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Add comment March 23rd, 2008
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WootAssist
WootAssist does one thing only: It autofills your credit card security code (CVV) on Woot.com’s order page. It’s designed to save you ~0.4 seconds when you’re trying to get that cheap gadget before 20,000 other people cause a sell-out–especially during a WootOff.
How to use WootAssist
- Be using Firefox.
- Download/install Greasemonkey. Greasemonkey is a FF extension that allows users to write DHTML scripts that interact with existing webpages. WootAssist (and many other cool mini-apps) use the Greasemonkey framework. If you already have Greasemonkey installed, make sure it’s at least version 0.3.
- Install WootAssist.
December 8th, 2006
WP-SlashSig
WP-SlashSig is a WordPress plugin that allows you to automatically set your Slashdot comment signature to match your latest blog post title. Considering the size of the audience, it’s a great way to promote your blog. It works by using the CURL library within PHP to essentially screen scrape (e.g., impersonate a web browser) your user profile page at Slashdot. Any application that relies on screen scraping is unavoidably brittle. The Slashdot guys could change the site tomorrow and WP-SlashSig may stop working until I can release an updated version. However, for a screen scraper it’s pretty robust. It should resist almost all layout changes; about the only way to break it is to change how the Slashdot profile page functions or to rename the textarea containing the signature.
The other caveat is that a Slashdot signature is restricted to only 120 characters. Since this limit includes the markup, it’s very easy to create a blog title that’s too long. However, when publishing the post, you can manually input an abbreviated title for use on Slashdot.
Please keep in mind that this is the first release of my first Wordpress Plugin, but I’d greatly welcome any feedback. I haven’t yet had the opportunity to test it in any enviroments other than my own blog. So, it’s definately “beta” in the true sense of the word. 
Installation Instructions
- Download the file archive (below).
- Uncompress the file in the root of your WordPress installation. Make sure that it creates the path ‘wp-content/plugins/wp-slashsig/’ when the files are extracted. If not, you’ll have to manually create the directory and move the files there.
- Active the plugin by going into the WordPress admin panel and selected in the “Plugins” tab
- Go to the “Options” tab and then the “WP-SlashSig” sub-tab and configure WP-SlashSig with your Slashdot username and password.
- Done! You should notice the new input box on your “Write Post” page.
Current Version
version 0.1, initial release
Downloads
Blog Posts
1 comment December 4th, 2006