Hey, I’m being a little busy the last couple of days, I’ve picked my first project from the list of ideas I posted las week.

My first project of this year is called Sensei (it appears as Expenses tracking app (Sensei) in the list). Sensei is a personal management application with deep AI integration. I’m building this primarily for my self, I need to have some more control of what I’m spending my money, so I’m scratching my own itch here, but hopefully this will be useful to others.

Anyways, I’ll be posting here updates with my progress. Right now I’m building the basic UI (login, signup, home page, etc.). Today I managed to accomplish all of the above, here is the home page with mocked data.

Yeap, the UI is is Spanish, cause the primary target for this app are people in Latin America (Mexico).

I was re-reading Pieter Levers blog post entry I’m Launching 12 Startups in 12 Months, and I have to say that I feel very identified with what he says in that post, all this dopamine rushing through my brain when I’m just starting to work on something new!, that is something I’m addicted to, I have so many projects that I have started and not finished, so many abandoned folders inside “my projects” folder, and I’ve being doing this for so long that I cannot remember when was the last time I really finished something, other than at my daily job.

There is also the fear component that Pieter talks about, It is real, there’s always something holding me back from releasing a project to the wild, every time I think about it (the fear), my brain denies it, but I have to admit; it is fear what is really holding me back, I’m tired of that!.

I feel this urge in creating something, almost every day, when I go to sleep I think about some of those ideas, I think about how to build them, what would be the right database schema, the business logic, etc. I have spent many nights like this, ideas circling my head, not letting me sleep, and when the morning arrives, that urge disappears, and I spent my day working on things about my day job, and never got the time to work on those ideas. It’s a never-ending vicious cycle.

I think it is time to change that!. I keep a Notion page with all these ideas that I’d like to share here, just for future reference, and to put some pressure on my self, so I can start working on them.

Apps, services, and product ideas

• Car wash app (CarClean)
• Collective shopping app
• Mall navigation app
• Virtual study group app
• Karaoke app
• Supermarket checkout and inventory app
• Gift table app
• Goods-transporter (logistic) app
• Coupon applier app
• Groceries cost/compare/order app
• Driver tracking app
• Quiz app
• Cooking recipe app
• Restaurant menu app (Bistro)
• Event management app
• Lottery app
• Bazar app (Owlete)
• VSCode extension for Laravel
• E-commerce/Store app
• Spotify Party Time
• Wallpaper app
• Chrome extension to list links in a page
• Chrome extension to manage tabs
• Chrome extension to manage tabs
• Chrome extension to save links and organize them, à la Pocket
• Chrome extension to save code snippets
• Chrome extension to open preview of page on floating window
• Chrome extension password generator
• Chrome extension for emoji selection
• Chrome extension to save navigation history (journey)
• Speed dial chrome extension
• Chrome extension to preview links
• Chrome extension to view and organize bookmarks in a better way
• Chrome extension to manage tabs
• Chrome extension to view pic of the day in new chrome tab
• Chrome extension to open links as “windows” (inner windows inside the current page)
• Chrome extension for auto suggestions
• STEMTok, an app for viewing videos about STEM
• AR card game
• Stickers for laptops with leds
• FFMPEG Cheat Sheet
• FFMPEG CLI helper
• Chrome extension to enhance the UX of Github
• An HTML reference page like this https://www.patrickweaver.net/blog/a-blog-post-with-every-html-element
• Chrome extension to search in chrome and put the results in a floating window
• Chrome extension that lets you pin other extension’s icons
• Spotify alt UI with visualizations
• Exiftool
• A simulator of dialup connection
• Emoji/Sticker generator app
• Image Editing With AI
• NerdTees
• Social networks trending aggregator
• Iframely clone
• A chrome extension that acts as a macro executor for chrome.
• Astro page that lets you “create” a reel.
• Chrome extension with a timer
• Chrome extension that shows the content of a link in a floating “window” inside the current page.
• An app to read free ebooks
• • Chrome extension Powertools for Chrome
    • Preview link
    • Show link URL on hover
    • Increase/decrease font size with mousewheel + ctrl
• Chrome extension that allows users to categorize git repositories
• Chrome extension that shows a side panel with all available groups and lets you organize your opened tabs
• Platform that lets you subscribe to newsletters without sharing your personal/work email. All your subscriptions in one place, not have to share you personal or work email, don’t have to create a separate email just for newsletters. The platform will create an email for you with your username and lets you use that email to subscribe to any newsletter. Newsletter creators don’t have to be registered in the platform in order for the final user to read the newsletter. Newsletter creators could create a “creator” account and prior identity validation have access to analytics of their newsletters.
• Chrome extension to save videos in watch later playlist
• An app like Justwatch but that order/classifies the movies by their rate in rotten tomatoes or user’s votes
• Chrome extension that allows users to add notes to pages inside the same page on a floating window, it also must allow users to add tags, comments, annotations, and highlights.
• Chrome extension that enhances the groups feature in Chrome
• Chrome extension that adds time to read (TTR) to a page.
• AI agent that reads all my RSS/Atom feeds and gives me a summary of all the updates by category, and a general update of the top news of the day.
• E-commerce app with chat-like interface
• Chrome extension that adds a toolbar similar to bookmarks bar but that lets you “Open in Tabbar”
• Chrome extension that shows the number of open tabs in the browser, and when clicked opens a list of all tabs in a sidebar.
• A player for https://musicforprogramming.net/latest/
• Chrome extension to format json, like json hero
• Emoji kitchen but like a native app.
• Link three clone
• AI Video for e-commerce
• A Web UI to view multiple agents chat history
• Note-taking app (Markpad)
• ZCodes, zip codes searching app
• Pocket app clone (Rocket Reader)
• Veofertas (Catalog of catalogs)
• Chrome extension that adds a shortcut sidebar/panel to all pages (Quickpane)
• Expenses tracking app (Sensei)
• Merchants app (Tana)
• Feedly clone app (Feedbox)
• Slack-Spotify what I’m listening
• Spotify mini player
• Youtube web client
• Webamp
• DevToys clone (DevToolkit)
• Quo
• CodeViz
• Bites
• Pangea
• Chrome extension that injects a new css styles for ChatGPT page.
• Chrome extension that takes the time you read an article
• Warp Chrome extension
• Tab-bar
• JSON visualizer (Lighting)
• An easy way to download videos from social platforms.
• An easy way to embed media (videos, photos, twits, sound, text) into any web site.
• An easy way to view all your pending PR reviews

As you can see they are so many, some of them are abstract concepts or app names like Quo, CodeViz or Pangea, and they need more explanation, I will be creating pages for each of them as I pick them. Some others in the list just come to my mind, and without thinking too much I add them to the list, and maybe are not worth exploring, but they are ideas nonetheless, and ideas can grow with time, that’s why I keep them there.

My plan now is to pick one (or maybe more) every month, work on it until at least I have an MVP, and then release it to the world, no matter if it’s not perfect, it has to be completely functional, though, and also useful, at least to me.

Despite considering my self a seasoned programmer and being developing for over 15 years, I’m surprised I didn’t know about the ownerDocument.defaultView property.

I basically returns the window object (or null) associated with a specific DOM node. It could be used to safely attach an event listener to a window object from a component that is rendered outside the main window where the application was initially rendered (think portals).

function ThemeProvider({ children }) {
  const [theme, setTheme] = useState("light");
  const ref = useRef(null);

  useEffect(() => {
    const win = ref.current?.ownerDocument.defaultView || window;

    const toggle = (e) => {
      if (e.metaKey && e.key === "d") {
        e.preventDefault();
        setTheme((t) => (t === "dark" ? "light" : "dark"));
      }
    };

    win.addEventListener("keydown", toggle);

    return () => win.removeEventListener("keydown", toggle);
  }, []);

  return (
    <div ref={ref} className={theme}>
      {children}
    </div>
  );
}

From the same article, also learned about useId and cache 😛

Reference: https://shud.in/thoughts/build-bulletproof-react-components, great article btw! 💯

I was reviewing a page that I have in Notion about Three.js, with bookmarks, links to articles, utilities, tools, repositories, etc, and found a good one about Blender shortcuts, some of them I didn’t know about (I mean, I’m just getting started in Blender anyways) like the Snap shortcuts or the Clear transform, and I wanted to share it here:

I’m watching some of the missing lessons on shaders that I have in the Three.js journey course, and today I learned about the Fresnel effect in Three.js. It is used to create a more realistic rendering of materials by simulating how light interacts with surfaces at different angles.

The Fresnel effect causes surfaces to reflect more light at glancing angles, which can enhance the realism of materials like water, glass, and metals.

It can be used for effects like:

• Glass/Water: Simulating realistic reflections on transparent surfaces.
• Ghostly/Energy Effects: Creating an inner or outer glow around objects that emphasizes their silhouette.
• Highlighting Objects: Serving as a low-cost alternative to outline effects for interactive items

Here is a simplified implementation from the Three.js journey course, to create an holographic effect:

// Vertex shader.
varying vec3 vPosition;
varying vec3 vNormal;

void main() {
  vec4 modelPosition = modelMatrix * vec4(position, 1.0);
  vec4 modelNormal = modelMatrix * vec4(normal, 0.0);

  gl_Position = projectionMatrix * viewMatrix * modelPosition;

  vPosition = modelPosition.xyz;
  vNormal = modelNormal.xyz;
}

// Fragment shader.
varying vec3 vPosition;
varying vec3 vNormal;

void main() {
  vec3 normal = normalize(vNormal);

  if(!gl_FrontFacing) {
    normal = -normal;
  }

  // Fresnel effect
  vec3 viewDirection = normalize(vPosition - cameraPosition);
  float fresnel = dot(viewDirection, normal) + 1.0;
  fresnel = pow(fresnel, 2.0);

  // Final output
  gl_FragColor = vec4(vec3(0.0, 1.0, 1.0), fresnel);
}

It’s so capable that I sometimes don’t know what to do with myself while it’s running. That’s a weird problem to have.
— Matt Shumer, on My GPT-5.3-Codex Review

SVG filters allow you to create complex visual effects directly within your SVG graphics using a variety of filter primitives. You can apply effects like blurring, color manipulation, and even custom distortions to your SVG elements.

SVG Filters

<p class="ripple-text">SVG Filters</p>

<svg style="position: absolute; width: 0px; height: 0px; pointer-events: none;">
  <filter id="water-ripple">
    <feTurbulence
      type="fractalNoise"
      baseFrequency="0.05"
      numOctaves="2"
      result="ripple"
    >
      <animate
        attributeName="baseFrequency"
        dur="10s"
        values="0.02;0.05;0.02"
        repeatCount="indefinite"
      ></animate>
    </feTurbulence>
    <feDisplacementMap
      in="SourceGraphic"
      in2="ripple"
      scale="5"
    ></feDisplacementMap>
  </filter>
</svg>

.ripple-text {
  font-size: clamp(2rem, 4vw, 3rem);
  font-weight: bold;
  text-align: center;
  filter: url(#water-ripple);
}

• Originally discovered at: SVG Filters are just amazing!
• MDN SVG Filters documentation https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/SVG/Guides/SVG_filters
• SVG filters demo: https://yoksel.github.io/svg-filters/

From Chrome 145 onwards, 100vw will automatically subtract the size of the (vertical) scrollbar from it if you have forced the html element to always show a vertical scrollbar (using overflow[-y]: scroll) or if you reserve space for it (using scrollbar-gutter: stable).

— Via https://www.bram.us/2026/01/15/100vw-horizontal-overflow-no-more/

We invented AI to write pretty poems and draw cute pictures, so I have more time to take care of my laundry. It should be the other way around, right?

— Julian Hespenheide (Excerpt from an answer of an interview to Julian Hespenheide by Tim Rodenbröker)

This might sound funny at first, but technological limitation to me is anti-consumerist at best: Do companies hold back their inventions to turn more profit each cycle? How many billion people out there have the most advanced technology on them just for scrolling through Instagram and sending funny emojis on WhatsApp? Those devices are technically unlimited in every sense, yet no one takes the time to use them to any of their respective extents.

— Julian Hespenheide (Excerpt from an answer of an interview to Julian Hespenheide by Tim Rodenbröker)