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

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

#121

Post by nilshauk »

Some weeks ago I wrote a couple of bookmarklets, one of which was this:

javascript:(function(){ location.href = `https://nitter.net${location.pathname}` })();

You can take this JavaScript snippet and save it as a clickable bookmark (hence the name bookmarklet) in you browser. I've named this "re-open in Nitter". I deleted my Twitter account a while back but sometimes I get handed a Twitter link. This snippet let's me quickly re-open the link in Nitter which is a nag-free way to browse Twitter without having an account. :)

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

#122

Post by smokel »

Many.

One program that I am particularly happy with is a calendar generator for Scribus.

The Python script generates a year calendar, which I then print as a book. It helps me to plan my art career by week, by month, and by quarter. The custom layout somehow makes me take all the planning very seriously. And there is a lot of room for sketching.

Another recent project is a personal mind map, which I can extend to my own needs. It is heavily inspired by Kinopio, which, unfortunately, is not open source.

I am always amazed that not everybody is using computers and programming in this way.

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

#123

Post by dvh »

Text editor, RSS reader, electronic schematic simulator, perfboard designer, optics simulator, browser, git GUI client, music player, expenses tracking app, spreadsheet app (I needed to make simple manual edit in many csv files and waiting for office just took too long, so I made just editor and it launches instantly), numerous one time use chrome extensions, calculator, libv8 based shell, video editor, ad blocker, ...

It usually reaches perfect usability for me very quickly, but to make it usable for others or make it publishable would take months.

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

#125

Post by jrm4 »

I live by them; I probably couldn't name them all, they've become so embedded in my flow.

Probably the most important part of my flow is the following; it's a method for doing a personal "inbox" GTD style, 100% reliant on email + zim-wiki. I have a script that, when called manually, searches for new "inbox-marked" emails (i.e. ONLY those sent from me to me), and copies them to my zim notebook (specifically, to the page corresponding to "today" in the journal) as an open checkbox item.

Supporting that is-

- Desktop: a little shell script that pops open a zenity window to send such an email

- Smartphone: An android app called Blitzmail that does that and only that.(pops a window and sends to an address with no other interaction)

This replaces a LOT of things for me and helps prioritize immensely, (i.e. strongly prevents "email inbox as to-do list" which is a bad idea)

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

#126

Post by bcrosby95 »

Yes. Off the top of my head:

I've built a lot of "cheat" programs for games. Ranging from full on bots to something that just gives me information to act upon.

I also built a very rudimentary market analysis program for Eve Online back when I played, to help me play the market and optimize what I would build/mine/etc.

I have a simple chrome plugin that will auto-fill a form for me with random junk. This makes manually testing a UI with forms a lot faster.

Back when I had a lot of DnD books in pdf form, I built a program that would let me create a set of bookmarks across all the PDFs. DnD likes to spread classes and spells across multiple books, so this made it a lot easier to find stuff.

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

#127

Post by betaanon »

I've created a multithreaded python daemon which every 5 minutes scrapes all currently online cammers on chaturbate and streams to file the ones I've marked as favorites. I've got a text file with tags for each favorited streamer so I can change which ones are being downloaded depending on mood.

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

#128

Post by primitivesuave »

I created a program that prints QR codes onto sheets of peel-and-stick labels. When someone scans the code, they are directed to a simple web app that manages food sharing with my four roommates.

We noticed that we buy a lot of the same things (bananas, avocados, eggs, etc), so we implemented a system where anyone can stick a QR code onto something they want to share, and anyone else can scan it to record what they took. For example, this morning I pulled a carton of eggs out of the fridge, scanned it, recorded that I took 3, and a Splitwise expense was automatically updated between me and the person who bought the eggs (much easier and less awkward than handing someone 75 cents). Everyone is logged into the application via Splitwise OAuth, and all products/expenses/debts are automatically simplified within Splitwise and updated via the API - so the app is pretty much a wrapper over Splitwise specifically for granular sharing of food.

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

#129

Post by srcreigh »

chasd00 wrote: post #60

I created a program that outputs one of my kid's name if the day of year is even, the other kid's name if it's odd. I use it to determine who's turn it is to take a shower first. They'll argue with me and each other all day long but for some reason they will not argue with the computer.

has it been more than a year? How does Jimmy feel about going first on Dec 31 (day 365) and Jan 1 (day 1)?

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

#130

Post by Aloha »

deathanatos wrote: post #102

I wrote a mapping program that could display maps, my location on them, time estimates to a down-road position, etc. "Why not Google Maps?" Several reasons: Google Maps requires a cell connection. (They have offline maps now — they didn't at the time I built the tool — but my offline maps are far more controllable in what data I pull down. And if I need data I haven't got, and I have a cell signal, I can fetch it on…

the Next Exit is a phenomenal tool while travelling.

https://thenextexit.com/

I keep an older copy in my car for when I travel.

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