The Best of Both Worlds

Sometimes, I feel like the technological world has passed me by.  I had that feeling this weekend when I stumbled onto something that I’m sure that everyone else but me knows.

Two things form the basis for this post.

• I really like the Omnibar in the Google Chrome browser.  It lets me type URLs and search in the same box;
• I’ve been a real advocate for changing the default search engine to Diigo instead of Google or Bing or Yahoo! or whatever so that results come from curated results instead of the crapshoot that blindly searching can provide.

So, I was playing around with Firefox 5 Beta Channel (although I read that there’s a Firefox 6 Alpha out…) and forgot that I was in Firefox for a second.  I thought I was in Chrome and typed in a search term.  Guess what?  I got Google search results.  I sort of stared at the screen for a second and shook my head.  I tried it again.  Son of a gun, it worked again.

I then thought – this is very cool.  Even when I switch my default search engine to Diigo, there are times when I really need to use Google to do a search.  Similarly, if I switch the default to Google, I’m back to wading through results until I get what I want.  Firefox, as you know, has a search window – why don’t I use that for Diigo searches and the Awesome Bar for searching my history and searching using Google?

 

The Awesome Bar gives me this…

And, Diigo gives me this …

Wow!  It just depends on whether I type the term into the Awesome Bar or the Search Window to choose the search engine that I want.So, I thought – what a great addition to Firefox 5.  Now, one of the nice things about Firefox 5 is that it can exist alongside Firefox 4.  So, I tried the above on Firefox 4, and sure enough, it worked there as well.  Now, I’m feeling like a dummy.  This functionality has been there all along!  How can this be?  Do I ever feel silly.  Last to the party again.

But, now that I’ve learned that, I’m thinking of the opportunities to being a more efficient searcher.

OTR Links for 05/31/2011

• Twournal – Make a Book of your Tweets – Twitter Journal

  Get your Twournal as an eBook for free by Creating a Twournal. It’s a stylish way to backup your tweets. No purchase necessary.

  tags: twitter twournal book archive journal tools books tweets

• Royal Pingdom: The top 20 strongholds for desktop Linux

  As a server OS, Linux has long been highly successful and a poster child for open source. For example, Linux currently powers a majority of the world’s web servers and supercomputers. As a desktop OS, however, Linux has yet to gain mainstream acceptance.

  tags: pingdom royal Linux

• Why are You on Twitter? A ‘Twitter 101’ Lesson | Social Media Today

  a short series of posts designed to help newbies understand some social media strategy behind the professional use of Twitter.

  tags: social why twitter

• PenZen – The distraction free writing enviroment

  Totally distraction free writing.  Go to full screen for the best effect!

  tags: writing distraction penzen free

• World Cultures Infographics IRL

  Borrowing heavily from a concept first seen from Danish designer Peter Orntoft, Millward Brown designed these new and insightful IRL  infographics to show how informative graphics can be when put in context.

  tags: world infographics cultures

• Earth Rotating Against the Stars

  One thing we should always remember is that the the earth is spinning around while the stars stay relatively constant in the sky. YouTube member bulletpeople took a beautiful existing time-lapse video of the stars and edited it to show the stars as static in the sky, which highlights the rotation of the earth.

  tags: earth rotating against

• Trifling Twitter | Technology | guardian.co.uk

  In our new weekly blog analysing media, tech and business models, Frédéric Filloux of Monday Note says Twitter will increasingly be a one-to-a-few medium

  tags: technology twitter trifling

• Cory Doctorow on copyright and piracy: ‘Every pirate wants to be an admiral’ – video | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk

  Blogger and activist Cory Doctorow argues that all new media – from sheet music to cable TV – is accused of piracy by the mainstream … until it becomes the mainstream

  tags: copyright

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

A New Browser for iPad

It’s no surprise that I have elected to use Google Chrome as my browser of choice.  It runs on Windows, Linux, and Macintosh and is the fastest browser without comparison.

So, it was with great interest that I read this announcement from the Diigo website:

Like Chrome? Have an iPad? Check out “iChromy” by Diigo »

I couldn’t wait and downloaded it to my iPad immediately.  And, I really like what I see.

It’s fast, Chrome fast.  The browsers that I’ve experimented with on the iPad can’t make that claim.  It’s got tabbed browsing that looks like the tabs in Chrome although you can’t shuffle them or pin them.  However, for a first release, it is pretty impressive.

It has an Omnibox just like Google Chrome so you have type a URL or do a search in the same place.  That really is sweet.  The browse also features a Reading List which saves webpages for reading when you’re not connected.  Just click on the glasses icon and the current page is tucked away for you.

The Share menu lets you tie a number of your frequently used services right into the browser.  It only took a couple of minutes to get the resources that I use frequently – Twitter, Facebook, Diigo, and Email configured and I was off.  As you’ll see below, it identifies itself as Safari for the iPad and that gives you the special theme for WordPress blogs.

But, the sweetest feature of all comes as no surprise when you decide to bookmark a website to Diigo.  If you’re using another browser, you’ll have had to go through the process of installing the special bookmark.  Not here.  It comes as no surprise that a browser developed by Diigo has the best Diigo integration.  It’s there and it’s great.  Without all of the other features, if you’re a Diigo user, you’ll want to check this out for that feature alone.

As I noted, it’s the first release.  There are lots of features in other browsers that aren’t available in iChromy.  Dropbox integration comes immediately to mind.  Perhaps that will come in future but I hope that the developers keep it light enough that it remains fast and doesn’t crash because of memory problems.  Right out of the box, it really feels right for me and I’ve made it my browser of choice until I hit the wall with it.  I don’t see that happening anytime soon though.

I can see this as the perfect browser for schools that are experimenting with iPads in the classroom.  Diigo, and its educational features are perfect as your browser.

You can read the full list of features in the Diigo blog.

OTR Links for 05/30/2011

• Top 6 Underground Search Engines You Never Knew About

  I love Google, Bing and Yahoo just as much as the next Internet user, but sometimes you really want to dig down into a particular subject.

  In order to do that, you really need access to those underground search engines that may not be quite as well known, but they dig much more deeply into specialized areas of the Internet than the general search engines are capable of.

  tags: search searchengine underground tools web searchengines engines invisibleweb

• Free ePub Converter – PDF To ePub – Convert Books to ePub Format

  2EPUB allows you to convert PDF, doc and other types of documents & books to ePub format, the standard format for ebooks, supported by almost every reading device including iPad, iPhone, iPod, Sony Reader, BeBook, Nook, Kobo (for Kindle use .mobi).

  tags: epub ebook converter ebooks tools pdf books conversion

• The Usability of Passwords (by @baekdal) #tips

  Security companies and IT people constantly tells us that we should use complex and difficult passwords. This is bad advice, because you can actually make usable, easy to remember and highly secure passwords. In fact, usable passwords are often far better than complex ones.

  tags: security password usability passwords hacking computer web howto

• Default Password List – Submit

  Default Password List

  tags: password passwords default security router list hacking hacks

• 70 Things Every Computer Geek Should Know. | Arrow Webzine

  A geek is one who isn’t satisfied knowing only the surface facts, but instead has a visceral desire to learn everything possible about a particular subject. A techie geek is usually one who knows a little about everything, and is thus the person family and friends turn to whenever they have a question. If you’re that type of person and are looking for a few extra skills to pick up, or if you’re a newbie aiming to get a handhold on the honor that is geekhood, read on to find out what skills you need to know.

  tags: geek computer hacks howto cool blog web every

• :: zondle (beta) – games to support learning ::

  This is zondle, where you can play games to support your learning!

  tags: games zondle beta

• Googlios

  Welcome to “Googlios” where free Google tools meet ePortfolios.  
  This site is intended to be a collection of resources for those interested in using ePortfolios in Education. 

  tags: google portfolios eportfolios googlios portfolio resources tools teaching

• 32 Ways to Use Google Apps in the Classroom

  Google Apps in Classrooms and Schools 
  32 Ways to Use Google Apps in 50 Minutes

  tags: google apps education googledocs googleapps 32 ways

• Printable World Maps – Free World Maps to Print

  Free Blank Outline Printable World Maps of the Countries and Continents of the World

  tags: maps Geography world countries reference outline resources SS

• Blank map of the World

  In this page, you can select the World maps that you want to download.

  tags: maps geography world printable map blank reference colour

• Fractal Lab – Interactive WebGL Fractal Explorer

  Fractal Lab is a WebGL based fractal explorer allowing you to explore 2D and 2D fractal. The fractals are rendered using the OpenGL Shading Language (GLSL) to enable real-time interactivity.

  tags: fractal webGL interactive lab math fractals animation explorer

• Digitizing an Elementary Writing Portfolio « Moving at the Speed of Creativity

  Today my fifth grade daughter, Sarah, brought home her elementary writing folder. This folder includes samples of her writing dating all the way back to first grade, and she’s never been able to bring it home previously. She was excited to read me several of her essays, so I suggested we record them on the iPad so they’d be preserved digitally.

  tags: portfolio writing elementary assessment digitizing ipad education

• UD Virtual Compound Microscope

  Learn through the virtual microscope

  tags: science microscope

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Twitter Like I Do…

Or, probably more likely, someone interesting like Justin Bieber or someone.

With the new changes to the Twitter web interface, it’s easy to do.  Of course, you could always delete all of your own people you follow and then add all that I do but this is easier and quicker!

Just log into your account and go to my profile.

Click on the following tab and select “View as timeline”.  At that point, you’ll see exactly what I would see if I was logged into Twitter using the web interface.  In this case, if you were to do this to me, you’d see …

… this is what you would see if you were logged in as me.  Nothing is revealed; Twitter messages are public and certainly the list of users that I follow is public as well.  But, notice the green.  If I happen to be following someone interesting who catches your eye, you have the opportunity to add that person to your own list of folks you follow.  The webbing gets more sophisticated.

What this should do is make it easier for new people to check out others accounts and build their own collection of interesting people.

The actual URL that does the trick is:  https://twitter.com/#!/dougpete/following  An even quicker way to get this to work is to replace the “dougpete” with the Twitter user of your choice.

While you’re doing this sort of thing, take a look at the top right corner.  Twitter has given you the ability, with a single click, to do the same thing for any random person that you’re following.  Interesting, but I did lose interest in it quickly.

At first, it seemed kind of creepy to be able to do this.  But, then I thought it through and the information is all publically available anyway.  Perhaps by looking at how your Twitter heroes work, you’ll become that much smarter yourself?

My first reaction is that I probably won’t use this feature.  But, then again, I said the same thing about the Priority Inbox with Gmail.  I found a use for it and my email is configured to take advantage of it.  I guess I just need to find a reason.

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