It’s today I found this new URL shortening service tinyarro.ws. It gives you http://➡.ws/blah as the shortened url(yeah.. blah is a random string or you can choose what you like).

I really liked the idea & thought of altering my previously created trim ubiquity command and make a ubiquity command for tinyarro.ws. You can get ubiquity here . If you don’t not know what is ubiquity you can learn more here.

> Install arrow – Ubiquity command <

(If you have ubiquity installed you get a dialog to install the command on top of the page)

OK fellas keep sending tiny arrows :D .

BTW: Tinyarrow for this blog post is http://➡.ws/⇷

Update: tinyarro.ws URLs might not work properly everywhere. Just keep an I on the discussion going on here.

Twitter enhancements: Retweet this is a Greasemonkey script which adds a retweet function to your Twitter page.

Original script:

Shows a retweet image at each of message of Twitter pages (your twitter home or some others twitter page). Once you click it opens up a new page/tab with Retweet message in textbox.

New improved script:

Only open a new tab/window if you are not in your twitter home. If you are in your twitter home, the retweet message will be loaded in to the text box in same window/tab.

The author of original script is ziru. Big thanks to him for making this great script. And many thanks to vinces1979 for helping to get this working. I post it here because I do not have any way of updating the original code or even comment on userscripts.org page. Hope you enjoy this.

> Twitter enhancements: Retweet this *improved* <

How to use Greasemonkey scripts? Find here

Future plans:

There’s another edition of this script which uses jQuery (enhanced by Carl Furrow) to avoid postback in loading Retweet to textbox. Unfortunately that script can ONLY retweet from ones twitter home page. I’m working on it to add the ability of retweeting from anywhere on twitter :). just stay tuned or code it yourself ;).

Finally I have managed to come to an end of the loooong expedition. The expedition insearch of an RSS reader. A good one. One that fits Chanux’ needs. One like Google reader. Oops… I said that.

OK let’s face it. The best RSS reading experience I ever had was with Google reader (GR). I really like all the control I get over my subscriptions, through Google reader. But I wanted to switch. Yes I have reasons.

** Google Readers bandwidth usage is pretty high.
This maybe a myth. But I believe that I experienced it at the last time I used it. And my Internet connection has a bandwidth limit.

** I want to get rid of cloud madness. I’m afraid of cloud.

** I want my RSS subscription to be with me even when I’m out of internet. (now I have my HP mini with me all the time :D )

Because of those reasons I wanted an alternative & was googling for Good, great, nice, Google reader like RSS readers all the time. I found a lot of RSS readers & actually tried following readers. All I have to say is here in the shortest way I can express.

Mozilla Thunderbird. (Mozillas email/news reader : seejay suggested)

• I didn’t like the overall experience at all. (Only RSS experience. It’s my primary mail client).
• It downloads the RSS headings & then fetch the page itself when requested. I don’t like that.

Snownews. (Command Line Interface tool : found when googling)

• Since this is a CLI tool I really liked it.

• But had problems importing my GR feeds list (you have to convert xml to snownews format). Too lazy to ‘investigate’.

Snowl. (Firefox extension : found when googling)

• The interface was not compelling.
• I didn’t like the user experience.
• Less control over feed etching (or I didn’t find proper controls ).
• Annoying bandwidth overhead.

Brief. (Firefox extension : found on mozilla site)

• Great/cool user Interface.
• Usability, control over feed fetching is great.
• Almost GR like navigation with “Headline View”.

• Author of the software says that he doesn’t have plans to implement synchronization with GR. (Well I still want my RSS be synced with GR).

Akregator. (I knew that : seejay was using)

• Good interface.
• It’s KDE software (I <3 KDE) .
• Easy navigation with widescreen view (for me).
• Sync with GR is somewhere in the air :D .

• (my) processor cries in compact view.
• Couldn’t find syncing anywhere other than developer chit chat.

Conclusion:
Akregator & Brief will saty here with me. But I’ll choose one as my primary RSS reader soon. Most the time it’ll be akregator because hopefully it’ll sync with GR. Yes GR sync definitely makes akregator win over Brief even though Briefs’ User Interface is GREAT.

Note: AFAIK snownews & akreagtor do not have Windows versions. Thunderbird, snowl & Brief are available for win. For a long list of RSS tools check this great post. But Please choose free & open source software.

Here I came up with part two of “Use Portable Firefox profile with GNU/Linux“(Now I feel ashamed for calling it a hack. Sorry fellas for calling it a hack :D ). This time it’s a shell script which would let you jump between default Firefox porfile & your own Portable Firefox profile which is going to live on your flash drive.

To use it you have to download fp.tar.gz & extract. There are two files in fp directory, one is sfp.sh which is the script & the other is profiles.ini which the script uses in the switching process. Those files are made to be together :). (You need Portable Firefox)

You have to edit path= Line in profiles.ini file. Add the path to your Portable firefox profile & run the script. It works for me & I hope it would work for you too.

Path=/media/CHANUX/FirefoxPortable/Data/profile

Known issues:

• The Extension versions you use may conflict with the Firefox version on the host machine.
• You won’t take the plugins (ex: Flash, Java) with you(I’m still tryiing to figure out a way to make it happen).
• You’ll have to obey the proxy settings of the host machine.
• You may have to change file permissions [ $ chmod 755 /path_to_script ]
• In worse case you may have to copy fp folder to host machine.
• In worst case you may not have enough rights to run shell scripts :( .

known bugs:
When I run this in fedora core 6 I don’t get the functionality for identifying whether Firefox is running when setting/unsetting Portable profile. I couldn’t figure out that little bug yet.

The day before I write this script I was a total idiot of shell scripting. I just read the manuals(Some bash howtos) & wrote it. So you won’t see any cool/advanced tricks in this script.

Notes

It will be more helpful if you read the part 1 of this(Link at top of this post).

I didn’t check this with Firefox 3. (There’s one who use this on Ubuntu hardy with Firefox 3.0)

You don’t need to have Portable Firefox for this. Just having your Firefox profile is enough (If you like it that way :) ).

Big red disclaimer:
Dumb me & all my dumb friends did this & it works just fine. If you are dumber enough to get problems with this just don’t try this or any kind of hacks. Any kind of a damage you do to your system trying this script happens only because you are an extreme fool. SO don’t blame me. Go infront of a mirror instead. :twisted:

New update available HERE

This was a big headache for me. Portable Firefox is a great piece of work but I couldn’t experience it’s ease with my OS love GNU/Linux (there is Gnu/Linux installed in our campus). So the bad old hacker in me wanted some way to make it happen. Even after few Googlings, didn’t find a How-to to do this. So I thought of hacking it for myself. This is what I got ultimately. Once thinngs are ready it takes maximum 4 easy steps(2 steps are optional). So let’s fire it up.

Hope You got Portable Firefox on your USB stick.

What you have to do is adding few lines in to profiles.ini file. To make it bit easy for you I have created fxp.txt file for you.
Download & edit fxp.txt :

[Profile1]
Name=portable
IsRelative=0
Path=/media/disk/FirefoxPortable/App/DefaultData/profile

Critical update: You better use

Path=/media/disk/FirefoxPotable/Data/profile to get the same profile on Window$ and GNU/Linux.

Name=
You can use any string made of letters & numbers for this. Make sure the name you use is unique for your profile.ini file.
IsRelative=0
This is nothing you have to deal with.
Path=
This is the exact path to portable Firefox profile folder [what you see on the address bar when you browse in to profile folder].

And remember to change [Profile1] to the appropriate profile number according to the profile.ini file if necessary. The very first line of fxp.txt is empty. Please remain it unchanged to keep profiles.ini tidy & headacheless.

Now open a terminal & put
cat >> /path/to/profiles.ini /path/to/fxp.txt

ex: cat >> /home/chanux/.mozilla/firefox/profiles.ini /media/flashdrive/fxp.txt

this will append the content of fxp.txt in to profiles.ini. Ofcourse you can do this with GUI lameware with more pain in back. if you like loads of clicks & copy & pastes go that way.

You’ll find profile.ini at
~/.mozilla/firefox

well it’s the home folder :
ex: /home/chanux/.mozilla/firefox/profile.ini

once you update the profile.ini file you are ready to feel the home on the road.

Type firefox -ProfileManager in to the terminal or “run command” box. If you prefer terminal, you have to keep it open as long as you want to use firefox. Once you get profile manager box, choose your portable profile & rejoice.

The four steps in brief:

Check profiles.ini
Edit profiles.ini if needed.
Append fxp.txt to profiles.ini
Start firefox through profile manager.

Update: Make sure Firefox is closed when you try firefox -ProfileManager. I did dumbness & Twittered too. Seejay reminded me to close Fx :D

OH I missed that Happy moment by far. It has gone long way passing the mark. Congratz dear Fox.

check for more

http://www.spreadfirefox.com/node/28337

Fireofx Roxxx!!!

Sounds weird? Firefox now has it’s own social networking platform. Firefox lovers come & join. You ca post photos,videos, find friends who are using Firefox & it will be a better helping platform for Fx I guess. I’m already there as chanux fox [First Sri Lankan ;) ] . ah…It’s name is “SPOT THE FOX“. So go now & be a part.

Once I’ve been chatting with my linux guru ILGO on gmail(google talk). I asked him to have a look at my blog. here’s a part of our conversation.

me: Hey do u knw..I got a Firefox T-shirt from fox crew ilgo: Cooolll me: a gift for my loyality1:29 PM ilgo: dont grow a red tail… and hey, soon swiftfox will take over the world

me: what the hell is that

1:30 PM ilgo: swiftfox is a small version with little mem footprint, etc…

me: ah

ilgo: anyhow you will surely hear of it..

me: is it something like my FUTURE BROWSER concept?

1:31 PM ilgo: is it?

The FUTURE is NOW

me: http://chanux.wordpress.com/2007/05/15/the-future-browser/

that’s it?

1:32 PM ilgo: i gonna read that latter.

Did you notice that, What he said about Swiftfox?. I dunno abt you but I was very cuurios to find out what the hell is that & rushed to google.Swiftfox is an alternative for Firefox. It’s built on Firefox.There are rumours boasting that swiftfox is memory-efficient. I hope it’s worth a try. Swiftfox promises that it doesn’t let you miss any of your lovin Firefox extensions. It’s onluy for Linux.Link:Swiftfox

Yes it’s another way to personalize it on your way. Give your browser your mood. It’s cool. And Hurry up to Surprise your friends.

It’s another cool Firefox extension which lets you to make your Firefox window look Cooler. Wooh… it’s great.

Here’s an example for what you can do.

[Update : DEAD LINK]Chk this out for more

I’ve been dreaming of this thing for a long time.I didn’t sleep until I type this article.I hope this concept would be a reality in near future. If so I’ll be the happiest creature living on earth.As a hardcore Firefox lover I’d like to see my Future browser as the prototype of Firefox 4( coz it’s impossible being the prototype of Firefox3)

The future browser install a very little/lite “structure” (or Base) of the browser on users computer. It is the tool which is used to ‘create’ the actual browser.The Base doesn’t keep any user data with it.The place where all the user data are saved is an online “account”.It’s something like an webmail account. You have to log in to use it.The Base is used to log in to the account.

To get an idea,think about Firefox as an example. the Future browser stores usernames/passwords, Form data, Bookmarks, History, Cookies,Extensions, Themes & possibly all user data which makes a customized browser, on a webserver. Simply, the account is somthing like the browser profile kept on a web server.The Base & the Account use a secured protocol to communicate between.

In this way the user can use his own customized browser anywhere. However the browser will ask for more processing power,more RAM on users computer & more bandwidth from the network. I hope it won’t take much time to reach those physical requirement limits. Probably we’ll be there in 69 days & 2 hours ;) .

And don’t worry about the technological requirements too. Just think it’s the next generation of AJAX(well..kinda).

(This concept is originally mine. But there are no barriers for using it. If you use it & somehow mange to get the thing done & make big money, please don’t forget me ;) )