

Ask HN: What did you create in 2011? - mumm

What side projects, apps, hacks did you build in 2011?
======
JangoSteve
In addition to client work...

* Created <http://jspkg.com> for hosting javascript packages. A sort of plugins.jquery alternative, except for _all_ JS projects. This is still a very active work in progress that I've been working on for about 7 months now.

* Created the jquery dynatable plugin as a semantic HTML5 replacement for jquery datatables (<http://jspkg.com/packages/dynatable>).

* Rewrote basically the entirety of the rails/jquery-ujs adapter (kind of a creation, right?) that's now included in Rails (<https://github.com/rails/jquery-ujs> and <https://rubygems.org/gems/jquery-rails>).

* Rewrote the entire remotipart gem for ajax file uploads in rails (<https://rubygems.org/gems/remotipart>) (again, I'm assuming the rewrite counts, since it essentially became an entirely new project that happened to have the same goals as the original).

I also contributed to a lot of other open-source projects like the ruby
carrierwave gem, citizenry, ruby sunspot (solr gem), ruby-git gem, and some
others.

I consider these contributions to be pretty much on-par with things created,
because whenever I want to create something, my first step is seeing if there
may be some existing project that even comes close, to which I could
contribute instead of starting something new for people to keep up with. So
really the only difference between creating and contributing is whether or not
I can find something of similar quality and purpose that already exists.

------
pawn
I created my first xbox 360 game, piniq. [http://marketplace.xbox.com/en-
US/Product/piniq/66acd000-77f...](http://marketplace.xbox.com/en-
US/Product/piniq/66acd000-77fe-1000-9115-d80258550a04)

------
svmegatron
A handful of weekend and side projects:

* <http://www.coachulous.com>, a web app for triathlon coaches

* <http://loanarranger.heroku.com>, a visualization tool for mortgage/car/student loans

* Aspect Ratio Converter ([http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/aspect-ratio-converter/id4776...](http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/aspect-ratio-converter/id477698489?mt=12)), a calculator for resizing images, embedded video, and flash objects without screwing up the aspect ratio

* <http://www.receiptparty.com>, a service that stores and organizes your digital receipts

* <http://realpersonreminders.com>, telephone reminders from a real person

------
pkamb
Got some apps into the Mac App Store. Such as...

Reddit Notifier (for your OS X menubar):
[http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/reddit-
notifier/id468366517?m...](http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/reddit-
notifier/id468366517?mt=12)

------
MarkTraceur
<https://qrustom.com> was a big project for me, <https://gitorious.org/stattr>
was another, and <http://test.mine.bz> was something I contributed to. I also
did <https://gitorious.org/mmake> , though I don't feel like I really finished
it.

I also did a really stupid javascript library:
<https://gist.github.com/1138419>

Hopefully 2012 will be even better!

------
jmslau
Built a simple site to visually search Kijiji (in Canada) and Craigslist (US
and Canada) to help my wife look for baby stuff.

<http://shopcaste.com>

------
dholowiski
I created <http://onepix.me> in about 3 months of 2011 I did the bulk of the
coding on <http://localbeer.me> (find great beer, brewed locally) in 2011 I
created <http://imgonly.info> \- only the images from the Reddit home page in
2011 I also created several smaller failures, which were quite fun as well.

My plan for 2012 is to create revenue from one, or all of the above sites.

------
jessepollak
Built an app to help students at my college save money by finding a shared
ride to the airport.

<http://5crideshare.com/>

------
tg3
I made <http://www.newsfeedy.com> to provide context for trending topics at a
glance. Born of my desire to know what breaking news/trends were, while being
too lazy to google the Twitter trending topics.

Started writing (semi) regularly on my blog, <http://tgriff3.tumblr.com> \- a
big step after many stops and starts.

------
polyfractal
An email list! I interview startups which are hiring and email the interview
to my list. Thinking about podcasting the interviews in the near future.
<http://startupfrontier.com>

Also a visualization of US Foreign Aid using D3: <http://www.euphonious-
intuition.com/USForeignAidVis/>

------
davesmylie
I created <http://dudmail.com> \- a disposable email site that allows you to
automatically forward emails, and permits attachments.

It's not been as much of a success as I was hoping (currently 1200 registered
users, with quite a large number more of unregistered users), but it was a
project that I started _and_ finished =)

~~~
pestaa
For 1200 users, many entrepreneurs would cut out and sell their kidneys.

Congratulations on shipping your project! I'd like to check it out, but seems
down for the moment...

EDIT: It's live actually. Looks like a problem on my end.

~~~
davesmylie
yeah, don't get me wrong - I'm (sorta) happy with that, but I don't think
they're 1200 real users.

You don't need to register to use 90% of the sites functionality, so most
people probably never register.

But it's free to register, so of those that do, probably only 10% come back
and use the site regularly. Certainly it only seems to translate to about
100-200 uniques a day.

I'm still getting about 2-10 registrations a day, so hopefully (given a long
enough period of time) that number will go up.

The big problem at the moment though is that I've submitted to all the app
directories that I could find. This made a huge difference in google page rank
for "disposable email" (made it up to page two at one point). Now though, with
no new links I'm slowly sinking (now down to page four).

------
ecaroth
Still a work in progress, and none outside of my fulltime job: FitBolt
(fitbolt.com) - workday health & wellness platform. Gives you
alerts/actions/notifications with posture corrections, exercises, stretching,
health & nutrition tips. Currently have a web version, firefox & chrome
plugin, and pokki (desktop) version

------
smoovej
Created a fun book recommendation site for kids: <http://bookoneer.com>

------
deutronium
I created <http://www.adopt-a-cloud.com/> based on a half bakery idea
(<http://www.halfbakery.com/idea/Adoptacloud_2eorg>) using the Play framework.

------
sagacity
Two that I like the most (although not exactly side projects):

<http://getlocalne.ws> (Global News Aggregator) and <http://www.RapiDefs.com>
(Web 2.0 English Dictionary)

~~~
dholowiski
Wow, I live in a small town in Canada and it had a news feed. Nice. You might
want to think about geolocating the user by IP address, and displaying their
local news without having to select a city.

~~~
sagacity
Thanks. The home page already has IP to geolocation to suggest country/city,
using a free open db (so the city-level accuracy is not very high).

------
aymeric
I created <http://goalstribe.com> (democratizing group coaching) and UserLove
<http://userlove.net/products/5> (Get video testimonials from your users).

------
rykov
<http://www.gemfury.com> for hosting private Ruby Gems. I wanted a unified way
to deploy software for another project and decided to use gems. First built it
for myself, then figured it would benefit others.

------
brewin
<http://20suggestions.com> \- Recommendations based on your tweets.

I created it to learn Ruby, Sinatra, JQuery, and web development in general.
It was a fun little project.

------
apsurd
<http://jekyllbootstrap.com> \- The quickest and most hassle-free way to get
your new Jekyll powered website up and running. 100% compatible with GitHub
pages.

------
MattBearman
I created BugMuncher - a feedback widget that allows users to create marked-up
screenshots of website errors (like on Google +) - <http://bugmuncher.com>

~~~
dholowiski
Looks great, I might actually use this today. Also, nice theme... i'm using
the exact same one for one of my projects.

~~~
MattBearman
Thanks! Hope you like it, and please let me know if you have any suggestions
as I'm putting a lot more time into it this year.

You wouldn't believe how many sites I've seen using that theme, unfortunately
it's arguably the best SaaS theme on themeforest, one of my goals this year is
to get a new site deign.

------
sdotsen
My first solo project is called iKeepm. It's a service that allows you to
track your personal assets for insurance purposes.

<http://www.ikeepm.com>

------
jonp
I built <http://www.birthdaysudoku.com> \- sudoku puzzles customised to
include a date of birth.

------
ohashi
Created Gift Lizard (<http://www.giftlizard.com>) a tag based gift
search/discovery site.

------
bodegajed
I made <http://tweetcaddy.com> a web-based tweet calendar scheduling software
:)

------
aespinoza
I created a really cool Back-end-as-a-Service called iKnode.
<http://iknode.com>

------
damoncali
Bison Ballistics: <http://bisonballistics.com>

------
pknerd
I created Snapmarks- <http://sm.sidlabs.com>

~~~
pknerd
Oh I created Am I Beautiful too. Another iphone app just to help those
women/girls who think they are not good at all and perform bad in their lives
just because they think no one love them.

<http://mib.sidlabs.com>

------
gdhillon
We created a context aware to-do/task list application. We make
recommendations for each of user's tasks to help them get done quickly. Check
us out at: <http://diglig.com>

