boring (II)

If the advice in the first part of this series did not work for you, or the book you picked is too long and you'd happily put it aside for a period, here is a new idea: code your own micro-project.

It should take you ~20 minutes per day, because what I am talking here is swapping your daily blog reading with coding. And it should be smart so that you don't get bored with your own chosen assignment.

It could require much thinking, as it's the case with an algorithm from commons you've been using and you are thinking to rewrite it and make it faster. It could require studying as it's the case with a new programming language in which you want to write a Hello World. It could require browsing the web in search of information as it's the case of a public web service with which you want to interact.

And here is my story: I've been using Google products for quite a while, indeed Reader is my first browser tab; and you've realized by now that I'm also a user of Blogger. Opening Blogger always required opening a new tab and typing the blogger URL, then hitting Enter :). Yes, it's a matter of seconds, but don't forget I needed an excuse to start my micro-project.

So I ventured into the realms of Greasemonkey and with this, into Javascript and DOM. I haven't been coding hard-core javascript since the days of Netscape 4.7, and here was my chance to code JS again. I heroically resisted the temptations jQuery laid in my path ... no, this time I'm not gonna let you help me, this time I want my hands dirty with JS.

Long story short, here is now the top of my Reader page, I am just one click away from you (would you be so kind to notice the link to Blogger that my script adds whenever I access a google page):