Active Browsing

Bringing insular debate to a whole new level

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 04 Jul 2006 01:38:00 +0000

Renamer brings the notion of insularity to a whole new level. The script rewrites webpages so the word "abortion" is replaced with "baby-murder".
I was outraged at the notion, until I came across the BushRenamer which replaces instances "George Bush" with "Smirking Monkey". Admitedly not very mature, but I got a kick out of it anyway.

Amazon TotalUsed

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 04 Jul 2006 01:13:00 +0000

Robert Litzke has a new script which gives you the total price for an item on amazon marketplace. It comes in handy with those $ 0.01 books with $15 S&H charges

Rewrite Amazon Affiliate Codes

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 29 Jun 2006 05:42:00 +0000

The greasemonkey-o-sphere is abuzz about the Amazon Affiliate Greasemonkey Script. The script rewrites the affiliate urls on people's site to use your affiliate code.
I'm fairly certain this violates Amazon's affiliate TOS, but that doesn't seeem to be stopping anyone. It seems to me it would be pretty easy for amazon to catch offenders.
I wonder how long before these devious scripts become a big problem?

Greasemonkey Spellchecker

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 28 Jun 2006 07:18:00 +0000

I came across a greasemonkey spellchecker - what a fantastic idea. It sure is nice to have correct spelling on those craigslist message boards.
Big ups to my man tony for making it happen. I don't know him personally, but it's pretty clear he's a badass. You know someone's hard-core when they store their resume in tex in CVS.

Another great user script for google calendar

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 28 Jun 2006 07:00:00 +0000

Paul found another user script for google calendar. This one adds your agenda your sidebar on gmail. It took me a while to get running though - and underscores some of the usability problems with greasemonkey. It's still TDFNN (too difficult for non-nerds). Can anyone explain to me why the script can't find that 'private link' on its own and stash it w/ GM_setValue?
My moaning aside, it is pretty cool, good work, r2!

Here's the easy-as-pie installation process:

Once you've added the Greasemonkey extension, right-click on "Install This Script" on the top right of this page and select "Install User Script" from the context menu. Reload your Gmail page. You should now see "Agenda" and "Calendar URL not found. Please run setup."
In Google Calendar, go Settings>Calendars>Click on the Calendar you'd like to add to the Gmail Agenda>Click on the orange XML icon under Private URLs> Copy this URL.(ctrl+c) (if you want to add a public calendar, so the bottom of these instructions)
Go to Google Bookmarks. Select: Add Bookmark and paste the private Calendar url in to Location (URL): name it and label it something simple like bday. Remember the label you gave it for Step 5.
In Firefox, go: Tools>User Command Scripts >GMail Agenda Setup>Label: enter the label of your bookmark here and then go through the remaining prompts. (note: if "User Commands Scripts" is grayed out, simply refresh your Gmail page and go back in to Tools.)
Once complete, it should automatically refresh your Gmail page. It should now say "Agenda Loading" and it should eventually appear.

Todo list on your google calendar

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 27 Jun 2006 04:20:00 +0000

I came across a useful script today that lets you add a todo list to your google calendar. This is the beauty of greasemonkey from the perspective of site developers: The community can prototype and build new features.

What is Active Browsing?

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 26 Jun 2006 01:16:00 +0000

Active Browsing denotes a growing set of technologies including Greasemonkey, platypus, and some of their IE equivalents (like Turnabout). They allow the user to run client-side scripts which manipulate a user's experience on a particular webpage.
The web-surfer is no longer the passive consumer of a website, but can bend the site to his/her will. chmod 777 web, indeed.

So What?
Take a few of the apps for a test-drive, and you quickly see why Nivi says Greasemonkey will blow your mind. The flagship greasemonkey app, the one that first blew my mind, is called BookBurro. It allows you to comparison shop - automatically - right there on the webpage. It does not take too much imagination to see that as the technology gains wider adoption, it will have a dramatic effect on how we use the web.

So what's going on?
I will address Marvin Gaye's eternal question in coming posts.