DotJs – A GreaseMonkey alternative

If you love customizing pages on the web using user scripts, here is an alternative for GreaseMonkey. DotJs is a Google Chrome extension that executes JavaScript files in ~/.js based on their filename. To customize http://www.google.com/, you will have to create the userscript  ~/.js/google.com.js. The author originally built this for Chrome only but was later ported to other browsers Firefox, Safari and Fluid. Currently, it works **only on OSX**.

How to install?

Installation requires you to have Ruby 1.8 and rake installed. Follow the instructions below to install DotJs.

git clone http://github.com/defunkt/dotjs

cd dotjs

rake install

How does it work?

There is a security restriction in Chrome which prevents access to the local file system. To overcome this problem, DotJs runs a tiny web server on port 3131 which serves the files from ~/.js. Hence, the need for Ruby.

Is it better than GreaseMonkey?

DotJs is just an alternative technique which offers the same functionalities as GreaseMonkey offers. The userscripts in DotJs will not be able to use the GM_ functions which means not all your GM scripts will work directly here. However, you can implement the GM_ methods and make all the GM scripts compatible here. The userscripts in DotJs will have jQuery 1.6 loaded regardless of whether the site you're hacking uses jQuery. Also, it adds support for additional plug-ins and other helper functions.

-- Varun

[Screenshots] Google+

I got the chance to explore Google+ today. To me, it looks like Facebook with privacy concerns addressed. The interface looks simple and easy to use unlike Google Wave. The mobile version of Google+ looks equally impressive. Will it be a Facebook killer? I don’t see that happening anytime soon. Lets wait and watch. Check out the rest of the post for screenshots.

Hover over the images to know more about them.

 

 Google+ Android Native App

Google+ Mobile Web

Take an interactive demo here.

-- Varun

Make your Flash contents playable on iPhone with Swiffy

Ever since Steve Jobs termed Flash as a dying technology and confirmed that they don’t have any such plans of supporting Flash - “we don’t spend a lot of energy on old technology”, there were many attempts to make the flash content playable on devices running iOS. Some of them succeeded to some extent. Google has taken a step on this direction to promote open technologies. Google has pushed a new product into Google Labs – Swiffy, a SWF to HTML5 converter. This product from Google is definitely much better. This labs product allows you to upload a SWF file, and it will produce an HTML5 version which will run in modern browsers with a high level of SVG support such as Chrome and Safari.

Highlights

• Swiffy animations are almost as compact as that of the original SWF files. Swiffy uses a compact JSON representation of the animation, which is rendered using SVG and a bit of HTML5 and CSS3.
• Swiffy animations take advantage of the advancements in JavaScript execution speed and hardware accelerated 2D graphics.
• Supports a bunch of user interactions apart from the plain old animations.
• Wide range of browser support. Check out the browsers supporting SVG here.

Try it out yourself here. Check out the gallery of converted SWF files.

-- Varun

Pimped out Mercedes rat rod low rider art car

Its been a while since my last post and I wanted to post this multi-faceted unit I found on the 24 hour lemons facebook. This older stretch Mercedes is complex work of art complete with spoke rims, rusty flame job, low rider suspension and some checkers to complete the weirdness. Not sure were its headed but its weird enough that it ended up making me smile. Will the owner of this Mercedes step

Tartan Mobile For Sale - What a Bargain

This Tartan art car beauty is for sale for anyone looking to make a fashion statement this summer, here are the details:Selling my car in Texas while visiting 7-14 days from now (Austin, then Dallas). I've inherited a newer vehicle which I'll be driving back home to SF instead of the Plaid. Asking $1,000, 1986 Toyota Camry, 177K miles, two owners in 15 years. Lots of new parts, repairs, updates-