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By Rahul Saigal Edited by Justin Pot share: This manual is the intellectual property of MakeUseOf. It must only be published in its original form. Using parts or republishing altered parts of this guide is prohibited without permission from MakeUseOf.com Think you’ve got what it takes to write a manual for MakeUseOf.com? We’re always willing to hear a pitch! Send your ideas to justinpot@makeuseof.com; you might earn up to $400. WEB AUTOMATION PART 2 Table Of Contents 3. Do More in Less Time  5 3.1 Automate your repetitive tasks in web browser 5 3.2 Automatically fill in repetitive web forms 7 Tips: 9 3.3 Automate Your To-do List 9 3.4 Retrieve Citations For Your Research 12 Citelighter 12 Zotero 14 Tips: 15 3.5 Send your bookmarks or Evernote notebooks to your Kindle 16 Sending Articles to Kindle 17 Evernote to Kindle 18 3.6 Create your own personalized RSS feeds 19 4. Do More With Your Data in the Cloud  22 4.1 Question yourself before choosing any cloud service 22 4.2 Automate backups of your email and sort your files in the cloud 23 A. Back up to new Gmail account: 23 B. Backup to Hotmail: 23 C. Backup to Dropbox: 23 4.3 Schedule cloud hosting data backups 25 4.4 Automate your daily tasks in the cloud 26 Wappwolf Account and Mobile Apps 28 Tips 28 5. Hack and Control Your Website  30 5.1 Why is Google Analytics paramount for webmasters? 30 5.2 Automate Google Analytics reporting 31 5.3 Publish your blog content to social media automatically 36 5.4 Schedule your website backup 39 Automated backup solutions for your site 41 Conclusion HTTP://MAKEUSEOF.COM RAHUL SAIGAL  3 share: WEB AUTOMATION PART 2 Welcome to Part 2 of the MakeUseOf guide to Web Automation! Be sure to check out Part 1 before reading Part 2: HTTP://MAKEUSEOF.COM RAHUL SAIGAL 4 share: WEB AUTOMATION PART 2 3. Do More in Less Time 3.1 Automate your repetitive tasks in web browser These days, the web browser is probably the application you use most, but many of the tasks you perform using it are repetitive – checking on the same website everyday, remembering passwords, filling out forms, information gathering or testing websites over and over again. With iMacros, we can record tasks once and then let iMacros execute them whenever you need them. iMacros can even assist you during the recording with visual feedback. The iMacros extension is available for Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome and Internet Explorer. After installing, you’ll see an iMacros icon in the browser toolbar and it will open in the sidebar. The fundamental function of the iMacros is to record a task, and this can be performed by the Record button. Then just do your thing: iMacros keeps track of what you do and can play it back later. Let’s try this out. We’ll create a basic macro, to show you how it works. 1. Let’s say you want to track the release channel information of Firefox, to see the changes in upcoming versions. 2. Click the Record button by activating the second tab (Rec). It will start recording. HTTP://MAKEUSEOF.COM RAHUL SAIGAL 5 share: WEB AUTOMATION PART 2 As you see above, I am in the Firefox Wiki page and my interest is to study the Release Tracking page. So iMacros will record the mouse click and sequence from this webpage onwards. Above we can see that iMacros sidebar window consist of the variable information: a. Version Build of iMacros. b. URL go to – Firefox Wiki. c. Release Tracking. d. HTML Tree Editor. 3. After recording the sequence, go to the first tab and click Play to see the magic. 4. Now we’ll add this macro to a bookmark. Right-click it and select Add to Bookmark. HTTP://MAKEUSEOF.COM RAHUL SAIGAL 6 share: WEB AUTOMATION PART 2 Now we can launch this macro from your bookmarks with single click. 5. We can Rename it, or we can see this macro in a New Folder. If one of my friends is also interested in this information I can click the third tab (Edit) and click Share Macro. iMacros also offers the option to save the macro, to take the screenshot of the webpage and can even delete the cache and cookies. We can click Edit Macro to view all the code it generates during the recording. An entire reference of the commands and how to use them can be found here. 3.2 Automatically fill in repetitive web forms We all use them constantly: Web forms. They’re any form on a webpage that allows a user to enter data. They can be used: 1. to enter shipping or credit card data to order a product. 2. to register in forums for interacting with the community. 3. comment forms to submit your viewpoint on the topic. 4. customer support forms to enter additional information like product serial numbers or models. In Opera and Google Chrome the auto-fill functionality is available out of the box. In Mozilla Firefox, we have the option of using the InformEnter, Fireform, and Autofill Forms extensions, while for Google Chrome you can use Autofill. InFormEnter is a flexible add-on that can semi-automate the process of filling out forms in the browser. It adds a small, clickable icon next to every input field in a web form, from where you can select the item to be inserted. You can configure this add-on to display your frequently used information. What I like about this add-on is its simplicity and support for different profiles so that I can use it in various situations. You can add as many profiles you want: HTTP://MAKEUSEOF.COM RAHUL SAIGAL 7 share: WEB AUTOMATION PART 2 1. Create a new profile: Comment Form. Click Ok. 2. In this comment form we will add our name, email address, and a spam check entry (it may not be valid for every comment form). 3. Input the menu item per line, which is name in one line, email in another and so on. After entering all details click Ok. 4. If I wish to comment in any article of MakeUseOf, just right click and enter the details. Do you see the blue-colored marker in every field? HTTP://MAKEUSEOF.COM RAHUL SAIGAL 8 share: WEB AUTOMATION PART 2 Simple, right? It’s a little more useful for longer forms, but I’m sure you get the idea. You could also make profiles for logins, such as Gmail and Facebook, but remember: this add-on does not give any option for encryption. Therefore I recommend you use a password manager for this functionality. Personally, I use Keepass to manage all my passwords. It is open source and gives you an option to auto-fill login information. Just take a look at this documentation. While you can sync the Keepass database with another computer by using Dropbox, it would be convenient if the database can be synced with any browser and device and also if you could access the database from anywhere in the world. For that there’s Lastpass and Dashlane, with the option of storing the password, automatically, fill the web forms with multiple profiles and even apps for your mobile. So, it’s up to you to find the right application for the job. Tips: • It’s happened to all of us: something goes wrong while filling out long web forms. There could be network issues, server issues, browser crashes, or power failures. So what you can do? Type it all again. There’s no need to, just install the add-on Lazarus: Form recovery. It will save your form securely as type, so you will never lose your work. • Most auto-fill web form tools permit us to create multiple profiles, but do we know how much sensitive information is stored in their database? Not only that, how do you clear private information, or take a backup of it? Now, it is possible to entirely control what is being stored and what needs to be cleaned or backed up. Just install the add-on form history control to manage web form data. • Do you register in forums by using your personal email address? You may not think there is a problem in doing this. However, if your email inbox is loaded with spam messages from that forum, then it’s really a problem. My recommendation is to create a disposable email address. You can use the add-on Trashmail.net or you can even create a separate disposable address for Gmail and Yahoo. • Do you ever find yourself grabbing the mouse seconds after going to a webpage, just to select an input form that should have been made active by the website? Cycle Input Focus removes this strain and you can keep your hands on the keyboard. I know we can use tab function on the keyboard, but with this extension you can scroll back and forth between input forms with a keyboard shortcut. • If you want to test any of these extensions before introducing it into your workflow, I highly recommend creating multiple profiles in Firefox. This way you can keep your main profile tidy and test add-ons in a different profile. 3.3 Automate Your To-do List A to-do list is just a list of things you need to do. Simple, but if used well, can help you process and exercise conscious control over the amount of time spent on specific activities. This is done so as to increase effectiveness, efficiency or productivity. What should an effective to-do list include? How should I write them? How to get the most from them? These are the frequent questions, all of which we will encounter while creating to-do lists. 1. Your calendar is your friend. Plan in advance. 2. Priority tasks should be in an upper hierarchy. See whether it can be divided into chunks. 3. Color code the prioritization, but don’t make everything red. 4. Choose the application that works for you best. Don’t consider an app that is overloaded with features. You may think it’s good, but at the end of the day, if you still can’t figure out how to use a particular feature it’s not useful. 5. A to-do list is a formulated plan, not a mundane or ancillary task list. For example, this list is not useful: • read email. • make coffee. HTTP://MAKEUSEOF.COM RAHUL SAIGAL 9 share: WEB AUTOMATION PART 2 • read daily newspaper. • write an email to the following person. 6. Make your to-do list goal oriented. Avoid describing the action and instead pinpoint the result. 7. A to-do list is not your journal or diary, so arranging it in a chronological order will probably be of no benefit. With that in mind, let’s discuss some tools that help keep your to-do list everywhere: Remember the Milk This is a simple, easy to use, feature-rich online to-do list that you can access from multiple devices. This include Android, iPhone, Blackberry and even Twitter. It also offers integration with Gmail and Google Calendar. You can tag and prioritize your tasks with different colors, and you can create different to-do lists for various purposes. Signing up for Remember the Milk is simple: just give your name and email address, then choose a desired screen name. After you’ve verified the email address you can log in to the dashboard and you can start entering tasks. There are three basic tabs (personal, study, work) that can be used to organize your tasks, as shown here: After adding a particular task, you can add a smart-add shortcut to it. Basically, this is just a syntax that will be a lot of help when you use a web app in relation to Remember the Milk (such as Gmail and Twitter). As you can see, I added a task with priority 1 with syntax (!). Now we can add a due date, tags and notes to this particular task. There are two other tabs (Inbox, Sent) that are useful if you use this tool with colleagues in a workspace environment. If someone sends you a task, it will show up in the inbox with all information included. If you need to send a task to someone else, you can do so by clicking on the task you’ve created, click the HTTP://MAKEUSEOF.COM RAHUL SAIGAL 10 share: