Ubiquity: Firefox Gets its Quicksilver On

Merlin — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 09:37:36 -0400

Take a few minutes this week to look at the Ubiquity plugin for Firefox. So far, I've spent just enough time with it to have my mind blown by the Quicksilver-like interface it wants to bring to web browsing.

Ubiquity for Firefox from Aza Raskin on Vimeo.

And, like our favorite OS X launcher, Ubiquity also has an ambitious mission: to move beyond onesie-twosie key shortcuts by using user-extensible commands to intuitively hook together bits of information like model train cars:

Ubiquity’s interface goal is to enable the user to instruct the browser (by typing, speaking, using language) what they want to do.

[...]

We aren’t there yet. Instead, we have the rudimentary systems of structured natural language commands. You can select something and Ubiq “translate this to French”, or “email it to Jono”. In both cases, Ubiquity is smart enough to realize what “this” and “it” refers to, as well as knowing who Jono is (by talking with my web-mail’s contact list). It’s also smart enough to be able to understand commands like “map Chicago Comics” and “yelp Tapas near SF” and give you rich previews and search results to get you where you want to be quickly. Even better, both of those commands let you insert results directly into, say, an email you’re writing so that you never have to interrupt your chain of thought.

Install it, try it for yourself, and, as you get started, do make liberal use of the Key Commands page (only available after install). There's also tutorials (that I have not looked at much yet) that show how to make and share new commands.

Every quarter or so I'm sorely tempted to experiment with The Big Move from Safari to Firefox. It's never stuck before, but Ubiquity makes it damned clear that the latest experiment starts right now. This looks amazing.

[Ubiquity link via: Waxy]

”Ubiquity: Firefox Gets its Quicksilver On” was written by Merlin Mann for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on August 27, 2008. Except as noted, it's ©2010 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"

"No Links Please" drains HREFs, discourages web fiddling

Merlin — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 16:11:35 -0500

James Clarke – No Links Please!

Here's a fun one. Our old pal (and the coiner of "life hacks"), Danny O'Brien, passes along an extreme attention aid that might be regarded as the heir apparent to his wonderful "Webolodeon" script for GreaseMonkey.

No Links Please will do its part to keep you from mindlessly surfing the web:

No Links Please! breaks the web by removing hyperlinks from all pages apart from Google. Without the knowledge or temptation of links you are free to devote all your time to real work and never roam the web again.

Oh, man, what a crazy way to be forced to see the web. But, if you're "that guy" today and can't stop dicking around on the web, this is much less dramatic than having to shut off the router. Try it, for fun; it's amazing how ingrained our clicky-linky behavior is.

”"No Links Please" drains HREFs, discourages web fiddling” was written by Merlin Mann for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on January 21, 2008. Except as noted, it's ©2010 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"