Beer and Tell – February 2015

Once a month, web developers from across the Mozilla Project get together to speedrun classic video games. Between runs, we find time to talk about our side projects and drink, an occurrence we like to call “Beer and Tell”.

There’s a wiki page available with a list of the presenters, as well as links to their presentation materials. There’s also a recording available courtesy of Air Mozilla.

Michael Kelly: Refract

Osmose (that’s me!) started off with Refract, a website that can turn any website into an installable application. It does this by generating an Open Web App on the fly that does nothing but redirect to the specified site as soon as it is opened. The name and icon of the generated app are auto-detected from the site, or they can be customized by the user.

Michael Kelly: Sphere Online Judge Utility

Next, Osmose shared spoj, a Python-based command line tool for working on problems from the Sphere Online Judge. The tool lets you list and read problems, as well as create solutions and test them against the expected input and output.

Adrian Gaudebert: Spectateur

Next up was adrian, who shared Spectateur, a tool to run reports against the Crash-Stats API. The webapp lets you set up a data model using attributes available from the API, and then process that data via JavaScript that the user provides. The JavaScript is executed in a sandbox, and the resulting view is displayed at the bottom of the page. Reports can also be saved and shared with others.

Peter Bengtsson: Autocompeter

Peterbe stopped by to share Autocompeter, which is a service for very fast auto-completion. Autocompeter builds upon peterbe’s previous work with fast autocomplete backed by Redis. The site is still not production-ready, but soon users will be able to request an API key to send data to the service for indexing, and Air Mozilla will be one of the first sites using it.

Pomax: inkdb

The ever-productive Pomax returns with inkdb.org, a combination of the many color- and ink-related tools he’s been sharing recently. Among other things, inkdb lets you browse fountain pen inks, map them on a graph based on similarity, and find inks that match the colors in an image. The website is also a useful example of the Mozilla Foundation Client-side Prototype in action.

Matthew Claypotch: rockbot

Lastly, potch shared a web interface for suggesting songs to a Rockbot station. Rockbot currently only has Android and iOS apps, and potch decided to create a web interface to allow people without Rockbot accounts or phones to suggest songs.


No one could’ve anticipated willkg’s incredible speedrun of Mario Paint. When interviewed after his blistering 15 hour and 24 minute run, he refused to answer any questions and instead handed out fliers for the grand opening of his cousin’s Inkjet Cartridge and Unlicensed Toilet Tissue Outlet opening next Tuesday at Shopper’s World on Worcester Road.

If you’re interested in attending the next Beer and Tell, sign up for the dev-webdev@lists.mozilla.org mailing list. An email is sent out a week beforehand with connection details. You could even add yourself to the wiki and show off your side-project!

See you next month!