The "An App A Day" Plan
I plan on writing 30 applications in 30 days. That's one per day... I haven't started yet, but keep watching here for more info.
The whole idea started as a dicussion on a plane ride. I was flying back from Houston with a fellow developer talking about web ideas... This idea hit me. I started jotting down application ideas on a paper napkin (which is now sitting next to my desk). I'll divulge some of those ideas in the future.
I BEG you to submit ideas for me. Don't tell me to write a friggin MMORPG or some crap like that. Serious ideas that are possible to do in one night. Write me at ideas@anappaday.com! Once I get started I'll flush out the ideas I have on this napkin within a week or two.
Frequently, well not really, Asked Questions:
What types of apps will you write?
Useful ones!
Useful for who?
For me, and most likely a large number of others!
What programming language(s) do you use?
Whatever it takes to get the job done. Currently I'm a C# junkie, but I've been into Java in the past. Most likely all coding will be in C#.
Are you giving the applications away for free?
Yes, and most likely open source. However, I'm working out the details on this aspect.
Why the hell are you doing this?
I'm not exactly sure. I write code really fast. I like to write code. Not topcoder algorithm crap, but useful apps. Typically I write at least an app per month just for personal productivity enhancement. This site is a natural extension of that I guess.
Why just 30 days?
I do have a life. While I expect to continue with this site, we'll see where it leads me.
Can you prove that you are really writing these apps everyday?
I'll work something out. Probably a combination of a webcam and screen broadcast a la livemeeting style. But there will always be those who think I'm a phony. That's OK, most people who know me think I'm strange anyhow. You won't hurt my feelings. I'm a "software jedi"...
Where do you work?
I'm a software developer/architect for a large national company based in Maryland. I'm NOT looking for another job, although I may post my resume on here at some point for those who care.
posted by Unknown @ 11:55 PM
91 comments
91 Comments:
given a css stylesheet and a html page(s), create an app that removes orphan stanzas from the css file.
I'd love to see a GOOD GTD app for OSX.
One for both windows and mac would be indispensible.
Is this a Microsoft publicity stunt to show the benefits of C# over Java?
Id love it if you could make an alarm clock that plays a mp3 at specific times, with multiple alarms. That just chills in the system tray.
Good luck with the project mate ;)
Peace
Boggy
A decent and reasonably powerful MUD/MUCK server for Windows/Linux? Actually, that's just insane and would take you way too much time to accomplish.
I wouldn't mind seeing a neat screensaver that uses data coming in from one's Internet connection in an interesting way.
Any chance you could use something a bit more OPEN than c#?? how about c++ so your apps can get ported to other systems,
like an osx app, or a linux app?
If your skill set only allows you to code like a MS fanboy then I understand.
Maybe you could code a website that doesnt show 0 commments when there are obviouly comments...
How about a scraper that takes all the new items from all the RSS feeds I moniter, gets rid of all the repeats, ignores all the old ones that have been rerun from other feeds in the past, allows me to score & tag them, learns from that which ones I'm more interested in, presents them in order of interest level in a simple list format and searches for new RSS feeds that contain items of interest (Mac and PC)
Nice, I linked you from my site too: www.snowball.be .
I host a Real Estate Site - how about a way for me to index other Real Estate Sites ( URLs entered into a request form) and create Thumbnails and Links that I can show that allows searchers to have a one stop shop with a inserted frame from a single site page for all searches
I host a Real Estate Site - how about a way for me to index other Real Estate Sites ( URLs entered into a request form) and create Thumbnails and Links that I can show that allows searchers to have a one stop shop with a inserted frame from a single site page for all searches
bookmark sorter - scans the bookmark file and deletes all the broken and error'd links.
What about a simple Open Source social networking site?
I'd say write a micro smtp server with the following features: - Start/Stop from taskbar
- goes through a 3 folder process(Processing/Sent/Denied)
- logs transactions
- One mini page for configeration(port #, install dir, push time, ect)
You like apples. Create a Widget that will allow users to clock in and out keeping track of their logs in a secure read-only file. How 'bout them apples Adderall Boy.
-Campos (BTW, I wish you all the luck)
So you work for HP I gather?
Good idea, I applaud it :)
How about a natural language calendar calculator (great for the task tray). one click and a simple text box opens, you can type in things like "two weeks from tomorrow" or "15th of next month" and it will open a calendar with the correct day highlighted, to convey date and day-of-week.
Simple FTP Drop:
Drag a file into an icon on Desktop (option to put it in the tool bar, somewhere equally eternally and universally accessable) and the program will connect to a configured FTP site, navigate to a configured folder, uploads the file there, and closes the connection. And your file's uploaded!
How about something that will add/sub/mult/div fractions and also has the ability to allow decimal conversions on the fly as well. For instance, if I have .75 inches and need to add 1/8 inch to that...
I work with computers but do woodworking as a hobby, so does my dad. A PC based app would be quite handy!
A calendar calculator that can calculate dates based input: # of days. For instance, "What will the date be 63 days from now?"
Bonus points for adjusting to weekend and/or holidays.
I would like a simple ToDo list application (preferably web-based) that lets me do the 7-habits quadrant stuff. (Urgent/Important; NotUrgent/Important; Urgent/Not Important; Not Important, Not Urgent).
Would be nice to be able to grab a task from one list and drag it to the other when it changes quadrant, click in any open spot to add or edit, mark a task complete (change the cell background color), give each task a priority number and sort them in the rows by said number.
Advanced features would be things like scheduling when a ToDo moves from Important/NotUrgent to Important/Urgent on its own based on date.
I currently use an XLS spreedsheet and ftp to track my ToDo items, but need to have Excel wherever I access it from.
The Excel is a simple 8 columns (a numeric rank column and a ToDo description for each of the four categories). I use cell colors (like grey when I complete one and yellow for ones I expect to get done 'today'). There is something fitting about marking one in grey rather than just deleting it.
History (when tasks are added, completed, deleted) would be nice but not necessarily a day one feature.
Full source or compiled FTP'able to a .net web server would be ideal in my case.
Probably prefer an access DB for the backend or I suppose a file, but not sure how easy it is to upload an app with read/write permissions to my host.
How bout a resizer for jpgs so little old ladies can send their big photos in emails to their grandchildren using a desktop app.
A small program that shows current bandwidth utilization of connected computers on a Windows based network. If, for instance, the internet seems slow fire this program up and see which pc's are utilizing all the traffic...without having to use a remote add-on.
Bonus points for something that shows actual REAL TIME utilization in graphical format!
How about an iTunes 'crawler' app?
When ripping a CD without an internet connection, iTunes defaults the track names to Track 1, Track 2, etc.
A crawler that searches out and replaces the true names would really relieve a LOT of headaches (and carpel tunnel from copying and pasting).
This crawler should search a (designated?) site (ie Amazon) by album name and match the tracks. Also, add a fail safe of some sort (ie Is this the correct album?), to be verified and controlled by the user.
Thanks... and Good Luck!
PS - PLEASE add for Mac OS X first, since I'm a Mac user.
I would write a Windows Media Center plugin for DemocracyPlayer. Or if you want to take it a step farther, what the world really needs is a browser that can be viewed easily on a television and navigated speedily with a remote control. Imagine a web browser that focuses on navigating "media" pages. So for example, the "media" page for comedy central would reside at mediapage.comedycentral.com and the design would be specifically made to work with the media browser so you can view all of their content and they can feed commercials into the video streams if they need to. Webpages today have too much junk that cannot be navigated with a remote.
Hotkey a "boss button" to be assigned any key on the keyboard to minimize user defined windows. Boss comes, I press CTRL twice and *poof* Fark.com is minimized and that TPS report is now in front of me.
Ideas,
-a plugin for firefox that when you close a window it would let you close to a tab instead.
-a plugin that would allow downloads to resume after you got your connection was reconnected
-a program for c and c machines to take a paint image and use it as a pattern
How about an FTP prog for linux that actaully works good, im tired of one that doesnt let me drag and drop or drops my connection and then uploads my file to the wrong place. Make it so when you close it that it goes to the tray, kind of a happy median between smartftp for windows and kftpgrabber for linux.
NOTE: i use gnome, so i dont know if theres extra libraries that need to be used
What i am looking for is a program that searches for duplicate mp3, ogg and wmv files and can select the lower quality for deletion.
(I prefer ogg ofcourse..)
The filenames often contains the bandname, either at begin or end, but not always.
Some files are corrupt or are low quality recordings or remixes, and so some will need to be listened to know if it is ok to delete the duplicate or not.
Should take a bit more than a day, but you can split them up into different utilities.
a) find and delete true duplicates,
b) find recording duplicates (through sound similarity),
c) scan for corrupt audio files,
d) rename files to correct format (bandname - song)
Well.. if you are finished i'll put another plan up.. lol
Here's something kinda easy, a program that unloads the .DLL files from the running memory. Nifty way to bring back usuage over ram without rebooting.
Make a program/script that grabs a bands upcoming show dates on myspace and imports them into a web site.
i would liek to see an algebraic calculator that works very easily, where you pick from a list what your rtying to calculate, like pythagorean theorum, how fast something will get a given distance at a given speed, etc.
something that would be easy to use and not something where you would need to know some kind of codes or anything, something a person that doesn't know much about computers or algebra could use. maybe you could have a wizrd that could guide you through inputing your own formulas?
so basically a formula solving calculator.
C# and you write fast? Respect...
Anyway good luck with this project.
I think an easy web app would be a calendar based app.
This is a bit of a niche program, but it could possibly be expanded. I've worked in several recording studios, and I've always though it'd be nice for a studio owner to have a drag and drop type program that would facilitate him in creating a flow diagram of all of the gear in his studio. Email me at davidlanza-at-gmail if you are interested in the idea and/or have any questions.
How about an app that let's me move program registry entries from one version of Windows to another on a dual boot system.
Meaning that after I install the second OS this app would grab installed program entries from the registry of the other OS and import it so I don't have to have multiple copies of apps, they can both just use the same already installed programs.
A straight forward easy open source GIF animaotr in C# (not shitty java)
Right-click path / filename copy in Windows Explorer, but in c++ so it doesn't force a CLR load.
Process flow mapper (generate and drag boxes around with labels, connect them with arrows either/both ways).
I have a few more questions.
What OS is this primarily for (yes I know programs will be eventually ported if they are OSS).
Will you consider OS specific ideas? Some OSs have tools built in that make some ideas easier to complete than other OSs.
Will these all be CLI type apps? Some ideas have GUIs some don't.
I have no idea how much a Software Jedi can complete in a spare evening. I would imagine a lot, but a hint to the maximum limit of features. If it is just one tool per program then we have a limit to work to.
i would like to see a secure stock ticker w/configurable server app that would broadcast to clients.
a quickie utility that let's you email (encrypted?) your bookmarks from one pc to another, and merge purge them with that pc's bookmarks.
An app that lets you enter the dimensions of a room and the dimensions of all the furniture in the room. The app creates draggable and rotatable rectangles for each piece of furniture, and allows you to try various layouts before you start moving your real furniture.
how aboout a screen shot saver that posts to one graphics file and has a window that shows the code that created that screen shot. Being able to cut and paste text from within the screen shot would be cool.
matrix calculator please.
I want a little App that will give me my IP address externally when im am behind a router or firewall etc. Sort of liek whatismyip.com but i want it on my laptop. If it can be done.
Here's a couple small apps that should be fast to create.
1. Program that lists all current drives their size and what's left of space. maybe with a amount of data being written on the disk and read from the disk per session.
2. Alarm clock, with the possibility of adding date and reason for the alarm. should have the possibility for selecting what sound to play.
watch the RSI, friend.
Some Ideas:
1.Text Editor with Snytax Highlighting
2.Calculator
3.Process Manager, like Task Manager
4.Address Book
5.And a untility that will locate the nearest Chick-fil-A.
my idea:
The mac menu bar provides a elegant, consistent, and simple way to access menus for any application, but it doesn't scale well for those of us who use 2 monitors.
To Explain the problem Double vision solves:
Many dual monitor users use one monitor for one application that fills most of the primary screen (lets call that app A), and on the secondary monitor another app (lets call that app B). Without Double vision The menu bar is only on the primary screen. When the user is utilizing app B, they have to move the mouse all the way over to the primary monitor just to gain menu access to app B. This is cumbersome, inefficient, and disorientation.
not an awe inspiring idea, but it would make workfolow a lot better, and easier for researchers, artists, designers, or any person who regularly uses 2 or more Monitors
C# and Java...
That will narrow down the list of apps... hehehe
how about a program that controls the window positions on a widescreen monitor? doing stuff like tiling and cascading etc.
Another idea is a simple forum, like the one on http://www.newstoday.com
Heres my suggestion request for an app that would be doable in a day:
Sys-info to RSS.
Id like to get an app that will do a systems info or sys audit (using a CLI tool that your app can schedule/run on the remote system, or as an agent) where the output of that app will go to a an RSS feed for monitoring.
Basically if a user or system is updated or changed an RSS feed is created.
Also, the feeds from the machines should store data in a DB so that I can then run reports of how a system was updated/changed over time.
Nice simple app running in the tray to check periodically a webpage in html or xml or some other format and provide notifications similar to trillian, msn or whatever. This would be very useful for extending web apps for better desktop use.
Even better – make it have a window with an html control to show the webapp (like gcal-win) that can be minimized to the tray still. Needs to be configurable… like setting the url to check for new notifications and notifications need to be clickable to open a certain url or the minimized webapp.
If you or anyone else can make or suggest something similar to this I would be eternally grateful!
You can write a converter from Rhapsody playlist format to WMP format. I already did a prototype, but didn't add niceties such as automatically adding the playlist to the WMP library - or fix bugs or anything like that. Why? Because you can listen to downloaded Rhapsody songs through your XBox 360 but it's a pain to recreate the playlists!
NB: Rhapsody uses a free SQL engine (I can't remember the name, but it's v2.something of the engine - open the library file in notepad to get the name). There isn't a .NET wrapper for the V2. codebase, so there's some additional fun
How about making it where a window in XP can be made to float in the foreground while the user is working on a window in the background? (instead of the first mentioned window disappearing behind the other one)
Great idea to do something like this!
Perhaps create a tiny, low-memory app (like under 2mb) that sits in your systray and makes a sound (and maybe a tiny slidin popup in the bottom right corer) with a notification of the event you got scheduled. If you click on the icon you get a more detailed description. Allow for recursive events too.
ps. I second the motion to create a "Simple FTP Drop" someone mentioned earlier
"Any chance you could use something a bit more OPEN than c#?? how about c++ so your apps can get ported to other systems,
like an osx app, or a linux app?
If your skill set only allows you to code like a MS fanboy then I understand."
Just FYI but C# is cross platform and a standard. Look up Mono :P
I would like to propose an IRC program, i started one in C# the other week and got it to log onto a channel in a day but work commitments haven't let me finish it yet :( - would like to see what a Pro comes up with. Best of luck with it.
please make a web clock app that is connected to a remote clock service. my laptop's clock perpetually runs slow and all the web clocks I can find just run off the system clock.
Here's my million dollar idea. An RSS service that aggregates from a list of user supplied sites. It scans for user supplied keywords, and then sends a letter with links to the days "hits" to the users email address.
Honestly I don't care who writes this one, but I see it as a great way to boost cross-pollenisation of ideas between the "movers and shakers" who don't really have time to spend all day sifting through RSS titles...
An RSS screen saver would be awesome...
A Firefox identity server-client(extension) application. You just walk in an internet cafe then sit before a Firefox machine and type your id and password into its extension(the client part) which makes that particular Firefox exactly and immediately the same as your Firefox you left at home with all the last used/installed extensions, themes, cookies, passwords and any other this and that. Bela from Hungary
There is a program that I only need a little bit of function from, but it always angers me that it costs so much and only allows use on one machine. Ghost. I don't use it to do images, only to do disk to disk copy (for backups).
Sadly, a free utility (PCI CloneMaxx) can only copy from a smaller to a larger drive, even if part of the drive is not used. So, if you want to restore your backup you can't.
Simply, I want a floppy or cd-rom ISO that can clone my half-full NTFS 200GB drive to my 120GB as a backup. I like to do this in dos/linux not while Windows is booted so that it can make a real bootable clone, but also so I never boot with the second drive in because that confuses the swap file, etc.
I haven't found a free program that can do this simply, the way that DriveImage or Ghost can. PartitionLogic seemed promising, but it crashed halfway through.
So, a floppy or cd that is self-booting and can clone from a partly-full large drive to a small one. That would be awesome. Even one that can clone from a 100gb partition on a 200gb drive to a 100gb drive, and back, would be great. (The PCIClonemaxx cannot do even that).
A scraper for www.[yourcity]gasprices.com web sites that uses Google Maps API to create maps and waypoint exports for GPS units.
(ah, but can you do it one day)
ctower
How about an app that logs who has used your wireless connection and alerts you when someone begins using it. Good Luck.
I'd love a nice "Ping Until" application. Set up a ping (count, frequency etc), If the pinged host changes state (up or down) it sends (one or pick/choose) an email, network alert, logs to a file and/or database, etc. You get the idea. Basically I want an app to page me when a network link comes up, but would like to be able to have it be able to log up/down for lines that are particularly flakey. *crosses fingers*
You could use the Messenger Bot API to whip up all sorts of messenger bots, i.e. a bot that lets you tell it how many calories you ate at lunch, and ask it if you're on track to reach a certain weight by a certain date...
Please make a simple command line EXE that will take a screenshot of a webpage at a user defined resolution. Then I can make a site similar to http:/www.webshotspro.com
how about a driver or program that can take keystrokes on a midi keyboard (Electric Piano), and turn them in to macro sequences or take actions based off what key was hit, maybe it can even have a different set for each midi instrument. It would effectivly add a 20000 key macro keyboard / extended keyboard to any person's computer that has a midi port and electric piano they could hook up to that port.
How about an Application which would do a host(s) to ip(S) lookup and append to a file on the hard disk
(the file should be configurable).
Also this app shouldbe able to ping a host.(tracert not req).
This thing can be done manually but its cumbersome. thats why the reason for an appz
A nice application that could complement most of the xml-driven photo-galleries out there.
1) The user can open a folder containing pictures, each picture thumbnail is displayed.
2) Each picture node can have an unlimited amount of attributes (i.e have an add attribute button to add a Title attribute, a description, a date etc)
3) Have everything exported to xml in a readable format where the url attribute would be the relative path of the picture in the folder you are brwosing to a root specified by the user
i.e. if the user is browsing a folder called summer_2006 and specifies a root called /images/ the url attribute would be url="/images/summer_2006/picturefilename.jpg
4) Automatically create a thumbnail of all the pictures at the size specified by the user and add its path to a thumb="" attribute.
Output everything in an xml file.
Support for multiple folder editing at once would be nice.
MySQL provides a very nice GUI interface for MySQL Servers, called MySQL Query Browser.
A similar GUI interface to an SSL connection would do wonders. I mean, bourne-again shell is great, but something with saved scripts, a clickable, scrollable history, and sorting of lines/columns into a table would be amazing.
Bonus points if you can get it to help automate sed/awk/regexs for the lazy system admin.
If this already exists, please let me know so I can eat it up.
It's not "flush out," it's "flesh out." Write a program that looks up common phrases in an online dictionary.
I would like a true "sticky notes" app, since I can type faster than I can write...whenever I take a phone call or need a reminder, I'd like a hotkey to open a notepad-type editor, then a single keystroke to save the note on my desktop in a little yellow sticky note. Single "completed" click when done, selectable archive feature with date/time stamp. Uncompleted items remain on desktop after rebooting. Single "hide all stickies" hotkey when I don't want others to see my messy "desk".
A Google Maps hack that also shows subway stops (or metro or whatever -- pick one city to start with), & for extra credit marks stations & lines with service changes, & links to the service advisory on the transportation authority's site.
Whenever I go somewhere in NYC, I check Google Maps to find it, but have to visually compare it to the MTA's site to find the closest subway station.
How about a easy-to-use file sync tool for syncronising two folders on different computers.
(The XP one doesn't work for machines that have fast-user-switching enabled)
What about an eye-dropper that sits in the tool tray that you can use to select a pixel on the screen and see its RGB value (in rgb, web-based hex, cmyk, and what ever else people use)
a gui frontend for ffmpeg. :)
How about a simple timer app. Similar to a kitchen timer. You can set it and it will ding when your pizza in the oven is ready so you can surf without burning the DiGiorno.
I'd like to see some graphical app that lets you route let's say an application to a soundcard or monitor or some other aplication to some NIC.
It could have two columns the first is 'from:' and the second 'to:' the first could be apps or input devices and the second apps or output devices. So you could configure how the work flows between apps or devices for the whole system. Finally we could click 'apply' (to write the appropriate config files) or just leave the application to do the routing in the background of the system.
First, it could be a very easy way to configure a system with drag n' drop and second, it would be useful for use with applications who's setting don't let us configure them when we have redundant devices (two NIC's or CD drives, etc)
How about an app that parses an RSS feed according to the data tags, dumps it into a DB, and allows me to query / "play with" the results. I'm thinking about RSS feeds from auction sites like eBay and Yahoo - I don't want to see all the listings that match my query in an RSS viewer, I want the listings dumped to storage that I can access later.
I'd like a small app that resides on the desktop and tells me what time it is in various time zones.
"I'm a software jedi"...Okay now wipe yourself off and go wash your hands.
the guy who runs the realestate site should check out listpic. That site is sort of what your talking about.
you should take a nap a day, too. that would be AWESOME.
can i send you a requirements document from a customer of mine? it's only 63 pages. they'd like to see it implemented in under a day.
cheers!
secretGeek
I would love an alarm clock that can wake the computer up by itself and play anything i want it too and at a specific volume regardless of what the os volume is set at before i shut it down/hibernate it. would that be possible?
I would love an alarm clock that can wake the computer up by itself and play anything i want it too and at a specific volume regardless of what the os volume is set at before i shut it down/hibernate it. would that be possible? on windows preferably =P
Create a Google Sitemap XML file by reading the web site directory. Include the url and modification date from the file. This should not be dynamic, it could be a command line app the web site author runs when the sitemap needs updating.
http://cash.4x2.net/
an app to block the computer but leaving one app working, like in a party,
i'd love one app that could prevent the sniffing of my personal and work files, just allowing my guests to use the mediaplayer,
sorry for the grammar, i still studying,
thanks,
you suck hanna. Anil is a better coder than you :)
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