For Students: Block Wikipedia Entries While Researching with Google

Much like my Opening Windows search engine for Firefox, this one allows students to research through Google without running into take-it-with-a-grain-of-salt Wikipedia entries.

1. Paste the following code into Notepad:
   <search
   name=”Google -Wikipedia”
   method=”GET”
   action=”http://www.google.com/search”
   queryCharset=”utf-8″
   ><input name=”q” user>
   <input name=”-” value=”wikipedia”>
   </search>
2. 2. Save the file as “google-wikipedia.src” in C:\Program Files\Mozilla
   Firefox\searchplugins (and be sure to select All Files from the
   drop-down, or else it will be saved as google-wikipedia.src.txt).

That’s it! Now, restart Firefox and start searching Wikipedia-free from your Firefox search bar.

NOTE: There have been some issues with the code. If Firefox rejects it, try replacing all of the backwards quotes with normal quotes. That should fix any issues.

Track Your Progress with Joe’s Goals

Sometimes, a graphical representation is all we need for motivation. If you exercise daily or always keep your website up-to-date, shouldn’t you get a “personal” pat on the back? That is precisely what Joe’s Goals is for. Registration is free and takes all of ten seconds. Then, you are free to add both positive and negative goals in a simple, easy-to-use web interface. When you complete a goal, click in its square for the current day of the week (a click for a positive goal gets you a check, a click for a negative goal gets you an “x”). You can add as many checks as you want per day (if, perhaps, you updated your website seven times today, you can have seven checks). Then, you can view reports to view your progress. If you’ve been setting goals for yourself but just want to see them all in one place in a simple, visual way, then Joe’s Goals is for you.

Joe’s Goals – Free Online Habit Tracker

FireFTP: An Alternative for those who Live Within Firefox

About two weeks ago, I started having trouble with my previously-recommended FTP client SmartFTP. Since I spend so much time within Firefox, I went on the search for an extension to allow me to transfer files right from the browser. The highest-rated and most popular extension that I came across was FireFTP. The interface is clean and simpler than SmartFTP. Set your login information, click connect and you can immediately start moving files back and forth. I like the arrow buttons that tell me which way I am transferring (local storage or FTP); I’m a visual person. So, if you like Firefox as much as I do, give FireFTP a try. I think it may be more to your liking than a regular FTP application.

FireFTP – The Free FTP Client for Mozilla Firefox

(Note: As you can see, I’m going to start putting prominent links below the post body to make things easier to find.)

For Updating Pro Websites, SmartFTP Can’t be Beat

The professional website that I work on (yes, I do have a day job) just underwent a major upgrade. New hosting, new domain name, the whole nine yards. This new site comes with FTP support. At first, I didn’t see the problem with a built-in HTML editor. But now, with this much larger site, I needed the powerful capabilities of a standalone FTP client. The first one I came across was SmartFTP. Once installed, I was logged in to the website and transferring files in minutes. I mainly use it for simple purposes, but I hear that you can make it as advanced as you want. If you are just starting out with FTP but still want room to expand, I definitely recommend SmartFTP.

Best… Extension… Ever!

I am a big fan of video podcasts. Alas, my portable media player does not have video functionality, so I mainly watch them on my PC. Downloading all of those large files through Firefox’s built-in interface can be slow and clunky, so I installed the DownThemAll extension. This is, in my opinion, the best Firefox extension currently available. There are just too many good things to name, so I will just say this: Download it, install it, and prepare for a downloading experience 1,000 times better than before.

Remember the Milk: A Worthy Alternative to Todo.txt

If you’re not much into the Cygwin, Unix bash-script menagerie that is the Todo.txt organization system, you should try the web-based task manager Remember the Milk. It’s a whole lot simpler than Todo.txt, and has a lot of great features unique to itself. For example, you can view a Google Maps/RTM mashup of your tasks by the locations that they are based upon (for example, you would pre-configure the address for Kroger, and when you typed “buy milk” as a task, you’d select Kroger as the location). If you have a lot of tasks sprawled out in different areas, this can really help you plan your day. RTM also allows you to add different “lists” (more like contexts to those GTD folks) to which you can append tasks so that they are not all floating around in one big task bowl. And with sharing and publishing capabilities as well as a spiffy Web 2.0 interface, RTM is a viable contender to other methods of organization. In fact, in comparison to Todo.txt, I am starting to favor RTM. So, give it a try- it’s free!

Search Opening Windows From Firefox

If you want to search Opening Windows directly from Firefox, no matter what URL you are at, I have the code for you (There is a tutorial for you to do this on your own site, but it uses Google. I had to do some tweaking to use the built-in WordPress search).

1. Paste the following code into Notepad:

<search
name=”Opening Windows”
method=”GET”
action=”http://openingwindows.wordpress.com/”
queryCharset=”utf-8″
>

<input name=”s” user>
</search>

2. Save the file as “ow.src” in C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\searchplugins (and be sure to select All Files from the drop-down, or else it will be saved as ow.src.txt).

3. Also in that folder, save this .GIF file.

That’s it! Now, when you restart Firefox and access your search bar in the upper-right of the window, you will see an “Opening Windows” option, complete with the Windows logo.

Google Reader Shared Items

This is a link to the Google Reader page that contains my favorite posts from all of the RSS feeds I read.

Google Reader -  shared items

Cut Your Browsing Time with Google Reader

Google has some pretty interesting webapps out there, but I personally believe that the best one is Google Reader. Instead of trying to piece together your virtual newspaper everyday by hopping around to twenty different sites, Reader brings it all to you via the power of RSS: real simple syndication. Granted, there are many other RSS readers out there. But Reader has one of the best interfaces I have seen. It’s also much more intuitive than other readers. I especially like how easy it is to use Reader to subscribe to podcasts. There is a built-in audio player as well as links to the original files. Also useful are Reader’s Star and Share features. Starring posts allow you to easily keep them for later reference. And clicking the “Share” button adds them to your public Google Reader page, a URL that you can give out to your friends so that they can keep track of your favorite stories. Google Reader also works easily with the Firefox address bar RSS button. Just click the button and choose Google Reader from the drop-down list. If you cannot find what you are looking for just by browsing the Web, Google also provides subscription packages, recommendations and a feed search tool.

Read more at the Official Google Reader Blog.

Easy Bookmarking and Site-Searching in Firefox

I read a Lifehacker post a few months back that changed the way I use Firefox. If I want to go to Weather.com, I would normally type out the full web address. But now, I only need to type “w.” And say I wanted to search Lifehacker for a specific keyword. I would normally go to Lifehacker.com and use the built-in search bar. But now, I just type “lhsearch keyword” (without quotes and with ‘keyword’ being my search term) into my Firefox address bar and press Enter. These one-letter bookmarks and address-bar based searches are easy to configure, as long as the site’s search tool works something like this:

http://www.site.com/search/%s

“%s” represents the search term. That is what your address bar should look like after you’ve performed a search on the site.

The extension you need and all of the instructions to easier, faster bookmarking are available through the Lifehacker post.