Google search experiments

I am a big fan of command line and keyboard shortcuts.  I have been using an experimental feature of Google Search that adds keyboard shortcuts to search results page, and totally loving it.  There is a few other experiments too, if you are not too keen about keyboard shortcuts.

You can enable an experimental feature for your account from http://www.google.co.in/experimental/.  You may want to change the URL to match your country (google.co.uk if you're from UK, google.com if you're from US, etc.)

Plea

Among tens of thousands of shaved heads
I am also one, pleading to god
To take ‘that’ off my mind, and my life.
Should I say I want him to ignore the plea?

Internet Explorer woes

I wrote sometime back that I was trying out IE8 Beta .  Well, I've paid the price of doing such a stupid thing, I guess.  I have some adware installed on my machine which does a lot of things, including promoting some Yoog search engine.  Like a sane Windoze user, now I am saying adios again to IE in favour of sexy Chrome :)

Firefox Customizaton

Like most users of current time, I spend most of my time on Firefox, my web browser.  Though I have a number of complaints about Firefox and waiting for the day Chrome is released for Linux, I must say that I love the customizability of Firefox.  In this post I am going to show how I have set up my Firefox.

Extensions
I have installed the following extensions that make my life easy:

• Chickenfoot: for automating some really boring tasks (e.g. logging into my Citibank account)
• Context Search: I can search any text found in a web page using any of my search engines with a few mouse clicks.
• DownThemAll: A nice download manager for Firefox.
• Firebug: The awesome JavaScript debugger/developer tool for Firefox.
• Flashblock: Flash is almost always a pain.  It slows down Firefox if it doesn't crash the browser.  With Flashblock, I can choose to run only those Flash movies that I trust/need.
• Google Gears: For using Google products offline, including Gmail and Docs.
• Google Toolbar: For easy access to Google Search, Google Bookmarks, etc.
• Konquefox: This extension provides a "Clear Addressbar" button that makes typing new addresses easier in Firefox for Linux.
• No Squint: After installing this extension, my life is much better.  If you would increase the font size when you read text from web pages, this is a must-try for you.
• NumExt: Provides easy access to tabs by shortcut keys.
• Stylish: Use custom style sheets for web sites.  If not for anything else, I use it to change Gmail's ugly Arial to Verdana, which is easier on my eyes.
• Tab Mix Plus: Way too many customization options with Firefox tabs.  One of the essentials for me, can't live without it :)
• URL Link: Just too lazy to copy-paste URLs and don't like auto-linking.

Toolbar Organization
I have rearranged all the buttons and other controls I'd need in only two rows.  Here is a screenshot of my typical toolbar arrangement (click on the image to see it in original size).

This may not be one of the best or easy-to-use arrangement.  All the controls are crammed into the available space and I know this may not be suitable for many people.  But this works for me, so I like it this way :)

I hate it

I was madly in love with you.
My friends called me mad.
I hated it then.

Later, I eloped with you.
Everyone called me crazy.
I hated it then.

Now I'm here all alone.
No one is calling me anything.
I hate it now, too.