I’m a keyboard guy. This probably is a combination of having learned to type in junior high school (a revelation; I started typing everything, and this was back in the days when your only choice was a manual typewriter) and having jumped into computers when your only option was working with a command line.
Which was fine with me. I still relish the opportunities to invoke DOS or work in UNIX so I can make things happen just by keying in a simple command. With the exception of online forms, though, most of the work that goes into using a browser involves pointing and clicking. Ah, to be able make things happen from a browser-based command line.
So I was thrilled to find YubNub, a browser-independent tool for executing command-line prompts for the browser. The folks who developed this little gem have created a batch of commands. For example “gim” is the prompt to get images, so if you typed “gim meetings,” you would get the results of a Google image search with the keyword “meetings.” No need to go over to Google and select the image search. “WP” launches a Wikipedia search, “tec” brings up Technorati, and “flk” goes to Flickr. (I ran “flk neville hobson”) and got pictures of my “For Immediate Release” co-host.)
Further, you can create your own commands to simplify whatever it is you frequently do on the web.
The YubNub site includes instructions for getting the tool to work in Firefox, Internet Explorer, Safari, Opera, and Camino.
Hat tip to mip’s scan.
Shel Holtz is principal of Holtz Communication + Technology which focuses on helping organizations apply online communication capabilities to their strategic organizational communications.
As a professional communicator, Shel also writes the blog a shel of my former self.
