Google Blogoscoped

Saturday, July 10, 2004

Adding FindForward to Firefox

 

If you are running the great Mozilla-based browser Firefox, here’s a way to add a FindForward short-cut for easy searching. Once you followed the three steps you just need to type “answer when was einstein born” or “find mozilla homepage” into the address bar.

Short-cut “Answer ...”

  1. In Firefox, right-click the following link and choose “Bookmark This Link..."; create it in the “Bookmarks” folder:
    FindForward Answer

  2. Select “Bookmarks” from the main menu and right-click the “FindForward Answer” bookmark you just created; select “Properties” from the context-menu.

  3. In the new settings window, type “answer” into the keyword field.

That’s all – you can now type “answer question” in the address bar (where “question” is any question that comes to mind, like “When was Albert Einstein born?”).

Short-cut “Find ...”

  1. Right-click the following link and choose “Bookmark This Link..."; create it in the “Bookmarks” folder:
    FindForward

  2. Select “Bookmarks” from the main menu and right-click the “FindForward” bookmark you just created; select “Properties” from the context-menu.

  3. In the new settings window, type “find” into the keyword field.

Now you can now type “find keyword” in the address bar, where “keyword” is any search query.

Interactive Fiction With QML

[QML - Create Your Own Adventure]

QML, the Quest Markup Language, is a freeware tool-set to create browser-based Choose-Your-Own-Adventure games (or any other dynamic web application). These type of games present a situation to you and let you choose how you want to continue*.

*If you ever read any of the Jackson/ Livingstone gamebooks from the 1980s, you know CYOA already. I started the project some years ago because I could not find the right tool for writing these sort of quests.

Using QML-Edit, you do not need to have any programming skills to create basic quests. However if you want to edit this XML language in source mode, you can add dynamic functionality (like if-else, calculations, randomization, images, and so on).

Once created, a QML file runs on different servers. There are Python, PHP, ASP and VBS interpreters available. QML also runs on different clients, and you can view quests on your hand phone, or export them to paper using the print view function.

Windows Media Player videos (please increase the volume of your speakers while I buy a new microphone):
QML Introduction and overview | Styling your project | QML analysis tools | Advanced QML

More information at the QML homepage.

GMailCompose for Mozilla

GMailCompose is an extension for Mozilla-based browsers. It will make “mailto:” links load a Gmail compose window. It also adds a “GMailCompose” link to the context menu.

The Billboard Mystery

This week a mysterious billboard appeared on Highway 101 in Silicon Valley, California. In large black on white letters it read:

“{ First 10 digit prime in consecutive digits of e }.com”

Roose solved this puzzle at Fog Creek Software and pointed people to 7427466391.com, which contained yet another puzzle:

“You’ve made it to level 2. Go to www.Linux.org and enter Bobsyouruncle as the login and the answer to this equation as the password.

f(1)= 7182818284
f(2)= 8182845904
f(3)= 8747135266
f(4)= 7427466391
f(5)= __________”

Others found out the page could be traced back to Google. After following all clues there is a Google Labs page put up by Googler Doug Edwards:

“Nice work. Well done. Mazel tov. You’ve made it to Google Labs and we’re glad you’re here.

One thing we learned while building Google is that it’s easier to find what you’re looking for if it comes looking for you. What we’re looking for are the best engineers in the world. And here you are.”

Cracker Working on MSN Search

“A Kirkland man arrested last week on allegations that he stole proprietary technology from the AltaVista search engine two years ago is a Microsoft Corp. employee who has been working on the Redmond company’s MSN Search initiative.”
– Todd Bishop, Suspect in AltaVista hacking case works at Microsoft, Jul. 9 2004

Googlebot Searching Unlinked URLs

Ever-curious Googlebot is reported to spider unlinked directories, like:

[Thanks Andrew.]

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