Top Greasemonkey Scripts

The power of customizing your internet experience with the help of Greasemonkey Scripts is limitless and it’s one of the best things about using Mozilla Firefox. All of these scripts also work with the social web browser, Flock. In case you didn’t know, Greasemonkey is an add on that lets you install user made scripts.

Here’s a list of my favorite Greasemonkey scripts (I’m using ALL of them currently)-

For Facebook Users-

UnF*ck Facebook– If you’re sick of rummaging through millions of third party applications on your friends’ profile pages before you reach the Wall, then this is the script for you. I have been using this script since yesterday and I would give it a 5/5. It’s that good. I was transported back to the time when Facebook didn’t have all those annoying Facebook applications.

Amazon Users-

Cleaner Amazon(screenshot available)- I really love buying books and electronics from Amazon and if I were richer, then I would have spent al my money there. This script “gets the useful book information (pub date, ISBN, #pages) closer to the top, eliminates some useless sections (best value, customers also bought, etc.).”

Movie Freaks–

The Movie Dude(screenshot available)- It adds cross links between many movie sites, such as Rotten Tomatoes, IMDB, Netflix, Yahoo! Movies, Flixster etc. It’s really cool and you should definitely give it a try. For example- Just search for any movie in the IMDB wesbite and you’ll find small favicons that will cross link to the other movie sites.

Search function made easier- LookItUp lets you search for any word of your choice on various websites such as Google, Wikipedia, Answers.com, The Free Dictionary etc. without leaving the web page. All you gotta do is highlight the word and press “?”. There are many other shortcuts that can be learned from the developer’s page.

Delicious_Blank: Adds a target _blank to links so that they can open in a new tab instead of a new window.

Textarea Backup: The primary purpose of this userscript is to save having to retype lost emails, forum posts, bug submissions, etc. The backup should be transparent so if the page is reloaded for whatever reason, be it browser crash, unintended exit or a forgetful website, the previously entered text will be restored.

Pre-Fill Comments Form: Complete the author, email & URL fields (& focus on the message box) in most comment forms by hitting ‘ALT+C’ .It is designed to work with wordpress blogs, but will work with any blog that uses the same id’s for fields. You will be asked for your name/email/URL the first time you run the script. It will then remember your values so you never have to fill them out again! To change your name/email/url at a later date just hit ‘SHIFT+ALT+C’ and you will prompted for your new values.

Google Service Enhancers-

Google Search Results Ultimate Makeover- It adds a number of amazing features such as Google Suggest, search results are displayed in two columns instead of one, Adds Google Page Rank, enables snap shot, add favicons to all links, embeds videos right into the search results, removes all ads from the search page etc. Personally, I love this script a lot. 🙂

Edit: Forgot to add that I also like to use Customize Google along with this add on because it provide links to other search engines and blocks Google Analytics cookies.

Mailto 2 Webmail: Makes “mailto” links open in your favorite web-based email account, instead of a pop-3 client (like Outlook, Eudora, Thunderbird, etc.) Supports Gmail, Yahoo Mail, and Google Apps Mail.

Google Services in HTTPS: Change Google Url services using HTTP by same service using HTTPS for security.

Google Extra– Displays results for google image search, video search, wikipedia search, dictionary.com search and Dict.CN search alongside normal google searches.

From my Previous Posts-

WordPress Ninja Comment– Respond directly from the comment administration panel on your dashboard, by either a comment or an email or both.

Social Bookmarking for WordPress- Generates pure html code for adding social bookmarking links (with favicons with buttons)to blog posts at wordpress.com which users can click to add the blog post page to their fav. bookmark sites like del.icio.us,digg & 20 other bookmarking sites.

Are you lost? First time using a greasemonkey script? 🙂 don’t worry! All you gotta do is make sure you’re using Firefox/Flock web browser. Then install the greasemonkey add on. After that, you’re ready to install any of the above mentioned scripts.

Social Bookmarks:

Let’s Boycott Blogger

The Blogger issue has been really bothering me ever since I discovered that non-Bloggers users are being forced to leave a “Nickname” or comment Anonymously, without giving you the option of leaving behind the URL of your blog. This is just another move by Google to make us assimilate with them. I love WordPress and I’m going to stick with this service no matter what. Even if it means not being able to put those dumb Google Ads. Even if it means that I need to pay $10 for a CSS upgrade. Even if it means that I can’t add Java script. And a host of other reasons.

For one, WordPress has an amazing blogging community. I love the professionalism of those people who help us every single time we e-mail them. Not to forget all the contributors in those forums! 🙂 WordPress has an open community and unlike Blogger, doesn’t pose such restrictions on users of other blog services. I always do my bit by asking people using other blogging services to consider shifting to WordPress. And some of them have. 🙂

So, if you love WordPress as much as I do, why not do something about it? I have created a small badge to show that I don’t support Google’s move. If I can’t leave behind my blog’s URL on a Blogger blog, then I don’t want to comment on such a blog.

If you want to show your support for this cause, then you can do two simple things-

1. Save the above image on your server (use Photobucket, Flickr or your WP space) and then upload it to your sidebar. I would appreciate it if you could link back to this post.

2. I have also added the term “blogspot” to my moderation list. (Dashboard->Options->Discussion->Comment Moderation/Blacklist). So everytime someone from Blogger wants to comment on my blog, then it will be added to the Moderation Queue or marked as Spam (Depending upon whether you choose to put the term in the “Comment Moderation” section or the “Comment Blacklist” section). If you mark it for moderation, then you can go to the moderation list, and remove the URL from the comment, just like what Blogger does. 😀

UPDATE: Blogger has started supporting OpenID. So you can log in using WordPress, AOL and other OpenID services.  So this boycotting has been called off 😀 I thank all of you for your support.

Even if you could do one of these things, then I will really appreciate it. Thanks all!

People who have shown their support by writing posts/posting badges (A big thank you to all of you! I’ll keep updating this list)

Arvind

Myndfcukd

ShilohWalker

Patrick

Ashish

Shefaly

Amrita

Social Bookmarks:

Blogging Anonymously

In the past twelve hours, I’ve read posts by at least two bloggers (Amrita and Broom) who have expressed their anger at people who take pleasure in “outing” the anonymous bloggers. I can perfectly understand their emotions and what they are going through. Many of us write blogs to express personal emotions. The least we can expect from our readers is to keep shut even if they realize who we might be. I don’t understand why some people have such an itch.

I remember changing my nickname quite often between Ruhi and my real name. I was not too sure if it makes sense to use my real name, the reason being that sometimes, I do write crazy stuff in my blog and I don’t want a potential employer tripping on it by any chance. It’s not that we are not to be blamed. If we want to remain completely anonymous, then we need to retain some pieces of information and never mention them on our blogs. This might include things like your birthdate, your current residence, your phone number, address etc.

There are some tools that can be used to remain as anonymous as possible:

1. Run a Google Search for your real name and see what the results are. You might be surprised to see that even though you might have taken a page down, Google still stores it in its cache for a considerable period of time. Anyone who’s smart can simply click on “Cache pages” and retrieve a Saved Screenshot of your page.

2. If most of the searches are professional and don’t reveal stupid things about you, then you’re fine.

3. Run a Google Search for your nickname and see if it connects you to your real self by any means. If it does and there are stuff that you don’t want anyone to see, then you may want to do something. You can delete some information from your previous posts. It might take time for Google’s cache to clean up (like I mentioned before). Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. This is what I don’t like about Google. I’m scared of sharing so much information with this organization. My business is not their business. Of course, they want all this information so that they can better target their advertisements, from where they generate 98% of their revenue. Anyway, I’ll leave my tech rant out of this post.

Many of us have Sitemeter or something similar installed that collects the location, browser and Operating System specification and certain other data from your computer. Apart from this, the comment system itself stores YOUR IP Address! Giving someone your IP address can be quite risky, if you know what I mean. Most of them wouldn’t do anything with it, but there are some smart people out there who can use it for anything.

If you visit ip2location.com and punch in your IP address, it clearly shows your location. So, even though you might have been very cautious on your blog regarding this piece of information, guess what? One visit to your friend’s blog can let him/her know your location.

You can use proxy servers such as http://the-cloak.com to browse your friend’s blogs. Your speed will reduce a bit, pleas be warned.

You can also go to websites such as http://publicproxyservers.com/ that will give you proxy IP addresses that can be used instead of your real IP address to surf the internet. You need to change your Network Setting in Mozilla Firefox (Tools-> Options->Advanced->Network Settings) from “automatic” to “Manual” and put in the proxy server information from the list. You might take some time to find a server that actually works at a decent speed.

If this is too much of trouble, then you can download a software such a Tor or Jap. You need to closely follow the instructions, which vary according to the type of browser that you’re using.

If you need to visit only a certain blog, then I think the-cloak.com should be enough.

Many of you who work in offices might want to use a proxy server if you have strict internet usage policies. Also, as an added precaution, you can “Edit the Timestamp” so that the post gets published a couple of minutes in the future. This way, the internet police of your company might find it difficult to associate your particular blog with the IP address. You might especially want to do this in case you are abusing your company 😛 Also, you might want to take a look at this page and listen to this person’s advice. Please be safe. You never know who’s watching you.

Even I have come across instances where I know that people look into Sitemeter and other applications to see where you live. People are very curious by nature. There is this other friend of mine who pestered me a number of times to reveal the URL of my private blog. I ended up making that blog private, scared that he or someone else might come across it. There are some parts of us which we don’t want to reveal and I strongly feel that others should respect that. It’s up to you to draw the boundaries and stay safe.

What are your Essential Blogging Tools?

Most of us who blog regularly use some kind of an external service to make the process of blogging easier. I will share seven of my favorite blogging tools in this post-

1. Windows Live Writer: I’m not such a big Microsoft “hater” afer all. The two Microsoft products that I absolutely love are Windows Live Writer and Microsoft Office 2007. WLW is a simple desktop application that can be used for writing your posts and pages offline. It’s very helpful for people who don’t have 24/7 Internet connection. You can add more than one WordPress account to it. There are also additional plug ins that can be downloaded.

The software is still in Beta mode, but is extremely stable. I think the final release will be announced very soon. Please read the WLW team blog for more information.

2. Social Bookmarking- Many people use different social book marking sites such as digg, technorati, delicious, furl, stumbleupon etc. to increase their blog traffic. Recently, even I started using them to provide users with a way to bookmark my blog. I have received a lot of traffic from Digg, Technorati and Stumbleupon. I have received many e-mails asking me for help regarding this matter. So, those of you who want to use social bookmarks in their blogs, can refer to this post of mine.

3. Flickr– Great way to add pictures to your blog in case you have run out of your storage space at WordPress. Flickr is integrated with your Yahoo account, which most of us use. So, you don’t even need to create another account. I use Flickr for almost all of my imaging needs. In addition to uploading your own pictures, Flickr also has an amazing community of very talented photographers who take the time to comment on your pictures. Even though I don’t upload any personal pictures on Flickr, I know many people who do so and are addicted to it. You can also use the Flickr widget on WordPress to display your pictures in the sidebar.

4. Del.icio.us– Online bookmarking at its best. Whenever you come across an interesting post or site, just bookmark it using Del.icio.us or some other bookmarking site. I prefer online bookmarking because it lets me retrieve my favorite pages from any computer. Del.icio.us also has a bookmarklet for Firefox users. Various bookmarks can be arranged with tags and shared on WordPress using a widget.

5. Google Reader– Absolutely essential to read updates on the blogs that you follow. This one has become my favorite because it has a lovely interface and has a minimalist look to it. Earlier, I was a big fan of Bloglines. What I really like about Google Reader is that you can share some items with your readers on WordPress. Besides, you can “star” items if you would like to do a follow up. You can also integrate the Google Reader in your GMail Inbox, according to the steps illustrated in this post. Read the Google Reader Team’s Blog for more information.

6. co.mments– Great way to track your comments not only on WordPress but also on other sites and blogs. All that you’ve got to do is add a bookmarklet to your favorite browser and click on it either before/after you comment. I don’t if you people have faced this problem, but recently, I’ve noticed that the “My Comments” section of WordPress has become quite slow. Also, it doesn’t store all the comments that you made on different blogs. If you use co.mments, then all your comments will remain on the tracking page, unless you choose to remove them. Besides, you can also share your comments on other sites and blogs with your readers, like I do.

7. WordPress Ninja Comment- Isn’t it annoying to individually go to each post, and then click on comment and reply to everyone? If you have a large number of posts and an ever larger number of readers responding to them, then I’m sure you know how time-consuming it is. WordPress Ninja Script is your solution to this problem. Refer to the above link to read more about it.

So, what are you favorite blogging tools? 🙂

Microsoft gets a slice of Facebook

After ages, Microsoft did something smart and got a small slice of Facebook for $240 million, which is actually not much for the software giant if you take a look at the company’s cash flow statement. The deal ends in 2011. This gives Facebook lots of cash to hire more developers. Microsoft gains access to a new advertising venue, but what is probably more important for them right now is the fact that they’ve beat Google. If you guys remember, Google had partnered with MySpace earlier and they also own the “immensely” popular (at least in Brazil and India) social networking site Orkut. I think Microsoft really needed this deal, especially after Ballmer said that they are looking to acquire around 100 start ups in the next year or so. Looks like he’s finally doing something right.

Zuckerberg is smart too. He’s given Microsoft only 1.6% of his growing empire. Right now, it looks like a win-win situation for both the parties.

What kind of advertisements do we expect to see? I definitely don’t want to see “Live Search” boxes. 😐 Else I’m quitting Facebook too. As it is, all those crazy application requests are driving me crazy. So, I generally don’t send requests to my friends to add these applications. I wish they would do the same. It will save me a few clicks.

By the way, I would love to see personalized URLs on Facebook- something like what MySpace and LinkedIn let you do. I wonder why we haven’t gotten that option yet.

Tips and Tricks for Gmail Users

Recently, I came across a page that lists 40+ tips for GMail users. Three of them are my favorites-

1. GMail Drive- Adds a new virtual drive(’Gmail Drive’) to ‘My Computer‘ folder and uses GMail as its storage medium. Drag and drop files Gmail Drive and it will store them on your GMail account as if on additional hard drive. For people like me who forget to carry their flash drives, it’s a very good option.

Here’s the link for adding GMail Drive.

2. Customize Google– This is an add on for Mozilla Firefox. It removes ads from the Google search page, inserts favicons for the different websites, switches your GMail and Google Docs account from http to https, hides the spam counter, has a quick contacts box, invite box and forces fixed font in GMail. I would suggest that you really give this one a try. You won’t want to switch back 🙂

3. What do you do in case your GMail account gets full? Check out this page. You can take advantage of some POP settings and forward all your emails to another account.

There are many other tricks that have been provided in that page. For example– You can simultaneously sign into two GMail accounts, force all “mailto:” links to open in your GMail inbox, Better GMail etc.