you may have heard me talking about bookmarklets a few times lately and wondered what i was carrying on about. i feel like i should expand on that a little bit, as well as get them all together in one place.
first things first- what is a bookmarklet?
according to wikipedia
A bookmarklet is an applet, a small computer application, stored as the URL of a bookmark in a web browser or as a hyperlink on a web page. The term is a portmanteau of the terms bookmark and applet. Whether bookmarklet utilities are stored as bookmarks or hyperlinks, they are designed to add one-click functionality to a browser or web page. When clicked, a bookmarklet performs some function, one of a wide variety such as a search query or data extraction. Usually the applet is a JavaScript program.
javascript is a client side scripting language. i will spare you the n3rdy links and just point out that scripts are either processed on the server side of the transaction, or the client side. php is an example of server side scripting.
these scripts will probably work in most web browsers, but i use firefox as my default, and i will assume that you do as well.
find your bookmarks toolbar- if it is not visible, now would be a good time to goto your view menu and enable it. right click the toolbar, and create a new folder. i named mine ‘twitter bookmarklets’ – the name does not matter (you don’t even need the folder, it just keeps things tidy)
if any of these appeal to you, all you need to do is drag the link into your new bookmarklet folder, and use them later.
USER INFORMATION
this first bookmarklet was inspired by when did you join twitter?, a handy site that provides you with the born on date for your (or anybody elses) twitter account.
HERE IS THE LINK: User Information
WHAT IT DOES: this script interacts with a server side script to provide a little bit of information about the people you talk to on twitter. one click will give you their born on date, user id (and a link to their rss feed – handy for crazies that are blocking you), friend and follower counts, and their average number of posts per day. all kinds of good stuff to help keep you paranoid 
HOW IT WORKS: select a username with your mouse, visit their profile page, or just click the button without selecting anything. if something is selected, a new browser tab will pop open taking you to the results. if nothing is selected, an input box will pop up and ask you to enter a name.
BLIND LINKS
this next script has already saved me a ton of time. we all spend so much time and energy (i hope) taking those damn shortened urls and going to preview pages to make sure we arent going to land anywhere sketchy. i used the information from DONT CLICK BLIND LINKS and tried to put it all into one bookmarklet.
HERE IS THE LINK: Blind Links
WHAT IT DOES: one click will pop a new tab containing the preview information for any is.gd, bit.ly, j.mp, or tinyurl.com link.
HOW IT WORKS: select a link from any of the supported shorteners (see above), and click the button.
RETWEET
some friends of mine were asking if it was possible to make a retweet button that would add in a timestamp, a hashtag, and maybe move the original poster’s name down to the end of the tweet. it didnt occur to me at the time, but its all come together now.
HERE IS THE LINK: Retweet
WHAT IT DOES: one click will convert your current local time to UTC+3:30 (Tehran) and include it at the front of your retweeted message. it will look for #iranelection in the post, and include it if not found. long chains of user names are removed, and the retweeted user is moved to the end, attributed in via format.
HOW IT WORKS: select the entire update you would like to retweet (username and update text) and click the bookmarklet. the script will populate the twitter update box- just review and submit!
i hope you find these helpful. thanks for visiting!