• Adds Favicons to tab labels
• Undo “Close Tab” (cmd-z)
• Auto-Closes download window
• Adds new tab position option (right/left/leftmost/rightmost)
• Always open links in a new tab
• Dated download folders

Head on over to the Mac Hangout or download your copy here.

UPDATE: This technique does not work with Safari 4 Beta. SIMBL has not been updated yet.

The first step is to install the plugin framework, SIMBL or Smart Input Manager Bundle Loader. SIMBL allows you to then install plugins for hundreds of Cocoa applications, Safari being one of them.

Once SIMBL is installed on your system you will want to take a look at two different plugins that will help you take control of Safari. The first plugin is called Stand. My favorite feature is the ability to set a “close window” timer for the downloads window. I set it to “0″ so that when I finish downloading a file, the downloads window disappears instantly.

Another great feature is the ability to force links to open in new tabs rather than new windows. Safari has this feature built in I believe, but it never seemed to work for me. Stand also gives you the ability to add a visual tab bar to your browser. This is a really neat feature that takes a quick screenshot of the site you are viewing and places it on the new tab bar. This way, you can see all the sites you have open visually, rather than just a title.

Stand has a lot more to offer. So download it here and give it a try.

The second plugin is called SafariTabs. I found this plugin when trying to help out a friend (klein maetschke) who wanted to load a certain page everytime he opened a new tab. SafariTabs gives you the ability to do that and a few other things. My favorite feature is Tab Restore. Have you ever closed a tab by accident? SafariTabs enables your ?Z combo to undo the closed window, GENIUS! My only question is, why isn’t this built into Safari in the first place?

There are a lot of other SIMBL plugins out there so get going and seek out your favorites!

Hey guys, just to let you know. If you were having troubles with the source code below, you may want to give it another go. The url for the API had changed and I hadn’t noticed it until now. Please copy and paste the code below into a new php file and give it a whir. Please let me know if you have any other problems. I am currently working on a very cool project that I think many of you will use in the future. Let’s just say that it will be the envy of all your xbox friends who don’t use Wordpress. Enjoy.

Sure you can login to xbox.com or possibly use your iPhone friends list application, but what about a way to display your Online Status anywhere on the web. Well here is your answer. After about of day of research and development I have come up with a solid solution that can be styled anyway you choose.

It turns out that one of the Xbox developers, Duncan Mackenzie has written a very valuable script that gathers a ton of information about Xbox Live users including: their online status, what games they have played recently and their achievement scores in each game. The problem is, he doesn’t explain in detail how to use his “Gamertag API” feed.

After understanding what all cURL was all about and how to parse through XML files using SimpleXML, I finally came up with my solution.

I advise you to take a look at my code and try it for yourself. I have also listed a few small requirements below the source code.

Also, be sure to install the PHP widget if you would like to run this code inside a widget on your sidebar.

<?php

$ch = curl_init("http://xboxapi.duncanmackenzie.net/gamertag.ashx?GamerTag=YOURGAMERTAG");

curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_CONNECTTIMEOUT, 4);

$data = curl_exec($ch);
curl_close($ch);

$xml = new SimpleXmlElement($data, LIBXML_NOCDATA);

foreach ($xml->PresenceInfo as $mystatus) 
{
print  '<div id="xboxlivestatus"><a href="' . $xml->ProfileUrl . '">' . $xml->Gamertag . '</a> is ' . $mystatus->StatusText . ' : ' . $mystatus->Info . '</div>';
}

?>

Requirements:

• You must be running PHP 5
• You must have cURL enabled
• Change YOURGAMERTAG to your personal gamertag

Once a commenter enters their information into my site’s comment section, Twittar automatically scours Twitter to find a matching email address. After Twittar finds said email address, it links the avatar on my site to the one the commenter is using as their Twitter avatar. It is actually a lot less confusing than it sounds and a very simple process. If you want awesome avatars spicing up your comments, be sure to check out Twittar.

Comment below to see your twitter avatar in action. (Be sure to use your Twitter email address when commenting)

Sure it’s going to be hard, sure it’s going to be a “trial and error” game, but it’s going to be a great learning experience and hopefully very useful tool.

The widget will be a sidebar version of my new favorite open source web app, OpenTape. See mine in action here. It will allow you to listen to your mixtape right on your sidebar.

OpenTape provides a sleek/simple/friendly way of sharing your mixtape with the world. You can load OpenTape up with as many songs as you want and send your friends a link to listen. OpenTape is hosted on your personal server so you have full control of your mixtape.

Check back soon for more updates on my progress. If you have any feature request please contact me at michael@michaelwschultz.com or leave a comment below.

All the fun started last night at midnight, so I’m guessing this is a Christmas Eve event, but what a fun one it is. Keep me posted if you win any apps. I won Mr. Sudoku (App Store link) last night on my third try!

Also, my new favorite iPhone App/Game is Touch Grind by Illusion Labs. This game takes the idea of the old finger boards and created a very polished iPhone app. There is a bit of a learning curve but once you get the hang of a few simple finger gestures you will be tricking around the park with style. Individual tricks are fairly simple, but I have had some trouble pulling off combos. 

I stumbled upon this game last week when I was surfing around the popular Mac design forum Macthemes2.net. I found a thread that teased being able to create your own skateboard designs and applying them to the game. What a cool addition. However I soon realized that you must have a Jailbroken iPhone/iTouch to do so. This is a feature that has already been suggested to the developers and hopefully will be integrated in a update down the road. Touch Grind (App Store Link) is also currently $4.99 so you may want to hold off for a bit.