tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-68866462009-02-20T22:31:31.533-05:00pranoreply@blogger.comBlogger54125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6886646.post-1148653469298511892006-05-26T10:13:00.000-04:002006-05-26T10:27:02.106-04:00

I haven't written anything here in a while, so here's me trying to get back into the game with a bit of Greasemonkey goodness. I started reading the online version of Practical Common Lisp by Peter Seibel. I like the style and like it so far (first two chapters done). When I read a book, I just can't help myself reading the footnotes when I encounter them. I know it distracts from reading the

pranoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6886646.post-1142267077862433602006-03-13T11:22:00.000-05:002006-03-13T11:24:37.873-05:00

From the inimitable Mark Jason Dominus: Advice to people wishing to become smarter: Get in the habit of assuming that everything is more complex than you imagine.

pranoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6886646.post-1136555002744182762006-01-06T08:40:00.000-05:002006-01-06T08:44:14.253-05:00

Jon Stewart to Host 2006 Academy Awards The inimitable Jon: Although, as an avid watcher of the Oscars, I can't help but be a little disappointed with the choice.

pranoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6886646.post-1136554478776578022006-01-06T08:22:00.000-05:002006-01-06T08:34:38.786-05:00

From Bob Harris: Basic human decency shouldn't have to be an act of rebellion Incidentally, Bob Harris has appeared on my favorite game show Jeopardy! more than a dozen times, most recently in the 2002 "Million-Dollar Masters" tournament and the 2005 Ultimate Tourament of Champions.

pranoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6886646.post-1133368850342245912005-11-30T11:29:00.000-05:002005-11-30T11:47:20.886-05:00

I am probably the 3,232,456th person to blog this, but Firefox 1.5 is finally out after three release candidates. Go get it! From Mozillazine announcement: Firefox 1.5 introduces several new features, including an improved software update system, faster Back / Forward page navigation, a new options to clear private browsing data, drag-and-drop reordering of browser tabs, a redesigned Options/

pranoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6886646.post-1132319192713722002005-11-18T07:59:00.000-05:002005-11-18T08:11:47.476-05:00

While I was reading Practical Common Lisp, I found the following footnote. The venerable "hello, world" predates even the classic Kernighan and Ritchie C book that played a big role in its popularization. The original "hello, world" seems to have come from Brian Kernighan's "A Tutorial Introduction to the Language B" that was part of the Bell Laboratories Computing Science Technical Report #8:

pranoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6886646.post-1132244220247148152005-11-17T10:55:00.000-05:002005-11-18T08:10:21.766-05:00

Mark Pilgrim's upcoming book Greasemonkey Hacks includes 100 Greasemonkey scripts. My POST Interceptor script is one of them. I am honored to be included in this excellent book, and in the company of such excellent scripts as, Book Burro. Preorder at Amazon

pranoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6886646.post-1126875351432456752005-09-16T08:36:00.000-04:002005-09-16T08:58:40.890-04:00

Heard about Flock, the New Kid on the Browser Block via the Greasemonkey mailing list. I have read a few months ago about Bart Decrem starting a new venture called Round Two to develop Improved Firefox. It seems Round Two has become Flock now. Flock home page says: Flock has landed. We're introducing the world's most innovative social browsing experience. We call it the two-way web. Over the

pranoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6886646.post-1115750755328954762005-05-10T14:24:00.000-04:002005-05-10T14:47:41.266-04:00

I wrote my biggest Greasemonkey user script yet after writing several small ones. This one I named as POST Interceptor. This is inspired by TamperIE Web Security tool, which works with IE only. I have had to use this quite bit recently for security testing of web applications. I wanted something like it for Firefox and started working on extending the excellent LiveHTTPHeaders extension (it

pranoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6886646.post-1111601222513903052005-03-23T12:53:00.000-05:002005-03-23T13:07:46.830-05:00

It's been a while since I updated this blog (more than a month). Things have been very busy of late. I haven't had chance to do much with Greasemonkey yet, but I had occasion to use it at work, to get around a coupld of annoying screens in the apps that I work on. So, I wrote a very short Greasemonkey user script to automatically submit whenever those screens came up. I showed it to a couple of

pranoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6886646.post-1108576839154054062005-02-16T13:00:00.000-05:002005-02-16T13:07:44.416-05:00

Michal Guerquin attempts to estimate the storage capacity of Google Maps in How big is the world?, and extrapolates for the capacity needed to show the whole world. He concludes: Assuming a modest 1 byte/6 pixels compression ratio for LZW-encoded GIF format tiles, the storage required would be 50-70 trillion pixels * (1 byte/6 pixels) = 8 to 11 TB.

pranoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6886646.post-1108504024165311292005-02-15T16:47:00.000-05:002005-02-15T17:57:56.503-05:00

Follower commented on my previous post and pointed to the latest in Google Maps hacking, which is injecting external scripts into Google Maps page using the Inject External File Bookmarklet. This is exactly what Greasemonkey does and, I might add, in a much more automatic fashion. So, I took Follower's RouteFollow script and, with a few modifications, made a Greasemonkey user script out of it.

pranoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6886646.post-1108396709213498692005-02-14T10:58:00.000-05:002005-02-14T10:58:29.213-05:00

Wikified Google Maps Hacking page

pranoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6886646.post-1108395316321974952005-02-14T10:35:00.000-05:002005-02-17T23:21:27.196-05:00

There's been a flurry of hacking as soon as Google Maps (beta!)was released. There was the usual analysis of how the whole thing was being pulled off by Google. Then the real hacking began. First, there were bookmarklets by "follower", to pan the map automatically to follow the route, and then moving an image of little man along the path. Several others chipped in with improved versions

pranoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6886646.post-1108099524515420842005-02-11T00:25:00.000-05:002005-02-11T00:25:24.516-05:00

Arve Bersvendsen discovered how all-powerful and all-knowing Google is! Google Maps find Weapons of Mass Destruction

pranoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6886646.post-1108071094004868162005-02-10T16:31:00.000-05:002005-02-10T16:31:34.003-05:00

Nice explanation of how Google Maps were done. as simple as possible, but no simpler: Mapping Google

pranoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6886646.post-1107975579037319142005-02-09T13:59:00.000-05:002005-02-09T14:00:43.100-05:00

Adblock (an excellent Firefox extension) comes to the rescue for fixing the IDN spoofing vulnerability. Enable Site Blocking in Adblock Preferences. Add the following filter: /[^\x20-\xFF]/ That's it! Tech.Life.Blogged | Workaround for IDN Spoofing Issue

pranoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6886646.post-1107963647556571482005-02-09T10:21:00.000-05:002005-02-09T10:42:27.876-05:00

I love Google Maps (currently in beta). I have been a long-time user of Yahoo! Maps and like it for their trademark minimal look without all the crap compared to other mapping sites. I also like their SmartView feature, where local businesses on the map are highlighted. But Google Maps won me over. It looks like they get their from NavTeq (same as Yahoo). Things I like: The maps look

pranoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6886646.post-1107958427090496452005-02-09T09:13:00.000-05:002005-02-09T09:16:04.640-05:00

It appears that the suggested about:config fix for the IDN exploit is not permanent. Tech.Life.Blogged talks about a Permanent Fix for the Shmoo Group exploit, but updates that this "permanent" fix is doesn't stick after installing a new extension. Let's see how long it takes for the Mozilla folks to come up with a real fix.

pranoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6886646.post-1107792913186767202005-02-07T11:15:00.000-05:002005-02-07T11:15:13.186-05:00

Beware of Unicode characters in URLs. Mozilla/Firefox has a workaround by setting a config parameter. Ironically, IE doesn't let this attack through due to its inadequate support for Internationalized Domain Names. Courtesy Jason

pranoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6886646.post-1107467855293830292005-02-03T16:57:00.000-05:002005-02-03T16:57:35.293-05:00

Wired magazine has a cover story The Firefox Explosion with Blake Ross on the cover.

pranoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6886646.post-1106151529951076522005-01-19T11:18:00.000-05:002005-01-19T11:18:49.950-05:00

Excellent cartoon by Mark Fiore about unrealized US foreign aid pledges: Short Attention Span Nation Presents ... Foreign Aid!

pranoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6886646.post-1105566989201189052005-01-12T16:56:00.000-05:002005-01-12T16:56:29.200-05:00

An Acehnese man swept out to sea by the tsunami has been rescued two full weeks after the wave destroyed his home town. Ari Afrizal had lived on makeshift rafts and a leaky fishing boat until he was spotted by an Arab container ship at midday on Sunday. Tsunami man's two-week sea ordeal (BBC News)

pranoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6886646.post-1105457434891874062005-01-11T10:30:00.000-05:002005-01-11T10:30:34.890-05:00

Long-term exposure to American culture may be hazardous to immigrants' health. A new study found that obesity is relatively rare in the foreign-born until they have lived in the United States -- the land of drive-thrus, remote controls and double cheeseburgers -- for more than 10 years. Only 8 percent of immigrants who had lived in the United States for less than a year were obese, but

pranoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6886646.post-1104442816109541692004-12-30T16:40:00.000-05:002004-12-30T16:42:28.013-05:00

The South-East Asia Earthquake and Tsunami Boing Boing reports about Updates on Tsunami from bloggers in India and Sri Lanka. The Command Post blogs about How to Help.

pranoreply@blogger.com0