Side projects on Bino

Chithrakurippukal

binovarghese8120@gmail.com (Bino Kochumol Varghese) — Wed, 30 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

One piece of Malayalam writing. One photo. Every day for 100 days. That is Chithrakurippukal project(ചിത്രക്കുറിപ്പുകൾ). I will take one image that I have captured and write a piece about it in Malayalam.

Life is busy, but I want to write daily anyway. I don’t want to write perfectly, I want to write consistently. So I can produce 100 pieces of small writing from this project, and if everything goes well, I want to extend it to 365 days.

Here are the rules for the Chithrakurippukal project:

There should be a picture and a piece of writing about it.
There should be no missing days in the 100 days.
The main focus should be on the writing.
The writing need not be perfect, but it must contain at least three lines.
The writings should post on social media platforms other than this blog.

I will start this project on 1 October 2026 and post the writings here.

Jinz Varghese

binovarghese8120@gmail.com (Bino Kochumol Varghese) — Sat, 01 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Jinz Varghese is a personal portfolio website I built for my brother. He is a visual artist and photographer, whose work spans street photography, landscapes, and travel pictures. The site is designed as a quiet, image first space for his photography and films, structured around Home, Gallery, Collections, and About sections.

Website Link

📷 Jinz Varghese

Features

Home

A minimal landing page introducing him as a visual artist, with a curated scroll of featured images and clear entry points into the Gallery and Collections.

Gallery

The full archive of his images and videos, organized for easy browsing.

Collections

Work grouped into themed sets rather than one long scroll:

India
The Streets
Bahrain
Egypt
Beaches
Mother Nature

About

A dedicated page introducing him. It briefly contains his background, his motivation for shooting, and the gear he uses. Includes contact details for photoshoots and collaborations, along with links to his Instagram, YouTube, and Threads.

Technology

The site is built with Next.js along with Tailwind CSS, and hosted on Vercel.

Life Left App

binovarghese8120@gmail.com (Bino Kochumol Varghese) — Wed, 20 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000

I have created an app called Life Left to remind me about the time that is left in life, of course hypothetically. I can die today or tomorrow, and I am well aware of that. But I need to know what is left for me based on an ideal life expectancy.

Life Left is a minimalist life reflection web app that helps users visualize how much of their life may still remain, based on their age, retirement plan, and expected lifespan. The app is inspired by the memento mori philosophy, which encourages awareness of life’s finiteness so people can live with greater intention and purpose instead of falling into routine.

Life left home page

App Link

🌿Life Left App

Screenshots

You can find the screenshots of the theme below:

Life Left home page

Life Span page

Features

Input

Users are required to provide a few basic details:

Birth date
Retirement age
Expected lifespan

Output

Based on the input, the following insights are displayed on the home page:

Current Age
Shows how many years, months, and days the user has lived.
Remaining Time
Displays the remaining lifespan based on the expected age.
Sleep Time Projection
Estimates how much of life may be spent sleeping, calculated using an average of eight hours per day.
Work Time Projection
Estimates the total time likely to be spent working, based on standard work hours and weekdays.
Actual Personal Time
Reveals how much lifetime remains after accounting for sleep and work, highlighting the time available for meaningful and personal pursuits.

In addition to numeric insights, the app visually represents the remaining years of life using colored blocks, making abstract time more tangible and easier to reflect on.

Technology

The application is built as a lightweight single-page app using React for real-time calculations and dynamic UI updates. Tailwind CSS is used for responsive and consistent styling. All calculations are performed entirely on the client side, with no backend dependency.

So, that’s it. A simple app to remind the finite time available with me in this planet. We all know one day or another day we all going to die, but a reminder makes little more aware of the same. And yes, hopefully I will add more features to this and will add here.

Lightbi Hugo Theme

binovarghese8120@gmail.com (Bino Kochumol Varghese) — Sat, 16 Jan 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Lightbi is a modern, elegant Hugo theme focused on readability, performance, and content-first design. It offers a clean, minimal experience for personal blogs, digital gardens, and long form writing, with two homepage modes, Profile for personal introductions and Blog for content driven sites, plus responsive layouts and light/dark mode support.

Lightbi profile and blog home page

Demo & GitHub

Screenshots

You can find the screenshots of the theme below:

Features

Below are the features of Lightbi theme.

General

Two Modes:
- Profile
- Blog
Two Main Content Sections:
- Blog
- Notes
Responsive Design:
- Built with a mobile-first approach for seamless viewing on any device.
Card-Based Theme:
- Flexible image placement options:
  - Image at the top of the card
  - Image in the middle of the card
  - Image at the bottom of the card
  - No image option
Image Gallery
You can add multiple images to your post and display them beautifully as a gallery.
Menu Location Indicator:
Clear visual cues for active menu items.
Multilingual Support:
Includes a language selector for easy switching between languages.
Taxonomies:
Organize content effectively with customizable tags and categories.
Search Functionality:
Integrated search option for quick content access.
Light/Dark Theme:
- Automatic theme switching based on browser preferences.
- Includes a manual theme-switch button for user control.
Google Analytics Integration:
Track user activity with built-in support for Google Analytics.
SEO-Friendly:
Optimized for search engines to improve visibility.
Commit SHA in Footer:
Display the current commit SHA for version tracking.
Self-Hosted Assets:
Compliant with GDPR / EU-DSGVO regulations by hosting all assets locally.
Bootstrap Icons:
Beautiful, lightweight icons integrated with Bootstrap Icons.

Configurations

Select theme mode

To configure the theme for either profile or blog mode, add the following under the params section in your hugo.toml file:

Set homepageLayout = "profile" for profile mode
Set homepageLayout = "blog" for blog mode

Card based theme.

To customize the image placement within a card, the Lightbi theme offers four flexible options. To configure this, use the previewCardImagePlacement parameter in the hugo.toml file. Set it as follows:

For the image at the top: previewCardImagePlacement = "top"
For the image in the middle: previewCardImagePlacement = "middle"
For the image at the bottom: previewCardImagePlacement = "bottom"
For no image: previewCardImagePlacement = "none"

For more details about parameters you can check here.

Side projects on Bino

Chithrakurippukal

Jinz Varghese

Website Link

Features

Home

Gallery

Collections

About

Technology

Life Left App

App Link

Screenshots

Features

Input

Output

Technology

Lightbi Hugo Theme

Demo & GitHub

Screenshots

Features

General

Page

Configurations

Select theme mode

Card based theme.

Other links