Projects

This is a collection of some personal projects I’ve worked on that are easily viewable online. Anything that is not browser-friendly will not make the cut :(

I’m also available for consulting, so feel free to contact me if it looks like we could work together.

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Website templates (Jekyll)

• Beautiful Jekyll - a popular Jekyll theme I created when making this website. You can view a demo or use it yourself to make a pretty website similar to this one by visiting the project page. The theme is extremely easy to install - you can have a site up and running in 2 minutes, and it is designed to look great on both mobile devices and laptops.

R Shiny apps

If you got here after reading some of my blog posts, you’ll know that I’m a big fan and advocate of Shiny. I also help many people and companies with Shiny. You can see a sample of the Shiny apps I’ve built for my self on my personal Shiny server.

R packages

• shinyjs - Easily improve UX in your Shiny apps, adds useful features to Shiny apps, and call your own JavaScript functions using plain R code. Also includes a colour picker. Check out a demo online. Available on CRAN and on GitHub.

• timevis - Create interactive timeline visualizations in R (can be embedded into Shiny apps and R markdown documents, or simply viewed from the R console). Check out a demo online. Available on CRAN and on GitHub.

• colourpicker - A colour picker tool for Shiny and for selecting colours in plots. Available on CRAN and on GitHub.

• addinslist - Browse through a continuously updated list of existing RStudio addins and install/uninstall their corresponding packages. Available on CRAN and on GitHub.

• ezknitr - Avoid the typical working directory pain when using ‘knitr’. If you’re into R and reproducible research/generating reports with knitr, then do check it out. Available on CRAN and on GitHub.

• ggExtra - Easily add histograms/density plots to ggplot2 scatterplots, plus a few more ggplot2 convenience functions. Check out a demo online. Available on CRAN and on GitHub.

• shinyforms - Easily create questionnaire-type forms with Shiny. Check out a demo online. Available on GitHub (still in development).

• ddpcr - Analyze and visualize droplet digital PCR data. Check out a demo online. Available on CRAN and on GitHub. Manuscript in F1000Research.

• lightsout - An implementation of the puzzle game Lights Out using R. Play the game online. Available on CRAN and on GitHub.

Many of my R packages/tutorials/thoughts are graciously shared on R-bloggers, which is a great resource for any useR.

Courses

I’m creating an online course on Case Studies with Shiny together with DataCamp, an interactive platform to learn R and data science.

Chrome extensions

• GitHub Diff Navigator - allows you to easily navigate through the changes in a file that has been edited on GitHub. Especially useful when editing a markdown file within the browser, as GitHub will only show you the full changed file but not show you where the edits were made. I find this very helpful every time I make small edits to someone else’s large markdown document. Get the extension at the Google Web Store

• Google Slides Auto Resize Speaker Notes - the slide previews in the Speaker Notes window of Google Slides are tiny and unreadable. This extension dynamically resizes the slides based on the window size to make them useful. Get the extension at the Google Web Store

• Project Free TV Ad Bypass - Project Free TV serves a 10-second ad page before allowing users to continue to the video - this extension bypasses the ad page. Get the extension at the Google Web Store

• Smileyfy My Facebook - Chrome extension that adds infinite happiness to your Facebook browsing, plus a little bonus rickrolling :) This is not the most useful (if at all..), but it was a way for me to learn about some more advanced features of Chrome extension development. Get the extension at the Google Web Store

Websites

• Wish.com - a very popular shopping platform. I was one of the few original developers of the site (before it was even called Wish!) and contributed mostly to the frontend. I was part of Wish’s inception and initial growth, but since then it has grown to be a #1 Android Shopping app, and I can’t claim any credit to that. :)

• MakeupBee.com - website for women to discover and talk about interesting makeup applications. Clearly my area of expertise! The site was mostly developed by Brent Francia (CEO) and I, and I was responsible for all aspects of the development, seeing as we were usually a 2-3 person team.

• Glittr.com - spin-off of MakeupBee that was designed to be more focused on mainstream looks and have a cleaner feel. I’ve written most of the code for this site.

• Jauntr.com - travel site with a social component, that is meant to help users discover and share places to go. It never really took off, but it was my first introduction to web development.

• daattali.com - small personal website that I run on a virtual server just because I wanted a place to host my own R Shiny server and RStudio server.

• deanattali.com - the site you’re currently on. Just a simple site to have some virtual presence.

Paid writing gigs

• Persistent data storage in Shiny apps - written for RStudio.
• How to Set Up R on Ubuntu 14.04 - written for DigitalOcean.
• How to Set Up Shiny Server on Ubuntu 14.04 - written for DigitalOcean.
• Book reviewer for Learning Shiny.
• Building Shiny apps - written for a course I TA’ed.

Talks

• Podcast interview for the R-Podcast: Episode 16: Interview with Dean Attali
• Invited as main speaker at the 1st Shiny Developer Conference: Video and presentation slides from my talk about shinyjs.
• Shorter talk at useR 2016 also about shinyjs: video and slides.

Misc

• Impact Replays - I participated in a national hackathon (SportsHack15) and won 3rd place with this app. We had to build something that would increase engagement of CFL (Canadian Football League) fans. This app uses play-by-play data from games to let you focus on just the action moments of games.

• Minesweeper - tiny Minesweeper game I built as part of the interview process with Airbnb. It’s not fancy at all, but it’s the best I could do in the two hours they allotted me back in the day.

• Building your own portable oldies gaming console - I bought a raspberry pi and turned it into an awesome portable gaming console that supports SNES/PS1/GameGear/GameBoy. Super cool.

Java games

I have several cool Java games I wrote, but I currently don’t have a way to host the applet online without paying way too much money to buy a certificate. I might find a way around that in the future.

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