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Hey!

Little side project went live last week.

This tool helps you to convert Excel/OpenOffice table files into ICS files to use them with your smartphone calendar and whatnot.

Build it mainly because I missed the garbage truck twice last year and wanted to ensure that I get their plan on my smartphone without creating single entries for each pickup.

Now I create an Excel file instead (sample provided on the website), convert it, and import the resulting ICS file. Work is still there, but I can share the file with everybody without touching some FAANG calendar infrastructure.

Maybe someone finds it useful, appreciate all feedback.


A little write-up on how an Arduino clone and 10 € in parts helped me improve my espresso making by automating my coffee grinder.


Uh, that's actually a nice service. Build something like that myself [1] but yours is surely more ripe. :-D

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19336803


Hey! I built a little site to create dummy PDF files. This can be useful for media professionals, especially those working in process automation.

For various reasons you do not want to use real customer data, so you often start up InDesign, create a document with whatever text or image in it and write a PDF from this. Obviously this always takes some time.

To make this process easier, I have finalized lorempdf.com at the weekend. It has been in a "90% done" status for quite some time, but I still had to approve my app for production mode with Unsplash. As I have finally finished this, this little project is good to go.

Read more here: https://www.flomei.de/en/blog/2020/08/17/lorempdf-create-sam...

Or just give it a try, it's really easy to use. ;-)

Oh, I forgot: Any feedback is welcome, I'm really happy if you used it and write me a few lines on what I could make better.


- Setting up a small webservice that creates PDF files with sample data for workflow development. I need this for work as it's easier than working with real customer data. Hopefully others find it useful, too. Will make a ShowHN once it's finished.

- Remade a small landingpage for tshirt-designs with motives for my hometown/area. Used a software called "Bootstrap Studio" for that. I think I found it through HN. Really like it for static one-pagers. Looking into doing more with that.

- Rebuilding an old commercial espresso machine. The electronics were fried, you can't get them as spare parts, so I'm doing a full rebuild. New casing, new electronics but the old mechanical parts. Waiting for the last exchange parts, then I will finish the mechanical work and can look into the electronics.

- Learning French via Duolingo. Been keeping it up for almost 30 days now, Homeoffice made some time for two or three more "lessons" a day. I like it so far.

- Maybe I should start meditating, but I'm not sure where/how to start. I looked into some apps but I find them rather distracting. Maybe I just need to sit in my bed for 10 minutes with closed eyes and everything and just focus on my breath every morning. Any recommendations on how to get this started?


Really recommend the book, "Why Buddhism is true" by Robert Wright. He discusses the "atheist" take on buddhism, and how it predates an awful lot of what we now understand through modern psychology.

It's not really a tutorial on meditation, but I've learned more than enough to get started, and it's really interesting to see where I've gotten since starting.


Thanks, I'll have a look into that.


(Re: Meditation) The Waking Up App is a godsend; baffingly comprehensive. The only potential problem (for some) is it was created by Sam Harris.


I would have to google Sam Harris, so I think I got no problem here. But the app is with in-app purchases, too. Are there no good meditation apps without that?


Sam spent like 10 years in meditation studies before ever returning to college, but also dabbles in political debates (mostly to the left) so there ya go.

In-app purchases? Mmm I thought you subscribed monthly and then it's all unlocked. I can share a free month to anyone so e-mail me (see my bio / description.) Worth the try.


Totally. Made some good money, doing this for small to medium businesses. Easy work, and lots of quick wins.


Thanks for your comment.

I think this is fine, especially in the way you want to handle it. Even a rough estimation for the price helps, at least me, to make a decision or get further in contact.

And I also understand that vendors are not showing prices _if_ the product is complex. As mentioned, As an example, all the ticketing or live chat solutions are probably not a complex enterprise-grade software (at least not the ones I looked at) so there is no reason not to show prices, imho.

Out of curiosity: What's your product?


https://hofstadter.io

low-code for developers initially, "express your ideas" (making tech accessible to more humans) is the vision.


Ah! Probably nothing I need right now, but interesting nevertheless. I wish you all the best for your project!


Interesting point and this might be true for some of those sites. But the company that pointed me to their price list after asking for it, had completely normal prices, just like the competitors, too.

Besides that I think that B2B business is changing, too. We're always becoming more agile, have a more distributed stack of tech and services and things, at least for me, get added (and dropped) more easily and often. I think that's good news for smaller vendors.


Hey! I just started blogging in English and thought you wonderful people on here might find it interesting. :-)

Enjoy your sunday and I'm looking forward to your thoughs on this topic.


That's cool, although the options are limited. Great point to start.


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