DD32 used his awesome Googling skills to find this page in the TortoiseSVN docs that talks about automation. Turns out you can launch TortoiseSVN via the command line, have it update the folder(s), and then close when done. So here’s an updated guide.

These instructions are for Vista, but they are likely similar for XP.

1. If you don’t already have TortoiseSVN installed, download and install it.
2. If you don’t already have a copy of WordPress checked out to a folder, do it. WordPress’ in-development SVN URL is http://svn.automattic.com/wordpress/trunk/
3. Start -> Control Panel -> Administrative Tools -> Task Scheduler
4. On the right, click on “Create Task” (not the basic one)
5. Fill out as follows. Paths will likely be different! Click for bigger versions and hover over the images (even when the lightbox is up) to display the comment text.

Done!

To test it to make sure it’s working properly, delete a few non-custom files from your SVN’ed folder. wp-trackback.php, xmlrpc.php, etc. are good test files. Then click on “Task Scheduler Library” in Task Scheduler (it’s on the left), click once on your new task, and then click “Run” on the right-hand side. If it’s working properly, the files your deleted will be restored.

This post has been deprecated as a better method was discovered. Please see this other post for details.

Full credit for figuring this out for me on IRC goes to Ryan McCue.

I have multiple WordPress alpha installs on my computer. I use them for development and it’s a “pain” having to constantly update them manually. So here’s an awesome solution to keep them up to date automatically.

These instructions are for Vista, but they are likely similar for XP.

1. Using TortoiseSVN or whatever your regular SVN client is, check out a copy of WordPress (or whatever) to a folder. WordPress’ in-development SVN URL is http://svn.automattic.com/wordpress/trunk/.
2. Download and install CollabNet’s command line SVN client (no need for the server). You can use it alongside TortoiseSVN with no problems. If you don’t want to register on their site in order to download, use BugMeNot.
3. Start -> Control Panel -> Administrative Tools -> Task Scheduler
4. On the right, click on “Create Task” (not the basic one)
5. Fill out as follows. Paths will likely be different! Click for bigger versions and hover over the images (even when the lightbox is up) to display the comment text.

Done!

To test it to make sure it’s working properly, delete a few non-custom files from your SVN’ed folder. wp-trackback.php, xmlrpc.php, etc. are good test files. Then click on “Task Scheduler Library” in Task Scheduler (it’s on the left), click once on your new task, and then click “Run” on the right-hand side. If it’s working properly, the files your deleted will be restored.

Clicking on “Download iTunes” does nothing. Awesome.

You can download it right here. I’m off to do it myself!

Open your Bookmarks and add a new Bookmark to the “Bookmarks Toolbar” folder in Firefox (sorry IE users, you’re on your own). Name it anything (I did “Translate”) and for the location, enter this:

javascript:void(location.href='http://translate.google.com/translate?tl=en&u='+location.href)

That should make a new button show up in your toolbar and when you click it, it will take you to Google and translate the website into English.

Oh, and before you complain about the “awesome bar” (aka the new address bar), give it a few days to learn your browsing habits. It’s sorting order will greatly improve as you surf the web.

Back in the day, I used to just use the same password (well, a couple really, but still) on all sites I had to register on. This made it easy to remember, but the problem is that if one of my accounts was compromised, that password could be used to get into all of my other accounts.

So, for a while, I used a random password generator extension for Firefox, but it was slow and relied on Firefox remembering all my passwords (what happens if my hard drive died?).

Enter the ingenious SuperGenPass. It combines the two solutions I used previously. From the FAQ:

A bookmarklet is a chunk of JavaScript code stored in your Web browser as a bookmark or favorite. There’s no software to install, so you can use SuperGenPass across all platforms and in any modern Web browser. It also makes it easy to use on public computers where access rights may be restricted.

How it works

SuperGenPass uses your master password and the domain name of the Web site you are visiting as the “seed” for a one-way hash algorithm. The output of this algorithm is your generated password. If either your master password or the domain name of the Web site changes, even by one character, the generated password will be drastically different.

For example, let’s say that your master password is “cornflakes”. If you use SuperGenPass at yahoo.com, your generated password will be “r9AQeOhBgU”. If you use SuperGenPass at amazon.com, your generated password will be “zcbEm1t32B”. SuperGenPass doesn’t need to remember this or store it anywhere, because it’s just a (very complex) math problem: the result is the same every time. And because SuperGenPass uses a one-way hash function, no one will be able to reverse-engineer your master password from your generated passwords.

Simply put, you come up with one password and SuperGenPass will generate a unique, re-creatable password for any domain name you visit. It even fills in the password fields for you. I’ve dragged it up onto my top toolbar in Firefox, so I just click it and bam, I’m done.

No more having to remember more than one password or worry about your password being stolen and used on multiple sites.

Firefox v2.0 Final was released yesterday. All you FF users, go upgrade! And to you IE users out there (even IE7 ones), please oh please try out Firefox or at least Opera. Anything but that insecure piece of shit IE.

You can go read the release notes or download it now.