Ubiquity: Why should I care?
Last week, I learned about this nifty Firefox tool called Ubiquity. What is it?
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Ubiquity is an experimental Firefox extension that gives you a powerful new way to interact with the Web. You're used to telling Firefox where you want to go by typing Web addresses into the URL bar. With Ubiquity installed, you'll be able to tell Firefox what you want it to do by typing commands into a new Ubiquity input box.
(Source: Ubiquity 0.1 User Tutorial)
It's experimental and it's only on version 0.1 but hey, it's a prototype that just WORKS! Okay, so what can it do? Here's a video by Aza Raskin to show you more about it: (Watch it. I promise that you won't regret it.)(Source:Ubiquity for Firefox from Aza Raskin on Vimeo.) Neat stuff. I, myself, am so excited that I can't help but try messing with Ubiquity. The result: A Ubiquity command for Ping.fm. Ping.fm: Updating social networks in a snap With a lot of social sites around (like Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Plurk, Livejournal, Yahoo! 360, Delicious, etc.), I can't help but be a member of a number of them. What usually happens is that some of my friends on one network is not a member of another. To update everything would be a pain and so there's Ping.fm!
Ping.fm was created for the sole purpose of making it as easy as possible to share your posts with the world. Now you don't have to fumble around the web in order to post anymore, you can just post once, and be done with it.
(Source: Ping.fm/About)
If you want a Ping.fm account, the current beta code is: "legendofping". [Checking the different social sites is a different story. I suggest using Socialthing! I currently have one free invite for SocialThing so if you want in, just ask me. ] Ubiquity + Ping.fm So here I am now, with my Ubiquity command written for Ping.fm. I'm pretty proud if it and have used it a lot recently. It's so much easier to share things on the web. Highlight, type some text and you're good to go! If you want to get Ubiquity on Firefox, you can download it from here. To install and use my Ubiquity command for Ping.fm, just follow the instructions I wrote in there. NOTE: After clicking on the Subscribe button, you'll reach a scary warning page that says "Ubiquity Command from Untrusted Source." Just click on "I know what I'm doing. Subscribe to it!" to install the command. Don't worry, I promise you that nothing in there is harmful to your computer and does not violate your privacy. This command only allows you to post to different social sites using Ping.fm and that's it. The source code is available for you to check if you don't trust me. At the moment, you're always being warned when installing a command as mentioned here. If you have any problems/comments/suggestions, email me or comment below. Have fun with Ubiquity! If you develop some commands yourself, don't be shy and share it! UPDATE1: Ubiquity has been updated and breaks your current subscriptions. For your current subscriptions to work again, you may need to unsubscribe & resubscribe to them. UPDATE2: Ping.fm is now in OPEN beta! No more beta codes needed!You might also want to check out:
- I have to use iTunes to import songs into my iPod and to listen to them while it's connected to my computer. Thankfully, there are quite a number of hacks out there so that I don't have to use this memory hog. Aside from that, there are Linux apps (with much resistance from Apple) that can read the iPod's weird file storage system that brings me to point #2.
- I cannot export the songs I have on my iPod, even if I got the files from that computer in the first place. Let's say I have my music library in my iPod & hard drive. For some reason, my hard drive got corrupted so my whole music library is lost. I cannot intuitively transfer the songs in my iPod back to my computer. I need to download more hacks to be able to that. I try copy the contents of my iPod as is, but it's not human readable.
If we give more "value" to such terms, we might end up in a grim world for consumers. Finally, just to end on a lighter side: