However you can’t please everyone and Google search results pages can hardly be customized to fit everyone’s needs and tastes.

Luckily, with help of the following Greasemonkey scripts, you can try to adjust Google’s interface to your own preferences (Note: I don’t recommend installing them all, just pick the ones that seem to be most useful for you).

1. SearchJump: Switch To Other Search Engines

SearchJump is a Greasemonkey script that adds a a search sidebar to redirect to the same search in other engines.

Enhances productivity: faster switching between search engines (between: Google, Yahoo!, Bing, Ask, etc)

A similar one: Try This Search On

2. Google Anonymizer: No Link Redirects

Google Anonymizer (or a similar Greasemonkey script: Disable Google Search Result Redirect) removes tracking from a Google results page.

Enhances productivity: faster copy destination URLs right from the Google search results page:

Before:

After:

3. Google Speed Dial: Keyboard Shortcuts

Google Speed Dial: allows you to navigate Google search results using keyboard shortcuts.

Enhances productivity: press 1 on the keyboard to go to the first result, press 2 to go the 2nd etc…Use 0 to go to the 10th (works only for top 10 results).

4. Shortcuts To Navigate Results Pages

Keyboard Shortcuts for Google Search: allows to navigate Google search results pages using keyboard shortcuts.

Enhances productivity: faster navigate results pages and faster edit the search query:

• n – Go to the next page
• p – Go to the previous page
• e – Select the query to edit it
• a – To add something to the search query

5. No Clutter From Ads

Push Google Search Ads Right

Enhances productivity: don’t get distracted by Google advertisements that appear above the search results: less scrolling as well.

Before:

After:

OR: just remove Google sponsored links all over.

6. Google Results In Two Columns

Google Two Columns is a Greasmonkey script that shows the search results in two columns

Enhances productivity: more information available at a glance which means less scrolling:

7. Google Bump: Multi-Search

Google Bump: multi-search and inline player (customized)

Enhances productivity:

• Search multiple search engines and multiple terms with one click (all search results will open in new tabs);
• Image and video search results on the same page with general search (together with in-line image and video previews);

8. Google MonkeyR: previews and favicons

GoogleMonkeyR: Page previews and favicons

Enhance productivity: faster recognize familiar pages from within Google search results.

Additional options (all can be customized):

• Turn-off Google tracking;
• Show results in multiple columns;
• Remove “sponsored” links;
• Open links in new tabs;
• Auto-load more results;
• Numbered results:

9. Google Search Sidebar: More Information At A Glance

Google Search Sidebar: adds a sidebar with search results from Dictionary.com, Wikipedia, Flickr, and Youtube.

Enhances productivity: more information is available at a glance, less time searching the web and doing research.

Now your turn: do you use any other Greasemonkey script to increase your Google searching productivity?

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

• (15)Some Of The Best Greasemonkey Scripts For BitTorrent Users
• (5)5 Awesome Greasemonkey Scripts That Work In Chrome
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• (42)Why I Decided To Make Google My Home Page and Never Looked Back
• (9)Viewing Recent Searches On Google & Why Would You Care?

If you’re like me and are curious about learning Mac programming, you might be surprised to discover the amount of free resources to get you started.

Mac Automation Made Simple

First off, if you’re totally new to programming, you should consider checking out Ben Waldie’s podcast series titled Mac Automation Made Simple (iTunes Store link.) His tutorials focus on AppleScript and Apple’s Automator program, both of which come installed with Mac OS X.

Waldie’s series includes great introductory topics for learning Mac programming, such as: Introducing AppleScript and Script Editor, Extending Automator with Third-Party Actions, Creating an Automator PDF Workflow, and Creating a Microsoft Word 2008 Automator Workflow.

AppleScript is probably one of the most basic programming languages that new users can learn. Start with the first chapter of the Apple Training series to introduce yourself to the program and the language.

Automator, on the other hand, requires no coding language. It’s a program for non-programmers, but it does help if you can think like a programmer, in terms of setting up logical workflows to achieve desired automations on your computer. If you’re an absolute beginner with no prior experience with say JavaScript, definitely start out with Apple’s Automator. My own Automator’s tutorial, Resizing Files Using Automator, will introduce you to the program.

Apple’s Developers Tools

Apple itself provides a wealth of resources for programming. It’s part of the reason for so many iPhone apps and other applications being produced. After you sign up on their Developers Tools site, you can download PDF guides for learning languages like C, Objective-C, X-code, and Cocoa.

You can download a free copy of X-code (which includes the iPhone SDK) Interface Builder for free. These programs, along with Dashcode, also come installed on the Mac OS X installation disc, but they don’t install automatically.

iPhone Application Programming

With the popularity of iPhone apps, Standard University, I believe, was one of the first educational institutions to produce a course on iPhone development. The entire course is available as a video tutorial podcast series (iTunes Store link.)

It takes some time to work through, but it covers the tools and APIs required to build applications for the iPhone platform using the iPhone SDK. Handouts for the course, in the form of PDF’s, are included with the podcasts.

Topics include: Introduction to Mac OS X and Cocoa Touch, Using Objective-C, View Controller Basics, Table Views, How to Build an iPhone App That Doesn’t Suck, Debugging Tips, Optimzing OpenGL for iPhone, and Unit Testing.

Hello World

Nearly all courses will start off with a simple Hello World tutorial. After you download Apple’s coding applications, linked above, you might want to start out with this tutorial, An Absolute Beginner’s Guide to iPhone Development, to quickly introduce yourself to coding.

While learning Mac programming is not as simple as adding and dropping files, it’s not rocket science. It can be learned.

If you are a beginning developer, let us know how you got started.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

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When I realised that the iPhone didn’t support downloading files natively, I was back to square one. Then I thought of using Dropbox — but that didn’t work. After a couple of hours of research, I finally found a solution, albeit a pretty rudimentary one. It involves a secondary email, Mail rules, Transmission or uTorrent and Applescript. Now, let’s be clear on this: I’m not a scripting geek. I’m just an average Mac user. But the fact that I actually wrote this script is a clear testament to how easy it is to learn the Applescript language. I digressed.

Here’s how I managed to set up Mail and Transmission to automatically download torrents sent via email.

First of all, we need to write the script. But since this is MakeUseOf, I’ve already written it for you. Download the appropriate version depending on which torrent client you use.

Download Applescript: Transmission via email

Download Applescript: uTorrent via email

Unzip the file and store the script somewhere safe, for example within the scripts folder located at /Library/Scripts/.

If you prefer to compile the script yourself, here’s how it looks like:

(*Transmission via email by Jackson Chung*)

using terms from application “Mail”
on perform mail action with messages theMessages for rule Torrent
tell application “Mail”
repeat with theMessage in theMessages
set theText to content of theMessage
set the clipboard to (theText)
end repeat
end tell

tell application “Transmission” to activate
tell application “System Events”
tell process “Transmission”
keystroke “u” using {command down}

keystroke (theText)
key code 36
end tell

end tell
end perform mail action with messages
end using terms from

Before we proceed, let me explain that we are going to set a rule to detect torrents sent from a primary email to a secondary email. So in this case, you’ll need to 2 separate email accounts.

Now launch Mail (assuming you inherently use Mail; if not, you’re out of luck) and enter its Preferences. Click on the Rules tab and add a new rule. Name it “Torrent“, then set the condition to “all”, as in “If all of the following conditions are met”. Next, set the rule conditions as you see in the screenshot below:

From – is equal to – your@emailaddress.com
Subject – is equal to – Download torrent

Perform the following actions:

Mark as Read
Run Applescript – Click the choose button and locate the Applescript you’ve just downloaded

Click on OK and click on “Don’t Apply” if asked Do you want to apply your rules to messages in selected mailboxes?

Mail is now set. For every email from your@emailaddress.com with the subject “Download torrent”, it will trigger the Applescript. Perfect, just what we want.

Now, let’s set Transmission. Enter its Preferences and check the box for “Start transfers when added” and make sure to uncheck “Display “adding transfer” options window”. We want Transmission to automatically start torrents without intervention. OK, Transmission is now set as well.

uTorrent’s default settings will do just fine.

Now then comes the interesting part. How do we format the email? It’s pretty simple. The Applescript is set to copy the content of the message so all you need to add is the URL to the torrent. Remove your email signature or it won’t work. From my iPhone, all I do is hold down on a link until the contextual menu appears. I tap on Copy and launch Mail on my iPhone.

Select the appropriate mailbox corresponding to your@emailaddress.com and compose a new message to your secondary email account my@emailaddress.com. Enter the subject line: Download torrent — remember that’s one of the triggers.

Then paste the torrent URL into the content of the message and remove everything else i.e. signatures, etc. Click Send and watch the magic happen.

As soon as your Mac receives the email, it will:

*Mark it as read;
*Start the Applescript which then;
*Launches Transmission or uTorrent;
*Opens a torrent location from a URL;
*Enters the URL into the field and clicks OK;
*Starts downloading the torrent.

Since all of the magic happens from within your Mac, it doesn’t really matter how you send the email. Happily, you can do this from any mobile phone with internet connectivity, or from a browser. I hope you’ll find this “hack” useful.

This is my last post of the year before I take a short break from writing. I wish all MakeUseOf readers a Happy New Year!

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

• (17)How to Access your Torrent Client & Download Torrents Remotely
• (32)Deluge – An Awesome But Unappreciated Cross-Platform BitTorrent Client
• (13)Transmission, The Lightweight BitTorrent Client
• (48)Transmission vs uTorrent [Mac Only]
• (33)Top 6 Torrent Alternatives To The Pirate Bay

They may think it’s too difficult or too much to remember. But once a user becomes accustomed to using the command line interface, it soon becomes the preferred method in many tasks. Not only is it much quicker to accomplish just about any given task at the command line, it opens a whole new world of possibilities. It allows the user to begin to understand how an operating system is structured and functions. It gives the user very powerful tools to do the things graphical interfaces will never be able to reproduce. And best of all, it’s just fun.

There are several shells, the interface between the user and the system, with their own set of built-in functions and commands. The most popular is probably Bash, which is an improved clone of the Unix Borne Shell. Not only does Bash include lots of handy built-in commands, but a user can execute (or fork) a multitude of other application executables from within it.

There is a short list of commands that one can learn to get started. With this short list, you can begin to build your toolbox and with the help of a few good reference sites, become a command line master yourself. Not only will this enable you to feel comfortable running just about any Linux distribution available, but every programmer working today began with that first command.

But how might one go about trying to use the dreaded command line? Once open, the user stares at the prompt wondering what to do first. They know folks work from the command line all day every day, but what do you do? Fortunately, you’re not on your own. There are a plethora of sites with all the information you’ll need to take you from beginner to advanced user or anywhere in between.

LinuxCommand

One of the best places to get started is LinuxCommand. This site gently introduces the first time user what a shell is and how to use it. Then, if desired, it will instruct the user on how to write their first shell scripts.

The homepage of this site is very relaxing. It merely shows an image of a terminal and reassures the user “Don’t worry, we’ll show you what to do.” Its Table of Contents addresses usage in an task oriented manner. Instead of listing the command and explaining what it does, it lists an operation one might want to perform.

For example, the first thing any user might want to learn is navigation. With a reference to the graphical hierarchy, it begins the user with the first babysteps of moving around their system with the command line.

Then one is taken on a tour of the Linux filesystem hierarchy and shown how to manipulate files such as renaming, moving, or deleting, and permissions. Once you learn this beginning information, you are already on your way to fixing a Linux system on which the Graphical User Interface is broken.

Next the site gets more involved walking the user through writing shell scripts, first easy then more and more complicated. If you finish this latter section, you are already almost a master.

O’Reilly’s Linux Command Directory

O’Reilly’s Linux Command Directory is a wonderful quick reference chart-like guide. This page lists not only the built-in commands, but also many little utilities commonly included in all Linux distributions. This is great for the beginner or even more advanced users as the listed commands are links to full information as to what the command is and how to use it.

While this information may be available right on your system as Main pages, it comes in handy for those who forgot the command or perhaps doesn’t know which to use. For example, you’d like the current system date and time, so you visit this page and see the command time. This must be it, so you click on it and find out that time is actually used to measure the elasped time of a given process. So, you know that isn’t it. Then you scroll down and spot date. Ah yes, that’s the one. What was that command to quickly check to see if a certain word or phrase is in a file? Oh yes, you remember now that you see the command grep listed.

By clicking it you’ll find all sorts of ways it can be manipulated to output just what you need. A favorite activity is just reading through the list for unfamiliar or forgotten commands and learning what they do. This is just a particularly handy site to bookmark.

The Linux Cookbook

The Linux Cookbook fits in somewhere between LinuxCommand’s Learning the Shell and Writing Shell Scripts. It takes the user from logging in to as deep as they want to go.

However, its best resource is its intermediate instruction. After learning a few commands one might want to know how to edit a file and the cookbook features introductions to common text editors.  It also tells a user things such as how to change their password, listing directories in color, and how to understand help files and documentation.

Later, it instructs on how to configure the X Windows System, how to start X, and all other aspects of using X.  Then it even goes further into using the graphical interface and includes things like audio, printing,  networking, and communications.  It basically gives the user a full overview of using Linux.

This site is the online version of a hard copy book sold in many stores and featured on Amazon. Once you complete this book and the LinuxCommand.org instruction, you’ll be a Linux Kung Fu Master.

Do you have any favourite websites for mastering the Linux command line?   If so, let us know about them in the comments.

Image Credit : Slashcrisis

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

• (25)An Introduction to the Linux Command Line
• (25)5 Cool Apps to Make the Linux Terminal More Productive
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• (6)Nircmd – A Power Packed Command Line Tool
• (10)Bringing Command Lines to The Web: Yubnub and More!

Your Mac is also the kind of machine which can go on fine for ages without the need for rebooting. My Mac’s last reboot was three weeks ago when I installed a few software updates. So, the maintenance arrangement seems logical.

But if you are the kind of person who can’t leave the machine without turning it off, or if your machine is in the office where the rules require you to turn it off every time you leave it, your Mac might have missed several maintenance schedules, and the cumulative effects could cause several glitches.

In the rare cases where the automatic maintenance schedule fails, you are advised to do it manually. However, one of the alternative applications that can help you is MainMenu.

Upon installation, this small app – about 1.4MB in size – will reside in your menubar above next to the clock and other tools like Bluetooth and Airport status. From this menubar icon, you can access MainMenu’s menus.

The first thing you would want to do is to go to the “Preferences”

and choose “General”. Make sure that the “Start MainMenu automatically when I log in” box is checked. This will make sure that it will always be available for you to use.

You can choose what kind of menubar icon you want to use from the “Appearance” tab.

The “Log Window” tab gives you options to display the log window and set the hotkey.

“Batch Tasks” might be the most important tab of all. Here you can choose what tasks need to be done when you choose “Execute Batch Task” (Command + R).

There are two main groups here: the tasks that need no restart after executed and the tasks that do. But it seems the developer has saved the latter group for the next version of the app.

For me, I would check all of the boxes in the Batch Tasks except for the “Clear All Browser History” and “Empty All Browser Caches”.

Another tabs are “Updates” and “Registration”. Note: no registration is needed for version 1.x.

MainMenu’s Menus

Now let us see the menus.

For those who don’t want to be bothered by the little things, just pick “Execute Batch Task” (Command + R).

The “Maintenance Scripts” I mentioned – that run in the middle of the night – are available at the top. There are the “Daily”, “Weekly” and “Monthly” scripts, but to make life easier, choose “All Scripts” to run.

Other menus are: “Disk Utility”, “Rebuild”, “Cleaning”, “Finder” and “Others”; each with their own sets of tasks that you can explore and choose.

But the one that I find most useful is the “Disable Dashboard” task from the “Others” menu, as I almost never use Dashboard and its widgets.

I could use the extra power gained from disabling Dashboard to other “heavy” activities such as composing my next hit with Garageband or editing my vacation videos in iMovie.

Do you have any other favorite utility tool? Share your experiences using the comment section below.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

• (17)Update Your Hardware Drivers For Free With Device Doctor
• (8)How To Place Your Widgets On The Desktop [Mac]
• (11)Dashboard Widgets You Can’t Live Without [Mac Only]
• (9)Become A Cunning Linguist With Foreign Languages On Your Mac
• (23)Analyze Your PC & Detect New Driver Updates Online With Ma-Config

Well if you do any kind of task repeatedly inside GIMP – like resizing images to a particular size, adding your site’s watermark or the “friendly admin” to the images like Karl does, or you want to add some functionality that is not already or directly provided by GIMP, you should consider using actions to simplify and reduce the number of steps involved.

In the GIMP world however, such actions are called scripts and these are analogous to Photoshop Actions and Macros inside Microsoft Office.

How to use scripts and plugins

Search and Download

First of you will need to find a script that meets your requirements. You can create your own scripts in Python, Perl or Scheme, however if you are not the programmer type, there are all kinds of scripts all over the Internet. Just head over to Google and type in your requirements.

In particular, GIMP Plugin Registry is an excellent place to go to search for scripts and plugins.

Install

Generally you are required to unarchive the downloaded file and copy them to ~/.gimp/scripts directory or /usr/share/gimp/2.0/scripts if you want the scripts to be available to all users. You can also find out the location by going to Edit > Preferences > Folders > Scripts if you want to be sure.

You might need to refer to the documentation or author’s site in case this is not what is required. Once you have copied the scripts to the appropriate directories, go to Filters>Script-Fu>Refresh Scripts or restart GIMP altogether.

Using

Depending on what the script does and how it plans to do it, you might see a dedicated menu in the menu bar for your script, or a menu entry under the appropriate bar, or a right click context menu entry activated when the script’s functionality is applicable.

Plugins vs Scripts

You might be wondering which of the two I am talking about. Plugins and Scripts are the two ways to extend GIMP’s functionality. What is the difference? I am not sure either. Apart from the obvious differences in the way these are developed and used, plugins and scripts tend to provide overlapping functionality and the terms are used interchangeably on forums and other GIMP hangouts.

How to create your own plugins

Here is a nice tutorial to get you started. Once you know the syntax start hacking into the scripts that are already available on your systems (shipped by default with GIMP). You can then develop your skill further from here on.

Some Great Scripts/Plugins

While you would have to wait till another day for a list of some of the best plugins out there, here are some recommendations to get you started: The Fx-Foundry Scripts Pack – A collection of useful scripts to perform a variety of tasks, from animations to layer styles and more, Mask for Prints – A very useful plugin that shows you what part of your photo will be printed on the current paper size, UFRaw – For working with RAW files.

Do you use plugins and scripts to good effect in GIMP? I find them one of the most important features. What plugins do you use? Have you written your own scripts? Mention them in the comments and let us check them out.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

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The brains behind Clippy or for that matter Genie or Bosgrove is called the Microsoft Agent. It is a technology which allows an enhanced form of interactivity with interactive personalities in the form of animated characters. These characters can move freely within the computer display, speak aloud (and by displaying text onscreen), and even listen for spoken voice commands.

Office 2007 saw the end of these animated characters because of user dissatisfaction but user interface agents are being increasingly being used in software and presentations to enhance interactivity. This is where the free Microsoft Agent Scripting Helper (MASH) comes in.

In simple words, MASH is a freeware application which allows you to set up animated 3-D characters and make them talk, move and gesture.

Using these animated characters, you can add more pizzazz to your desktop by having it pop-up and perform actions, make your presentations more interactive and also take it your webpages to make them eye-catching. You just have to record and playback what you want the characters to do.

MASH allows you to be creative with the animated ‘agents’ without you having to go under the hood with any programming. MASH turns the backend code into several scripting languages for use in websites, PowerPoint Presentations, email stationery and also as standalone executable files (*.exe).

With the help of the Microsoft Speech Recognition Engine, voice activated menu commands can be used to launch programs, documents and websites.

Imagine an animated character giving an interactive tour of a website or just reading out a file, and you will get the idea behind the program.

The Nitty Gritty of the Program

The program comes with many configuration panels which help to set up the animated characters. The configuration panels can be detailed as follows :

1. Main: Select the character and set-up the basic animation which you want it to perform. The program supplies only two characters; more can be downloaded from the developer site.

2. Advanced Speak: Modify speech ability by adjusting the pitch, speed, volume, characteristic, and context of the TTS (Text-to-Speech) Engine.

3. Map Text: Here you can set up the character to speak one thing and display something else in the speech balloon.

4. Speak Wave: Here you can set up the character to playback the sound from a wav file or a Linguistically Enhanced Wav File from your computer.

5. Date/Time: Set it up so that the character speaks out the current date and time with any desired alternative text.

6. Character Size: Allows the character’s size to change before or during its action.

7. Sing: Let the character sing with a complex combination of musical keys.

8. TTS Voice: Select among the languages available and the specific voice to use.

9. Balloon Font and Style: Set the look of the speech balloon.

10. Desktop: Allows you to use the character to display images and play sounds during a presentation.

11. PowerPoint: Associate a Microsoft PowerPoint XP/2000 Presentation with your MASH Script (*.msh) or Executable (*.exe).

12. Bookmarks: Manage bookmarks which allow the character to play a sequence of actions in order.

13. Commands: Configure the right click menu for the chosen character. The menu items can also be voice activated.

14. Script Output: Select the type of script (for e.g. Javascript HTML, VBScript HTML, VB.net, VBA for Office) which you want MASH to generate.

15. Script: The script viewer with additional controls.

The available options give an idea of the level of customization possible with MASH. Though the program is user friendly, the list of configuration options are too numerous to explain here in detail. The detailed help does that job in detail. The beginner can go for the basic configurations while a power user can use the detailed aspects of the program.

The 5.97MB freeware is easy to use and easy to put together even without an iota of programming knowledge. It is supported by Windows XP and the older versions. The key requirement is that the Microsoft Speech Recognition Engine be installed for the program to function correctly.   If you don’t have it, here is a direct download link.

As an application, it has been around for some time. Have you used it to enhance your computing?  Give us a comment about your experiences.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

• (14)How to Create Animated Gifs from Images & Video
• (20)How To Create An Animated Loading Image Easily
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For those of you who don’t know what Delicious is, it is simply a one stop shop, for storing your bookmarks in one quick and easy location.

Of course with success comes competition, with sites such as Diigy or Simpy and you could possibly even consider Digg or Reddit as well. However sometimes you find your own opinion matters the most, and you’d like to create your own Del.icio.us-like private bookmarking service for your family, friends or maybe even your workplace. That’s where with some prerequisites from your web host, and a little MYSQL knowledge, you can create your own social bookmarking site, with Scuttle.

Scuttle is simply defined as a “Web-based social bookmarking system. It allows multiple users to store, share and tag their favorite links online.” It is an open-source del.icio.us alternative that requires only PHP and a MYSQL database from your web host. After installation, you’ll have a very similar look to what Delicious offers.

Similar to Delicious, the Scuttle system offers tagging with keyword relations, a tag cloud and advanced searching for your own bookmarks, or the entire site.

Just like Delicious, you also have advanced security for protection on your bookmarks. You have the ability to make certain marks publicly available, or just private. There is also RSS options, MP3 playback and for Firefox users, even the ability to add marks via a very similar Delicious like Firefox extension.

Being open source, Scuttle’s options are endless. You can customize the product at will and possibly even bring yet another competitor to the strong social bookmarking arena. It’s hard not to like what you get with Scuttle’s options, and the price. I haven’t played with it enough to find any flaws or bugs, but with a little basic knowledge of setting up a MYSQL database, PHP hosting and lots of web surfing to add a plethora of bookmarks, you may be able to come up with some. Whatever the case, you should find your expectations extremely fulfilled with Scuttle.

What are your thoughts? How would you utilize something like Scuttle? What advantages do you see over many of the other bookmarking sites? Do you know of any similar products?

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

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For the uninitiated, Greasemonkey scripts provides a way for customizing the look and/or functionality of sites according to your needs. Firefox users would require this addon to add and manage Greasemonkey scripts. While it is possible to run user scripts in other browsers, it is a completely different topic. So may I suggest that GIYF (Google is Your Friend) here.

IMDB – Pirated Version

IMDB is the mother of all sites when it comes to information on movies, documentaries, video games and similar content. How cool it would be if you could watch trailers of the movies you are searching for, search for torrents and other download links, right from the IMDB page for the particular title? All with a cool ajax interface that doesn’t get in your way of browsing IMDB. This script allows you to do just that. You can get torrent link, VCDQuality reports, Rapidshare links and trailers right from the IMDB entry for a particular title.

VCDQuality Tor v1.03

This script works on VCDQuality.com and adds links to torrent searches on Mininova and Torrentz. On clicking the icons you are taken to the search results page on the appropriate site. There was a minor glitch when I tried this script and I had to add http://*vcdq.com/* to the included pages section. Hence forth the script performed as advertised.

Rotten Tomatoes Popular Torrent Search Linker

The script adds search links to popular torrent sites on all RottenTomatoes movies pages. You get a bar just above the tomatometer. Click on the icon for the torrent site of your choice and bam, you are already staring down the available torrents for the title.

Pirates of the Amazon

Pirates of the Amazon is a Firefox Add on and created much hype recently with Amazon having to step in with legal issues. The site was down for some time and when it came up it was not hosting the addon anymore. The internet however is a wild wild place and the addon is already available on ‘n’ number of torrent sites and some ftp directories. Just Google Around.

The addon searches for torrents of anything that you search on Amazon.com and provides you direct links for the torrent file if found. Of course it works with things that can be converted to digital formats. You can’t get teddy bears on The Pirate Bay. Ahem.. or can you?

The Pirate Bay Enhancer

Very useful for users of The Pirate Bay. It adds – seeder/peer ratio which, if you don’t already know about it, is the ratio of the number of seeders to the number of peers. Higher the ratio better are the chances of getting good download speeds. So it’s wise to consider the ratio as the basis for choosing torrents over the number of seeders.

The script also has a command to remove dead torrents from listing. It has some bugs in that the headings remain the same as without the script and some text overflows into obscurity. However you get used to what is what, and it’s easy to hack as well!

Don’t use The Pirate Bay? Search for a similar script for your favorite tracker on User Scripts.

What user scripts do you all use? Are there any specific scripts for torrent users that are really cool and were not covered here? Share them with us in the comments.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

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It does highlighting and line numbers, these were my first reasons for using it. Notepad ++ has been my best friend for writing scripts and HTML files.

Now I had a new challenge and my buddy Mike told me that Notepad ++ would be my easiest and FREE solution.

Here was my dilemma – I had 8,342 HTML files and I needed to replace some text on every single page to reflect a company’s identity tweaking. The company was mostly adult-oriented before and now they are trying their hand at mainstream. They needed to remove the word ADULT from their company name every where throughout their site. Now your friendly neighborhood admin was not going to be doing this manually – that was for sure. So I fired up Notepad ++ and searched for this magic option.

Sure enough there it was on the search menu – the option that was going to make my life easier – “Find In Files”.

Using this awesome feature I am able to have Notepad++ find all files with the word I choose in them. It then shows me the results of my search. Once I click on all the instances I want to change, it will open those files. I can then do my “replace on all open files”.

After you find all your instances and have all the files open in Notepad ++ you can then click over to the replace tab – now you will see a option to replace throughout ALL OPENED FILES! Sweet!

I am guessing that some of you out there have never heard of or used Notepad ++ before. So let me run down the basic features with you. If you are a scripter, coder or any type of programing monkey this program will make you salivate!

Check it out, Notepad ++ has:

• Syntax Highlighting and Syntax Folding
• WYSIWYG
• User Defined Syntax Highlighting
• Auto-completion
• Regular Expression Search/Replace supported
• Full Drag ‘N’ Drop supported
• Multi-Language environment supported
• Brace and Indent guideline Highlighting
• Macro recording and playback
• Bookmarks

Do you have another way to find and replace throughout a slew of files? After completing this task I was told about another free application that might have made my life even easier… It is called BkReplaceEm and stay tuned for my review!

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

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When you surf around the web long enough, it will happen. It’s just a matter of time. Sooner or later you’ll arrive on this God awful website that’ll make you scream out in terror and hide beneath your desk. For some reason or another, some people just can’t grasp the concept of design.

User, meet Stylish. Stylish is a Firefox add-on. It’ll enhance your browser experience. Stylish uses simple, user-submitted CSS scripts (similar to Greasemonkey) to tweak the looks of certain websites.

Today we’re going to take a look at the four best Stylish scripts around.

1. Gmail Redesigned v2.0

If a webpage looks bad, we can make it look good. If it looks good, we can make it look better. Globex Designs released Gmail Redesigned, which will give your Gmail a slick dark look. It also visually tweaks all popular Google services. The Google Redesigned add-on was released a few weeks ago. Upon writing this article, Gmail and Google calendar got the treatment.

2. Grey/Olive v2 Last.fm

Going to Last.fm, I feel like I’m walking into McDonalds; only without the burgers. I don’t like the bright red. It gives a ‘do what you’ve got to do and get out of here’ message.

Grey/OIive v2 Last.fm gives Last.fm a nice and calm grey-green look.

3. Google Web Search – dark blue redesign (vC)

This one gives your Google Web Search a slick blue look. Everyone will ask why Google looks so cool; perhaps you can try the NASA story.

This style is also available in Dark Grey for both Google Web Search and Google Image Search.

4. MySpace – Updated Home Rearranged

I’m not a fan of MySpace. But because we can’t keep some of you away from it anyway, we can at least try to contain the damage. This style fixes a lot of things. It rids the complete site of ads and rearranges the items on your MySpace homepage, making it a lot more compact and usable.

Installing scripts

Installing these scripts is very simple. You just install Stylish, find a script online (or make one yourself) and install it by right-clicking on the Stylish icon at the bottom of your browser.

Are you good with CSS? Why don’t you try making a style for Make Use Of? Be the first! Let us know your favorite Stylish scripts in the comments.

(By) Simon is a student from Belgium who wastes his time relaxing, watching anime and surfing the net. He would tell you to check out his blog, only he doesn’t have one yet!

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

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