http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=squishycow

isn’t it frustrating when the link is posted in plain text? well, there is a firefox add-on which solves it, and gives the option to open it immediately on a new tab. the add-on is called ‘copy and go’ and can be found here: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/6876.

by the way, for all the ie users or those without this add-on, here is the link i pasted above as text, more properly presented: http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=squishycow. did i say that i am the plugin author?

i use firefox url address bar for custom search, e.g. i have already defined:

g	google search
b	babylon translation
gs	google search on specific site
gc	google code search
gd	google define

i know you can use the little search box on the upper right corner, but it is so small… but why can’t i use the big address bar ?? well, the answer – yes is i can and i’ll show you how.

for example if i want to simply do a google search. i go to the address bar (quick access: ctrl+l), and i type: g something in my mind

well, ok, so? so i am surfing this blog, and i want to search the term ‘erlang’, and there is no build in search on this site, or i just prefer to use google search, again i go to the address bar, i add ‘gs’ and space before the url, and i add the term on the end of it, again separated by space: gs http://www.virtual-clouds.com/ erlang

woot!

how do i do that? on firefox 3 you can add keyword to bookmarks, all you need to do is to open the bookmarks menu, and then click organize bookmarks. there, for each bookmark, there is additional data at the bottom, press the ‘more’ button, and few additional options will appear. the one that interests us right now is the ‘keyword’, here you put your desired shortcut (e.g. g for google). moreover, on the ‘location’ you can add the rest of the address bar contents as %s.

so, here is the above shortcuts keywords and locations: