MozRepl

One of the recurring problems I have with Mozilla products is that they are essentially unscriptable using technology I know how to use. XPCOM has no Perl support (apparently it started to, at one time, but that module seems to have been dropped along the way), and the only real recourse appears to be embedding of JavaScript through mechanisms I don't really have the time to understand.

Well - no more. I learned of the existence of MozRepl, which is a plugin that provides a local telnet command line that can be used to inject JS into running Mozilla-based applications (Firefox and Thunderbird being the ones I actually care about). And MozRepl does have a Perl module to talk to it.

So that's another option I have for automating my work. I'm not 100% sure yet how best to use it, but at least I know it's there.

NinjaBlocks

NinjaBlocks is a neat-o series of home automation blocks on the cheap.

Sikuli

Sikuli is a cute idea: a scripting language (built on Python) for graphical environments that uses optical processing to find bits of screen to automate.

Grunt

Grunt seems like an interesting JavaScript-based development workflow/build automation system.  This is the kind of task automation I'm spending a lot of time thinking about these days.

Target application: web automation

So I found this linked from PC World. Nice feature list. English, maybe a little rocky... My guess is it's based on OLE automation of IE, which is almost interesting. It's cognate to any other way of automating a Web bot. (Note to self: think harder about cognate tasks.)

Description of Djuggler Enterprise

Data Juggler automates repetitive Web & data tasks without programming code. Use it to create sophisticated scripts for collecting data from the Web, filling Web forms, transforming text files, XML, CSV and database data. The easy-to-use drag-and-drop interface creates scripts that can be deployed as stand-alone Windows executables. Typical application examples:

• Extract competitor's price list from Web pages regularly.
• Extract people data from a Web pages.
• Download Web images op a regular basis.
• Get search results from multiple search engines.
• Automated Web testing and load testing.
• Export data to Web based applications using fill Web forms.
• Automate web based workflow processes like timesheets.
• Search & replace actions to clean data.
• Transform data from one format to another.
• Convert data from legacy applications to industry standards.
• Automate database migration with Business Intelligence.
• Comparing data and create reports.
• Send emails with personalized attachments.
• Server monitoring and reporting.
• Synchronize folders, databases, etc.
• Automate file management & data backup.

Automate IT operations by deploying stand-alone Djuggler scripts. The powerful script designer has many actions and functions like loops, 'if then else' conditions, get text between from html, get html table, get pictures, strip HTML, web macro's, read and save Excel, support for popular databases and many more. Demo's are included in the setup. Visit www.djuggler.com for the script repository and script service. A Djuggler Personal edition is available as freeware.

Keywords: Web data collection, Application Integration, Data Aggregation, Data Transformation, Report Generation, Batch Processing, Business Intelligence, System Monitoring, Form Filling, Web Scripting, Data Extraction, Web Testing.

Ifttt.com: Neat automation service

Ifttt.com: lets you build little web robots that update every 15 minutes and can take API actions. Pretty neat!