Chickenfoot Firefox Extension

June 22nd, 2008

I found an interesting tool recently – Chickenfoot.  Chickenfoot is a Firefox extension that provides a front-end that allows you to mashup web pages.  Chickenfoot can be used to automate web pages, fix annoying page implementations and to add new functionality.

Chickenfoot is being developed by folks at MIT.  Although I did not see a detailed development plan, they have some interesting ideas for the future of Chickenfoot and other related efforts.  An important aim of Chickenfoot is to empower the non-programmer to mashup the web.

Chickenfoot is “similar” to Greasemonkey.  It runs scripts using a Javascript syntax and it runs a lot of Greasemonkey scripts.

When you install Chickenfoot, the script editor sidebar becomes available in Firefox.  You use the sidebar  to enter your scripts.  The following script is a simple example of a Chickenfoot script.  It calls up the Google search page, enters the search key and runs the search.

go(“google.com”)
enter(“Chickenfoot”)
click(“google search”)

Unfortunately, there is a serious lack of documentation for Chickenfoot, but here are some helpful web pages:
Video tutorial
Documentation
Mailing list

Cellular Message-Based Browsing – Use Case

June 14th, 2008

The following is a first draft of Unified Modeling Language (UML) use cases for the cell phone textual browser.

SMS Internet Gateway Use Case

Basically, the concept is to substitute the cell phone keyboard and display for the PC keyboard, mouse and display. The command processor uses a cell phone command and response interface that is limited to characters. Character transport is via a messaging mechanism. Three basic messaging types are available via a cell phone handset – text messages, picture messages and instant messages (IM). On the other side of the command processor is the interface to the Internet. This interface is provided by a textual browser.

The portal system can handle text and picture messages via email and instant message applications. The command processor receives the commands and acts upon them. Commands may require a translation in order to support the differences between a PC and cell phone user interface.

The major limitation on text messaging is the number of characters in a given message. Typically about 140 characters are avaiable in a tet message. In addition to the image, picture messaging allows significantly more characters to be included in each message. Typically about 1400 characters are available in picture message. Both messages can be scrolled so that the entire message can be viewed, but not necessarily in a single view. Instant messages (IM) allow about the same number of characters as are allowed in a text message for each interaction. IM is more interactive than text and picture messages so that you can scroll up and down to see multiple messages. All three message types allow the cell phone user to enter a response to the original message content.

The Last Lecture

April 30th, 2008

I recently watched ABC Primetime Live on 9 April 2008 about Randy Pausch, a Carnegie Mellon University computer science professor who has terminal pancreatic cancer. I was struck by his candor, his future thinking and his high spirits.

A couple of days later I tried to purchase his book, “The Last Lecture” at Amazon, but they were already sold out and would not get a new shipment for several weeks. Other online vendors were in similar straights. As it turns out, we found a copy of the book at the local university book store.

More to come…

Remote Access

April 28th, 2008

I have been interested in encrypting Internet traffic when acceessing the Internet from open WIFI networks. My investigations identified at least two classes of solutions: remote desktops and virtual private networks (VPN).

Remote Desktops
Although I did not follow through, it looked like a remote desktop server could be located on a home PC. Such a remote desktop could allow connecting to the home remote desktop in a secure fashion. The secure connection to the server would encrypt the traffic that is broadcast over the WIFI.

Logmein provides a service to connect to their Internet services and login to the home PC. This essential extends the desktop to the remote PC in a secure fashion, allowing you to browse the Internet or run any desired application on the home server. Logmein provides several securiy mechanisms – user names and passwords and a challenge code that is text messaged to a cell phone. The paid variation allows a few additional features, particularly easy file transfers, but I use a free Internet disk space to transfer files.

VPN
Windows provides a built-in VPN connection that can be used to encrypt the remote Internet traffi, route it to the home server where it is sent to the Internet via connectin sharing.

Text Commands for Scrolling and Zooming

April 26th, 2008

Images like road maps and weather radar do not generally translate well to the low resolution of a cell phone display. In some initial observations, road maps and screen shots could not be viewed very well on my cell. Something that I will work on is a means to scroll through an image and resize the image and recenter the image using textual commands. My thought is to use a context like

NW N NE
—-123—-
W 456 E
—-789—-
SW S SE

where the numbers identify an area to center upon and zoom, the letters indicate directions to scroll the image and “U” would zoom out. I am not sure ultimately how well this will work out.

When using a typical cell phone, it is not obvious how to scroll and zoom through an image. The following method provides a starting place about where to begin using character commands to zoom and to scroll the image.

Given that a large image is to be displayed, say an animated weather map. Let us assume that the original map is 512×512. Now, my cell phone has a screen resolution of 176×220.

So, the weather image must be decimated by a factor of 4 in each direction. Using the following mnemonic:

1–2–3
–ABC–
8-DEF-4
–GHI–
7–6–5

We will let the best resolution to be displayed on the cell to be 1:1 with the original resolution. Now, we could use interpolation to zoom in further, but for now, let’s not consider that.

You can zoom by pressing the letter in the sector that you are interested. Now, the thought is that sector A would actually cover the upper left 1/2. Likewise, sector B would cover upper middle half of the image. And, sector F would refer to middle left half of the image.

Now an image file such as an animated gif is actually a set of sequencing images. Animated images are very useful when looking at weather maps because they allow you to see the trends. And, sector G would cover the bottom left half of the image.

Everything is based off the original image. The zoom level is maintained as the number of zooms performed. 0 takes you back to the previous zoom level. Once you zoom down to where you want to be, then you can scroll around in half step increments using the direction letters above – left, right, up down, and diagonal.

Same goes for a road map that shows a route from point A to point B. I forgot my GPS. Now, there are several SMS portals that provide driving directions via text messages. Although they are quite useful, I am a visual learner. Seeing a map really helps me to get a better feel for the road.