Faster Grooveshark Search Add-on for Firefox (auto-suggest feature)

Kieran McCarthy — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 23:59:55 +0000

I coded this firefox add-on to query the Grooveshark search site much quicker than their standard search tool add-on.

Grooveshark currently provide a useful search add-on, it installs Grooveshark search to your current list of search engines within Firefox. By searching for an artist or song you are directed to the Grooveshark website and results are displayed.

I re-coded their XML install file to include a live suggest feature pulling related words as you type from Yahoo to speed up your search query.

Examples:

1. The below image shows the default Grooveshark add-on, you have to type in the artist and song title and then click on the magnify button to complete a search:

2. And here is my improved version in action, as you type you will be prompted with relevant words speeding up your search, no need to click on magnify button. Just type, select, go.

Try It Out:

If you haven’t installed the Grooveshark search add-on for Firefox please try my version:
“Click here to install Firefox Grooveshark auto suggest search add-on”

Note* I would prefer you install it via my Firefox Official Plugin page: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/14319 this allow me to track downloads, installs and reviews etc.

How to uninstall:

To uninstall the add-on just select “Manage Search Engines” from your drop down list then select and remove it.

Hope it improves your search speed on Grooveshark

Note: This add-on will install to “Microsoft Internet Explorer” browser but the auto suggest feature is disabled.

What is Grooveshark ?

Grooveshark is a Rich Internet Application, (RIA) written in ActionScript using the Adobe Flex framework which runs in Adobe Flash. Its design implements various sliding panels to categorize and display lists of information, similar in style to that of the Apple iPhone. A right-aligned black modal window also slides in to display more information for songs, playlists, and users.

Grooveshark also lets users upload music to their online music library through a Java Web Start application. The upload program scans folders specified for mp3′s, uploading and adding them to the user’s online library on the service. The ID3 information of the uploaded song is linked to the user and the file is uploaded to Grooveshark which allows on-demand music playback. Collectively, each user’s uploaded library is available to any user of Grooveshark. All content on the service is user-sourced.

The website also allows users to upload music files on their hard drive to the search database, resulting in constant growth of its library.

Backup, Backup, Backup!

Kieran McCarthy — Thu, 21 May 2009 02:34:30 +0000

My Dell Inspiron 1720 Laptop recently was me giving trouble where by it started to hang for no apparent reason. One minute I’d be working away contently with very few applications running, next “Bang!” it would freeze with a constant (Vista) spinning icon and a screen that turned opaque white. Nothing I could do to rectify it only to wait… and wait… and wait… by running Windows Task Manager I noticed the CPU Usage was running at a near constant 90% all the time which was pretty high. I tried all sorts of tips from registry defrag to killing unnecessary startup processes even being suspect of Firefox sucking up resources but no luck to be had.

It finally ground to a halt and would not boot up so with the laptop still in warranty I called Dell to arrange a repair, strangely enough they sent out a repair tech a few days later who discovered the problem was a screwed up motherboard which was replaced. It was also recommended that I format my hard drive and re-install Windows (Bloody) Vista. At this point I decided to back up my laptop data to an external hard drive via USB. I left it transferring all files overnight and presumed all was ok with no error messages that anything went wrong with the transfer, having backed up I was happy to prepare for formatting the drive and re-installing.

Dell arranged a phone call and a talk through of the reinstall. All went well and at last the laptop is back to peak performance so tonight it was time to hook up my external drive and transfer my stuff back . BUMP! nothing there! yes there was a c: drive backed up with full windows directory etc. but no “My Music” – “My Videos” and worst of all no “My Pictures” aaaaahhhhhhh!!!!!!!

No pictures!!! over a years worth of photos… nowhere to be found. Family snaps, birthdays, events, creative pics… all gone… thank f**k I had uploaded a few of those pics to my flickr account…. and all for the sake of a couple of backup DVD’s!