May 23
Google has been rolling out updates for Search fairly regularly, and latest among them is one that will help frequent travelers: rental car reservation reminders. The update is for mobile … Continue reading
Apr 16
Among Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer’s efforts to boost the company into greener pastures comes word on a couple of internal projects, one that is quite ambitious: getting Apple to replace … Continue reading
Mar 25
Apple has begun testing a new “related search suggestion” in the App Store, which may actually help
Posted in: Today's ChiliApple has begun testing a new "related search suggestion" in the App Store, which may actually help make finding things easier. Because, damn, it couldn’t be much worse right now.
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Mar 16
Terminal Alternative for Mac
Posted in: Today's ChiliThis article was written on February 29, 2012 by CyberNet.
I spend quite a bit of time living in the terminal on my Mac, and so I was rightfully excited when I came across the free app called iTerm 2 that squashes some of the things I wanted the built-in app to offer. One of the things I really needed was a search feature to quickly find things from past commands I’ve run, and iTerm 2 does that very well.
Here is an overview of other features in iTerm 2:
- Split Panes
Divide a tab up into multiple panes, each one of which shows a different session. You can slice vertically and horizontally and create any number of panes in any imaginable arrangement. - Search
iTerm2 comes with a robust find-on-page feature. The UI stays out of the way. All matches are immediately highlighted. Even regular expression support is offered! - Autocomplete
Just type the start of any word that has ever appeared in your window and then Cmd-; will pop open a window with suggestions. The word you’re looking for is usually on top of the list! - Paste History
Paste history lets you revisit recently copied or pasted text. You can even opt to have the history saved to disk so it will never be lost. - Instant Replay
Instant replay lets you travel back in time. It’s like TiVo for your terminal! - Full Screen
Work distraction-free with absolutely nothing on the screen but your terminal. The tab bar can be opened by holding down cmd. - Growl Support
- Exposé Tabs
Like OS X’s Exposé feature, iTerm2 shows all your tabs on one screen. Better yet, you can search through them all at once. Go ahead and open as many tabs as you want–you can always find what you’re looking for.
When you stack those features on top of all the configuration options it has this becomes a must-have app for any geek living in a terminal window.
iTerm 2 Homepage (Mac only; Freeware)
Copyright © 2014 CyberNetNews.com
Feb 28
Feb 28
New Firefox Add-ons Site Launches
Posted in: Today's ChiliThis article was written on March 27, 2008 by CyberNet.
Mozilla has just launched their new Firefox Add-ons site that shows off a sparkling and freshly revamped interface. Back in February we took a glimpse at what a preview of the new add-ons site had to offer, and overall I would say that it is a really nice improvement over the prior version.
The thing that I like the most is that the add-ons in the Sandbox are actually shown with the search results regardless of whether you are logged in. They are labeled as “experimental” add-ons if they are in the Sandbox, and if you want to install them you’ll still need to login. At least users will know that the add-ons exist which was a big complaint of the extension developers that I had talked to before. It was almost discouraging for developers to create extensions since they weren’t widely available to the public right away.
There are two things that I don’t like though. The first is that there is still no way to customize the sort order of your search results. I’m sure this has to do with performance issues, but I hate not being able to see my search results according to popularity or most recently released.
The second thing that I don’t like, and this is quite a doozy for me, is that the site now checks what version of Firefox you’re running. And guess what, it won’t let you install an extension that doesn’t meet the version requirements specified by the developer. If an extension is compatible with your Firefox you’ll see the typical button on the pictured on the left side below, otherwise it will be replaced with the button on the right:
I looked around and I saw no place where I could change this setting, and seeing that I’m the type of person who likes to test out pre-release versions of Firefox this can cause a lot of headaches. I’m currently running Firefox 3 Beta 4, and many of the extensions are disabled for me since the developers haven’t gotten around to updating them. Sure this is nice so that people don’t think an extension will work with their version of Firefox, but what about people who want to try them anyway?
Check it out and let us know what you think about the new site.
Firefox Add-ons Homepage
Thanks to Yansky for the tip!
Copyright © 2014 CyberNetNews.com
Feb 13
This article was written on May 16, 2007 by CyberNet.
Google has finally seen the demand for testing out their experimental interfaces that are always popping up. Now they have put several of the experimental interfaces on one page for users to try out: Google Experimental. Right now they only have four new layouts available: timeline/map view, keyboard shortcuts, left-hand search navigation, and right-hand contextual search navigation.
To get started using one of those layouts just click an example query that they present in each section. You’ll then be taken to a live search page, such as this one for the timeline view:
If you really like any of the experimental searches you can use them in your browser by following these instructions. Of course, the other thing Google added to all of the layouts being tested is a prominent link to “send feedback,” which I think is a good idea. Actually, I think they should start a poll asking users what they think should end up in the Google search interface.
Going beyond just the look of the search results, Google is also changing some of the content that appears while searching. They are now moving to a Universal Search that will put videos, images, news, maps, books, and websites all intertwined on the same search results page:
Google’s vision for universal search is to ultimately search across all its content sources, compare and rank all the information in real time, and deliver a single, integrated set of search results that offers users precisely what they are looking for. Beginning today, the company will incorporate information from a variety of previously separate sources – including videos, images, news, maps, books, and websites – into a single set of results. At first, universal search results may be subtle. Over time users will recognize additional types of content integrated into their search results as the company advances toward delivering a truly comprehensive search experience.
For example, a user searching for information on the Star Wars character Darth Vader is likely interested in all the information related to the character and the actor – not just web pages that mention the movie. Google will now deliver a single set of blended search results that include a humorous parody of the movie, images of the Darth Vader character, news reports on the latest Lucas film, as well as websites focused on the actor James Earl Jones – all ranked in order of relevance to the query. Users no longer have to visit several different Google search properties to find such a wide array of information on the topic.
Along with the Universal Search they are changing the way the search results will look, and it went live for us just moments ago. It is close to what we previously saw:
In the example search I did above, you will notice links to books, blogs, groups, news and images below the search box. Those links dynamically appear and disappear based upon the content that you are searching for. That way only the most relevant links will appear for users.
I’m not sure if anymore Google goodness is in store for us this week, but I’m really liking what I see. What do you think?
Source: Google Press Release
Copyright © 2014 CyberNetNews.com
Feb 12
Yahoo has inked a deal with Carnegie Mellon University to test machine-learning research, new mobile interfaces, and natural-language recognition on search and other real-time data. Dubbed Project InMind, the five … Continue reading
Feb 09
This article was written on August 22, 2007 by CyberNet.
Web Browser Wednesday
Like many of you, I use bookmarklets on a daily basis to complete tasks a bit faster. Many of them offer features that normally require Firefox extensions to do, and I am one of those people that try to minimize the number of extensions I use. Not only that but if you use other browsers, such as Opera or Internet Explorer, then you’re forced to look for an alternate method of doing some things.
What is a bookmarklet? Here is Wikipedia’s definition:
A bookmarklet is a small JavaScript program that can be stored as a URL within a bookmark in most popular web browsers, or within hyperlinks on a web page. Because Internet Explorer uses the term favorites instead of bookmarks, bookmarklets are also less commonly called favelets by users.
This article is the second installment in our “Best Bookmarklets” series. In the first edition we covered over 20 great bookmarklets that let you do everything from delete a site’s cookies all the way to searching a page for text. This time around we have about another 20, and we have personally tested each one in Firefox 2 
, Internet Explorer 7 
, and Opera 9 
.
Note: To use any of the following bookmarklets just hold down the left mouse button and drag the hyperlink to the bookmark toolbar in your browser.
–Hyperlinks and Navigation–
- Open All
Loads any URL’s found in the text you highlight. - Target Alert
Adds an icon next to URL’s that open in a new window, point to a different site, link to a movie clip, link to an audio clip, or the source is a PDF. -
Makes internal links red, external links blue, and same-page links orange.
%7Bwith(document)%7Bfor(i=0;i%20%3Clinks.length;++i)%7Bwith(links%5Bi%5D)%7Bf=function(s)%7Bif(s)%7Bwith(appendChild(createElement('IMG')))%7Bsrc='http://www.w3.org/icons/small/'+s+'.gif';width=height=16%7D%7D%7D;f((s=target)&&s!='_self'?'burst':'');f((s=hostname)&&s!=location.hostname?'forward':'');f(protocol!='http:'?'key':'');f(pathname.match(/%5C.pdf$/)?'text':pathname.match(/%5C.(mpe?g%7Cwmv%7Cmoo?v%7Cqt%7Cra?m?%7Cavi%7Cswf)$/)?'movie':pathname.match(/%5C.(mp3%7Cwma%7Cwav%7Cau%7Cmid%7Cstd%7Crmi%7Cmif%7Cswa)$/)?'sound':'')%7D%7D%7D%7D)()){kind=link}
–Cache–
- Rewrite All – Google
This will rewrite every link on the current page to point to the Google Cache version. - Rewrite All – Coral
This will rewrite every link on the current page to point to the Coral Cache
version. - Archive
Pulls up a listing of archives for the current page on Archive.org.
–Websites–
- Digg All
Diggs all of the articles submitted by your friends. All you have to do is go to your Friend’s submission page and run the bookmarklet. Be careful because you could probably get banned if you’re Digging too many articles too fast. - MultiSubmit
Submit an article to over a dozen social network sites at one time. The link for the bookmarklet points to a page where you can customize which services are used. Note: You will have to be logged into each service for it to work. - In IE
Opens the current site in Internet Explorer. - In Firefox
Opens the current site in Firefox.
–Web Development–
- Show Comments
Shows and highlights any HTML comments that would otherwise not be seen. - Show DIVs
Outlines all of the DIV elements on the page. - View Selection Source
Lets you highlight some text/images on the page and view the source code for that section. Firefox has this built-in to the right-click menu, but this does kind of work for it if you need it. - Get Site Size
Returns the dimensions of the website. - Show/Hide Grid
Puts a grid on the current page divided out into boxes that are 50-pixels on each side. This makes measuring a bit easier.
);void(myBody=document.getElementsByTagName('body')%5B0%5D);if(myDiv!=null)%7Bvoid(myBody.removeChild(myDiv));%7Delse%7Bvoid(myDiv=document.createElement%20('div'));void(myDiv.id='_grid_div_mrb');void(myDiv.style.background='url(http://www.andybudd.com/images/layoutgrid.png)');void(myDiv.style.position='absolute');void(myDiv.style.width=myBody.offsetWidth+%20'px');void(myDiv.style.height=myBody.offsetHeight+'px');void(myDiv.style.top='0');void(myDiv.style.left='0');void(myBody.appendChild(myDiv));%7D){kind=link}
–Other–
- Edit Site
This lets you edit the content of a site. You can add/remove images, text, and just about anything. A great tool for taking screenshots and removing personal information from the page first. -
Click on elements throughout the page to remove them, and then print the page. Great for removing ink-eating ads and sidebars before you send a page to the printer. - Anonymous Form Filler
Fills in forms and email address fields with anonymous information. Great for commenting on sites where you don’t want to enter in your information. - Word Count
Counts the number of words from the text you’ve selected.
We would love to hear about any bookmarklets you might be using. Let us know in the comments below if you have found any great ones, and we’ll add them to the list!
Sources for the above bookmarklets: Opera Watch, Jesse Ruderman, Bookmarklets, Masatomo Kobayashi, Opera Wiki, and Andy Budd
Copyright © 2014 CyberNetNews.com
Feb 06
This article was written on January 20, 2009 by CyberNet.
Google is experimenting with yet another new search feature called Google Preferred Sites. If you’re one of the lucky few to have this option show up in your search preferences you can start taking advantage of this feature right now, but most of you will probably have to wait for Google to roll it out.
How it works is when you’re logged in with your Google account you can specify your favorite domains, which will then take precedence when performing searches on Google. It’s basically a way for you to have the sites you trust the most towards the top of your search results.
I actually can’t wait to get this feature. It says that the service will also be able to recommend links to be added by scanning through your Google Search History (if enabled). The only thing it sounds like it’s missing is the ability to block domains all together. Their SearchWiki will let you block specific results, but not entire domains.
What do you think? Is this something that you’d actually find useful?
Google Preferred Sites Help Page [via GoogleOS]
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