In Which I Stop the Madness, and Start the Research Logging

Wow, when it comes to logging my research, I'm the absolute worst. Really, I'm pretty sure that on a list somewhere--existing, perhaps, solely in the mind's eye of the genea-god(s)--I am at the tip-top of the logging poo-poo list. Not because I've made it a mission to make myself run in research circles, chasing the tip of the same old tail, but because I'm lazy, and I hate to interrupt the mad rush of research momentum in order to make boring notes about something that I've already done. I'm much more interested in what I have yet to do.

That said, the other day, when I spent about an hour pouring through some online records at FamilySearch, only to realize that I had already done this particular exercise in futility, I realized that enough was enough.

So, I succumbed. I started an online research log.

Does this make me insanely pedestrian? Or stridently superior? I can't tell. All I know is that I opted for the convenience of Google Docs to create a spreadsheet that will allow me to track my research:



Each surname will eventually occupy its own page in the spreadsheet, accessible via a tab:



It occurs to me that eventually it will be very crowded down there, but we'll see how it scales, I guess, and go from there! At least I started, right? Surely that must count for something... Anyways, if anyone sees a glaring omission in this research log, let me know!

Readability

Perennial favorite blog resourceshelf pointed out a great web tool, Readability, which has the ability to declutter, streamline and customize pages to increase their, well, readability. You may think installing another tool in order to avoid clutter seems silly. If, however, you are anything like me, and you struggle with trying to accomplish satisfactory in-depth reading online due to all of the poopoo flung in the sidebars and in-between paragraphs on most sites... Readability may well be for you.

Here's an example of the detritus that Readability removes, from a book review at the New York Times, the first is the page as normal:




And here's the page after invoking Readability:



Much cleaner, and less distraction! Hyperlinks are bumped down to footnotes, pics are gone, and the text fills the screen in luscious, black-on-white readability! Scrumptious!

Installation of Readability is very easy (took me about ten seconds on Google Chrome). Here's the video on installation from the company:

Readability - Installation Video for Firefox, Safari & Chrome from Arc90 on Vimeo.

Taking Gmail to Task [Lessons]

As I have mentioned in previous posts, I use my Gmail account as a customized, searchable archive for the many Rootsweb mailing lists to which I subscribe. While perusing these emails, I often find myself meandering through different lists, picking up tidbits of information I want to follow up on. I may jot down the name of a book I want to check out, the name of a web site I want to visit, or the name and email of a potential contact that I want to email later on. Often I jot these items down on a small piece of paper on my desk, which promptly ends up in the recycling thanks to my own foggy tidying, or the burgeoning green habits of my toddler.

I was searching for a method to organize the madness in this case, and a December post in Lifehacker gave me the answer to my problems! Easy to install, easy to use, and very VERY handy for managing tasks associated with, or originating in, your Gmail, the Gmail Task feature from Gmail Labs is a godsend for organizational freaks like me.

A warning though: the task feature, like all Labs stuff, is not promised to be entirely stable. Use of this feature is for those who don't mind spending some time out on the electronic frontier, away from the comforts of things like absolute dependability and guaranteed stability. Be wary and stay away, or be bold and grab the future! [And, as always, if a feature screws up your gmail or locks you out, you can always go to http://mail.google.com/mail/?labs=0, and the nightmare will be washed away.]

Dare to proceed? Then let's go!

Getting Started

Truly simple. Log in to your Gmail account and click on "Settings" in the upper-right hand corner. This will take you to (Tada!) your Settings page. Once there, click on the "Labs" link along the top of the Settings panel:



As the page says, the Labs section features a slew of experimental and beta features for Gmail. With the caveat mentioned above, scroll down to the "Tasks" feature, and click the "Enable" button:



Once enabled, if you return to your Gmail inbox, you'll see a "Tasks" link underneath your Contacts link, in the right-hand sidebar:



Clicking this link will open your tasks pane:



The task list is very simple click-and-type format, with the ability to do one level of indented nesting. I use this feature to create a "READ" list for emails that I want to return to when I have more time (I find this to be more useful than merely "starring" a message, which I use for very important messages I want to save.)

To add a message directly to your Task list, use the "More Actions" pulldown menu at the top of the email pane, and select "Add to Tasks":



Once added to the tasks list, you can edit the title by clicking on it, and move/indent the task by using the "Actions" menu at the bottom of the tasks pane.

Hope you find the tasks feature helpful!

The Lay of the Land [Quick Tip]

Happy New Year!

Did you notice, in the rush of the holidays, that Google Maps has added a new terrain feature to their site?:



Obviously, this has huge implications for genealogy researchers, for whom an awareness of natural travel barriers like mountains, rivers, etc. can be helpful in determining behaviors of ancestors.

Here's a typical street map view of Belt, Montana, a residence of my great-grandfather Peter Shannon:



Compare the information available through the street map to that available from the new terrain view, and you can see how the terrain view could influence my understanding of Peter's activities and movements around this town:

Pimp Your FB Status [Tidbits]

In time for your post-Thanksgiving coma, meet Generatus, the "Social Network Status Generator" for those with no mind or means to get that FB status "just right". Tag clouds available for those who like to feel interactive while really clicking blindly and wasting time!



I look forward to some new and exciting updates from my fellow Geneabloggers!

[Via MakeUseOf]

Wordless Wednesdays: Sites To Checkout

Read It Later, Part II [Site Review]

Last week, we talked about the online bookmarking tool Read It Later, and how it can help you organize web sites that you want to mark to read, but don't necessarily want to bookmark.

This week I want to talk briefly about another feature of Read It Later, namely its integration with RSS feed reader Google Reader. This feature is only available with use of the Firefox extension, so those who have installed and use RIL on another browser will not find this post of use.

Reading It Later, Blog Style

If you subscribe to a number of different blogs in a number of different areas of interest (as many of us do), you may find that you have a difficult number of blog posts to track and read. Using Read It Later can help maximize the time you spend reading blogs, while minimizing the time spent wading through hundreds of thousands of posts.

Here's a shot of my Google Reader genealogy pane, with the Read It Later Firefox extension installed. Notice the line of checkmarks which has been added to the list-view lines, between the stars and the blog post titles:



While browsing posts in list view I can select blog posts that look to be of interest to me by clicking on the checkmark:



Doing so adds those blog posts to my Reading List, visible here as the last three items on my list:



I can now mark all the items in my genealogy folder as "read" within Google Reader, and I am no longer drowning in unread posts that make for a daunting visit to my RSS Reader!

The Best Part

The excellent thing about this feature, is that when clicked on to read from the Reading List, these items will open on their original site. That is, the integration between RIL and Google Reader means that you can bookmark the pages of the original blog posts without ever leaving the Google Reader environment. Previously, a user would have to see the blog post in Google Reader, click through to the original item on the original blog site, then add the page to the Reading List. The new integrated version accomplishes the same things with much more efficiency!

Pinpoint Addresses in Google Earth [Site Review]

Digital Inspiration presents a potentially handy tool which allows you to identify the address of any place on Google Earth. The tool is as easy to use as Google Maps, has no fuss, no logins, and no frou-frou beyond its job.

I found good use of this tool to get a current town name for the land where my great-grandfather originally homesteaded in Montana:



The tool may also be helpful in determining more exact locations of properties (city or otherwise) that no longer exist, but for which an old map shows a location. Keep in mind you can use coordinates to locate properties via Google Earth.

Try the tool here.

[Via MakeUseOf]

Quick Post to Blogger via iGoogle [Quick Tip]

If you use Blogger to wield your virtual pen and muse on all things genealogical, it just got a little easier.

Blogger recently announced the release of the iGoogle Blogger Post Gadget. Meaning as soon as inspiration strikes, you can take it to "print" without even leaving your iGoogle page.

The gadget is a little stark (I'm using it right now). There's no preview, no keyboard shortcuts for things like formatting and anchor links, and no auto-fill when you tag your entry. There's also no access to advanced publishing options like timeset publishing.

Overall, great for a quick jot, but not so hot for more in-depth blogging that requires a more robust feature set. Worth a try though, as anything that makes getting those blog posts out quicker is great, especially if you use your blog as a notepad for research and ideas.

This all reminds me... since iGoogle's massive redesign, we're due for another Site Review on what's new and great (or not so great) about this latest revamp. Keep your eyes peeled for that post coming soon!

Covering Your Copyright Back [Site Review]

If you are a genealogist and blog, or if you have any content online which you consider to be proprietary, you may be interested in a few websites which aim to provide easy searching for misuse of your own content on sites across the internet.

CopyrightSpot.com and Copyscape.com are both simple enough to use; simply enter the URL of a page of content you would like to search for (you can also enter the address for an RSS feed), hit search, and the sites report back with sites that have duplicated your text.

No News is Good News?

I used my blog as a trial:.



Both sites got some results, which was impressive, but on a usefulness scale they scored pretty low. Particularly, CopyrightSpot listed a variety of sites which graciously list my blog on a blogroll; as these blogrolls tend to include a snippet of new posts as they scroll through the roll, they come up on the copyright search as potential content crime!



Copyscape came up with similar results, although from some different sites. Because the duplicated text in these cases were dynamic (i.e., they scroll through the roll and then disappear), click-throughs on the results, which would typically highlight occurrences of duplicated text, only resulted in a message saying the sites "appear to have removed your text":



The sites work well enough for what they purport to do (the search engines obviously have no way of delineating real plagiarism from quotes or blogrolls), so are worth checking out for a quick check on how (or if) your content is being used by someone else on the web. In this case, no news definitely is good news!

[Via: MakeUseOf.com]

Facial Recognition Online [Tidbits]

Earlier this month, it was announced that Google's Picasa had launched a facial recognition feature. The feature helps automate the tagging of photos of people, which, obviously, could be a great tool for genealogists looking to organize collections of family photos. There are limitations on the usage of the tagging, all of which are noted in the article linked above.

I ran a quick test with some photos I had already uploaded. The facial recognition worked well enough to find most of the photos of my son right off the bat, and as I tagged photos, it seemed to learn his face more efficiently:



It even started suggesting tags for photos, and, remarkable, the suggestions tended to be from the same family! Picasa had a hard time identifying some photos, especially profile shots.

Head on over to Picasa to give the facial recognition tagging a shot!

Searching the Awesome Bar [Quick Tip]

[Firefox only]

Today's Quick Tip is more of a "did you know?" than an instruction per se, but it is about as useful as it gets!

Reading something online, then promptly failing to bookmark it, then instantly needing it again is a common online malady. Did you know you can use your address bar (which is the field at the top of your browser where you usually type in the URL for sites) as a search field for your browser's history? Did you know this allows you to refind what you have already found? Others call this searchable address bar in Firefox "the awesome bar", and this may be deserved... let me give some examples of how it works:

Let's say I recently was reading about copyright research online and wanted to revisit some of the sites I ran across. I can find what sites I read by typing "copyright" into the address bar. Notice that the bar searches as I type:



Note that the search only includes the page titles of the pages you have visited, and not their content.

You can also search using multiple words. This works in pretty much the same way as the single-term search, it just adds a level of refinement to the search. I can enter my search term, in this case "family tree", and scroll through the results to find what I was looking for:



This multiple word search omits other results, such as results that would appear if I only used the word "tree" as below:



Of course, you may find this feature annoying, useless, a compromising of your privacy, or all three. If so, you may just be interested in how to turn off the search feature for good!

Copyright? Or No Copyright? [Site Roundup]

As genealogists, copyright is something of interest to us. Whether we are doing transcription or abstraction work, writing a family history, or collating information on resources available for our research area, the copyright status of various works is often important to our work. To that end, I wanted to give a short roundup of what is available online for your use when copyright questions arise.

• Stanford SULAIR Copyright Renewal Database covers renewal records for 1923-1964, a key period for many genealogy works. The database offers simple and advanced searching by keyword, title, author and registration dates.
  
• U. S. Copyright Office has online copyright renewal records from 1978-present. The search options are comprehensive.
  
• WorldCat Copyright Registry is a new resource, currently in Beta, which allows for collaborative input on copyright status for different works. The site is mainly geared toward library and institutional use, but anyone with an interest in the copyright status of a particular work, and a free WorldCat account, can add information to the item pages.
  

(As an aside, one of the most comprehensive tables on copyright status I have found is at Cornell's website. Very comprehensive, and covers the thorny foreign work/author/renewal issues.)

Google Newspapers Announcement

Google's Official Blog today got around to announcing the new newspaper archiving project it has undertaken recently, which I covered last month.

One interesting tidbit is buried in the post:

You’ll be able to explore this historical treasure trove by searching the Google News Archive or by using the timeline feature after searching Google News. Not every search will trigger this new content, but you can start by trying queries like [Nixon space shuttle] or [Titanic located]. Stories we've scanned under this initiative will appear alongside already-digitized material from publications like the New York Times as well as from archive aggregators, and are marked "Google News Archive." Over time, as we scan more articles and our index grows, we'll also start blending these archives into our main search results so that when you search Google.com, you'll be searching the full text of these newspapers as well. (Emphasis added).

I love the fact that we are looking at a future integration between the news archive search and general google searches. Imagine a day when you google an ancestor's name and see newspaper articles as results!

What the article doesn't address is the issue of access to what the above excerpt references as "archive aggregators", which, in this case, invariably means sites like ancestry.com and newspaperarchive.com (to name two I have noticed in search results). I have subscriptions to both of these sites, so google's search function is quite helpful for me. But what about general users who are unlikely to have subscriptions to these sites? Will there be a per-article access feature? Will the sites simply be shilling their annual subscriptions to searchers?

I'd personally love to see free access to searchable online newspapers within the next few years, especially since a huge bulk of historic newspapers are public domain; I doubt it will happen, but it sure would be nice.

Research Options Online [Tidbits]

Today I ran across a great post on mashable.com regarding online tools for researchers. It covers some options that were omitted from my discussions of Google Notebook and Google Notebook Alternatives.

Definitely worth checking out if you are shopping around for a new online note-taker.

So Fresh and So Clean!

A mini round-up of applications that have caught my eye, and seem to be (potentially) useful for genealogists of different stripes:

* del.izzy: A handy site that lets you search your delicious bookmarks. Adds a functionality missing from delicious' own search, in that de.lizzy allows you to search the page content of sites you have saved in your bookmarks.

* GuardarComoPDF: Don't let the foreign language scare you off. This site allows you to create a PDF document from any .doc, .txt, .rtf, .jpeg, .xls, or .ppt file, without having to own a program such as Adobe Professional.

* Earfl: Another weak and weird URL, but an interesting service: make a phone call, speak like you're leaving a voicemail message, and after you hang up, your recorded "message" is available online, and can be embedded on a website. Quick, get your great-aunt Winnie on the phone!

Mad love to MakeUseOf which helps me help you stay abreast of things...

PDFGeni

[Via MakeUseOf]

PDFgeni is a new (still in beta, and still lacking navigational links kind of new) search engine that focuses on indexing and serving up PDF content found on the web.

The interface allows you to preview PDFs, which is great, especially when compared to Google's notoriously mangling "View in HTML" PDF preview option. This is accomplished using PDFMeNot, a classic app for those unwilling to submit themselves to the often hellish implications of launching Adobe Reader.

I fiddled with the search engine, and it has a long way to go before it gets marks for polish. Quoted search terms don't function correctly, and the design is a murky with some AdSense overload, but I think this search engine can be very useful as a portal into the sometimes underutilized world of PDF content.

I searched around on my current research dilemma, Acadian genealogy, and found some items of interest that I hadn't run across before. It's definitely worth giving this site a shot.

Try out PDFGeni here.

Quick Tip: Adding Ancestry Surname Search to Lookitup2

I talked last week about Greasemonkey and some tools you can use to make online genealogy research even easier. Today I want to show you how to add an Ancestry surname search capability to LookItUp.

To do the following, you must have Greasemonkey and the LookItUp2 add-on installed in your browser (instructions can be found in my prior post here). You must also be logged in to your Ancestry account.

To Add Ancestry Search to LookItUp2:

1. Highlight any word on any webpage (it doesn't matter what or where, as long as something is highlighted). While the word is highlighted, press Shift+3. The following screen will appear:




2. Click the "New Site" button as indicated by the red arrow above.

3. Fill in the information for the site name (e.g., "Ancestry")

4. Insert the following URL into the URL field*:

http://search.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?rank=0&=&=&=&=&=&=&=&=&=1%2C+&=&=&=1%2C+&gsfn=&gsln=[words]&sx=&=&=&=1%2C+&=&=&=1%2C+&gs1co=2%2CUSA&gs1pl=1%2CAll+States&year=&yearend=&=&=&=&=&=1%2C+&=&=&sbo=0&sbor=&ufr=0&wp=4%3B_80000002%3B_80000003&srchb=r&prox=1&db=&ti=0&ti.si=0&gl=allgs&gss=ansmp&so=1

5. Add a letter shortcut for your site. If you have not deleted any sites, be aware that the letter "a" is defaulted to ask.com in LookItUp2. (You can remove any sites you don't think you will use by deleting them using the "Delete" button located to the far right of each line).

Your added fields should look something like this:



6. Click Save and the window will close.

7. Try your search out! (Remember, to use LookItUp, you simply highlight the word you want to search on, then press Shift+Control+Space). The Ancestry search will be on the last tab. Click on the tab or press the shortcut key you assigned to see your results. Here's an example using a surname from a Wikipedia article:



* Note that the URL provided above searches on the surname defaulted to the entire United States. To limit the search to one particular state, replace the phrase "2CAll+States" in the above URL with the name of your state, capitalized, using a "+" sign between words for states with two names. For example:

Replace 2CAll+States with 2CCalifornia to search in California

Replace 2CAll+States with 2CNorth+Carolina to search in North Carolina.

As you can imagine, you can set up multiple Ancestry search possibilities with different states in which you typically research.

What's In Your Library?

What with the recent spate of fires, floods, and, of course, notorious hurricanes, keeping valuable items like photos, documents, files, and heirlooms safe has been on the mind of many genealogists. But what about one resource you may take for granted? One resource that possibly surrounds you in your home, but for which you may have no printed record or inventory?

I'm talking, of course, about your books!

As a true bibliophile and recovering English major, I happen to have a full catalog of my books, including a listing of just about every book I have read since I was 16 years old. For most purposes, this list is a vanity thing. I learned years ago, however (when one of my closes friends experienced a fire in his Haight-Ashbury apartment building and lost alot of his possessions) that libraries are very difficult to replace if you don't know what it is you are trying to replace. Without a comprehensive list of the books you own, should disaster strike, and you lose your books, you may find yourself reaching for elusive volumes for years to come, only realizing what you have lost when you need it most.

To that end, I present two online websites dedicated to cataloging your home library. One I have tried exclusively for this post. The other I use for my general literature. I will present a little bit of information on both sites, as well as the positive and negative aspects of each, to allow you to make a decision on which site to try.

Library Thing

LibraryThing is a big thing with the litgeek types, and rightfully so: it provides an extensive database of books, ease of input, active community involvement and a pretty straight-forward, easy-to-use interface. It is here that I have cataloged my general library.

Once logged in to the site, the home page features items about your library, as well as a lot of community-oriented panels, like recent recommendations, site announcements, active forum topics, etc.:



The panel view for your own library is where the action takes place (browsing, updating, sorting and generally petting your collections):



Pages for individual books show tons of information, include links to reviews on LibraryThing, links to book discussions, and average ratings:


Some Good Points

• Uploading books is easy, as you can enter books by author, title, or ISBN. The site mainly uses Amazon and the Library of Congress as its major databases to pull covers and publication information based on what you enter; it is rarely stumped.
  
• The site is popular, and active, which makes it interesting to use for those who enjoy a social-aspect to their websites. To that end, you can browse other people's libraries, compare libraries, engage in discussions about individual books, and even leave comments on other people's book pages.
  
• The site uses tagging, which makes browsing across genres, books and users incredibly easy.
  

Some Not So Good Points

• Only the first 100 books are free to add to your library. After that you can pay a yearly fee or a single lifetime fee. The rates aren't that bad... it's sliding scale, honor system, and yearly fees start at $6.00, lifetime fees at $19.00. The rates are so modest I hesitate to call this a "bad" point, but my inner-frugality insists that I make mention of this point.
  
• You can only upload books to LibraryThing, which means that if you want to catalog DVDs, Videos, CDs or anything else, you are out of luck.
  

GuruLib

I have been trying out GuruLib as a catalog tool for my genealogical collections, and am so far decently happy with the results. Entering books via ISBN makes additions snap-simple and the database seems to be fairly extensive, on par with LibraryThing.

The main page of the site defaults to your profile page when you are logged in. This page has the typical coverview of your library contents:



This screenshot makes clear where GuruLib really shines: you can catalog more than just books, and can include multimedia, and even documents! This could be a huge boon to genealogists whose collections include CDROMs and various software (I cataloged my CDROMs under software, for simplicity sake); the upload of documents could be very handy for printouts, research guides, etc.

Individual book pages are pretty sparse, without alot of the information seen on LibraryThing:



Some Good Points

• As mentioned above, GuruLib lets you catalog more than just books; software, music, movies and games are also part of your potential catalog.
  
• You can also upload documents like PDF, DOC, PS, PPT or XLS files, up to a 5MB per file limit. (It's not clear what the overall limit is).
  
• GuruLib is free free free to use.
  

Some Not So Good Points

• The GuruLib interface is.... lacking, and the design leaves alot to be desird.
  
• The navigation is confusing at times, and it can be difficult to figure out how to get to what you want.
  
• The site doesn't have the social function of a site like LibraryThing (note the book detail page, which does not have links to other users who have the same or similar catalogs). This could be a drawback for individuals looking to see what people with similar research interests have in their libraries, and also eradicates the possibility of finding new titles of interest.
  
• The site lacks tagging outside of some automatically generated genre tags.
  
• It would be great if the various categories were expanded, and if the document-upload feature were more prominently displayed.
  

A Choice

Overall, both sites perform the same function. If you are interested in cataloging your books for the sake of having an offsite record of what is in your library, then either may be right for you. In fact, while LibraryThing presents a host of social and organizational tools, the stripped down interface and lack of clutter on GuruLib may be just right for a no-nonsense cataloging project. If you want to interact with your collection and with others, though, then LibraryThing would be the site for you. In the end, both are fun to use, and cataloging can become strangely addictive. The thrill of watching your library go digital can be enjoyable in and of itself, making what could be a chore a fun hours-long project.

Greasemonkey-What It Is, Why You Should Care

If you are using Firefox, you should have heard the term "Greasemonkey" being tossed around once or twice on your internet travels. If you haven't, no sweat. Let this post serve as your primer on Greasemonkey, and by the end you will be itching to get Firefox greased up and ready to speed down that infamous "information highway."

What it is

Put simply, Greasemonkey is an extension (also called an add-on) for Firefox that allows you to manipulate web pages to your liking. More than just a simple add-on that works on a single site or in certain ways, Greasemonkey gets under the hood of your total browsing experience, and allows you to create a more seamless, efficient web.

Sounds great, right? So let's get started!

Getting Greasemonkey

You begin by downloading the add-on here. Simply click the "Add to Firefox" Button and the following box will come up:



Click "Install Now" when the button de-greys, and the extension will install. You will have to restart Firefox for the extension to function correctly.

Give the Monkey Bananas

On its own, Greasemonkey doesn't do a whole lot, but sit idly in the background waiting for something exciting to happen. Much like a banana to a monkey, so is the User Script to Greasemonkey... it's what makes Greasemonkey come alive and start to show its charm.

User Scripts are simply small scripts, written by individuals, which use the power of Greasemonkey to accomplish certain things within your browser. Some user scripts are designed to work along with specific sites (like Google, Amazon, or even online gaming sites). Some make very minute changes to the layout or toolbar options for certain sites. But some user scripts stand out for the ways in which they re-configure the web to make it more efficient and user-friendly.

You can browse the gamut of these scripts at userscripts.org.

Some Very Useful Scripts

So what can greasemonkey and user scrips do for the genealogist?

LookItUp2- A great script that extends your ability to use the web in a more seamless way. LIU2 allows you to select text and search for a word or term in a variety of different websites without leaving the page you are on.

Let's say I am on the Allen County Government Website, and was wondering if this "Allen County" had any genealogy resources I should be aware of. With Greasemonkey and the LookItUp2 script installed in my browser, I can simply press Shift+Ctrl+Space and a screen appears over my current screen:



The top red arrow shows the search field, where I have entered my query, "Allen County Genealogy". Next to this field is the drop-down menu which allows me to select what site I would like to search (the list includes Wikipedia, Wiktionary, Google Images, Google, Websters, Answers.com and more).

The second red arrow shows the results I have gotten for my search in Google. Note that under this pane is the original Allen County Government page on which I started. I can browse as normal within this pane, then, when I am finished, simply click-off of the pane into my standard browser window, and the pane disappears!

Google Extras- Another powerful script that adjusts search results in Google to provide search over multiple different sites like Google Images, Wikipedia, Google Videos, and Dictionary.com.

Let's say I search on Google for "genealogy" with this script installed. This is what I see after performing my search:



This "megasearch" makes use of the traditional white-space in the right margin of Google results pages, and makes short work of finding what data is online related to your search terms.

Custom Sticker-Adds temporary markers to web pages to be used while working on that page. The markers disappear after a page refresh or upon returning to the page, but will remain if the page is re-navigated to by going backwards through your history.

An example of using the red markers on Ancestry:



The nice thing about these markers is that they remain when printing the page, providing an easy way to mark text or lines for printed web pages!

In Conclusion

These are just a few examples of the useful scripts you can find to make Greasemonkey a most useful browser extension. Greasemonkey and its attendant user scripts seems to me to be a glimpse of where the web is headed... a streamlined place where web sites interact across URL, less boxed in to their sites and more energized because of their fluidity and customizable use. As is apparent, the new web is one driven by you and your specific needs... no more waiting for a webmaster to add or removed certain tools, features or functions! The browser is back in the driver's seat.

A Word of Warning

You should make sure that you have installed (or updated to) the most current version of Greasemonkey, as vulnerabilities are always possible, and have emerged in the past. Of course, if you are using Firefox and not Internet Explorer, you probably know how to manage your online security already. But hey... never hurts to hear a helpful reminder.