Collaborative Sites

I recently found out about a cool software collaboration site: Stackoverflow. There one can get questions answered in a timely manner as well as earning "reputation" credits. Access is free and unlimited akin to a "wiki" site such as Wikipedia.

But what is best is there is an ecosystem of such site based on the same platform ( Stackexchange ):

• Hardware related: Chiphacker
• Communications / Networking : PacketDrop
• Computer User: Superuser
• Server Users: Serverfault

... and probably much more!

Chrome Extension: mDNS Service Browser

As a stepping-stone towards making the browser my main portal to my applications, I have crafted a Google Chrome extension (based on an NPAPI plugin) that lists the services announced through Avahi / mDNS.
It is available here. Note that only Linux based systems are supported.

Notes on NPAPI based plugins

I am sharing the following diagram to (hopefully) lessen some pain from folks who intend to write NPAPI based plugins (Firefox, Chrome etc.).


STEP 1: the host browser loads the library corresponding to the MIME type expressed in the embed element tag.

STEP 2: the host browser calls the NP_Initialize function of the library and passes a reference to the public API of the browser (i.e. the NPNetscapeFuncs starting with NPN_ in the Mozilla documentation). The host browser also calls the NPP_New function in order to instantiate a "plugin instance".

STEP 3: the host browser calls the NP_GetValue function (with the variable NPPVpluginScriptableNPObject ) of the library. See step 4.

STEP 4: the plugin calls the NPN_CreateObject (through the reference provided in step 2) to instantiate a "scriptable NPObject". This object serves as proxy to the embed object declared on the source web page.

STEP 5: the web page can interact with the "scriptable object".

Chrome Extension: Stackoverflow Tweaks

For those adept of Stackoverflow, the following extension provide tweaks to the web site. For version 0.1, the questions associated with ignored tags are rendered hidden.

The extension is available for installation through this link.

Chrome Extension: Auto-Reload

I've crafted an extension for Google Chrome: Auto-Reload. The extension enables automatic interval based page reloading.

This capability can be useful when developing web applications or just for the anxious folks waiting for a reply on a forum...

The extension can be installed by following this link.

UPDATED: This extension is now hosted on the Google Chrome Gallery. Follow the above link.