Side-projects

I like to tinker with code sometimes. While I studied computer science in college, I could never get myself interested in hardcore software development. Later, however, due to the requirements of my job, I started doing some scripting and automation in Python and that completely changed my perspective towards programming.

I discovered that the key to enjoying programming is building useful stuff that either improves my life or that I can publish for others to use. Since then, it has become something that I excitedly look forward to during weekends and vacations.

Following are some side projects that I have worked on:

1. Personal website (https://rakshitranjan.com)
   • My digital home
   • Built using Jekyll and Obsidian.
   • Hosted on GitHub Pages through Netlify
   • The CSS is inspired by Steph Ango’s personal website
   • Step-by-step setup instructions can be found here
2. Expense tracker (GitHub)
   • Python script for parsing bank emails using Gmail API
   • Returns a CSV with all transactions across UPI, debit and credit cards for the specified dates
   • Built this because I didn’t want to:
     • Manually enter transactions in some app every time I did them
     • Share access to SMS/emails with 3rd party services for automated tracking
3. Chrome extension for searching and sharing GIFs (TrenGIF, GitHub)
   • Wanted to build and publish a full-fledged dynamic application
   • Extensions are the easiest to deploy (as compared to websites and apps)
   • Uses the GIPHY API to return GIFs based on search queries
4. Vaccine slot availability alerts (GitHub)
   • Most useful thing that I have built
   • Getting slots for the COVID vaccination was extremely tough for people in the 18-45 age bracket when the vaccines were first introduced
   • Wrote a simple AWS Lambda function in Python that uses AWS EventBridge and AWS SNS to automatically check for vaccine slot availability using the CoWIN API and send an email whenever they open
   • The alerts were used by multiple people (family and friends) to book slots
5. Automated daily reading list (Reader (archived), GitHub)
   • Before the good folks at Matter built a world-class reading app that met all my needs, I used this as my daily reading list
   • Collated all email newsletters and links saved in Pocket in the last 24 hours in one place
   • Refreshed every 24 hours to prevent guilt of not being able to get around to the previous day’s material
   • Tech stack - AWS Lambda, Gmail API, Pocket API, hosted on GitHub Pages through Netlify