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Ask HN: What are your “scratch own itch” projects?

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161–170 of 175 posts

Re: Ask HN: What are your “scratch own itch” projects?

#162
I didn't appreciate developing Azure Pipelines in YAML so I've created a library that lets you use C# instead.

Aside the apparent advantages of the strong typed environment, I was able to bake in many more features that make your life easier. Code reuse is also super easy.

https://github.com/sharpliner/sharpliner

Re: Ask HN: What are your “scratch own itch” projects?

#164
post #57

My washing machine stopped beeping when it was finished. I realised I could program an ESP32 with an accelerometer which detects when the washing machine was on, then wait a bit before waking up and sending a notification to my phone. I wrote up my process here but since then I've made some improvements so that logic for the trigger for detecting when the machine is on actually happens on the accelerometer itself. I…

the blynk api push notification link is broken, did you install some app in your phone?

My latest version uses a Telegram bot but a better solution would probably be to use Pushover or the newly released Ntfy.sh

https://pushover.net/

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33517944

Re: Ask HN: What are your “scratch own itch” projects?

#165
post #122

I'm the author and maintainer of `cheat`, which started life (and continues life) as a "scratch your own itch" project: https://github.com/cheat/cheat I wrote it because I often forgot the shell commands that I needed to use on a daily basis, and realized that I wasted a lot of time Googling the same thing over and over.

thank you, stumbled into your project repo months ago, and found it really useful. Sidenote: Maybe I'll add Windows installation instructions to your documentation

Thanks for the kind words. I'm glad you're finding it useful :)

A documentation PR for Windows would be welcome. I've been meaning to reorganize and improve the documentation for months now, but it keeps getting line-jumped by other priorities.

Re: Ask HN: What are your “scratch own itch” projects?

#166

I was tired of "backups inside backups inside directories with yet more backups" I accumulated over the ages. Stuff as old as: /home/pub/oldbackups/hddConner800MB1998/olddos/... Yet I like to try to keep everything personal. I've got nearly all my emails. Since the nineties. I still have my DOS source code files. Same for the more recent stuff. This is saved in many places. Yet at times I like to organize some of tha…

Do you mind sharing some of the tools you are using?

Re: Ask HN: What are your “scratch own itch” projects?

#167
post #4

I have several projects that I develop just for myself. One is a command line based database browser/editor. PhpMyAdmin for the terminal, so to say. I do all my database work inside of this editor. The terminal is just so much faster. And has many benefits like that I can use it over ssh and in containers. Another one I started recently and already use is a terminal based project planner that is completely file based…

Sounds great. Did you release it?

Re: Ask HN: What are your “scratch own itch” projects?

#168
post #4

I have several projects that I develop just for myself. One is a command line based database browser/editor. PhpMyAdmin for the terminal, so to say. I do all my database work inside of this editor. The terminal is just so much faster. And has many benefits like that I can use it over ssh and in containers. Another one I started recently and already use is a terminal based project planner that is completely file based…

Sounds great. Did you release it?

No, it's just for my own usage.

Re: Ask HN: What are your “scratch own itch” projects?

#169

A made guitar chord-melody arrangement generator that uses jazz leadsheets (melody + chord symbols) as input: https://chordmelody.io/ I always thought the process was tedious but systematic enough to automate, and to some extent I think I was right. Here’s a video of one of the arrangements: https://youtu.be/F3h_yQOM_Jg

Your "dream a little dream of me" MusicXML link on the instructions returns a 404.

Oof. Thank you, should be fixed now.

Re: Ask HN: What are your “scratch own itch” projects?

#170
post #37

A few years ago I discovered Anki (a spaced repetition app) for helping me learn Japanese. I immediately recognized the power of spaced repetition, but really did not like using Anki (it's pretty clunky and requires a lot of configuration to work right). I started building my own alternative, Mochi [0], which I wanted to kind of be a cross between Anki and Notion. I'm pretty happy with where it's at now and I've been…

I'm very glad I read this comment! I've recently started learning French and I'd threw together a simple flashcard app to practice what I'd learned.

But without spaced repetition and the ability to categorise it's not that useful, and I quickly realised that I would end up spending more time coding than learning French if I continued!

I've been trying out Mochi for the last few days and so far I'm very impressed. It's easy to use and looks great. I'm tempted by some of the pro features like speech/translation so I think I'll sign up.

One thing I'm curious about — I've read that writing is a particularly effective way to hammer home what you're trying to remember. When learning a language in particular, I feel it's very useful to write out words to practice spelling etc.

I wonder what your take is on this and if this is a feature of Mochi? I know there's a drawing mode for practicing Kanji etc. but that's somewhat different to a "typing mode" for the want of a better word. Or is it better to incorporate writing practice in a different way?

Anyway, great work and thanks!

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