Gleeking out with Greasemonkey and Blip.fm

I’m a big fan of the Greasemonkey plugin for Firefox. Greasemonkey works by allowing small bits of programmed JavaScript to change the way a webpage displays and acts. These tiny bits of code are installed just like a Firefox add-on and then they run in the background of the browser.

The scripts do nothing until you visit a particular website that recognizes the code as a script that it needs to interact with. All of this is handled behind the scenes.

One word of caution for newbies, Greasemonkey can lead to security issues so use a trusted source. Don’t be the first to install a script if you don’t know or trust the developer. Stick with well-known and recommended scripts until you feel more comfortable with how it all works. Learn more at Greasespot, the weblog for Greasemonkey.

Why should you spend time on this?

The benefit of Greasemonkey is that a user can enhance their favorite websites creating a more efficient or enriching online experience.

Give me an idea of what the heck you are talking about?

There are hundreds of add-ons at Userscripts.org. Despite being a relatively new service I found four scripts written for Blip.fm. Blip.fm Comments Hack 0.2 was written by Lius Fontenelle Carneiro. The script allows comments to be made on any blip (see picture below). Currently this feature isn’t available for regular users. With enough adoption, the Blip.fm developers may look to the GreaseMonkey community for inspiration as new features are baked into the network.

Here is a screen shot. It’s been modified a bit to render in English as the developer coded in good ‘ol Espanol. Aside from that no other tweaking necessary.

Greasemonkey + Blip.fm Commenting Script

Steps involved:

• 1. Get Firefox
• 2. Install Greasemonkey plug-in
• 3. Sign up for Blip.fm
• 4. Install Greasemonkey + Blip.fm commenting script.
• 5. Comment away. Be pithy. Be nice.
• 6. Did anyone catch the title reference?

Blip.fm, DJinFrisco, OpenTape Volume 2

I’m having a lot of fun with blip.fm – It’s twitter for music. Blip.fm works by searching the web looking for music content hosted by others. Blip.fm is limited by what is currently being shared by others.

I thought it would be fun to put up some songs currently unavailable on Blip.fm. These songs deserve an audience. I’ll have a new list every few weeks so bookmark http://jbinfrisco.com/opentape and swing by for a listen. And if you start blippin too, come check out my profile and say hello.

Volume 2

• The Getaway People – Six Pacs
• Sweatshop Union – Try
• Toad the Wet Sprocket – In My Ear
• Sneaker Pimps – Tesko Suicide
• Stabilizers – One Simple Thing
• Pleasure Thieves – My Favorite Drug
• On Second Thought – Wait Up
• Sublime – What Happened
• P.M. Dawn – In the Presence of Mirrors
• R.E.M. – Let Me In (Live October 21 2001)

Blip.fm and Twitter

One option for Blip.fm is the feature to push your song selections to other web destinations like Twitter or Last.fm.

This is a powerful feature as it allows you to tap into your more developed social networks. The potential hazard here is that some Twitter users only employ one account and pushing blip.fm updates might be really annoying to followers. If you are worried about overloading folks, you might want to think twice before throwing your music at them as well.

I handle this by sending all my blips to a secondary twitter account. Keeps things clean and still gives me a way to connect with other music fans on Twitter.