tail -f carlo.log

BetterSearch v1.20 Released

Brings no new features to the table (sorry) but compatibility with Firefox 3.0.* and Flock 1.2.

Enjoy! (The new version should also appear on AMO soon.)

Twitter User Reputation, Greasemonkey Script

Remember the other day, when I told you about the user reputation features in Twerp Scan? Yeah, good times.

Anyways, today I’ve cobbled together a quick Greasemonkey script to display the reputation and voting thumbs on Twitter user pages, right above the “About” portion in the sidebar. Like so:

So this means that you can see on a glance whether someone is naughty or nice, right on his or her user page. And you can vote right there, on the spot, if you feel like, and this will of course feed the same database as you rating your contacts in Twerp Scan.

Use Greasemonkey for Firefox or GreaseKit for Safari to install the script, and then visit any Twitter user page.

Twitter Twerp Scan update: Reputation

Another late night Twerp Scan coding session. I mean, why not? ;) So, what’s new today?

• User reputation: You know the people you’re following, right? If you like what they do, give them a thumbs up or down rating. (No registration necessary. Just click.)
• Some more pagination options: If you want, you can see all your contacts at once now.
• The table columns can be re-ordered. Want the verdict right next to the name? Click the column header, hold the mouse button and drag it over.

• More vertical space. It’s a wide table, after all.

For me, the reputation is a big one. Up until now, there was no way (that I know of) that allowed for community-driven behaviour rating. Here’s the idea: we can block the “bad guys” all we want, but if I’d block @buyinsurancelol, you wouldn’t know. But now I can give the guy a “thumbs down” in Twerp Scan, and if you have him in your contact list, you will see he’s got a thumbs down.

On the other hand, if a 100 people think @MyBlogLog is an okay guy (he is) and give his Twerp Scan contact list entry a “thumbs up”, you’ll see it in your contact list (on Twerp Scan) — which might convince you his 1:7 ratio and his following 15k other people are okay.

Well, at least that’s the idea. It’s a community-driven experiment. So consider playing around with it for the betterment of interwebs! Since it’s a pluggable system I think there are other possibilities… For example a Greasemonkey script that adds the reputation thumbs to the actual Twitter pages etc. Let’s brainstorm. The comments are open.

Well, that’s it. Head on over to Twerp Scan to check out the new features. And please let me know what you think, either via Twitter or the comments below.

(By the way, big thanks to the YUI team, the Yahoo! Pipes and JS-Kit for making this endeavour so simple. Appreciate it! Now if there only was something so simple to make the page less fugly…)

Twitter Twerp Scan update

Evening, y’all. I’ve been working a bit on Twitter Twerp Scan. Here’s what’s new:

• It should be much faster now, due to changes in the processing logic. Up until now, the table was rendered, and then updated once for every scanned follower. Highly inefficient. Now the data is fully loaded before the table is rendered, which helps (at least my) processors to not go up in flames anymore. Let me know how it works for you.
• There’s a nice loading indicator now, and a readable countdown! This is the best day of my life.
• Table pagination should help readability: by default, the table is now chopped into bite-sized 25 rows per page. There’s a handy little dropdown where you can change this setting.
• Bugfix: Not broken in Flock anymore.
• Bugfix: countdown accuracy.

• Again, there’s a Twitter account for the highly exciting TS minutiae now, @twerpscan. You might want to keep an eye on that one if you’re interested in the service.

Twerp Scan received a good amount of hits over the last few days, mainly due to a post on Download Squad. Honestly, I am a bit surprised about this, but I won’t complain. Nice to see my little experiment is filling a niché for some people. :)

Let me know what you think of the new features. I have more things on my todo list, but my day only has so many hours (and I have a day job).

Good night!

BetterSearch v1.19 Released

I’ve updated my Firefox addon BetterSearch to version 1.19. The update brings Firefox 3 and Flock compatibility and fixes the thumbnails for Yahoo! Search. Also, it now looks a little bit better due to new icons, c/o FamFamFam.

You remember BetterSearch, right? No? Oh, okay.

“An extension for Firefox and Flock which enhances Google (all international flavours, too), Yahoo Search, del.icio.us, MSN Search […] by adding previews (thumbnails) and Amazon product images and info (type, price, rating for US/DE/UK/CA/FR products), a quick preview feature as well as “Open in New Window”, “Site Info” and “Wayback Machine” links to the search results.”

The other changes are minor and mostly under the hood to prepare for the next major version.

Go check it out!

Next up: better thumbnails. Work, work…