Compile LESS CSS files and compress/minify CSS and JS files using node.js

Here is what you need to do, in order to

- compile your LESS files into CSS whenever they are changed and also compress those CSS files into .min.css (*1)

- compress your JS files into .min.js whenever they are changed

The 2 scripts described here will automatically perform the above actions upon invocation and will then also set up a file-watcher on the specified directory.

But first:

- Download and install node.js from here.

- Download and install uglifyjs from here, using

npm install uglify-js --global

- Download and install LESS compiler from here, using

npm install less --global

Download this RAR file, which contains all the script files that I have modified, so all you need to do is adjust the contained sample batch file and off you go.

These scripts allow you to specify a source and a target directory.
For LESS/CSS, the LESS file is compiled into CSS in the same directory.
The CSS is then compressed into the target directory.

For JS, the js file is compressed into the target directory.

When you run the batch file, it will scan and process all matching files and then it will stay in the background, monitoring the source directory.

Many thanks to the guys that have created all of the above tools.
The original idea for this was from Jonathan Cheung's code here.



[Blatant plug! See my article about my album on Google Play.]

ps: Comments and/or links to this article are most welcome!

Monitor your Website’s Uptime with Google Docs

Here is a great GDocs script that will email you when your site goes down/up.

http://www.labnol.org/internet/website-uptime-monitor/21060/

Follow the instructions in the author's page and you will end up with your own copy of the script.
If you want to email multiple recipients instead of just the one, here are the changes I made to support that:

from line 47 onwards:

ScriptProperties.setProperty("status", code);

var recipients = email.split(";");
for (r in recipients) {
if (recipients[r] != "") {
MailApp.sendEmail(recipients[r], msg, error);
}
}
// end of code changes
Many thanks to the author +Amit Agarwal

ps: Comments and/or links to this article are most welcome!

proxy-based, automation and testing tool for web apps

Here is another proxy-based, automation and testing tool for web apps.

It is Sahi and is described as:

Sahi is an automation and testing tool for web applications, with the facility to record and playback scripts. Developed in java and javascript, this tool uses simple javascript to execute events on the browser.

Visit the above link for more info.
If you know of any other such tools, please leave a comment here.

Enjoy!

ps: Comments and/or links to this article are most welcome!