We love using the Ubiquity extension to do nearly anything in Firefox, but a new Mozilla project, called Taskfox, is aiming to introduce some of Ubiquity’s features directly into Firefox—without requiring another extension. From the looks of the mockups page, the Ubiquity integration would take place in the awesome bar, allowing you to perform advanced searches across the internet—and get results—without a whole lot of traditional searching and clicking. The concern—especially with Firefox—is always that another feature means a little more bloat. But if you’re already a Ubiquity junky, this seems like an exciting development that would help integrate Ubiquity-style commands directly into Firefox. We’ve always like the idea behind Ubiquity, but actually wished that it was made to integrate more closely with the awesome bar, so for our part, we like this idea—at least in theory—very much.
Taskfox [via Mozilla Links]Reader Jerry Lue read our feature on creating smarter keyword bookmarks, and took the initiative to create a set of smart bookmarks that interact with Google Translate. These keyword bookmarks either translate the current page, or even translate a phrase directly from the Firefox location bar.
Windows only: If you need your Unix command line on a Windows PC, chances are you use a terminal emulator like Cygwin—and if you do, you want to check out MinTTY. The MinTTY terminal window for Cygwin puts a native Windows interface on Cygwin which offers more keyboard shortcuts and colours and styles. Check out the difference between Cygwin and MinTTY side-by-side in the thumbnail above. Using MinTTY you can turn on window transparency, set your font, and colours, copy and paste output by just selecting it with your mouse, and scroll up using the Shift+arrow key combination. (Once it’s installed, right-click on the MinTTY window and choose Options to customise it’s look and keyboard shortcuts.) Here’s what the full MinTTY window with transparency turned on looks like.
You don’t need an enormous space to create an effective office, as evidenced by today’s featured workspace. Efficient is the watchword. Lifehacker reader T dimensional has a fantastic office in a tiny little space. Despite being in a room narrow enough that there is only little walkway beside the desk, the office has abundant storage and good design going for it. The extensive use of white keeps the space from seeming closed in and having a nice window with some architectural detail certainly doesn’t hurt. Although he does note that on particularly sunny days he turns his laptop around and works facing the window to avoid excessive glare on the screen. There are plenty of cabinets and drawers to provide storage and keep the workspace free of clutter and distraction. The Monochrome Nook [Lifehacker Workspace Show and Tell Pool]
YouTube has just released a new sub-site called YouTube EDU, aggregating thousands of free lectures from over a hundred US universities including MIT, Yale, Harvard, Stanford, and oh-so-many more. Earlier this week we highlighted another similar application called Academic Earth, and just two days later, here comes YouTube EDU. It’s incredible to see such great options for folks looking for some free education. The two services are very similar in some ways, and while YouTube’s landing page isn’t quite as useful as Academic Earth’s, they’re both packed full of great content. Head to the Directory page to browse through all the university options, and when you pick one, you can see all of the full courses or individual lectures available. According to weblog Open Culture, YouTube EDU currently has over 200 full courses, so you’re bound to find something that piques your interest—like MIT’s Introductory Quantum Mechanics II. It’s really exciting to see the web embrace and distribute all this free learning, and we’re eager to see both services grow.
YouTube EDU [via Open Culture]Ever wanted to extract Powerpoint slides as images for embedding elsewhere? Try Zamzar. To convert the file, simply upload the file (ignoring the obnoxious popup ads), choose PNG format, and enter your email address to receive the link for the converted files—it took a little while for the files to show up, but the conversion process worked perfectly—all ready for you to embed or email the files. An alternative method for converting and sharing Powerpoint is to simply upload the file to Google Docs, and then use the PDF export option to download and share with friends—or you can use Google Docs to embed presentations on your web site or blog. Thanks, Nick!
ZamzarOur open-source text-replacement application and super time-saver Texter has moved its source code to GitHub with hopes that some generous readers with bug complaints or feature requests might be interested in contributing to the project. To be very clear, I love Texter, but time constraints have pushed the development of Texter very low on my priority list. As a result, some nagging bugs have left many out in the cold. With GitHub, my hope is that anyone interested in improving Texter can easily make their contributions and that we can keep this very cool project alive. If you’re just looking to download and use Texter, you can always do so from the Texter homepage; if you’d like a gander at the source or would like to contribute, hit the GitHub link below.
Texter Source Code [GitHub]According to tech site Ars Technica, the Windows 7 Release Candidate will be available to the public starting in May 2009, will be available through June 2009, and will expire June 1, 2010. We’ll keep our eyes open for a specific date in May. Check out Ars for more details. [Ars Technica]
The name’s ridiculous, but “Jaunty Jackalope,” the next release of the popular Linux distribution Ubuntu, is seriously focused on the user experience. Dig what’s new and improved in the beta of Ubuntu 9.04, due out today.
