v0.1 · fun

Tools Resources Fun

// Off the Beaten Stack

Niche tools, actually used.

Stuff that doesn't show up on every "30 best productivity apps" listicle. Some are weird, some are deep, all are sharp. The mainstream picks (Notion, Slack, Loom, etc.) get plenty of airtime elsewhere; this list is for the second-shelf gear we keep reaching for.

[01] Image & Visual

Photoshop in your browser. Opens .psd, .ai, .sketch, .xd. No signup. Built by one Czech guy who runs the whole thing on ad revenue. Use it when a client sends you a layered file at 11pm and you don't have Adobe on the laptop you're traveling with.

Google's image compression playground. Side-by-side comparison of WebP, AVIF, JPEG XL. The visual diff slider is the killer feature: you watch quality fall off a cliff at exactly the wrong setting.

The AI upscaler that actually works on real photos, not just AI-generated images. 8x or 16x with hallucinated detail that doesn't look hallucinated. Use it on hero images, not headshots: it has a tendency to invent skin texture.

Real-time AI image generation. You drag a slider, the image updates as fast as the video card can keep up. Closer to Photoshop than to Midjourney. Great for ideating background patterns and abstract textures live.

[02] Sketches, Whiteboards & Diagrams

Hand-drawn aesthetic for diagrams and wireframes. Looks like you actually thought about the architecture instead of generating it. Open source, runs entirely in-browser, supports realtime collaboration via room links.

tldraw → Make Real

makereal.tldraw.com

Draw a UI sketch on the canvas, click "Make Real," get working HTML/CSS/JS. The first time it works on a complex layout you'll laugh out loud. Bring your own OpenAI/Anthropic key.

Visualize JSON as a node graph. Paste a giant API response, see its actual shape. Far more useful than reading 800 lines of nested braces. Use the auto-zoom to spot the one record that doesn't follow the schema.

Mermaid Live Editor

Flowcharts, sequence diagrams, gantt charts, and architecture diagrams from plain text. Write the diagram instead of dragging boxes. Renders inside GitHub READMEs natively, so it's the move for technical docs.

[03] Audio & Video

Auto-leveling, noise reduction, and loudness normalization for podcasts and voiceovers. Drop in raw audio, get back something that sounds like it was mixed by a human. Free tier handles 2 hours/month, plenty for occasional use.

Screen recording for people who hate Loom's branding. Cleaner backgrounds, instant edits, AI cuts the umms. The output looks like a Stripe product video instead of a Tuesday morning briefing.

Studio-quality remote recording for podcasts and client interviews. Each participant's audio/video records locally then uploads, so you don't lose the highs to a Zoom compression artifact. Also has an editor that uses transcript-based cuts.

AI music generation that doesn't sound like AI music. Good for video-ad backing tracks, internal hype reels, or just messing around. Type a vibe + a genre and get 60-second songs with lyrics that mostly work.

[04] Code, Dev & Debug

Pretty code screenshots for blog posts, decks, and tweets. Multiple themes, custom backgrounds, real syntax highlighting. Made by the Raycast team. Better aesthetic defaults than Carbon out of the gate.

The original code-screenshot tool. More configurable than Ray.so for the picky. Customize window controls, watermark, line numbers, even export as SVG.

Postman in your browser. No login required for the basics. Open source. Tabs sync via the URL hash so you can share a request as a link. The browser extension proxies CORS so you can hit your localhost APIs without setup.

Spin up a fake REST API on your machine in 30 seconds. Open source, no signup. Useful when you're building a frontend before the backend exists, or when you need to demo something offline.

The reference for testing regex against test strings. Color-coded match groups, plain-English explanations of every token, dropdowns to switch flavors (PCRE, JavaScript, Python). The "regex builder" sidebar is a quiet superpower for non-regex-fluent teammates.

[05] Mac Productivity

Open-source clipboard manager. Stores everything you copy in a searchable history. After a day you'll wonder how you lived without it. The shortcut Cmd+Shift+C opens history, type to filter, Enter to paste. Zero friction.

The screenshot tool that's worth the one-time fee. Built-in annotation, screen recording with mic + camera, scrollable captures, instant uploads. Replaces three other apps and runs faster than any of them. Setapp covers it.

rectangleapp.com

Window snapping for macOS. Open source. Hot keys to halve, third, or maximize a window. Once you've got Ctrl+Opt+←/→ in your fingers, going back to a stock Mac feels broken.

alt-tab-macos.netlify.app

Windows-style window switcher for macOS. Cmd+Tab shows actual window thumbnails instead of app icons, and switches between windows of the same app. Open source. Free.

Spotlight replacement that's also a clipboard manager, calculator, snippet expander, window manager, and AI assistant. The extension store has plugins for everything (Linear, GitHub, GIF picker, npm search). Hard to overstate how much it speeds up.

[06] Type, Color & Design

Fluid typography and spacing scale generator. Outputs CSS clamp() values that interpolate between viewport widths. Replaces a dozen @media queries with one expression. Niche but life-changing if you're doing responsive design from scratch.

Modern Font Stacks

modernfontstacks.com

System-font stacks organized by mood (Old Style, Transitional, Geometric Humanist, Industrial, etc.). Zero-load typography, because no webfont files. The page itself uses every stack so you can see them live.

Color palette generator with a delightful spacebar-to-cycle interaction. Lock the colors you like, hit space, get new ones for the rest. Better than 90% of "AI palette" tools because the algorithm has been refined over years.

AI-trained color palette tool. You pick 50 colors you love at the start, it learns your taste, then suggests pairings and triads forever. Better palette suggestions than Coolors after a few rounds of training.

Upload a screenshot of text, get the font name. Works on flattened image files where you'd otherwise be guessing. Faster than the WhatTheFont alternative for typical use.

cubic-bezier.com

cubic-bezier.com

Visual editor for CSS easing curves. Drag the handles, see the animation preview, get the four numbers to paste. The reason your hover transitions don't have to use the default ease.

[07] Investigation & Snooping

Search engine for source code on the web. "Show me every site running this exact GTM container ID" or "every site importing this jQuery plugin." Niche, expensive, and occasionally invaluable for prospecting.

Wayback Machine

web.archive.org

The internet's memory. Recover lost content, prove a claim was on a page on a date, see what your site looked like before the redesign. The "Save Page Now" button is a button you'll start using more than you'd expect.

On-demand snapshots of any URL with a permanent share link. Use when you need to cite something that might disappear (paywall articles, tweets, deleted blog posts). Different snapshot algorithm than Wayback, often catches what Wayback misses.

Estimated traffic data for any domain. Free tier shows enough to size up a competitor in 30 seconds. Paid tier opens the firehose. Surprisingly accurate for sites over 50k monthly visitors.

[08] AI & Weird Stuff

Vercel's AI UI generator. Type a prompt, get React + Tailwind components. Best for "what would a hero section for X look like" and "give me three CTA variations." Treat it as an idea generator, not a final-output tool.

Type a URL that doesn't exist, watch AI hallucinate the website that probably should exist there. More of a toy than a tool but genuinely useful for sketching out concept sites and ad ideas.

Hugging Face Spaces

huggingface.co/spaces

Thousands of free hosted ML demos. Background removers, voice cloners, image upscalers, niche generative tools. The trick is browsing by trending; you'll find a Space that does the exact thing you need before you search elsewhere.

Mash keys, get sounds and shapes. Pure toy, zero utility. Open it for a 90-second mental reset between client calls. Made by Jono Brandel + Lullatone.

A whole catalog of weird, beautifully-built one-page web experiments. Infinite Craft, The Deep Sea, Stimulation Clicker, Spend Bill Gates' Money. The single most reliable site to send to a creative who is in a rut.

github.com/GitFrog1111/OpenWhip

A tray-icon utility that lets you whip Claude Code when he's being too shlow. Click, drag the whip, release. Sends Ctrl-C plus one of five encouraging messages. Cross-platform, npm-installable, completely unhinged. The "cease and desist letter from Anthropic" is officially on the roadmap.

Install: npm install -g openwhip then openwhip. Linux needs xdotool.