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Archive for September, 2007

Search shortcuts for Firefox

Sep 27

Posted by Randy Hunt in Software

Everyone who has ever used my computer, even for a moment, has taken a particular liking to my search shortcuts — most notably gg, my shortcut to Google.

I’m doing Google searches all the time. Whenever I have a question about anything, I don’t hesitate to grab my laptop and look it up on Google. If I had to go to Google.com, wait for the site to load, and click in the search box before I could type in my query and search, it would slow me down.

After reading that, you probably think I’m crazy. But yes, that little bit of extra work would slow me down. I search a lot!

So what is my more efficient solution? It’s simple: Firefox bookmark keywords. If you don’t understand them, I recommend that you go look at the LifeHacker article about them.

I’ve published some of my more useful search shortcuts here. Firefox users can simply right-click on the link and choose Bookmark This Link. Then, go into Organize Bookmarks and add keywords to them. I also recommend grouping the search shortcuts into a folder called Search to keep some sanity in the Bookmark menu.

Google Search – keyword: gg
Google Maps – keyword: map
Google Image Search – keyword: img
IMDB Lookup – keyword: imdb
Dictionary – keyword: dc
Thesaurus – keyword: th
Wikipedia – keyword: wiki

After saving the bookmarks, don’t forget to add the keywords. The shortcuts are useless without them. Oh, and if you don’t use Firefox, you’re out of luck.

With the shortcuts, you can now go to the address bar and type gg britney spears to learn everything you want to know about annoying pop singers. But that would be useless.

More useful would be, when you’re looking at the web site for a local sushi restaurant and you see their address on the page, you could copy it from the page and paste it into the address bar, typing map before it, so you have something like map 401 N Michigan Ave Chicago. Just a few keystrokes gets you the directions you’re looking for.

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Google Presentations?

Sep 18

Posted by Randy Hunt in General

Google has added slide-based presentation capabilities to their Google Docs suite. I noticed it this morning, and while I haven’t dived into it headlong, I played with it a little bit. Seems to work well enough for my needs.

With email, calendar, word processing, spreadsheet, and now presentation software, Google has essentially created a free, online version of Microsoft Office. While none is as feature-rich as the commercial Microsoft product, they are all quite capable — certainly good enough for me in almost every case.

And Google offers collaboration abilities that Microsoft (to my knowledge) does not. Most of the confusing menus in the MS Office programs are things I shall never use, but the collaboration and sharing of Google documents is something I do use currently.

Now the question is, will it make a difference? I’m sure that large corporations, for example, will keep up with Microsoft Office, keeping current versions and staying up-to-date on licensing. But there are a lot of small businesses (90% of businesses are small businesses) out there that can’t afford, or can’t justify, buying new versions of all their software every year, and they can’t keep up with the complicated licensing.

Since I, for one, don’t own or use Microsoft Office at home, I have turned to alternatives. Open Office is quite good, but it’s huge and slow, and for the purpose of creating a document or spreadsheet, I already find myself turning easily to Google Docs for speed and simplicity.

And that’s the bottom line for me. Whether or not Google has any impact on Microsoft’s bottom line is irrelevant, because they’ve already succeeded by creating a suite of online apps that handle all of my daily online tasks. And I’m not alone.

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Google Reader

Sep 13

Posted by Randy Hunt in Software

Google Reader

Okay, so it took me a little while to come around to Google Reader, and I think they’ve changed some stuff since the first time I tried it, but I’m now convinced.

Keeping up with a large number of web sites became easy to do with the introduction of RSS… and now, thanks to Google Reader, it’s easy to do from anywhere, rather than being stuck with the settings only on your home computer, or work computer.

I became a GMail believer immediately after trying it, and while I don’t think the documents are a replacement for MS Office just yet, I like the ability to share them. Now, with Reader, Google is easily becoming the home of my online experience.

If you haven’t tried it yet, or don’t understand RSS, it’s simple. You find the little “feed” icon (feed) on the page you are looking for, right-click on it and copy the link, and then paste that into Google reader.

Firefox users have it even easier, because any page with an RSS feed will also have that icon in the address bar at the top. The first time you click that icon, you will be asked to choose your RSS tool. Pick Google. From then on, every time you click that icon, you will be prompted to add the feed to Google Reader.

It works for blogs, news sites, sports sites, and even Flickr photostreams. Finally, you can keep up with all your friends without having to go visit every web site every time.

It’s also a good way for obsessed stalkers to get back some of their valuable time, so they can keep an eye on their ex while still managing to get some work done at the office. ;-)

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How iPhone affects web developers

Sep 11

Posted by Randy Hunt in Technology, Web

A List Apart has just put up their second article about web sites developed for iPhone. In it, they discuss some of the limitations and difficulties of the device, such as:

There are also issues that arise because of the simplified user interface. After using the phone for awhile, you’ll notice that there are no open or save dialogs. Indeed, there is no file system that’s visible to the user, so it’s not surprising that the <input type=”file” …> does not work—there’s no way for a user to pick the file to upload.

The author describes everything from optimal screen size, font size, colors, memory limitations, downloads, fonts, and more.

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A new iPod?

Sep 6

Posted by Randy Hunt in Technology

iPod Touch

We had to know it was coming. It’s the next logical step. The iPhone is, as Steve Jobs promised, “the coolest iPod yet.” But what if your phone service isn’t with AT&T? Or what if you don’t need a phone, and you just want an iPod?

Apple has announced the iPod Touch. As far as I can tell, it’s an iPhone without the phone. Apparently, the removal of the phone functions not only made it possible to drop $100 from the price, but it also made room to double the storage capacity. Unfortunately those two things are mutually exclusive: either you get it cheaper, or else you get it with more storage.

My generation IV iPod, from the dark ages before video was added as a standard feature, gave me 20 gigabytes of storage, and I tend to keep it loaded pretty close to capacity. I can’t imagine how you add the ability to play video — and on a bigger screen — but don’t add storage. In fact, they reduced the storage!

Well, don’t get me wrong. I’m sure I don’t need 7.8 days worth of nonstop music with me everywhere I go. I could probably start managing what’s loaded instead of just taking everything with me everywhere.

But you see, that’s the problem. The thing that made the iPod so cool was that you could take your entire music collection with you everywhere you went. In my opinion, that’s the first and most important feature.

So why can’t they just add one tiny little memory card slot? They don’t have to include the memory or upgrade it, they can just put a CF slot, or SD slot, or something, allowing the user to upgrade at will. Why did the company who thinks of everything not think of that?

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