Ask HN: Have you created programs for only your personal use?

- wgetcheck (Python): Downloads a file with wget and verifies a provided hash, for my convenience. Also automatically verifies internal checksums in zip, gz, and other archives, and verifies the size and MD5 checksum provided in a HTTP header. I'll probably next add verifying the provided size of the file to provide some sort of basic check for files without provided checksums. This all would probably be better done by a browser extension, so maybe I'll write one later.

- freeze (Python): A script to update a hash file (same format as shaXXXsum) by adding new files and noting which no longer have matching hashes. Optionally sets the files as immutable [0] to prevent them from being modified or deleted. Intended to be used on files which aren't supposed to change or change infrequently.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chattr (chattr +i)

- Text snippet app to reply to support request emails. Use this to reply to about a dozen emails each day. I have over 300 snippets.

- App to got through a folder with my bank statement PDFs and produce a number of transaction and investment reports (calculates IRR and other metrics).

- An app to simulate all possible portfolio combinations for a given set of assets (this was before https://portfoliocharts.com)

- An egg timer that you can start before you set the time right after you put the eggs into the water. Those seconds are precious. Wrote this as a gift for somebody.

- App to generate monthly invoices for my app sales.

- A nice frontend to manipulate csv files.

While I was looking for an apartment, an app to look for new listings and notify me right away (often the nice apartments would already be gone by the time the daily email reached my inbox).

A workout timer. Simple app that tells me the time every 15 seconds. Throws in the occasional Tony Horton quote for motivation.

Oh, and a personal notes app, of course!

1) a web application to manage customer Q-tagged VLAN Ethernet circuits within specific color-coded optical fibers of municipal fiber-to-the-home cables (12, 36, 48 and 96 fiber cables). The application enabled fiber optic physical plant to be optimized for customer Ethernet circuits, reducing the cost of implementing customers considerably below industry average.

2) a double-entry bookkeeping system optimized for the monthly US Bankruptcy Court Chapter 11 financial reporting requirements to manage the same company as debtor-in-possession when our largest customer(s) filed bankruptcy during the dot com bust (circa 2001), forcing us to also file for protection. This enabled us to successfully double our customer base, double our revenue and retire all debt while reorganizing in bankruptcy.

3) a general accounting web application emerged from these experiences specializing in multi-currency accounting of businesses specializing in asset management (features that Quickbooks etc just do not have). This built on my personal situation of being a citizen of more than one country.

All 3 of these were developed using PHP/MySQL and I have refactored them over the decades up to PHP ver 8 / MySQL ver 8 running on the latest Ubuntu LTS server version. As I am the sole user (with a few personal assistants), I have been able to focus on the addition of features and capabilities rather than user support, security and general hardening of the applications.

1. StrongLift 5x5 tracker. This is a python CLI based script that tracks 5x5 (Strong Lift) program. I haven't used it in awhile, but a few friends still do.

2. HNews calendar style home page. I wrote this as a way to reduce my daily HN screen time but don't want to miss anything. So I created an app (django on raspberry pi) that downloads from HN API and group HN articles by date and point in a calendar style page. Pretty useful, but the code is still in Py2 and awful.

3. A crawler that downloads swim school class availability so I can sign my kids up.