Blog | BenHollis.net » Amazon.com

Updated RIAA Radar Greasemonkey Script

Ben Hollis — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 07:01:38 +0000

Some time ago I came across the RIAA Radar site, which uses Amazon’s E-Commerce Web Service to cross-reference the labels musical albums are published under with known RIAA members. The idea is that you can use the service to help restrict your music purchases to labels that do not affiliate themselves with the RIAA, and by extension the RIAA’s strongarm tactics against music fans. I liked the idea but didn’t want to have to visit the site every time I looked at an album. Fortunately the site had a Greasemonkey script called RIAA Radar that would automatically insert a little icon on the Amazon detail page indicating whether it was from an RIAA label or not. Unfortunately, the script was broken. I went ahead and fixed up the script, as well as optimizing it and expanding its functionality. Since the site’s maintainer never accepted the revised version, so I’ve been maintaining a fork ever since.

Anyway, with the launch of Amazon’s new MP3 Downloads store, I figured I could get RIAA Radar working with that too. It turned out to be pretty easy, and I was able to fix a bad URL in the script while I was at it. So the script should serve music fans even better as they browse the DRM-free music available at Amazon.

Collapsible Amazon Greasemonkey Script Update

Ben Hollis — Sun, 09 Sep 2007 20:55:25 +0000

I’ve taken another crack at my Collapsible Amazon Greasemonkey script, and I think it’s pretty complete now. Once you’ve installed the script, you’ll be able to click on the orange title of any section of an Amazon product detail page to collapse it out of sight, and the script will remember your preference for other pages. So you can customize your product page however you like, and it’ll stay that way. This new version makes it possible to collapse any of the orange-titled sections in the page (in older versions, a couple of them weren’t collapsible), and collapsing a section will now get rid of everything in the section, not just the main part. It should be a much nicer experience overall, and result in cleaner, more relevant product pages for everyone.

Updated Collapsible Amazon

Ben Hollis — Fri, 01 Dec 2006 06:06:09 +0000

Just a quick heads up that I’ve uploaded a new version of Collapsible Amazon. It’s a Greasemonkey script that lets you collapse any section of the standard Amazon detail page. This update makes it work on a lot more sections – the only one it can’t collapse that I’ve found is the Customer Discussions section. Basically, wherever you see an orange header, you can click it and its content will disappear – and the script will remember that you want that type of section collapsed everywhere.

Honestly, I’m no fan of Jane Austen – I was just looking for a screenshot! If you like this script, you should check out some of my other Greasemonkey scripts.

Amazon Super Saver Snooper

Ben Hollis — Tue, 14 Mar 2006 11:52:17 +0000

I just release my newest Greasemonkey script: Amazon Super Saver Snooper. If you’re cheap like me, you always go for the free Super Saver shipping at Amazon.com (free shipping on orders over $25). It gets even better when you’ve got Amazon Prime (I got a 3-month free trial). And if you’re like me, you hate having to sift through the search results to find the items that are eligible for Super Saver. Well, that task has been alleviated by the power of Firefox and Greasemonkey. Just install my little script, and all the search results that are eligible for Prime / Super Saver will light up.

Another cool bit is that the script will update the prices shown in the search to the lowest price available from a Super Saver-eligible source. That way you don’t get suckered into looking at cheap items you’ll have to pay shipping on.

The script turned out to be pretty easy to write – it just calls the Amazon E-Commerce Web Service. I’m hoping to do some more cool stuff with that service in the future. If you’re into customizing Amazon don’t forget about my Collapsible Amazon script, too. And feel free to check out the rest of my scripts while you’re at it.