Programmatically Detecting AdBlock Plus
One issue that comes up time and again when working on classified sites such as Daft.ie and Adverts.ie is the inadvertent blocking of site functionality by the AdBlock Plus extension. As so many parts of classified sites will logically have phrases like "ad" in the url, legitimate site content and features can be blocked inadvertently under the mistaken assumption that they're banner ads or the like.
So is there a way to detect whether a user has AdBlock Plus installed and change the output accordingly?
Bookmarklets – a quick explanation!
I've been tinkering quite a bit lately with improving the twitter web interface with the use of bookmarklets. I've put together a series of bookmarklets which allow you to do everything from apply custom filters to your twitter timeline, to removing the "Hovercards" which Twitter have recently added.
Most of the feedback I've received both in the comments here and on twitter has been very positive, but I've also heard from a few folk who have had difficulty actually saving the bookmarklets and getting them to work.
Admittedly, the posts on the bookmarklets did assume a certain level of technical know-how, so this post is intended as a quick intro for those who want to use the bookmarklets, but aren't quite sure where to start.