Watson.me.uk

They’ve only gone and done it. Major HTML update unveiled.

I’d only just got used to HTML 3.02.

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Came across this site for quickly testing the speed of your broadband connection. It’s a lot of fun watching the needle on the ’speedo’ race around. Small things…

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…or geeky fantastic spamtastic and other stories.

Dear Mr Chris,

We have tried on numerous occasions to block this sender already. Unfortunately, the word “Woohoo” in the subject line causes a buffer overflow in the spam filter, due to the over-excitement it conveys, and the forementioned spam filter will consequently spaz out.

We have asked Mr UAT to refrain from using the words “Woohoo”, “Yeeeeesssss!”, and “Lindsay Lohan” in order to prevent the overflow. He has so far declined. We will be pursuing the matter with a cease and desist letter.

Kind regards
Bob Turner

—– Original Message —–
From: Chris Watson
To: helpdesk List Member
Sent: Wednesday, October 17, 2007 3:36 PM
Subject: [helpdesk] [Fwd: Woohoo! UAT DATA TRANSFER COMPLETED]

Hello it. i keep getting this spam from mr uat. can we edit the spam filter or something to block him out?

——– Original Message ——–
Subject: [helpdesk] Woohoo! UAT DATA TRANSFER COMPLETED
Date: Wed, 17 Oct 2007 15:14:15 +0100
From: UAT Data Transfer
To: helpdesk List Member

This is a system generated email. Please refer any queries to the IT Department.

Nick put me on to xkcd.com a while ago. One thing that’s annoyed me about it for quite some time is that to read some of the joke you have to hover over the image to read the title attribute; and if that attribute’s value is too long you end up having to view the source to read it. Boring.

Greasemonkey to the rescue! I heard about this extension for firefox before but had no need of it, it allows you to write some javascript that will get executed for a particular website. Cool.

Before

After

Script (Download xkcd.com comic title greasemonkey script)

// ==UserScript==
// @name xkcd comic title
// @namespace http://xkcd.com
// @include http://*xkcd.com/*
// ==/UserScript==

var arrObjImages = document.getElementsByTagName(”img”);

var iImg;
for(iImg = 0; iImg < arrObjImages.length; iImg++){
var objImage = arrObjImages[iImg];

var sImgTitle = objImage.getAttribute("title");
if(sImgTitle != null && sImgTitle.length > 0){
//image title
objImage.parentNode.insertBefore(document.createTextNode(sImgTitle),

objImage.nextSibling);

//two line breaks
objImage.parentNode.insertBefore(document.createElement(”br”), objImage.nextSibling);
objImage.parentNode.insertBefore(document.createElement(”br”), objImage.nextSibling);

};//end if
};//end for

Dive into Greasemonkey (Sounds a perverted don’t you think?)

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Could this be your next computer?

Microsoft Surface: The Parody - Gizmodo

I use the funky highslide.js javascript to do the thumbnail enlargement on here. Previously I have had to add the markup for each thumbnail manually, which is a bit boring.

So tonight I wrote a bit of code to apply the highslide stuff onto any thumbnails on the page (which don’t already have it). And here it is.

function highSlideEm(){
  //This function will loop through all the a tags on the page that link to images,
  //have a thumbnail image as a child tab and apply the highslide stuff.

  var arrLinks = document.getElementsByTagName("a");
  var iLink;
  for(iLink = 0; iLink < arrLinks.length; iLink++){
    var objLink = arrLinks[iLink];
    //alert(objLink.innerHTML);
    //do we have an img tag as the immediate child?
    var arrImgs = objLink.getElementsByTagName("img");
    if(arrImgs.length == 1){
      //alert(arrImgs[0].src);
      if(isThumbnail(arrImgs[0].src) == true){
        addClass(objLink, 'highslide');
        //alert(objLink.onclick);
        //if the onclick event is undefined then add the highslide stuff
        if( (objLink.onclick == undefined) || (objLink.onclick == 'undefined') ){
          //we need to add it
          //alert('add it');
          objLink.onclick = function(){ return hs.expand(this); };
        };//end if onclick
      };//end if isThumbnail
      //isThumbnail(arrImgs[0].src);
    };//end if
  };//end for iLink

};//end function highSlideEm

function isThumbnail(sPath){
  //Is the path passed in a thumbnail? Worked out from the filename,
  //which will end in .thumbnail.ext
  //alert(sPath);
  var lDot = sPath.lastIndexOf(".");
  //alert('lDot = ' + lDot);
  if(lDot > -1){
    var nDot = sPath.lastIndexOf(”.”, lDot - 1);
    if(nDot > -1){
      var bitName = sPath.substring(nDot + 1, lDot);
      //alert(bitName);
      if(bitName.toLowerCase() == “thumbnail”){
        return true;
      };//end if bitName
    };//end if nDot
  };//end if lDot
  return false;
};//end function isThumbnail

function addClass(objLink, sClass){
  //This function will examine the list of classNames applied to a link,
  //if the sClass specified one is not yet applied it will add it
  var itExists = false;
  var arrC = objLink.className.split(” “);
  var iC;
  for(iC = 0; iC < arrC.length; iC++){
    //look for a match (case sensitive)
    if(arrC[iC] == sClass){
      itExists = true;
    };//end if
  };//end for iC

  if(itExists == false){
    objLink.className += ' ' + sClass;
  };//end if
};//end function

Maybe someone will find it useful.

(View the source to get a nicely spaced out, readable version. Wordpress has messed up the display, I’ve not really done a left-hand margin Mike.)

Great for who?

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Having had a GMail account for long time now, but only recently starting to use it properly I was looking for a way to integrate it with the desktop. Some searching found the following registry changes to add GMail to the list of mail clients. Using this will allow GMail to be selected as the default mail client and associated with the “Email” option pinned to the Windows XP start menu, and any “Mail” buttons you may have on your keyboard, etc.

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Clients\Mail\Google GMail]
@="Google GMail"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Clients\Mail\Google GMail\shell]

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Clients\Mail\Google GMail\shell\open]
@="Google GMail"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Clients\Mail\Google GMail\shell\open\command]
@="rundll32.exe url.dll,FileProtocolHandler http://www.gmail.com"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Clients\Mail\Google GMail\DefaultIcon]
@="C:\WINDOWS\gmail.ico"

Save the above as a .reg file.

You’ll need to save this icon somewhere on your computer, and make sure the correct path is referenced in the registry.

By using the GMail Notifier you can also associate mailto: links, etc GMail and have the compose page open in your browser.

However, if you’re using a non-admin account for your day-to-day activities setting this option won’t work as it rather cheekily tries to write to HKLM\Software\Classes\mailto. If you add the following to HKCU yourself you can get the same functionality.

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\mailto]
"EditFlags"=hex:02,00,00,00
"URL Protocol"=""
@="URL:MailTo Protocol"

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\mailto\DefaultIcon]
@="c:\\windows\\gmail.ico"

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\mailto\shell]

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\mailto\shell\open]

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\mailto\shell\open\command]
@="\"c:\\program files\\google\\gmail notifier\\gnotify.exe\" -mailto %1"

Being able to use Send to > Mail recipient with files would be nice next, but I can’t see it happening…

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