A collection of projects I am or was working on. Those include open-source projects, new ventures, and personal experiments. The list is not in a strict chronological order.
I’m professionally much more well-versed in Ruby and Rails, but those projects gave me a chance to learn, use and appreciate other stacks: WordPress, Python, Bash, Elixir/Phoenix, Javascript (ES6), Coffeescript and more.
Ciglue
Unlike most things I work on, this isn’t a digital product, but a physical one. It’s a cigar glue in a unique dispenser. As a cigar smoker hobbyist, I was frustrated when some cigars were cracking or damaged. The commercial glues however weren’t as convenient or precise to use, so I invented a better solution: Ciglue.
Technology: WordPress, Woocommerce, StripeLunar Hike
A new remote collaboration with two super-talented engineers: Lydia Stepanek (NYC) and Greg Molnar (Portugal). We’re building new online SaaS products together and looking to turn them into successful and sustainable businesses.
OzoLayer
OzoLayer is still in very early stages, but I’m happy to share the concept. Privacy and analytics are usually in conflict. More data on what your customers are up to usually means invading their privacy. OzoLayer attempts to solve this problem, meet GDPR compliance, and avoid those nasty cookie banners. All without replacing your existing analytics.
Technology: Elixir, Phoenix, ES6Better Whistle
Better Whistle is an online service for European businesses who need to meet the new whistleblowing regulation. The service is based on the GlobaLeaks open-source software.
Technology: Docker, Python, WordPressAlis
A proof-of-concept project I started working on with a childhood friend of mine. Using NFC bracelets to help parents provide critical health information about their children (allergies, emergency contact, medications etc).
Technology: NFC, Ruby on Rails or Elixir/PhoenixHaide Berlin
Haide Berlin is a project I’ve been working on with my mother :)
As an Israeli who lived in London and now Berlin, I understand how difficult it is to move to a new country or city. Haide Berlin tries to help Israeli expats make the transition easier.
My mother retired recently from a senior role in Tel-Aviv University. She didn’t want to retire, and is still as sharp as ever. She’s a great writer and I enjoy working together with her.
Technology: WordPressAlephbet
Alephbet is a pure Javascript A/B testing framework for developers. I created it in 2015 out of frustration with Optimizely and used and improved it extensively in the years since then at Kenhub. Alephbet works with a companion backend. I created 3 backends over the years. See below.
Technology: ES6Gimel, Lamed
Gimel and Lamed are both backends for Alephbet. Both store experiment data in redis, and run “serverless” on AWS Lambda. Gimel attempted to save on storage costs using Hyper-Log-Log, but sacrificed precision. Lamed took a more pragmatic approach maintaining high precision with slightly higher storage costs.
Technology: AWS Lambda, Python, Redis (250+ stars on Github)Alephbet-Rails
Yet another backend for Alephbet. This time running on Rails with an ActiveRecord backend.
Technology: Ruby on RailsMinimal Compact [thumbor]
An open-source project I created and maintain that offers the quickest way to run thumbor (smart, on-the-fly image resizing and filtering). Besides dockerizing thumbor, the project offers a docker-based nginx caching proxy, to easily enhance performance and reduce server load.
Technology: Docker, Nginx, Python (1M+ downloads from docker hub)Cronyo
The missing cron CLI for AWS. Cronyo makes it easier to manage cloud-based cron jobs.
Technology: Python, AWS Cloudwatch and LambdaHotpie
Do you know Google Authenticator? Authy? Now they’re super common, but once upon a time, back in 2010 it was a bit of a curiosity. The standard behind these one-time-passwords is called OATH (HOTP/TOTP). To my knowledge Hotpie was the first open-source generic python implementation of RFC 4226 and 6238.
Technology: Pythonhosting-compose
Know docker-compose? hosting-compose is what docker-compose is to docker, for shared hosting. It’s not open-source project, but mostly out of laziness. The building blocks are super-simple. I now host all my personal websites and projects, as well as my family’s using a VPS and hosting-compose.
Technology: Python (fabric), docker, docker-compose, linux, ufw, fail2bandownload-cookies
A collaboration project with NOYB, a privacy non-profit I’m involved with, and Yoav Aviram from Conscious Digital. This is a simple Chrome extension to let you download all cookies, including 3rd party, in order to file a GDPR data subject access request. The project attempts to tackle data brokers in particular.
Technology: Javascript, Chrome manifest v2, v3IDFA
Another privacy-related project led by NOYB, in which we filed a complaint against Apple for using IDFA (Identifier For Advertising) without explicit consent, in violation of the ePrivacy directive and GDPR.
Frau Vintage
Frau Vintage is my wife’s website since 2012. She’s selling vintage items from Germany to Japan. I built the website, plugins, payment integration and help her with her business. Anything from improving the website to sending marketing emails to printing shipping labels.
Technology: WordPress, Woocommerce, Stripe, Paypal, MailgunArchived or deprecated projects
envwarden
Manage your server secrets with the Bitwarden password manager. It was deprecated after changes by Bitwarden made me realize that there are better solutions for managing server secrets.
Technology: Bash, DockerGiraffe
a graphite dashboard with a long neck.
Technology: CoffeescriptSmugline
a simple command line interface for SmugMug image hosting service. You can read my open letter to SmugMug, which was obviously ignored.
Technology: PythonShikimo
Daltonize colour-blindness image manipulation (carrierwave plugin + ruby library using ruby-vips). With the most crucial code written by John Cupitt, the creator of libvips.
Technology: Ruby, ruby-vipsAjaxize
A WordPress plugin to ajaxize elements on a page to get around caching. Created in 2011 and no longer maintained. (16k+ downloads)
Technology: PHP, jQuery