How To (Mostly) Block Ads in Fluid Apps

Fluid for the mac is a terrific piece of software. It allows you to create a separate “app” for specific web sites, and works especially well for websites that you frequently visit. For me, my RSS reader (which is google) is a constant go-to; it’s how I keep up with tons of blogs, etc. Other fluid apps I have setup are Brizzly, The New York Times web site, and Pandora. All good stuff.

One of my big frustrations, though, is that there is no ad blocking capability built-in to Fluid. (And there never will be.) Even if you add in an adblocker for Safari (Fluid basically runs a Safari browser), it will not carry through on Fluid apps.

I’ve searched several times for a solution, but have not found anything…until today. It’s not perfect, but works well enough.

Here’s how to do it.

I’m assuming here you have some experience with setting up Fluid, setting the allowed URLs, and all that. If not, please leave a comment, and I’m happy to provide more of a step-by-step.

First, download the CSS file found here at this site (the file is called userContent.css). This is built specifically built to block the images from well-known ad services.

Next, following the instructions here on a site for an unrelated application for Fluid, goto the Preferences inside your Fluid app, and select the “Userstyles” option. Once there, you’ll hit the plus sign, and check the box next to “URL Pattern.” in the right column box, type in an expression to allow the URL of your app. (This is the same thing you do under “Advanced,” where you allow the site’s URL.) For example, in my google reader fluid app, I simply put “*google.com*” (without the quotes…).

Below that, you’ll want to paste in the contents of the CSS file you downloaded in the first step. It’s easy to do — open the CSS file on your mac (using TextEdit, or, as on my mac, DashCode), select it all, and paste it into the field in the Fluid preferences.

Close the preferences window, reload your app, and the ads should (mostly) be gone. No more eye-burning ads on your screen!!!

Well, again, it’s mostly. It doesn’t work perfectly, as some get through. And I’ve only done limited testing, in just a couple apps.

But, so far, it’s the simplest way I’ve found to do this.

Punked

Balloon boy, all a big hoax, it seems…

Old Versus New Media: Food Writer Edition

Cook’s Illustrated editor Chris Kimball has thrown down the gauntlet!

If you haven’t been following this food blogger versus professional writer battle that’s been simmering, it started when Kimball wrote a fairly silly op/ed in the Times, bashing both the so-called amateurish writing of bloggers, as well as the larger movement of participatory culture that is happening in all areas of media, where “regular people” have been given a voice through social media. When it comes to food writing, Kimball doesn’t seem too keen on this at all:

…in a click-or-die advertising marketplace, one ruled by a million instant pundits, where an anonymous Twitter comment might be seen to pack more resonance and useful content than an article that reflects a lifetime of experience, experts are not created from the top down but from the bottom up.They can no longer be coronated; their voices have to be deemed essential to the lives of their customers.

Bloggers have hit back; in particular, Adam Roberts, over at the Amateur Gourmet, has a great response:

The derision and condescension in this statement is baffling. Every food writer—from MFK Fisher to Ruth Reichl herself—started at the bottom and worked their way up. Kimball, at the end of his column, invokes Julia Child, a cook who didn’t start her food career until much later in life. If she’d had a blog documenting her time at Le Cordon Bleu (and maybe she would have, if she’d been born a few decades later), would Kimball complain that she hadn’t spilled enough blood in the kitchen yet? That “inexperience rarely leads to wisdom?”

It’s naïve to think that all food writing on the web is created equal, that the “million instant pundits” are all valued the same. The truth is that there are, indeed, an enormous number of food blogs out there, but it’s still a meritocracy: only the good ones gain traction. The most popular food blogs are popular because of their quality; in many ways, their content is better than much of what you’ll find in actual food magazines, including Kimball’s.

Kimball comes across here as elitist, an old guard fighting off the new. If he doesn’t read food blogs, he’s missing out on a diverse world of recipes and ideas and perspective on food. His notion of an “anonymous Twitter comment” is also strange — while we may not see each other on Twitter, the people I talk to there are hardly strangers. And yes, if someone I follow (and trust) on Twitter makes a recipe or restaurant recommendation, I’ll surely be paying attention.

In any case, perhaps looking to settle this (or cash in on the controversy, more likely!), Kimball has upped the ante, challenging any recipe found on a wiki to one of his from the Test Kitchen:

So, I am willing to put my money, and my reputation, where my big mouth is. I offer a challenge to any supporter of the WIKI or similar concept to jump in and go head to head with our test kitchen. We will jointly agree on a recipe, on the rules, on a time frame, etc. At the end, we will ask a panel of impartial judges to make and test the recipes and declare a winner.

It’s a fantastic idea, and should be lots of fun.

Let the games begin!!!

A Keyboard for your iPhone?

Really?

If You Printed The Internet

More here.

Remembrance

Amazing photos.

Lindsay Graham’s Handrubsave

Via TPM:

I Love You Man

Wow was that an awful movie.

“Semantic Analysis”

The shiny new Web2.0 name for data mining.

Parasitic Media: Butcher Edition

A good example of parasitic media, this time involving, well, butchers.

What’s significant here, though, is there’s not a blogger in sight: New York mag writes a story, copied by the Times, copied by Nightline.

New York details the, um, “borrowing,” here.