Digenis.org

If you’re like me, there’s a certain set of reference websites you visit and search frequently. If you’re like me, you’re also a savvy Firefox user, so a tip on how to perform searches at any website straight from your browser’s address bar may prove helpful and timesaving.

It goes something like this: You’re working on a blog post, a translation, or whatever have you when you come across a term and you need to consult an online reference site. Sure, you could easily open a new tab/window, type ‘www.wikipedia.com’ in the address bar, wait for the page to load, scroll down the page to the search box, type your search query, and be on your happy way four steps later when the search results have loaded…

Or you can set up a streamline keyword search. Here’s how:

1. Load any webpage (in Firefox) where you anticipate you’ll frequently perform search functions. For the sake of example, let’s take dictionary.com.

2. Find the search box and right-click on it. An options box will appear and you should select ‘Add a Keyword for this Search’ (sorry, mine’s in Russian, but you get the idea)

3. A new box will appear and you’ll fill in the following details.

Then click ‘Ok’

4. Now we can test our quick search feature. From any page just go to the address bar and type ‘d query, which ‘query’ being the term you wish to know more about.

Voila!

As you can see, I like to take it a step further and use key letters instead of just ‘keywords’. Afterall, if you’re gonna make shortcuts shorter for quick common tasks, why not go all the way?

I figure there are about 20 sites I visit frequently for reference searches, so I’ve decided to use a letter of the alphabet for each:
Need a synonym for exuberant? Just type ‘t exuberant’ (thesaurus.reference.com)
Need to know how to say ” in English? Just type ‘m меценат’ (multitran.ru)
Forget the definition of the word defenestrate? Type ‘d defenestrate’ (dictionary.com)
Want to quickly look up a passage from the Bible? Type ‘b 1 Cor 13′ (esv.org)
Need to know what year the whole Napoleon Great Fire of Moscow affair took place? type ‘w Fire of Moscow’ (wikipedia.com)

The possibilities are endless. Also, as you can see from one of my examples above, you can use multiple character encodings and languages.

(via A Mac Tip Every Day, but you can use it with PC Firefox as well)

Not sure where this humorous comic on the Leopard delay originated, but it’s been floating around the net:

See also John Gruber’s comments.

Daring Fireball: Translation From PR-Speak to English of Selected Portions of Macrovision CEO Fred Amoroso’s Response to Steve Jobs’s ‘Thoughts on Music’.

Tim Gaden at Hawkwings has posted a method for speeding up Mail.app by vacuuming the Envelope Index. I’ve got several years worth of four POP accounts running in my Mail.app, and this quick trick trimmed down the loading time significantly. There are a few ways to accomplish this, but for those who like to get down and dirty with Terminal here’s how I did it:

1. Quit Mail.
2. Open Terminal.
3. Type the following:

cd ~/Library/Mail
sqlite3 Envelope\ Index

An sqlite> prompt will appear.

At that prompt, type vacuum subjects;.

After a short delay, the prompt will return. Type Control-D to exit.
4. Restart Mail and enjoy the extra speed.

A lot of great comments followed the post, including a few ideas on other ways to achieve this same task through Terminal. Most interestingly, a follow-up entry explained how to use an easy AppleScript (or an Automater script, if that’s your flavour) to automate this task through iCal. It goes without saying that you’ll only notice great changes the first time you use it, but automation will keep your Envelope Index from getting unwieldy.

And the plural of MacBook Pro is…

Here’s one way to bypass region-encoding DVD restrictions on a Mac.

Screenshot Plus is an OSx Tiger Dashboard widget that makes screen and window captures an easy task. When I first made ‘the switch’ I lamented the loss of the quick Print Screen command I enjoyed in Windows. With this redeeming widget you can configure to save in various file formats to certain folders and you can even set it up to automatically import captures to your iPhoto app. Cool. Also, see this O’Reilly article on Mac OSx screenshots.

 In his CES 2006 keynote speech, Bill Gates announced that the upcoming Windows Vista would tout ‘first of a kind features’. However, all of these things and more have been available in Mac OSx for a while now. Check out this video with the audio of Gates’ speech played over the features already available in Tiger.

Update: An equally amusing follow-up video was made by the same creator.