So handy is Google Reader’s “Popout” link [...]]]> If you’re like me, your monitor real estate is in high demand. One small corner of one of my displays is dedicated to video viewing. It is usually occupied by a video that I have popped out of Google Reader using the “Popout” links Google applies to embedded videos.

So handy is Google Reader’s “Popout” link that it inspired me to create a bookmarklet that does the same thing when you are on any site that hosts a flash video.

If you come across a flash video you would like to watch but would rather not keep the page it belongs to loaded, you can use this bookmarklet to pop it out into its own little window. It supports just about any page that contains flash video.

To use it, just save or drag the following link to your bookmarks toolbar:

… and then try it out on this video:

If you would like to contribute to the Universal Video Popout Bookmarklet, join the Google Code project.

After reading about FriendFeed’s proposed Simple Update Protocol (SUP) earlier today, the idea of all of the WordPress blogs around the world publishing near-instantaneous updates to FriendFeed grew too delicious to pass up. So I have [...]]]> Wouldn’t it be nice if you published a post to your blog and within seconds it showed up on FriendFeed?

After reading about FriendFeed’s proposed Simple Update Protocol (SUP) earlier today, the idea of all of the WordPress blogs around the world publishing near-instantaneous updates to FriendFeed grew too delicious to pass up. So I have created a plugin for WordPress that will assist with that.

WP SUP is a plugin that adds the SUP-ID HTTP header to your blog’s feeds and pings FriendFeed’s public SUP feed when you publish a post.

During testing posts were showing up on FriendFeed within about 10 seconds of being published.

This is my first WordPress plugin, so brutally honest feedback is definitely appreciated.

Download it here: (zip)

Installation instructions and other info are here.

If you submit as much news to Propeller as I do, you probably have become dependent [...]]]> You might have heard that social news site Propeller has launched a new version of the site. The site was given a new design and a number of new features, most notably a Groups feature similar to sub-reddits on reddit.

If you submit as much news to Propeller as I do, you probably have become dependent on their submission bookmarklet. Since the new site doesn’t have a bookmarklet yet, here’s an unofficial one that will work in the meantime. To use it, just save or drag the following link to your bookmarks toolbar:

… and then click it when you are viewing an article you would like to submit to Propeller.

Download it here: (tar.gz | zip)

Over the years, I’ve used Python for various purposes. I’ve always found it to be a great language for just about [...]]]> PyDigg is a Python toolkit for the Digg API. It provides an object-oriented interface to all of the available endpoints of the API. It is offered under the MIT License.

Download it here: (tar.gz | zip)

Over the years, I’ve used Python for various purposes. I’ve always found it to be a great language for just about anything, from a batch file alternative to web applications to scripting a real-time 3D application. It was therefore my pleasure to write a Python toolkit for the recently released Digg API.

Full documentation is coming soon, so in the meantime here are some guidelines for using this toolkit. I’m assuming that if you read past this point, you’re familiar with the Python programming language.

The toolkit is contained in one module (’digg.py’), made up of one class (’Digg’) with several nested classes. It depends on the standard Python libraries ‘urllib’ and ‘xml.dom’.

You will only ever have to instance the root class, ‘Digg’. From there it’s a matter of using that class instance’s methods to retrieve instances of nested classes such as ‘Story’, ‘User’, ‘Comment’, etc. The ‘Digg’ class contains all methods necessary to access data. Each nested class, such as ‘Story’, contains convenience methods that redirect back to the methods in “Digg”.

The following example outputs the titles of the latest stories submitted to Digg:

from digg import *
d = Digg(APPKEY) #insert your own application key string
stories = d.getStories()
for story in stories:
print story.title

In the above example, the Digg.getStories() method returns an instance of the ‘Stories’ container class, which contains n number of ‘Story’ instances. All response data from the Digg API is accessible by class properties. For instance, the ‘User’ class has the following properties: name, icon, registered, profileviews. I tried to align my naming conventions with those of the Digg API wherever possible.

Please send me links to anything you use this for. Also, if you’re interested in contributing to the PyDigg toolkit, feel free to contact me or join the Google Code Project.

Happy Programming!

If the page you are viewing has been submitted to Digg, it displays the current number of Diggs the page [...]]]> The Smart Digg Button extension for Firefox places a button in your status bar. It uses the newly released Digg API to determine if the web page you are currently viewing has been submitted to Digg.

If the page you are viewing has been submitted to Digg, it displays the current number of Diggs the page has. Pressing the button takes you to the submission.

If the page you are viewing has not been submitted, pressing it takes you to Digg’s submission form where you can submit the page to Digg.

Compatibility: Firefox version 1.5 – 2.0.0.*

Install Extension Here

Note: When installing, be sure to click “Edit Options…” if it pops up to allow neothoughts.com to install add-ons for Firefox.

To use it, just save or [...]]]> Conservapedia is a newly launched wiki which purports to be the Fox News of internet encyclopedias. I’ve been getting a kick out of comparing the entries on Conservapedia to their counterparts on Wikipedia. So I made a bookmarklet to make it easier to jump back and forth between like-named entries.

To use it, just save or drag the following link to your bookmarks toolbar. Then, whenever you’re reading a Wikipedia or Conservapedia entry and get a hankering to see what the other site says about the topic, just click the bookmarklet.

Here are a couple of fun entries to try it out on:

Wikipedia – “Homosexuality”

Conservapedia – “Shia”

Wikipedia – “Internet”

Conservapedia – “Haggis”

I have created a FeedBurner FeedFlare which adds a link that reads “Submit To Netscape” to your feed items. When it is clicked, it submits your item to Netscape [...]]]> User Scott-O-Rama on Netscape asked me if I would make a FeedBurner FeedFlare that lets people submit items from their feeds to Netscape. What a great idea!

I have created a FeedBurner FeedFlare which adds a link that reads “Submit To Netscape” to your feed items. When it is clicked, it submits your item to Netscape with the title included.

The URL of the FeedFlare is: http://neothoughts.com/FeedBurner/FeedFlare/SubmitToNetscape.xml

To add this FeedFlare to one of your feeds:

1. Go to your feed’s “Optimize” panel and select “FeedFlare” on the left.

2. At the end of the list of “Official Flare” enter the above URL in the “Personal FeedFlare” text box.

3. Click “Add New Flare”. The FeedFlare will be retrieved.

4. Enable it for wherever you want it placed (”Feed” and/or “Site” checkboxes).

5. Press “Save”.

This is the first time I have created a FeedFlare for Feedburner so please go easy on me.

If it has already been submitted, it displays the number of votes and comments, with [...]]]> Netscape has a very handy JavaScript widget for publishers to put in their content. The widget checks if your content has been submitted to Netscape. If it hasn’t been submitted, a submit button is placed on your page as shown below:

If it has already been submitted, it displays the number of votes and comments, with a button that lets your users vote up the story without even leaving your page. Shown below:

I’ve created a WordPress plugin which makes it very easy for anyone running a WordPress blog to integrate this functionality. Just follow these instructions and the buttons will be placed on all of your posts automatically:1. Download it here.2. Unzip and place netscape-widget.php in your \wp-content\plugins directory.

3. Activate the plugin in the Plugin Manager in your WordPress Dashboard.

4. Place the following php script in your theme anywhere within the Single Post file: <?php nw_scapeThis(); ?>

When you’re done, your content will have a direct pipeline into Netscape just like the one below.

UPDATE: If you would like to put this widget on one of your pages but you do not have a WordPress blog, you still can. To put it on any page, just add the following script tag:

<script language=”JavaScript” type=”text/javascript” xsrc=”http://www.netscape.com/widgets/med_vote_if/
http://YOURWEBSITE.com”></script>

Make sure the src attribute doesn’t have the line-break in it and replace http://YOURWEBSITE.com with the URL of your page you are putting it on.