LiveJournal Niftiness

ecru - flexible command-line livejournal client for *nix

Thu, 09 Oct 2008 19:33:45 GMT

Hello, I'm writing a new command-line client for LiveJournal. There
are no so much command-lines client for livejournal, the only one I'm
aware of is clive. My client is somewhat similar to clive (i.e. it
uses $EDITOR for typing posts, supports 'header' like options setting
and can work in non-interactive mode (i.e. read stuff via args and
from stdin). However, it has a bit different philosophy behind it. So
here's the main points:

Unix-way-ish: client consists of several small tools - one tool for
posting, one tool for listing posts, one tool for configuration
related stuff and so on. IMO, this approach has a lot of benefits:
the most important one is that it's handy for scripting, other
reason is that small tools are not overloaded with command line
options like do-all-in-one-tool could be and it's easier to write
such tools as well.

Templates: before invoking $EDITOR, ecru loads predefined template
in which one can have predefined headers, predefined body, etc.
It's possible to have several templates, one for each type of post.

Hooks (filters): before $EDITOR opens, ecru searches for executable
files in ~/.ecru/hooks and executes them, passing filename
preparing to be edited as a first argument of the script.
Therefore, you can do whatever you want in the script. And the
script could be written in any language. It could be used e.g. this
way: you can have 'current_music: `music.sh`' in the template and
get it replaced with the output of music.sh . Or you can
introduce any type of macros etc.

Profile templates: it's possible to have several configuration
profiles and switch fast between them, could be useful if you have
several accounts.

State of things: post functionality is almost fully implemented. Other
tools for general stuff are almost ready. The features described above
are already implemented. I'm going to add more features: mutt-like
headers configuration, vcs-like status in the end of the post (which
would be ignored of course then posting) (optional), vcs like confirm
dialog (post/give up/etc) (optional), tools improvements for
scripting. The code is not very well tested and stable, however.

Here's a screenshot showing how it looks typing a post in vim:
http://people.freebsd.org/~novel/misc/ecru_vim.png

And here's a short tutorial:
http://people.freebsd.org/~novel/misc/ecru-introduction.html

git repository is hosted on github:
http://github.com/novel/ecru/tree/master

I wonder if you're still reading :) but if you are, I would be glad to
hear if this project is interesting to anybody.

Batch changing livejournal entries visibility

Tue, 09 Sep 2008 22:35:25 GMT

Sorry about the last time, I've toyed with .htacess a little and the link became unavailable... Now it works.
Recently I've written a little program for the batch change on livejournal posts's visibility settings for Free accounts (I needed to close "private" posts for several years and it's toooooo long to make manually).
I thought that somebody can need this program and decided to share it=) It was tested on my own journal.
Instructions and download link on page http://jehy.ru/soft.en.html .
UPD: program works on Windows, doesn't require any libraries.
UPD 2: Source code (C++) available.
UPD 3: Works perfectly on Linux with Wine.

Lowering Your Blood Pressure With GreaseMonkey

Sun, 07 Sep 2008 20:14:35 GMT

I think the last time I posted something in this community, it may have been yet another script that helped you make your entries private that was based on an older script by someone else.

This time, inspired by a script that hid all the potential memes from your friends' list, I created a script that removed discussion of the current US Presidential Election from your friends list.

This hasn't been extensively tested so I don't know if it works with styles that are not the one that I am using, but it seems to work reasonably well.

Let me know what you think and if you have any further suggestions.

Tue, 02 Sep 2008 07:56:30 GMT

I haven't posted here in a while about MultiLJ, as I wanted to get some of its kinks out before announcing again. But I've posted a new version of the client on the download page (accessible from the multilj community) now that some major changes have been made.

Most important among its changes, I've rewritten the communications code to the LJ server such that it is more reliable - it can even run under a 56K modem without trouble. There's also been improvements made in the Friends List and Custom Friends Groups code. There has been a number of bug fixes made, as well.

MultiLJ is a multi-window client for Windows XP and Vista. Its primary feature is that it uses internal browsers to display journals, rather than relying on one's default browser. It can display as many journals, profiles, and Friends Pages as one wishes, as well as hosting as many Post Editors as one needs. Post History is supported, as well.

MultiLJ - A Multi-Window LiveJournal Client

Mon, 23 Jun 2008 18:01:22 GMT

I've just released a new LiveJournal client for Windows, called MultiLJ. Its defining feature is that the user can open as many windows as they need - journals, profiles, post editors, and so on - and they will be hosted internally within the program. There is no dependency on the user's default browser, nor is the user limited to writing only one post at a time. Editing and deleting past entries is fully supported, as is management of custom friends groups.

The client is new, so I consider it beta level - I'd appreciate as much feedback and error reporting as possible. THere is a support community at multilj, which is also where the link to the download page can be found (on the profile for that community).

Enjoy!

Poll option correlator thingy

Sun, 06 Apr 2008 05:39:57 GMT

Don't know if there's something already out there for this, but...

Livejournal lets you see who picked which poll option, but it takes a bit more manual work on your part to see how that data correlates with what they said on other questions. So I made this script to combine results:

http://spacefem.com/ljpoll/

All you do is go to your poll, click "view results", click "view answers" for the questions you want to combine, and copy/paste that text into the form. Here's what you get from livejournal when do you a "view answers":

How are attractive are you?

spacefem -- Really attractive
dwh -- Deathly attractive
zorpisuttle -- Really attractive
ferngully -- Really attractive
metawidget -- I'm not telling!

Do you want to go out with me?

spacefem -- Of course
dwh -- Maybe
zorpisuttle -- Of course
ferngully -- Of course
metawidget -- Maybe

Here's what the script gives you:

	Of course	Maybe
Really attractive	3	0
Deathly attractive	0	1
I'm not telling!	0	1

So now I can tell that all the really attractive people are the types who'd want to go out with me. It also gives the merged names, so I could make a special group for attractive people who want to go out with me. Either way. What do you think?

View All Journals And Communities In Your S2 Style (Opera)

Tue, 18 Mar 2008 14:46:03 GMT

I don't know if this has been posted here yet, but if not I'm sure that someone might appreciate it. Here's a simple JavaScript that makes it possible to always view other journals and communities in your own layout style (S2 only). First create a text file such as "LJ.JS" then paste the following code:

// ==UserScript==
// @name My_LiveJournal_Style
// @include http://*.livejournal.com/*
// @exclude http://*.livejournal.com/*s2id=*
// @exclude http://*.livejournal.com/*style=*
// @exclude http://*.livejournal.com/*.bml*
// @exclude http://www.livejournal.com/doc/*
// @exclude http://*.livejournal.com/profile*
// @exclude http://*.livejournal.com/data/*
// @exclude http://pics.livejournal.com/*
// @exclude http://www.livejournal.com/portal/*
// ==/UserScript==

location.search+=(location.search?'&':'?')+'style=mine';

After you do that, save the file and place LJ.JS in whatever directory you want. Go to Tools -> Preferences -> Advanced Tab -> Content, and click on the Manage Site Preferences button. Add "livejournal.com" and click the "Edit" button. When the Site Preferences dialog pops up, click the Scripting tab, be sure that "Enable Javascript" is checked, then look for the "User JavaScript Files" text box and then enter the directory where you placed LJ.JS

After that, you should always be able to see communities and journals in your own S2 style when you are logged in, even when you reply to comments from within emails!

I did this with help from cat_irix because I couldn't get the Greasemonkey script to work with Opera.

Mon, 03 Mar 2008 15:57:12 GMT

LiveJournal gives you a method to ban users from commenting on your journal, without removing them from your friends list. There's no indication to the banned user, until they try to post a comment. Then, and only then, LJ indicates the user has been banned by disabling the check box to comment with your own id:

( ) Logged in user: ljuser - you have been banned from commenting in this journal.

To make the state of things more clear, I wrote a Greasemonkey script that remembers people who have banned you, then changes all of the comment/reply links in that user's journal. Instead of

(Post a new comment)

you get

(~~Post a new comment~~)

And below each comment, instead of

(Reply to this)(Thread)

you get

(~~Reply to this~~)(Thread)

It's a work in progress, but feel free to download it and try it out, here:

LJ Banned By

The script creates a Greasemonkey variable called 'banned_by_list'. You can examine or edit it by going to about:config in Firefox, and filtering on 'banned_by_list'. If you want to experiment, try adding yourself to the banned_by_list, by surrounding your LJ user name with `', like this: `clayfoot'. Of course, you can also add other LJ users to the list the same way, if you want to see what happens, or if you just want to prevent yourself from commenting on someone else's journal, for some reason. At the moment, there's no other way to reset or edit the 'banned_by_list', so use with due caution.

More animated userpics

Wed, 13 Feb 2008 05:30:13 GMT

In the tradition of minifesto and signbot, I'd like to share my latest project, screedbot. It has a size setting specially intended for LJ userpics and will let you upload the result directly to your userpic list.

The results look like this:

You can tweak the font size and colors. It'll fit a few hundred letters before it exceeds the max LJ userpic size.

Enjoy screedbot!

edited to add: alogic kindly pointed me to a font with Cyrillic glyphs, so now you can write some screeds in Russian.

get_lj_opml.rb - authenticated and "more valid" blogrolls

Wed, 30 Jan 2008 18:50:43 GMT

get_lj_opml.rb is a simple script to download and convert the "reading lists" that LiveJournal-based sites produce. The reading list is basically a listing of the feeds for every journal/community/syndication that you list as a "friend".

Some feed readers allow you to subscribe to such "reading lists" (aka blogrolls), which lets you view all of the feeds separately. This is related to, but different from, importing "reading lists"; if you subscribe, then feeds will be added and removed from your view as they are added and removed from the "reading list".

So, in the case of LiveJournal-based sites, this means that you can subscribe to the automatically-generated "reading list" and read feeds in your feed reader. When you add someone as a "friend" on the website they will be added in your feed reader. Similarily, when you remove someone as a "friend" they will be removed from your feed reader.

Of course you can subscribe to (journal) feeds without adding them as a "friend", completely independent of the "reading list".

Installation:

You must have Ruby installed on your system. No additional libraries/gems/etc. are required. Simply run get_lj_opml.rb (after you've configured it). You'll most likely want to run it periodically.

If you do not have Ruby, you can download it from the official site. If you're running *nix, your package/software manager probably includes it and you can install it using that.

On *nix, you can use cron jobs for this. Edit your "crontab" using

crontab -e

and add a line like

0 * * * * /path/to/get_lj_opml.rb /path/to/conf.yml

The above would run /path/to/get_lj_opml.rb with the configuration file /path/to/conf.yml once an hour. Refer to your cron documentation for more information. Common problems include not having cron installed and running and the user (you) not having permission to use cron (frequently the user needs to be in the "cron" or "crontab" group).

Configuration:

A number of sample configuration files are provided in conf_examples/ ; They should be fairly self explanatory.

storage_dir - where the OPML files will be stored
the script will create a storage_dir/server_domain/source_user_name/ directory. Within it will be two or three files:
- opml - this is the converted reading list; subscribe to this
- orig_opml - the downloaded reading list
- orig_opml_old - the previously downloaded reading list
The script only creates a new opml file if orig_opml and orig_opml_old are different.
domain - the domain of the LiveJournal-based site. For example, if the front page is at http://www.livejournal.com/ the domain is www.livejournal.com . The critical thing is that http://domain/tools/opml.bml be the "reading list" generator's page (replace domain, of course)
login - if present, this information will be used to login and get friends-only entries. See the "Authentication" section below for more information.
- username - the username to use
- password - the password to use
sources - a list of usernames on the site to get reading lists for. Usually this is just your own, but you can add others as well (who people list as friends is not considered private information by the LiveJournal server software)

Note: the configuration is in YAML

Details (about the conversion):

This script was written due to compatibility problems with liferea (a feed reader for Linux); Attempting to subscribe to the "reading list" directly just resulted in a bunch of folders being created. The key problem is that the feed URL was given in an xmlURL attribute instead of an xmlUrl attribute. This script "corrects" the case. It also changes a text attribute to a title attribute, because this seems to be the more common usage.

Authentication (optional):

If your feed reader (like liferea) supports HTTP digest authentication, you can access friends-only entries in your feed reader. Please note that this is completely different from HTTP basic authentication; if you try to use the login feature of this script with a feed reader that does not support HTTP digest authentication, you will almost certainly get an error.

Also, even if your feed reader supports digest authentication, if the login information is wrong, your reader will not receive a feed at all and will probably report an error.

Security:

All passwords are stored in plain text (in both configuration and opml files). You should set the file permissions to prevent other users on your computer from reading them. The script does this automatically for the opml files it generates (or at least attempts to, it probably doesn't work under Windows :( ). Sadly, there does not seem to be a way to avoid this right now.

Also, plain HTTP is used (no encryption or site authentication) so this is vulnerable to nasty "man-in-the-middle" attacks ... but so is your usual web browsing.

Zip file PGP signature
MD5 checksum: eb4bdb949e73f866d969d265d7a04ec4

Friend Journal Name Quiz

Thu, 10 Jan 2008 11:33:00 GMT

I've developed a new toy, which quizzes the user about the names of their friends' journals:
http://www.holkar.net/cgi-bin/undying/friend_name_quizzer.pl
(It ignores journals that don't have names, and those with names that contain the username, which in my flist's case cuts it down quite a bit.)

Any comments, suggestions for improvements, etc, very welcome!

merge_tags.exe

Tue, 18 Dec 2007 13:41:36 GMT

Due to a popular demand, I produced an executable version of the script that merges tags. It can be downloaded from here. While at that, I've made some minor changes, hopefully it works better now.

P.S. If, for some reason, you want to remove a tag from all the posts it appears on, without actually deleting it (for example, if you want to create new tags without going under the 1000 tags limit, by recycling the old ones), put it alone on a line, preceded by a coma.

mass merge tags

Sat, 15 Dec 2007 00:04:45 GMT

Recently a limitation of 1000 tags was put in place. Some of you may find it hard to believe, but there are communities, that've hit this ceiling long ago (one community I'm moderating had over 6000 tags when this limitation was announced). I've written a small script that helps solve the problem. You give it a list of (probably erroneous) tags to merge, and a tag to merge to, and it replaces all the erroneous tags with the correct one. Here it is:

http://blog-tools.googlecode.com/files/merge_tags.py

(need python to run it)

You will have to create a file with the lists of tags to process. Each line (consisting of coma separated tags) in that file corresponds to a group of tags to merge (with the first one being the one to merge into). For example, if you want to merge all the foo into bar, the file will look like this:

bar,foo

To get the list of options, run the script with -h.

HTH

LJ Thread Unfolder w/ Unfold All, for all layouts (greasemonkey)

Sat, 24 Nov 2007 14:46:15 GMT

This script adds unfold functionality to LJ, it will unfold comments that have been hidden without having to reload the page or browse to a different page.

Originally by Tim Babych and extended by Henrik N, I've updated this Greasemonkey script to work with most/all LJ layouts.

This greasemoneky script was brought to my attention because it didn't seem to work when someone had a custom layout, it only worked with the default layout and that isn't very helpful. I decided to fix that problem and also make it a bit quicker than the previous versions.

I'm still working on a few technical bits, some features aren't 100% functional but overall it works great and makes my LJ browsing experience far more enjoyable. I hope you guys enjoy it as much as I do and if you have any questions, comments, or suggestions please let me know!

I've also cross posted this to my journal mrmord and the greygullsfly comm.

Download Here

Known Issues:
- Does not keep users layout settings for unfolded comments
- Does not retain original recursive unfolding feature (wip)

Compatibility
It has been confirmed to work with the following browsers and scripting engines
- Safari - greasekit
- Opera - userjs
- Firefox - Greasemonkey

This script also works on the following LJ clones
- LiveJournal
- InsaneJournal
- GreatestJournal
- JournalFen

Update 1:
I've fixed it so that this should work with all layouts now, original and S2.
I've also added the unfold all back to the script

Update 2:
Sped up unfolding and fixed a bug that caused blank bars when using safari with greasekit. Also updated a few layout bugs, should be more compatible with all layouts now.

Update 3:
Fixed compatibility with Opera, requires a greasemonkey userjs script found here: http://www.howtocreate.co.uk/operaStuff/userjs/aagmfunctions.js
Added insanejournal.com and greatestjournal.com to the included scripts page

Update 4:
Made script even more compatible with more layouts

Update 4.1:
More of the same
Added journalfen.net to included scripts

Update 4.2:
Fixed for more layouts, again!

New LJ skins, including Visions v2!

Sat, 10 Nov 2007 18:57:15 GMT

You may remember that some time ago, I made a skin to transform Vertigo into a Dystopia lookalike, while the scheme was in beta. Unfortunately, when the scheme finally got released, the skin was incompatible with it. I've made changes to the skin to update it to work with the released version, but I haven't made a post to advertise it until now; other people started making their own skins using the GM script as a base, and I figured it would be a good idea to organise a community based on these skins.

I'm proud to say that I've finally gotten off my lazy ass enough to actually write this post about the new skins which have been made so far. :D There are a selection of four in total:

Visions v2 - a Dystopic Vertigo by ciaran_h - this is the new version of my original Visions skin linked above, designed to skin Vertigo to look like Dystopia.

LJ Vertigo v.1 by snakeling - if you liked the look of the original Vertigo when it was in beta - with the dark blue sidebar and the userpic sensibly centered - here's the skin for you.

Eat Your Greens by uniquewonders - this is the first skin I've seen built so far to be built in parts - if you don't want to apply the whole thing, you can apply only the parts you *do* want, whether that's the navigation header area, the homepage styling, or various other parts of the site. Apart from that, it's a nice skin that needs to be seen to be really appreciated.

Halloween 2007 by ciaran_h - this skin recreates the look of LiveJournal as it was during Halloween 2007.

If you last installed the Greasemonkey script before the 1st of November, 2007, please uninstall it and reinstall it with these instructions for whichever browser you're using. There have been several important changes to the script code, and some skins may not work properly without the latest code.

Screenshots of the skins!

Visions v2 - a Dystopic Vertigo:

LJ Vertigo v.1:

Eat Your Greens:

Halloween 2007:

You can comment on these skins either here on this post or in their individual posts; just click the appropriate link for the latter.

Thanks for reading! Hopefully you'll enjoy these skins. :)

How to Turn Snap On and Off

Sat, 03 Nov 2007 06:49:04 GMT

It's easy to disable Snap on your Live Journal -- just click on the gear icon in the upper-right corner of any preview and select the "Disable" option.

You could also go to the Snap FAQs to turn Snap off globally, for all websites. (For best results, clear your cache first.)

But both these options place a cookie on your computer. Whenever you delete your cookies, Snap will be re-activated. If you clear your cookies regularly, or if you cannot accept cookies on your computer for whatever reason, what can you do?

If you use Firefox with Adblock Plus, as I do, just add .snap.com/$script and i.ixnp.com to your Adblock Plus filters.

There are similar options for other browsers. spacecowb0y has been collecting instructions from other LJ users on how to turn off Snap in IE, Opera, Safari, Camino, etc. in this post. I have not verified that any of them work (except for Adblock Plus). But they all seem to have been used successfully by other LJ users.

If you want to turn Snap on, look for the adblocking software on your computer and make sure that snap.com and ixnp.com are NOT filtered out. Also, enable Graphic Previews in your LJ Viewing Options.

comp.internet.services.blog.livejournal

Wed, 31 Oct 2007 19:41:59 GMT

The Usenet newsgroup comp.internet.services.blog.livejournal (also available through Google Groups) was recently created. Part of the point of this group is to allow for ongoing discussions of LiveJournal issues, separate from LJ itself; this would be, in my opinion, beneficial for both technical and social reasons. It's obviously not intended to be a replacement for groups like this, lj_dev, etc, but it would offer a nice supplement.

Thoughts? Suggestions?

Cuz the Face Ain't Listening

Sun, 14 Oct 2007 08:04:38 GMT

I hacked up vinnie_tesla's Talk To the Hand script to work on usernames rather than tags, so you can hide untagged community posts: Cuz the Face Ain't Listening -- Expressive. Currently only for the Expressive layout; I'll try to add other versions as I have time. No promises, but if you comment with layout requests including a journal with that layout where I can test, it will help me figure out which to do next.

Note: vinnie_tesla's journal contains sexual language, but I don't see any explicit images at the time of this writing. As always, follow links at your own risk.

New and improved Friends-page news feed style

Sun, 16 Sep 2007 18:21:54 GMT

I've created a custom journal style that lets you subscribe to your LiveJournal Friends page in your favorite RSS/Atom news-reader application (Safari, NetNewsWire, FeedDemon, etc.)

Why Is This Cool?
• A news-reader will automatically check for new posts and download them in the background.
• It can notify you of new unread posts.
• You can read posts when you're offline, like on a train.
• It can archive and index all your friends' posts, making them easily browseable and searchable.
• You can read your friends' journals in the same application you use to read other blogs and news sites.

Isn't There Already A Style That Does This?
There are two earlier RSS styles that I've found. Mine is based on one of them, but it's improved:
• It gets the times right. The earlier styles didn't handle posts from other time-zones correctly.
• It shows the quality LiveJournal metadata you expect: userpics, mood, music, friends-only status, author names in community posts.
• It generates Atom, which is a newer, better-designed feed format. News-readers all support Atom as well as RSS, so the only difference this should make to you is that it's less likely there will be parsing problems that cause some of the text or titles to be garbled, which can happen with RSS.

Here's a screenshot of what a post looks like in Safari's news-reader:

How To Install It.

(Read on for the directions...)

Sat, 04 Aug 2007 13:13:03 GMT

Am I the only one who objects to the new, cluttered look of the LJ Inbox page? If not, you can try this GM script. It was generated automatically with the Firefox addon Platypus and the coding is probably horrible, but...as I do not know Javascript, it is the best that I can do! And though the page still does not look the same as it used to, or even good, if you don't like the new options to the side it looks better. Since the inbox default option is to "All," this script does not impede functionality, just leaves all the messages in your inbox together as they were before.

Of course, if this inspires anyone who knows JS to come up with a better hack, I would be thrilled. ^^

Edit: As this is a Greasemonkey script, you have to install both Firefox and Greasemonkey before installing LJ New Inbox Fix. They're well worth installing on their own merit, even if you don't like my fix.

Edit again: Can also be used in Opera!

LJ Friendsmap update

Tue, 10 Jul 2007 01:36:02 GMT

Just a quick note - I've fixed my LJ Friendsmap tool, which scrapes the location info from your friends' profile pages and then assembles their locations on a Google Map, so that it now supports communities as well.

It's still slooooow, and doesn't update you while it's working, so be warned, it may try your patience. Gets there in the end, though. (Or at least it should. Send me an email if it doesn't.)

Scroll down to the bottom of the home page for a link to the code, which is GPLv2.

roflbot for lj, or: LOL-ICONS!

Wed, 13 Jun 2007 04:01:21 GMT

I made roflbot a month ago and it's been neat to see various LJ image macro communities using it for pictures (my favorite so far: ihasatardis). I just updated roflbot with a customized mode for adding text to LJ userpics. If you type in your username, you'll get a selection screen for one of your userpics:

After you select a userpic, you can add text to it, move the text around with the mouse, then save the final image back to your LJ userpic list with just a couple clicks. No graphics program needed!

You can start from the main roflbot page or the special LJ start page.

Enjoy!

Feeding time

Thu, 07 Jun 2007 11:15:48 GMT

Here's a silly LJ 'personality test'. It uses three of the feeds described at the LJ bots page - the interests feed has a handy list of the popularity of each interest a user lists; then there's the list of friends/friendsof; and the RSS feed to grab a recent entry and run a readability index on it.

So, lj_nifty, your LiveJournal reveals...

You are... 0% unique and 9% herdlike
(partly because you, like everyone else, enjoy learning).
When it comes to friends you are a total whore. In terms of the way you relate to people, you believe in give and take.

Your writing style (based on a recent public entry) is intellectual.

Your overall weirdness is: 27

(The average level of weirdness is: 28.
You are weirder than 56% of other LJers.)

Find out what your weirdness level is!

Talk To The Hand: userscript for hiding tagged entries

Mon, 23 Apr 2007 23:26:16 GMT

Talk To The Hand is a Greasemonkey userscript that allows Firefox users to hide entries with selected tags from your Livejournal friends page view. This edition is only known to work with the A Sturdy Gesture page layout. Ports to some other layouts should be trivial (I plan to do a Generator one this afternoon), but I haven't manged to figure out a general solution. If you port it to another layout, please post a comment about it, or let me know by e-mail.

When you install the script, go to the Manage UserScripts form and replace my username with your own in the "included pages" field. When you view your friendspage, there will be a little x by every tag. If you click on it, and then confirm your choice, the page will reload with all entries by that user with that tag removed.

If you want to restore a tag you previously chose to hide, click on the tally of removed entries at the top of the page, and you'll get a menu of tags to restore.

TODO:
* Ports to other layouts
* Decent error-handling
* Add support for hiding community posts by specified users

My thanks to boutell, whose ljwho userscript provided much of the inspiration and some of the sourcecode for this project.

CUSTOMIZATION TIPS:

If you're lucky, all you have to change is the classname in line 42 and the ID in line 50. Use the DOM Inspector (accessable from Tools or right-clicking on your friends page and selecting "Inspect Element") to find if entries have a unique classname, and if the element above them in the hierarchy has an ID. This is easier than it sounds.

UPDATE:

Added a version for Expressive

Text Message Alerts for Livejournal?

Sat, 21 Apr 2007 13:09:28 GMT

Save yourself the $10 a month, there are several places that will do this for free, they will all utilize the RSS feed of your journal.

RSS is a pretty incredible tool, it's like friends list for the entire internet, you might know that your journal has one, just add /data/rss to the end of your livejournal url.

Mine is http://livejamie.livejournal.com/data/rss

Now you can take this URL and go to several different places to get updates when I update!

Several places that will send Text Alerts for Free to your Cell (Text Message Rates Apply of Course)

1) Rasasa
http://rasasa.com/

2) ZapTXT
http://zaptxt.com/

3) Yahoo! Mobile Alerts
http://alerts.yahoo.com/main.php?view=blogs

4) Zingku
http://zingku.com/