Google gave me some hints about daemons running in background, responsible for Voice Control interactions. With that knowledge in my head, I started moving them into backup folder:

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oolongtea:~ root# mkdir ~/backup/
oolongtea:~ root# cd /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/
oolongtea:/System/Library/LaunchDaemons root# mv com.apple.scrod.plist ~/backup/
oolongtea:/System/Library/LaunchDaemons root# mv com.apple.VoiceOverTouch.plist ~/backup/
oolongtea:/System/Library/LaunchDaemons root# mv com.apple.voiced.plist ~/backup/

And after quick restart, no one could open Voice Control, because it crashed before any harm could be done. Excellent!

Installation

Firefox

You will need to install Greasemonkey add-on. After that just open bytingshark.user.js and install it.

Google Chrome

Just open bytingshark.user.js and it should prompt install wizard.

Opera

Copy bytingshark.user.js script into User JavaScript folder. If you don’t know where yours located at (or haven’t added it yet):

1. Goto Preferences > Advanced > Content > JavaScript Options …
2. There will be field named “User JavaScript folder”, set it where you putted bytingshark.user.js script.

What you will need for this to work:

• Firefox
• Greasemonkey
• bytingshark.user.js

Enjoy (but be aware, it might contain some bugs)!

Goodnight!

Grab one (or as many you would like) copy for:

• Firefox
• Prism
• Google Chrome
• Safari

And if you feel like poking around in source code, you will like this link.

P.S. You can find keyMazony Options page in Safari by doing right click in any web page and selecting “keyMazony Options” item.

First of all, we will need some software to begin with: Wget for Windows (grab “Complete package, except sources” download or if you are lost, here is direct link to 1.11.4 version) and AutoHotkey. Install both of them.

Now open AutoHotkey (located in your Program Files or where ever did you install it). It should ask if you would like to create a sample script in My Documents folder (if that file doesn’t exist yet). What are you waiting for? Yes, of course! Great now when AutoHotkey sample script pop-up on screen wipe it clean.

Now some magic. To create new keyboard shortcut for Grooveshark player using keySharky API, just add a line that goes something like this:

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HOTKEY::Run, WGET_EXE --spider --no-cache KEYSHARKY_API, , Hide

In place of HOTKEY you could write ^H which when translated into keyboard shortcut would assign CTRL + H combo. Other basic modifier keys are # Windows key, ! Alt and + Shift. For more, check out AutoHotkey documentation on that subject.

For this example, I will use ^!+Z as CTRL + ALT + SHIFT + Z.

Next in line: WGET_EXE you must replace with wget.exe binary location path. By default in Windows 7 (64-bit), Wget installs in “C:\Program Files (x86)\GnuWin32\bin\wget.exe”. But if you aren’t sure where did you install it in your machine, you can search for it by doing Start (Orb) > Run > cmd (or just search for cmd). When in command line execute this command. What it does is, tries to find wget.exe in your C:\ drive and return its full path.

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dir c:\ /s /b | find "wget.exe"

Last on list is KEYSHARKY_API, but how to setup/use it you can (and should) read here. When done, it should look something like this:

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^!+Z::Run, "C:\Program Files (x86)\GnuWin32\bin\wget.exe" --spider --no-cache "http://localhost:8800/play", , Hide

This example will toggle play/pause in Grooveshark player when CTRL + ALT + SHIFT + Z combo is pressed.

Like always a picture is worth a thousand words. Grab a copy of keySharky 1.5.3 for Opera and test it out yourself. And don’t be shine to leave a review and help to improve it.

That’s all!

• keySharky for Google Chrome
• keyShakry for Safari

That’s all for now folks!

You can download keySharky 1.5.2, if you don’t have it already, to try it out:

• keySharky for Firefox
• keySharky for Prism
• keySharky for Google Chrome
• keyShakry for Safari

If you have issues, please leave them here and I will try to figure out whats wrong.

Happy Holidays!

You can find this option page by doing right click in any page and selecting “keySharky Options” item. By default it has same keyboard shortcut combos as Firefox and Chrome version has.

But if you can’t wait that long and still want to use Grooveshark that knows how to talk with keySharky you could upgrade to keySharky 1.5.1 for Firefox (not yet reviewed so no automatic update available) or/and Prism. After upgrade go to http://retro.grooveshark.com/ and you should be fine till GroovesharkAPI is added to new shiny version. That’s all :)

Update: as of now there is easier way to install Shiki-Wise theme, but I will leave second option anyway :) (thanks to Mantas for pointing out it).

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sudo aptitude install shiki-wise-theme

First, download Shiki-Wise theme (not the one from Shiki-Colors, but extracted from previous Mint version, because they are bit different) and extract it.

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cd ~
wget https://github.com/downloads/intarstudents/Shiki-Wise-Minty/Shiki-Wise-Minty.tar.gz --no-check-certificate
tar zxvf Shiki-Wise-Minty.tar.gz

Now copy theme folder over to /usr/share/themes/ and install dependencies.

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sudo mv Shiki-Wise /usr/share/themes/
sudo aptitude install shiki-colors-metacity-theme gnome-wise-icon-theme

You are done. Navigate to Preferences > Appearance and select Shiki-Wise as your theme :)

And I know that out there is XRefresh, but not every time when code has been edited there is need for refresh, because it might just be a little change (like added comment, that will not appear in page anyways) or I just don’t feel like reloading.

So in scene comes httpK3y - small server inside Firefox/Prism add-on, that you can control via HTTP. It has simple API and is easy to configure. Works cross platform (Windows, Linux, Mac OS X) and only dependencies are Firefox (3.6 and up) or Prism (1.0 and up).

You can read on about how to use httpk3y in README, but I will give you simple example how I use it in Mint (Ubuntu).

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$ wget http://localhost:7700/key_reload --spider --no-cache

Simple as that! And here you can grab package for Firefox or/and Prism. Have fun!

P.S. Questions?

So why I’m telling these news to you now? Well, I could find place where put Prism version on. But luckily my fast hands build landing page for keySharky that’s hosted on same VPS as this blog and everything is back to normal.

So, you might ask what has been changed?

• New icon - bling, bling!
• Now you can disable unwanted keyboard shortcuts that keySharky creates
• More methods inside gsAPI, so more fun
• And like always, some minor bug fixes

Second. My previous “work machine” Aspire One 150 (yes, three years I worked on that with external monitor plugged in) was slowly dying, to fix that I bought new one - Acer eMachine E527. And with this upgrade Linux Mint 9 is just flying! Old Aspire One now has a new life with Hackintosh on board, thanks to tools from NetbookInstaller.

Third. keySharky is getting support for Firefox 4, but it’s not yet stable. Without it, I’m trying to add something new to keySharky, but don’t know what will make into this release:

• Option to fully disable unneeded keyboard shortcuts?
• More info from gsAPI?
• Something else?

So what do you think? I definitely like it :) For casing I used nice and shiny (maybe not so much) iPod selling case (or how it’s called), that fits in pockets less or more. Shield is attached to Arduino using pins found on FDD. It’s powered by two 3V CR2032 batteries that are housed in holders for motherboards BIOS batteries. Lastly it has SHARLIGHT CMF-0502200 F seven-segment display (again, taken from old computers ”Turbo display”) who is controlled by two 74HC595 shift registers.

On software side, it’s running reaction game where you need to press button when light comes up on display, as fast as you can. And pretty neat menu system controllable with two buttons.

I have made set of pictures on Flickr too :)

What can I say - it already was blast to solder my first stripboard, but 4x4 LED grid made it even more fun and frustrating (stuffs doesn’t work always :)

If you want to install GSDesktop Helper in Ubuntu/Debian, you can use already packed package:

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cd ~
wget http://github.com/downloads/intarstudents/GSDesktop-Helper/gsd-helper-0.4.2_all.deb
sudo dpkg -i gsd-helper-0.4.2_all.deb

Or if your distributive doesn’t support Debian packages, you can always run it directly from command line (but before this you may be needed mess with dependencies):

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cd ~
git clone http://github.com/intarstudents/GSDesktop-Helper.git
cd GSDesktop-Helper/
./helper.py

That’s it for this shark week, keep swimming with Grooveshark and everything will be alright :)

P.S. If you too have build something with keySharky, definitely ping me.