSGI protocol (PEP 333):
<https://github.com/reidrac/wsgi2cgi>

\- I've been working on an Arduino project (it will be a game console; audio
done -XM player, 4 channels-), but I haven't released anything yet :(

\- A Network Block Device (NBD) server for OpenStack Object Storage
(technically a 2012 project because I started it in December, but there's a
lot of stuff to do): <https://github.com/reidrac/swift-nbd-server>

All my side projects are in the "scratch my own itch" category. Sometimes I
wish I could make something profitable (meaning: extra income), but learning
new stuff and keeping my skills current is definitely a good value... so I
don't mind.

------
PStamatiou
I'm on the complete other end of the spectrum. No sideprojects. Doing anything
other than working on the startup always made me feel guilty. Just my blog
that I just rebuilt/designed in December: <http://paulstamatiou.com> Hoping to
write more in 2013

~~~
jazzychad
There should be a healthy life/work balance. Doing nothing but work is
unhealthy. Side-projects offer a nice break from the norm and the ability to
be creative and learn new things. Usually my side-projects wind up helping me
in my normal work later on. But, you don't have to do side-projects. Just make
sure to not burn yourself out with work. Do you feel guilty eating, sleeping,
exercising, travelling, meeting with friends? Hopefully not.

------
daeken
I'm sure I'm forgetting a couple, but:

\- QtzWeb - <https://github.com/daeken/Qtzweb> (Quartz Composer -> JS+WebGL
compiler; used it to partycode <http://pouet.net/prod.php?which=60732>)

\- QuestCompanions - <https://github.com/daeken/QuestCompanions> (Online labor
marketplace for help in MMORPGs -- complete failure from a commercial
perspective!)

\- SteelBreeze - <https://github.com/daeken/SteelBreeze> (Xbox emulation
platform, mainly to test out new ways to write emulators)

\- WebGLEnabler - <https://github.com/daeken/WebGLEnabler> (Enables WebGL on
iOS devices)

\- GenShaders - <http://www.displayhack.org/2012/genshaders-part-1/> (failed
experiment for evolving fragment shaders; still need to write a followup
article)

~~~
cloudsteam
What happened with QuestCompanions? Is it up still anywhere? haven't sen you
on IRC in a while.

~~~
daeken
I kept meaning to write a blog post about it, but it kept getting pushed back.
Short story is: we got a decent number of users signed up, but no one was
willing to pay money, everyone just wanted to get paid to play games. And by
"no one", I truly mean 0%. A few weeks in, the server died and when I brought
it back up, I decided not to restore the site (I had backups) but rather keep
it down and rebrand it a bit, in hopes of making it clearer and more appealing
to people. But I ended up getting way too busy with work and all that, and
that never happened.

I opened the source a while back; it'd be cool if someone took it and actually
made it successful, but I have serious doubts that it could ever work. I
always knew that few users would be willing to pay money for in-game help, but
capturing those few turned out to be harder than I thought.

------
richerd
\- PairMixer - <http://pairmixer.com> \- Find someone to Pair with (got sued
for this one had to take it down)

\- Sink or Ship - <http://sinkorship.com> \- Ship Your Project In Time, Or
Else...

~~~
JohnsonB
Can you say why you got sued for PairMixer? Was it patent related?

~~~
richerd
I probably shouldn't say yet, suit is still ongoing and isn't settled yet.

------
jgross206
I just have one: unslideshow, a Chrome extension which takes slideshow
articles and turns them into single page articles.

<https://github.com/jgross206/unslideshow>

It's very rough because I'm the only one that uses it. It only works with one
site (complex.com) because their slideshows are egregious (100 items with a
full page load on each slide) and I got really frustrated one night.

I currently have plans to extend it to other sites and polish up the UI a bit
so it's actually worth publishing, but who knows.

I had a lot of fun writing it and learned a lot, it was my first Chrome
extension.

Bonus: I left my Ruby POC in the source tree because it was so fun to write.
17 lines!

------
carlsednaoui
This is awesome, I thought 3 was a lot of projects but clearly I'm way behind
on this one. As a side note, I started learning to program early 2012.

Here is my list:

\- CourseBacon: Find online learning resources (<http://coursebacon.com/>)

\- NetworkMill: Help you transform contacts into connections
(<http://networkmill.com/>)

\- Roompatible: Roommate finder. It's the 1st webapp I built while learning to
code (<http://roompatible.com/>)

Note: CourseBacon and NetworkMill are still work in progress.

~~~
wildtype
You're quite awesome mate. I started learning to program since 2005, but this
year i haven't finish any programming projects yet.

~~~
carlsednaoui
Thanks for the encouragement, much appreciated!

How about you aim to ship at least 1 project this year? You've got over 360
days to do it. If you want I'll be your accountability partner.

Edit: Feel free to email me at <hn_username>@gmail.com :)

------
chime
I would pay for a site/newsletter that sent me side projects like these (and
the others mentioned on this thread) on a daily basis. These are fantastic!

~~~
jazzychad
interesting... sort of like a <http://builtwithbootstrap.com/> style site or
newsletter? perhaps also a featured section for people to promote their
projects... ?

~~~
chime
Yup. That could be your next project :)

------
__sb__
HN has really motivated me to start thinking about side projects seriously,
even if just as learning exercise or solving my own problems. I only just
started publishing them a few months ago, but I've had a lot of fun these:

Chroma <https://github.com/seenaburns/Chroma> \- Python color handling and
manipulation library

Desaturate <https://github.com/seenaburns/Desaturate> \- Menu Bar app to force
Mac OS X into grayscale display

Tungsten <https://github.com/seenaburns/Tungsten> \- Wolfram Alpha API wrapper
for Python

Open URLs In Tabs <https://github.com/seenaburns/Open-URLs-In-Tabs> \- Port of
John Gruber's OS X service to open links in tabs, modified to work for Chrome
(/ your default browser).

Desaturate is definitely my favorite. Now for 2013, I have to learn to comment
more and write more.

------
nathanpc
All my projects from 2012.

Applications:

\- CherryNotes: <https://appworld.blackberry.com/webstore/content/19964625>

\- RubyGems Browser for Android:
[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.nathan.rub...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.nathan.rubygems.browser)

\- build.prop Editor:
[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.nathan.jf....](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.nathan.jf.build.prop.editor)

Awesomeness:

\- stream.json: <https://github.com/nathanpc/stream.json>

\- tinymd: <https://github.com/nathanpc/tinymd>

\- ascii-image: <https://github.com/nathanpc/ascii-image>

APIs:

\- build-webworks: <https://github.com/nathanpc/build-webworks>

\- pinboard.js: <https://github.com/nathanpc/pinboard-js>

\- hn-api: <https://github.com/nathanpc/hn-api>

Unfinished stuff:

\- bonsai: <https://github.com/nathanpc/bonsai>

\- rain: <https://github.com/nathanpc/rain>

\- hn-cli: <https://github.com/nathanpc/hn-cli>

\- showcase: <https://github.com/nathanpc/showcase>

\- A lot more if you check my GitHub

------
AdamGibbins
Wow, impressive list. Clearly I need to get off my backside and develop more.
Thanks for the kick!

------
ww520
That's a very impressive list. One thing great about programming is the path
from idea to product is fairly smooth if you can do it all by yourself. Great
list.

Mine is much shorter. Didn't have time to do more.

\- Jsoda, <https://github.com/williamw520/jsoda>, API unifying SimpleDB and
DynamoDB.

\- BoxupText, <https://boxuptext.com/>, pure browser side encryption.

\- Daily Badge,
[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mhillsyste...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mhillsystem.dailybadge),
app for tracking daily goal.

------
koenbok
Only three, but some are quite big.

Framer <http://www.framerjs.com> \- Modern prototyping tool for web and mobile
using javascript and css transitions.

Cactus <http://github.com/koenbok/Cactus> \- Simple static site generator with
s3 deployment aimed at designers.

Cavia <http://github.com/koenbok/Cavia> \- Document store on top of sql
modeled after bigtable/appengine datastore, and how FriendFeed stored data in
mysql.

------
parvatzar
Truly very inspirational. I was wondering about the new year resolutions for
2013. Thanks jazzychad for a direction. I am still a long long way from
creating and developing applications like the ones mentioned in your list. But
someday I wish to get there too. Planning to start with a list like this year!
What could be a better resolution than learn something new and then build
something from that knowledge gained. So wishing myself luck for my endeavor!

------
nickbarnwell
Only one true sideproject for me in 2012:

CallMeMae.be: <http://callmemae.be>

Business Card sharing and exchange. Built it at an eight hour hackathon and
won the grand prize, making it my only profitable project to date! In the new
year I'm hoping to rewrite from the ground up as a telephone proxy service,
but still need to do the customer validation.

~~~
culturestate
> In the new year I'm hoping to rewrite from the ground up as a telephone
> proxy service...

Would you mind elaborating on that a little bit? I'm working on something
similar and would love to hear what others are doing.

------
agentultra
Mine are mostly incomplete, but my main one so far has been:

Knockblock: <https://github.com/agentultra/knockblock>

and I guess <http://mug.io> \-- but I haven't touched that one in a while. I
guess 2013 will be the year that I get a few of these projects finished!

------
jackowayed
Given that mobile photo sharing has been done to death, I'd be interested to
hear what you think makes Pixit a significantly better solution than all the
other apps out there for some usecase.

(Not trying to sound confrontational--it's just not a space that I thought had
much more innovation left in it, so I'm curious to hear what you've come up
with.)

~~~
jazzychad
That's a fair question. It could be that this is a solved problem by some
other system/app, but I couldn't easily find one while my problem persisted...
so I did what every over-active nerd does: I just built my own solution.

I think Pixit is different because it is solely for quick photo sharing
between friends in 3 steps. Simple, quick, and effective. However, I'm not
sure how much mass appeal it would have. It works for my usecase, but
increasingly I find that I am an outlier when it comes to consumery stuff.

~~~
hnriot
I don't get it?

"I thought up an app that would make it extremely easy to send many pictures
to a group of friends in one go."

Isn't that email?

~~~
jazzychad
yes, it is. however, accomplishing this with email on iphone is extremely
tedious (many steps) and error-prone.

~~~
hnriot
Not in my experience, camera roll, select photos, share, email, auto-complete
friends email address's, send

This isn't in any way tedious or error prone.

------
kyle_wm
"I wanted to improve my life skills in some other fashion than programming ...
I needed a way to train myself since there are many rules to learn. So, what
do I do? I break my rule of no more programming and write my own training
software."

Things like this confirm for me that I am in the right profession :)

------
mroth
nice list! I also did a similar post, and since people seem to be posting
theirs here, here's mine: [http://blog.mroth.info/blog/2012/11/11/the-year-in-
side-proj...](http://blog.mroth.info/blog/2012/11/11/the-year-in-side-
projects/)

~~~
brador
I'm loving this stuff! It says you went on a domain buying spree after the
emoji find. Can I ask what Other domains you got? Is there something special
about the .ws or does it work on .com too?

~~~
mroth
for .ws, as far as I can tell, most TLDs don't allow "fun" things such as
emoji, and the software most registrars use also sometimes barfs on it, so it
was definitely specific to that registrar/TLD/point in time. Not sure if it
will still work. The registar was iwantmyname.com

No easy way to cut&paste the domains I have here, but my favorites other than
the star are the spiral, bomb, storm cloud (which I want to turn into a
weather service) and fork&knife.

------
lsiebert
I really like the formatting of your list, especially your detailed notes on
each project.

------
dangson
StepStats is great! I just got a Fitbit for Christmas and these graphs are a
lot better than the ones on the Fitbit site. The best part is they work on iOS
devices unlike the Flash ones that Fitbit uses.

------
luckysh0t
libs:

\- PayLib <https://github.com/rutherford/PayLib> (about to be gutted and
rebuilt)

sites:

\- Kickstartit <http://kickstarter.greatsuccessmaker.com>

\- Ghost Messenger <https://facebookghostmessenger.appspot.com/>

bones:

\- nltk on app engine <https://github.com/rutherford/nltk-gae>

------
cloudsteam
My one and only side project - <http://www.cheekynote.com> (WARNING NSFW)

------
sycren
Could you share the reasons for your choice in technologies in the stack?

i.e node.js, mongodb, heroku, php, ruby etc.

------
knes
BankersBox looks nice! A shame you didn't "finish it" with the implementation
of hashes & co.

~~~
jazzychad
I'd still like to... or for someone else to! In 10 months nobody has done it,
so it might be up to me after all.... or it means that nobody really
wants/needs it. It would be fun as an academic exercise, though.

