Ubiquity for Firefox

I admit it. I’ve never been a huge Firefox fan. I know I can debug web pages and CSS. I know I can validate my code in my browser. I know I can even FTP and StumbleUpon right from Firefox. But, Firefox was notoriously slow and buggy on Macs for so long, I simply gave up.

When I browse, I rarely need all those bells and whistles; when I develop, I work in Dreamweaver, Safari, and a text editor. So, really, Firefox usually collects dust in my Applications directory.

Until now.

Ubiquity for Firefox may be the killer-app, er extension, I’ve needed to make Firefox my default browser.

What is Ubiquity? The overall goals of Ubiquity are to explore how best to:

• Empower users to control the web browser with language-based instructions. (With search, users type what they want to find. With Ubiquity, they type what they want to do.)
• Enable on-demand, user-generated mashups with existing open Web APIs. (In other words, allowing everyone‚Äìnot just Web developers‚Äìto remix the Web so it fits their needs, no matter what page they are on, or what they are doing.)
• Use Trust networks and social constructs to balance security with ease of extensibility.
• Extend the browser functionality easily.

Hmmm. That wasn’t very helpful. Let me try to summarize that direct quote from the Ubiquity page. The extension allows you to quickly access useful functions using simple text. Want to translate something? Trigger Ubiquity and type translate good evening to spanish. It presents you with the translation. Want to map an address? Trigger the plugin and type the address. Voil√†! There’s your map.

Here’s a quick list of what you can currently do with Ubiquity:

• Map
• Define
• Email content or links
• Google content
• Lookup via Amazon.com
• Search Wiki for content
• Check weather by location
• Perform mathematical calculations
• Translate content
• Search IMDB
• and so much more…

Think of it like Quicksilver for the web… As a routine, advanced user of Quicksilver, I foresee Ubiquity becoming a daily part of my computing life. So, what are you waiting for? Give it a try!

Twitter Tools gives you control of your tweets. I use it barebones (as you can see), but may eventually integrate some of its more useful functions like:

• Own your tweets – Archive your Twitter tweets in your WordPress install (downloaded every 15 minutes)
• Tweets to blogs – Create a blog post from each of your tweets with it’s own auto-assigned category.
• Ignore conversations – Tell Twitter Tools to ignore @ conversations.
• Save Daily – Create a daily digest post of your tweets
• Tweet your blog – Create a tweet on Twitter whenever you post in your blog, with a link to the blog post (very useful).
• Sidebar Twittering – Post a tweet from your sidebar. No need to visit Twitter to post tweets.
• Admin tweets – Post a tweet from the WP Admin screens
• Pass your tweets along to another service (via API hook)

My blog uses this plugin. Now, my blog is tied to Twitter and Twitter is tied to Facebook. Updating my blog updates Twitter which updates Facebook and then updates my blog’s tweet-status. This is exactly what Web 2.0 is about. Integration with ease.

Thanks Alex King for making such a smart plugin.