ThansCorner

16June2009

Google Chrome AutoRefresh Tabs

Posted by Nathaniel Meierpolys under: Google.

There are a number of plugins for Firefox that I use regularly to schedule regular refreshes on pages like Google Finance that I like to keep current throughout the day.  In its infancy, Chrome does not have a built in way of doing this.

I found a nice solution here on a forum, posted by user gl0rfindel.  Create a bookmark pointing to the url:

javascript:
timeout=prompt(”Set timeout [s]“);
current=location.href;
if(timeout>0)
setTimeout(’reload()’,1000*timeout);
else
location.replace(current);
function reload(){
setTimeout(’reload()’,1000*timeout);
fr4me=’<frameset cols=\’*\’>\n<frame src=\”+current+’\'/>’;
fr4me+=’</frameset>’;
with(document){write(fr4me);void(close())};
}

Clicking the bookmark will let you specify how regularly (in s) to refresh the current active tab.

5June2009

DustyTunes Music Collection Visualization

Posted by Nathaniel Meierpolys under: Uncategorized.

Ever wanted to let a friend look through your iTunes music library remotely?   Dusty Tunes provides a quick and easy way to index and list your library online.  An easy alphabetical listing by Author allows anyone with the proper link to peruse your music collection.  Once there, guests can browse, search, and then preview or purchase  from iTunes individual songs in your collection.

The owner of the library creates a quick account and then points the site to the file iTunes Music Library.xml (typically located at My documents > My music > Itunes > iTunes Music Library.xml)

The owner can then point friends to the url (http://www.dustytunes.com/user/<owner_username>.php).  Mine is located here: http://www.dustytunes.com/user/nmeierpolys.php

5June2009

Facebook Plugin for Pidgin Chat Client

Posted by Nathaniel Meierpolys under: Uncategorized.

Pidgin is a fantastic way to connect with AIM, Yahoo, MSN, Google and ICQ contacts.  With the help of this plugin, however, Pidgin can connect with Facebook chat as well.

I’m pretty sick of facebook’s mess of a website as they’ve added on more and more complex features.  I use Pidgin with this plugin to chat with Facebook friends without the hassle of navigating their site.

Facebook Chat Plugin for Pidgin

29May2009

Planning your next room

Posted by Nathaniel Meierpolys under: Uncategorized.

Have you ever tried cutting out little paper furniture and laying them out on graph paper to plan a space?  I’ll be moving to Madison, WI in July so I find myself trying to design an entirely new apartment.

Autodesk Project Dragonfly provides a really nice way to lay things out and move them around spacially.  It gives you the same control to physically move things around the room without the hassle of physically doing so.

It’s not the fastest web application since there’s a lot of JavaScript updating to do in the background.  The options for furniture and customization are also somewhat limited at this early stage.  Nevertheless, Dragonfly gives some fantastic 3D views and layout tools for designing a room.

28May2009

ReadAir Google Reader Desktop Client

Posted by Nathaniel Meierpolys under: Uncategorized.

A cool Adobe Air application designed to display Google Reader posts in a clean 0SX-themed desktop client.  It’s not perfect yet (glitches, disappearing scrollbars on occasion) but it’s a project worth keeping an eye on.

Download at: http://code.google.com/p/readair/

(note: requires installation of Adobe Air)

28May2009

Power Chrome: Keyboard Shortcuts and Omnibar Info Commands

Posted by Nathaniel Meierpolys under: Google; Web Design.

In addition to the extensions described in the previous post, Chrome includes functionality for a few helpful keyboard shortcuts and diagnostic/status information about browser operations.

Keyboard Shortcuts: Many of these are well known but they are all incredibly helpful

• CTRL-F6 or ALT-d: 
  • Select the URL in the address bar
• CTRL-SHIFT-N:  
  • New incognito window
• SHIFT-ESC:  
  • Open Chrome Task Manager
• CTRL-SHIFT-T:  
  • Open recently closed browser tab
• CTRL-Click on a link: 
  • Open this page in a new background tab
• CTRL-SHIFT-Click on a link: 
  • Open this page in a new tab and switch to this tab
• CTRL-TAB: 
  • Switch to the next tab
• CTRL-SHIFT-TAB: 
  • Switch to the previous tab
• CTRL-#: 
  • Switch to this tab

(Full listing available at: Explore Google Chrome Features)

Omnibar commands:

The Omnibar is Chrome’s address bar and search bar rolled into one thing.  Typing a URL goes to that site, typing a search query looks up results in Google Search.

In addition to those operations, Chrome allows access to some valuable information about the browser’s inner workings.

• ? <search-query>
  • search the item <search-query> in Google
• type a web address then hit TAB+<search-query>
  • allows searching of the query on that url’s domain
• about:memory
  • chrome process memory usage
• about:stats
  • load times for Chrome, Javascript
• about:network
  • behind-the-scenes network info
• about:dns
  • dns info, time, stats
• about:version
  • version, user-agent, etc.
• about:plugins
  • installed plugins
• about:cache
  • cached content
• view-cache:[URL]
  • specific content cache info (e.g. view-cache:http://www.thanscorner.info)
• view-source:[URL]
  • source of content (e.g. view-source:http://www.thanscorner.info)
• about:crash
  • crash the tab (just for fun!)

28May2009

Power Chrome: Chrome Extensions

Posted by Nathaniel Meierpolys under: Google; Web Design.

This is the first in a series of several posts outlining ways to take advantage of lesser-known Chrome features.

To try out the most recent development version of Chrome, you will need to make a few easy changes to your installation.

(img src: popandpolitics.com)

Instructions:

1. download the Chrome channel switcher here
2. after installing and running the program, select the ‘Dev’ channel
3. to enable plugins, right-click your chrome shortcut and select properties.
4. in the ‘Target:’  field, add  ’–enable-extensions’  to your path.  (e.g. ‘”<chrome-path>” –enable-extensions’)

This developer channel might be a bit buggy but it gives you the chance to try out the newest Chrome release.  A few notable features at the writing of this post:

• ability to edit starting page thumbnails
• support for extensions (.crx files)
• support for video tag

Info about current releases on each channel can be found on the updates blog for versions: stable, beta, and dev

Available Chrome extensions include:

• AdSweep strip ads from web pages (link).  
  • Provided by Adsweep.org
• Googlepedia (link).  
  • Provided by Chrome Plugins: Googlepedia extension for Chrome - Get Wikipedia articles along search results
• RSS Feed Subscribe (link) 
  • via Chromium Developer Documentation
• GMail Inbox + New Message Count (link) 
  • via Chromium Developer Documentation

Additional flags for adding functionality: (turn them on just as you did –enable-extensions)

• -omnibox-popup-count=10
  • specify the number of suggestions Chrome gives when typing in the omnibar
• -remote-shell-port=10
  • change the port for remote shell
• --single-process
  • run all chrome tabs within a single process (more info about Chrome processes: Chrome’s Process Model Explained)
• –process-per-site
  • run a separate chrome process for each site (2 google tabs will be within the same process)
• –process-per-tab
  • run a separate chrome process for each tab
• –enable-extensions  
  • turn on support for extensions (.crx)
• –proxy-server=PROXYSERVER:PORT
  • specify a proxy server
• –enable-user-scripts
  • turn on support for user scripts
• –enable-user-scripts –user-data-dir=”path\to\your\profile”
  • specify the directory for user data
• –enable-logging
  • turn on logging for developer use
• –enable-greasemonkey
  • enable greasemonkey (place scripts from Userscripts.org in the C:\scripts\ directory)
• –auto-spell-correct
  • enables fixing of little spelling issues automatically

24February2009

Typing Upside-down

Posted by Nathaniel Meierpolys under: Web Design; Websites.

¡ʎɐqǝ uo pɹɐoqʎǝʞ ɐ ʎnq ı ǝɯıʇ ƃuı…ɟ ʇsɐן ǝɥʇ sı sıɥʇ

It’s stupid but cute.  In the extended alphabet sets of, there is a vast selection of letters.  Among these are those that can be used to model normal english characters upside-down.  This site has a script for converting text and a key of each character’s representation.

How to type upside down text and letters in HTML

16February2009

Buffer - A data stream for the brain

Posted by Nathaniel Meierpolys under: Organization; Productivity.

After many revisions on the basic to-do list idea, I’ve settled on what is essentially a buffer.  I love immersing myself in information - books, music, podcasts, blogs, traditional media, emails, radio, newspaper, tv, etc. but there’s just too much to do justice to.  If I tried to find a straight path through the mess, there would be lots of good content slipping by.

Read the rest of this entry »

8February2009

ASCII Star Wars

Posted by Nathaniel Meierpolys under: Video.

This is ancient and probably old news to everyone out there, but I just discovered this text animation of Star Wars: A New Hope.  

It’s nothing incredibly special but I found it incredible that after more than 7 years they’re still hosting and running this server.

Click here to see the animation

If that doesn’t work:

1. Start Menu
2. Run
3. Enter: “telnet towel.blinkenlights.nl“
4. Click OK