
Ask HN: What simple tools or products are you most proud of making? - christiangenco
Previous discussion: https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=12957371<p>Here are mine: http:&#x2F;&#x2F;christian.gen.co&#x2F;projects
======
krrishd
I'm proud of having made [http://write.itskrish.co](http://write.itskrish.co)
\-- it's a stream-of-consciousness journalling/writing tool built in React.

The "stream-of-consciousness" bit is enabled by the two key features: you
choose a finite duration within which to write, and if you stop typing more
than a few seconds, your writing is deleted. This essentially forces you to
continuously type for the session, and at least for me and the users I've
spoken to, this forces out thoughts/ideas/feelings that otherwise wouldn't
have made it to the keyboard.

I've personally been using it routinely for months as a therapeutic journal,
and at this point I've practically been Pavlov'd into opening it up whenever
I'm under cognitive/emotional duress.

it's open source
([http://github.com/krrishd/write](http://github.com/krrishd/write)), and I
appreciate feedback!

~~~
mattbgates
[http://write.itskrish.co/saved/2017-06-19T19:15:13.029Z](http://write.itskrish.co/saved/2017-06-19T19:15:13.029Z)

It is actually an interesting idea to get "consciousness streams" out there.
I'm guessing you meant it as just a one-time thing.. no possibility of
editing? But then again... a block of thought.... get it out. Start anew! Nice
little project.

~~~
krrishd
Yep, no editing is intentional, for that it's best to copy/paste into
somewhere better optimized for that experience (working on adding export
functionality).

Also just a note: everything is stored locally within your browser, so those
links actually break for anyone else besides you

~~~
mattbgates
Just arrived at work and tried... I see you are right! Interesting!

------
mattbgates
I created MyPost ( [https://mypost.io](https://mypost.io) ) as a way to get a
page up and running on the Internet in seconds. It was originally made for
me... but I really wanted to share it with the world and see if people would
find a use for it. I wanted a place where I didn't have to register for any
account and could use HTML and CSS (Javascript works to an extent too!) to
design web pages. Really, to make or share quick notes when I was working with
my clients. It was also a way for them to easily make changes to the post so
long as they had a password.

But it can be used for so much more ( [https://mypost.io/post/what-can-i-do-
with-mypost](https://mypost.io/post/what-can-i-do-with-mypost) ).

It is completely free to use. I don't have any plans to charge for it, and
have not even added advertising or anything to it yet, but it still receives
maintenance and updates, though no more major feature implementations are
planned. It was my first web app and taught me a lot, from learning the basics
of database programming to a friendly UI that could be understood by everyone.
My sister, who is not very tech or computer savvy, was the beta tester.
Whenever she questioned something or got stuck on something, I redesigned that
feature to make it even easier. Whether it was functionality or the wording..
if she questioned it, it was redone.

It boosted my confidence into the web app world. Right now, I've got about 8
more web apps in the works, 3 of which are in the stages of beta testing, and
though there is a free version, they will actually be paid subscription to
access additional features. So I am proud to boast about this project, as it
was the start to my empire.

------
assafmo
SQLiteProxy -
[https://github.com/assafmo/SQLiteProxy](https://github.com/assafmo/SQLiteProxy)
\- which has proven itself big time in production the last couple of weeks.

A telegram bot that sends me NBA related tweets from the ESPN Stats & Info
twitter - [https://t.me/nbaespnstats](https://t.me/nbaespnstats) \-
[https://github.com/assafmo/nba-espn-stats-and-info-
telegram-...](https://github.com/assafmo/nba-espn-stats-and-info-telegram-bot)
\- which was amazing during the 2017 playoffs and made the whole watching
experience awesome for me. The channel also have around 20 followers right
now, so I guess others like it to. :-)

A script that downloads all my shows every day - assafmo/DownloadMyEpisodes

------
pigpen34
CronAlarm [https://www.cronalarm.com](https://www.cronalarm.com) \- A cron /
scheduled job monitoring service.

My main job requires a ridiculous amount of file and data transfers that are
mostly scheduled to run during off-peak hours. I needed a way to centralize
the results of these jobs in order to keep tabs on things. I built this as an
in-house tool and then discovered a few services already existed for this. I
thought my solution offered some things these others didn't, and if somebody
was paying these other services I might have some success as well. It's been a
lot of fun, and if anyone has any suggestions I'd love to hear them.

------
jventura
I've build [http://mockrest.com/](http://mockrest.com/) last week and even did
a Show HN at
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14537247](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14537247).

I've built many things before but why am I proud of this one specifically?
Basically because I've built it with no expectations what-so-ever if this
thing will ever be needed by someone else but me. Also, I've built it fast
(less than 1 week), polished it a bit, and released it as soon as it was
working ok-ish..

And why am I proud of being able to build it although it is not complete?
Because I used to deal with perfection for so long that I had to force myself
to release anything at all. In fact, it used to be very hard for me to even
start doing anything for myself, as I would have analysis-paralysis. For quite
some time I had to force myself to think "when good is good enough", read a
lot of things about that subject, read other people opinions on these things,
etc. etc. etc. After figthing with my own perfectionism, it seems that I
finally can do things having lower expectations.. That's why I'm proud..

------
nstart
I recently polished a little and released a chrome extension to auto skip
YouTube ads after they've played enough to ensure the content creator gets
paid. Pretty darn happy with it.
[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/youtube-auto-ad-
sk...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/youtube-auto-ad-
skipper/ibpnocgpjfpblfhciempjbmahomooiah)

Waiting for Firefox to approve the add-on now.

------
palerdot
I've built [http://hotcoldtyping.com](http://hotcoldtyping.com), an
interactive way to learn touch typing with instant feedbacks with keyglows and
graphs based on accuracy.

I've built [http://remindoro.com](http://remindoro.com), a chrome extension to
get repeat reminders.

[http://palerdot.in/moon-phase-visualizer/](http://palerdot.in/moon-phase-
visualizer/) \- A simple web demo to understand moon's phases and eclipses.

All of these stuffs are open source (my github -
[https://github.com/palerdot](https://github.com/palerdot)) and I'm proud of
these tools

------
minhajuddin
I am proud of making LiveForm
([https://liveformhq.com/](https://liveformhq.com/)) and GetSimpleForm
([https://getsimpleform.com/](https://getsimpleform.com/)). Both are simple
products which allow users to integrate contact forms seamlessly in their
websites. However, their use by others gives me great pleasure. A very recent
user of LiveForm is using it to do translations! A user submits a scanned
document with some extra information using LiveForm and my customer translates
the text for a fee :)

------
rpeden
StoryGrabber - [http://stories.rpeden.com/](http://stories.rpeden.com/)

Just a little tech news aggregator I put together using React and Node. Pulls
the top 10 stories from HN and a bunch of subreddits, and pushes updates to
the browser every 15 minutes via socket.io.

I've still got plenty of improvements to make to it, but I'm trying to break
the habit of working on side projects that I don't ship. So I've shipped this
one, even though I won't consider it 'done' for quite a while yet. :)

~~~
pouta
Is it open source?

I'm also doing something similar with the same stack and would love to see how
you did the sockets integration...

------
ademcan
I am working (on my spare time) on canSnippet for the last few years. I made a
very first web-based version
[https://github.com/ademcan/canSnippet](https://github.com/ademcan/canSnippet)
and I recently released a desktop version for macOS (Windows and Linux are
coming...) [https://www.cansnippet.com/](https://www.cansnippet.com/). I got
very good and positive feedback so far :)

------
jetti
Plsm ([https://github.com/jhartwell/Plsm](https://github.com/jhartwell/Plsm)).
It was my first Elixir project and I have almost 10 times more stars on the
project than my next highest project. I was also complimented on how clean the
code was, and this was only a month into learning Elixir.

------
ianleeclark
I'm a fan of [https://freethepodcast.com/](https://freethepodcast.com/)

I found a naive, yet effective way of adblocking podcasts which is easily
scalable. Although it's not yet released, early access is close to releasing
and I'm hoping that it takes off. Really proud of it because it's incredibly
cross-dimensional (i.e., marketing, programming, &c.) and that having a
podcast adblocker is non-trivial problem to solve.

~~~
kk_cz
I would be afraid of legal implications. It's one thing to block ads on web,
where every element is basically a stand alone datafile and it's
interpretation is by design the matter of client. But in podcast, you are
essentially taking someone's copyrighted audio file, modifying it and
redistributing the modified version without consent of the original producer.
Or am I missing something?

------
siquick
[http://mp.soundshelter.net/](http://mp.soundshelter.net/) \- Get a playlist
of your most listened to tracks on Spotify

Not because it was technically difficult, but because it solved a problem that
me and seemingly hundreds of other people who signed up are having.

~~~
ng-user
Kickass! I love the idea and I'm genuinely surprised it's not covered with
Spotify itself. You've got another user :)

------
Artlav
Many small things, from compilers, IDE and mail client to a bitcoin node,
magnet simulator and video-to-3D model thingy.

None of it is public, however, for obvious reasons.

