Ask HN: What are your favorite tiny, single purpose tools?
What are you favorite simple, single purpose tools that do one thing really one? Websites, CLIs, libraries, anything really!
57 comments
https://www.timeanddate.com
just about everything you want to know about sun and moon data for any location. Also a world clock, time zones, timers, calculators, even weather.
https://filezilla-project.org/ FileZilla FTP client
https://adionsoft.net/fastimageresize/ What the name says and super fast, super small output. supports multiple image formats.
https://www.xponentsoftware.com/xml-editor.aspx for fast loading huge XML files. editing not very full-featured and search is slow, but xml schema validation is fast.
https://afdc.energy.gov/stations#/find/nearest Alternative energy locations with map. USA, Canada. electric/charging type, CNG, LNG, Hydrogen, propane, biodiesel, ethanol. route selection.
https://fire.airnow.gov/ Fire and smoke map. USA, Canada.
https://filezilla-project.org/ FileZilla FTP client
https://adionsoft.net/fastimageresize/ What the name says and super fast, super small output. supports multiple image formats.
https://www.xponentsoftware.com/xml-editor.aspx for fast loading huge XML files. editing not very full-featured and search is slow, but xml schema validation is fast.
https://afdc.energy.gov/stations#/find/nearest Alternative energy locations with map. USA, Canada. electric/charging type, CNG, LNG, Hydrogen, propane, biodiesel, ethanol. route selection.
https://fire.airnow.gov/ Fire and smoke map. USA, Canada.
I use timeanddate.com probably every day, on average, for work. It's so handy, for both the calendars and the date calculators.
I think it's a bit sad to be using a heavyweight, ad-ridden website for such trivial things that can be done with e.g.:
date --date="2 days ago"
cal -3
On the other hand, I admire whoever the operator is for creating a business around such a simple thing.
date --date="2 days ago"
cal -3
On the other hand, I admire whoever the operator is for creating a business around such a simple thing.
The site loads quickly. It's fast with few ads.
Maybe the date command can do things like calculate the number of business days between two dates, accounting for U.S. holidays, and add or subtract work days excluding U.S. holidays -- I don't know. But I know it would take more effort than I'm willing to do to figure that out and test it. And I suspect it would involve a few switches and be subject to easy error.
For pulling up the calendar, it's literally a bookmark that brings up a browser tab with the year's calendar, showing U.S. national holidays. Can the cal command show holidays at all? It's unclear.
I think it's a bit sad to discount the value of a clear, usable, and fast GUI over a command-line interface for certain day-to-day tasks. Both tools have their uses.
Maybe the date command can do things like calculate the number of business days between two dates, accounting for U.S. holidays, and add or subtract work days excluding U.S. holidays -- I don't know. But I know it would take more effort than I'm willing to do to figure that out and test it. And I suspect it would involve a few switches and be subject to easy error.
For pulling up the calendar, it's literally a bookmark that brings up a browser tab with the year's calendar, showing U.S. national holidays. Can the cal command show holidays at all? It's unclear.
I think it's a bit sad to discount the value of a clear, usable, and fast GUI over a command-line interface for certain day-to-day tasks. Both tools have their uses.
You can't make a single typo in Bash and also the browser makes aliases for you automatically based on usage, whereas Bash aliases require thought and maintenance.
So it's Bash that is slower ("heavyweight") if you count how many neuron firings it takes and how much these gigantic, slow write heads (fingers on a keyboard) have to move through space as part of the system. Computer scientists haven't been able to make a language with any sort of error recovery because "it would be non-deterministic" but Google (guided by capitalism) was able to see that's what people need. Google search is a programming language/shell.
So it's Bash that is slower ("heavyweight") if you count how many neuron firings it takes and how much these gigantic, slow write heads (fingers on a keyboard) have to move through space as part of the system. Computer scientists haven't been able to make a language with any sort of error recovery because "it would be non-deterministic" but Google (guided by capitalism) was able to see that's what people need. Google search is a programming language/shell.
“Hi and welcome to whattimeisitnow.com, you are greenlit!”
A pineapple de-corer and slicer. An $8 tool significantly improves the ease and efficiency of getting maximum pineapple value.
There is nice tool called `aha` that converts ANSI color codes to HTML colors. See https://github.com/theZiz/aha
Example usage: pipe to it any command with color output then send result to an .html file:
git diff --color | aha > ~/Deskop/changes.html
Might integrate this into my git workflow
I wrote a small utility named "reminder" that lets me set a reminder, optionally with a message, for any time in the future. When the time comes, I get a phone call (and an SMS if I attached a message).
This is really cool! Is the code open sourced?
No, but it's just garbage quality "need a thing now" code anyway, and it uses Twilio so I'm not going to host it for other people for free ($$$$, and a lot of abuse potential). I've been wondering if a more polished/packaged version of this would be something someone might pay for. Out of curiosity: would you pay, say, $10/month for this service?
PureText. Windows tray utility that removes all text formatting from whatever is in the clipboard.
http://stevemiller.net/PureText/
http://stevemiller.net/PureText/
fyi you can download windows power toys and assign a keyboard shortcut to "paste as plain text" universally in Windows
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/powertoys/paste-as...
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/powertoys/paste-as...
Thanks, I wasn't aware of that.
PureText provides universal paste too with Windows+V. PowerToys is useful but there's a lot of it that I find I either never use or forget about.
PureText provides universal paste too with Windows+V. PowerToys is useful but there's a lot of it that I find I either never use or forget about.
I use ditto as my clipboard manger and have a key combination to "purify" the output
Comd + Alt + V does this on MacOS
If I spend money on software, that means they are worth paying for over the free options!
- Beyond Compare: https://www.scootersoftware.com/
- WizTree: https://diskanalyzer.com/
- WizFile (can search Google Drive!): https://antibody-software.com/wizfile/
- Fork: https://git-fork.com/
- Directory Opus: https://www.gpsoft.com.au/
- https://www.insynchq.com/ (Best solution for not syncing folders like `node_modules` to Dropbox/GoogleDrive)
- Beyond Compare: https://www.scootersoftware.com/
- WizTree: https://diskanalyzer.com/
- WizFile (can search Google Drive!): https://antibody-software.com/wizfile/
- Fork: https://git-fork.com/
- Directory Opus: https://www.gpsoft.com.au/
- https://www.insynchq.com/ (Best solution for not syncing folders like `node_modules` to Dropbox/GoogleDrive)
Great to see Opus mentioned, it has been my file manager of choice for many years now.
From the top of my mind (both are free for personal use, AFAIK):
- BRU[0]. I have to batch rename dozens of files very often and this works like a charm. Some people will say the UX is clunky but I think it's awesome![1]
- PDFill[2]. Simple PDF tools that work.
[0] https://www.bulkrenameutility.co.uk/
[1] https://www.bulkrenameutility.co.uk/#mainscreen
[2] https://www.pdfill.com/pdf_tools_free.html
- BRU[0]. I have to batch rename dozens of files very often and this works like a charm. Some people will say the UX is clunky but I think it's awesome![1]
- PDFill[2]. Simple PDF tools that work.
[0] https://www.bulkrenameutility.co.uk/
[1] https://www.bulkrenameutility.co.uk/#mainscreen
[2] https://www.pdfill.com/pdf_tools_free.html
Most expensive pepper grinder I've seen
https://grampasweeder.com/
Not necessarily tiny, but awesome single-purpose gardening tool for removing weeds without overworking your back.
Not necessarily tiny, but awesome single-purpose gardening tool for removing weeds without overworking your back.
Wirecutter did a write-up on a similar stirrup hoe that works "in half the time of pulling weeds by hand:" https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/reviews/garden-weeding-to...
Both have long handles for use while standing up, but grampa's weeder seems to target one weed at a time while the stirrup hoe is meant to cut several roots in one go.
So perhaps use grampa's to dig out dandelions from your lawn, but a stirrup hoe to get all the weeds between the plants you want to keep in a flower bed or garden.
Both have long handles for use while standing up, but grampa's weeder seems to target one weed at a time while the stirrup hoe is meant to cut several roots in one go.
So perhaps use grampa's to dig out dandelions from your lawn, but a stirrup hoe to get all the weeds between the plants you want to keep in a flower bed or garden.
minisign - https://jedisct1.github.io/minisign/ super simple digital signatures!
I have my own ARM reverse engineering tool made with unicorn, capstone, and keystone.
https://s1.danielc.dev/re/ and https://s1.danielc.dev/re64
I use it pretty much every day.
yt-dlp sometimes I need to get a video or audio from various platforms
"Humane" spider catcher e.g. https://www.leevalley.com/en-gb/shop/home/pest-control/insec...
Sensepeek PCBite probes[1]. Hands-free connections for multimeter, logic analyzer, or oscilloscope makes checking signals in circuits easy. Even with some very small SMD parts.
[1] https://sensepeek.com/
[1] https://sensepeek.com/
Recently bought a Time Timer.
Great little timer and since I run my life by timers/time blocking things I find it really useful, just to set a timer and go and I can easily see it visually which helps keep me focus. Completely analogue so no reaching for my phone.
Great little timer and since I run my life by timers/time blocking things I find it really useful, just to set a timer and go and I can easily see it visually which helps keep me focus. Completely analogue so no reaching for my phone.
I did too! I bought the smallest size and at $30 it is pricier than some alternatives but it feels nice to buy a real product instead of a knockoff with a random brand name. If memory serves me correctly, most of them also don't go in the "right direction" in regards to how time moves on the clock.
Nice, I was exactly the same, I looked at the alternatives and I put of buying it for some time due to cost, in the end just went for it as I realised although expensive for a timer, it wasn't a massive cost. It's been useful so far.
Monitor Control for MacOS. It lets you control the brightness and volume of external displays. It looks and feels like a native feature.
SelfControl for MacOS reliably blocks websites for a custom amount of time.
Shazam for finding music you hear. It still feels like magic.
SelfControl for MacOS reliably blocks websites for a custom amount of time.
Shazam for finding music you hear. It still feels like magic.
SelfControl for MacOS - let's you set a domain blocklist and a time limit. It's pretty tamper proof too, surviving reboots, etc. Really helps me buckle down when I'm resistant to getting work done!
I disagree on the tamper proof assessment. I set some limits for myself with it, got bored and wanted to go on a blocked site. It took me all of 90 seconds to guess at what it was doing and manually turn it off by undoing what it did.
I won’t tell you what that is, since it’s working for you.
I won’t tell you what that is, since it’s working for you.
Yes- luckily, in this instance anyway, the things that some HN posters view as "trivial" are to me cumbersome and mysterious!
I love self control. I really wish there was a better way to automate it, though, so that I didn't have to remember to start it.
I use cold turkey to block sites on Mac, it's really good, it's quite powerful with lots of options, many different blocklists and you can have a lot of control over it, i.e block things at certain times, time limit sites, or have to perform an action to gain access (i.e type some words, restart etc)
Yeah I've been thinking about checking out this as an option too
Definitely HandBrake, being able to quickly compress a video is so clutch
Ffmpeg
I really like time.gov, if you need to know (within a second or so) what time it is, in the US... they've got you covered.
Pacstrap, as it saves you so much time during the arch installation, especially when installing the base and kernel
I'd be lost if it weren't for `tldr` on my terminal.
Also KeePassXC, what a life-changer digital safe.
i installed a "shell gpt" that lets me do things like:
sgpt "please show me a javascript function that appends to a list if the arguments are within seventeen days of each other disregarding timezones"I use a similar tool[0] which I really like. Will have to check out sgpt!
[0]: https://github.com/ibigio/shell-ai
[0]: https://github.com/ibigio/shell-ai
Dynalist. For todo lists, notes, prose, everything really.
Mouse jiggle, for keeping my computer from going to sleep.
Handbrake
Copyclip
ProtonVPN
Pomodoro timer
Maccy.app is a FOSS alternative to CopyClip.
Git, it's saves you so much time
I love git. And as you learn more features, it becomes so powerful.
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