New Girl Talk: Feed the Animals

Name your own price :)

Emoticons for Gmail

Finally: a greasemonkey script for gmail that transforms raw emoticons like :-) into their image-based counterparts.

Feeling lucky? Click here to install the script. It's a work in progress, but I'm excited by the results so far and want to begin testing on a macro-level. If you install this version, check back soon for an updated version.






Lots of work left to do. Among other improvements, I will add an 'emoticons bar' to the compose menu so users can insert icons with the click of a mouse. But this is a start. The code is complete with comments and contains a 'to do' list and a list of known bugs.

For a 'key' to the emoticons supported by this script click here.

SUMMARY: Google search bar hacks

I amended the file "nsSearchService.js" to introduce two new functions to the Google search bar in FireFox:

1- Search the current site with the syntax "site:this"



2- Conduct a Google Image Search with the syntax "img:"



To install this hack, re-name your current 'nsSearchService.js' file (just in case you want to remove the hack) and replace the original with this one:

New and improved 'nsSearchService.js'. See lines 733 and 855 for the edits.

On Vista (and presumably XP), 'nsSearchService.js' is located in this directory: C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\components

On Linux, the file is located here: /usr/lib/firefox/components/nsSearchService.js

This solution is not very modular; the file must be installed or deleted manually. However, it does offer some advantages:

- Functionality is directly integrated into the Google search bar so there is no need for a separate search engine

- No need for a custom bookmark/search via the location bar --- this keeps the suggestions from the Google tool bar in tact. (You can add the special syntax to the end of your search terms.)

- No need for a special button; just type the command in the search bar.

- No need for Google's Advanced Toolbar for Firefox. (Google's Advanced toolbar has buttons for searching the current site and conducting an image search; however, there is no syntax that I know of to automate this procedure. In addition, for searching the current site, the regular expression used in my hack removes the 'www' from the current domain which enables a broader search. Google's Advanced toolbar does not do this; it searches 'www.stanford.edu' rather than 'stanford.edu'.)

UPDATE: Greasemonkey Script for Right Click Menu in Gmail

The original version of this script subsumed the default right click menu. The revised version makes room for both.

This script has been added to userscripts.org. You can install it by following this link.

A FireFox Hack: Google Image Search from Google search bar

Include the string 'img:' alongside search terms in the Google search bar and Google image results are returned. The code snippet is here, but since a picture (or should I say 'img:') is worth 1000 words...



This hack is similar to 'Search the current site with Google' for searching the current site in that it alters the file 'nsSearchService.js'. You are welcome to insert this code into 'nsSearchService.js' yourself. However, I recommend that you re-name your current 'nsSearchService.js' file and replace it with this one:

New and improved 'nsSearchService.js'.

The above file contains the 'site:this' hack and the 'img:' hack.

On Vista (and presumably XP), 'nsSearchService.js' is located in this directory:

C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\components

On Linux, the file is located here: /usr/lib/firefox/components/nsSearchService.js

Anyway, navigate to this folder, rename the original 'nsSearchService.js' file (so you can revert back to this file if necessary) and replace it with the one at the above link.

I would expect nothing less from the person "who prints everything on the color printer."

ABC news reports that Hillary will drop out of the presidential race on Friday.

I'm not complaining but... Is this not the equivalent of getting fired, then showing up to work the next day and telling your boss "I quit"?

Obama '08.