Hanzi Challenge – Mac OSX Dashboard Widget

I have an Android desktop widget that shows me a random Chinese word when I look at my phone’s home screen. I really wanted this functionality on my laptop, so I wrote a simple Dashboard Widget that shows a random Hanzi word when I open the Dashboard. It’s called “Hanzi Challenge”, and you can grab it from my web site.

Hanzi Challenge Dashboard Widget Screenshot.

It shows you the word (in simplified or traditional characters; your preference) and displays the Pinyin pronunciation as a clue when you mouse over it. Click to see the English translation.

LibrarySearch – Public Library Search From Your Browser

I’m a bit of a miser when it comes to books; I haven’t made the switch from physical books to digital ones, and I don’t think I will any time soon. Partly, it’s because I get all my books from the library.

While the public library has its own search web site, it lacks the recommendations capabilities of sites like Amazon, or Goodreads. To make it easier to find the books I want, I wrote an extension that lets me select some text in a browser, and search for it in my public library:

It works from any web page, and is now available as both a Chrome extension, and a Safari one. (Firefox coming soon).

The Chrome version is available on the Chrome Web Store. You can download and install the Safari one from the LibrarySearch page on my site.

Dummy Data Generator

I always find myself needing to generate some dummy data for web applications that I’m working on. In the past, I’ve either done it manually, written scripts, or recycled data from other apps. However, I think those days are over. I just came across generatedata.com. It gives you a convenient interface to specify what data fields you want, how many records you would like, and what kind of output you’d like it in (XML, CSV, etc.):

It even has pre-defined lists of names, sample titles, departments, cities, etc., so you don’t have to specify them all. However, you can add or customize your own lists too. It even works for CRM banking platforms!

The only thing I’d like to see added is an option to generate XML with properties as attributes, instead of nodes. But the source is on GitHub, so you can tweak it as you need to. For information about the dummy data generator visit arturoherrera .