Making Micro Projects

I'm a big fan of writing small apps for fun, and also just to see if I can do it. In this post I want to cover a few of these projects, to maybe inspire you to work on something!

Making Micro Projects
SQL Injection Anyone? // Photo by Gabriel Heinzer / Unsplash

I'm a big fan of writing small apps for fun, and also just to see if I can do it. In this post I want to cover a few of these projects, to maybe inspire you to work on something!

Image Uploader

image-uploader
A simple web UI to upload/host images.

My first project is a dead simple image uploader. You upload an image and you get a random URL back with the image.

The "UI" of Image Uploader

I wanted to write this to have a URL that I can give to people to reference images, as sites like Imgur will be deleting "old, unused, and inactive content" that's not tied to a user account. The entire codebase is roughly 100 lines, which is perfect for my needs.

Life-API

life-api
An API to show what I’m up to. https://chse.dev/now

I wanted a fun way to show what I'm up to, and so my idea was to pull from Last.fm, and other sources to show my current activity.

  • Pulls Music from Last.fm.
  • Pulls TV/Movies from Tautulli.
  • Allows manually setting/clearing the current activity.
  • Badge endpoint for showing current activity.
  • Chrome Extension to set current activity (Reddit/Hacker News/YouTube).

TopRanks - Top 10 Spotify Stats

Yeah, there's numerous "Top 10 Spotify Stats" projects out there, and mine really isn't any different.

TopRanks
See your top ranking artists/tracks in a unique way.

I just wanted to learn more about the Spotify API and luckily, it's not hard to do. I created a basic page that after logging in with Spotify, allows you to toggle between different time frames and top 10 lists.

TopRanks UI

AAA-Spotify - Add New Releases to your Liked Songs

This one is also rather simple. I wanted a way to add new releases from my followed Spotify artists to my Liked Songs as I like to shuffle my entire song collection, and I'm not always on top of new releases. I simply run this project weekly and new releases are added to my Liked Songs.

aaa-spotify
Automatically Add New Releases from Followed Artists to your Liked Songs on Spotify.

Express-UserAccounts - Website Template with User Accounts

I wouldn't wager this one as a micro project, but it's one I've been having a lot of fun with. Essentially it's an entire web app with slightly-advanced user account capabilities.

express-useraccounts
A template for Express + EJS application with user accounts.
Login Page
Profile Dropdown
Admin Backend
  • Social Sign In
  • Registration (w/ Forced Email Verification)
  • Login/Logout
  • Forgot Password (Email Reset Link)
  • Edit Profile
    Change Username/Password/Email/Profile Picture
    Enable/Disable 2FA (Optional for Users, Required for Admins)
    Delete Account
    Request/Revoke API Key(s)
  • Admin Panel
    View History of a User's Actions
    Change User Info (Username, Reset Profile Picture, Revoke API Key)
    Ban/Unban/Promote/Demote User
    ... and more.
  • API (w/ Swagger)

Conclusion

In conclusion, I hope I can inspire you to work on some of your own projects. I've had a lot of fun with recent side-projects, and I hope you can too! :)

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