March 27, 2008

Smart keywords are unbelievably simple but effective way of improving your web experience. With a minimal effort you can speed up your daily web surfing or turn Firefox into a network command line.

If you do not know what smart keywords are - read the general description of quick searches first.
Otherwise, look at some examples of how they can be effectively used. Generally speaking, the more often you search the same websites, the more time you’re going to earn thanks to setting up the quick searches.
I’ll go through some most popular keywords, but first - let’s make some more sophisticated use of them.

Replace the command line with Firefox

If you use the basic operating system network commands - these searches are for you (via Lifehacker):

ping example.comwhois example.comlookup (IP address) OR (example.com)traceroute example.comemail admin@example.com (for Gmail users)

You can add bookmarks, which will allow you to execute these commands directly through the location bar.
You need to add bookmarks for these links and enter appropriate keywords for all of them.
Important: you can enter the bookmarks manually (changing the keywords if you like) but you can just download and import a ready for use file instead (keep on reading for a brief how-to.)

ping: http://network-tools.com/default.asp?prog=ping&host=%s whois: http://www.whois.net/whois_new.cgi?d=%s&tld=comlookup: http://network-tools.com/default.asp?prog=lookup&host=%s traceroute: http://network-tools.com/default.asp?prog=trace&host=%s email( through gmail): https://mail.google.com/mail?view=cm&ui=1&tf=0&to=%s

Download bookmarks instead of adding them manually

In order not to waste time adding th bookmarks manually, use the prepared file.

  1. Right click and download the file with bookmarks, save it to your hard disk.
  2. Go to Bookmarks » Organise Bookmarks... and then choose File » Import... » From File
    Import Quick Searches from a file
  3. Browse and open the previously saved file.

Popular and useful Firefox Quick Searches

Again, you can

download the Quick Searches listed below in a ready-for-use file

and import them to you bookmarks as decribed before. Obviously, they can be edited afterwards with Bookmarks » Organise Bookmarks... menu. Actually, I strongly advise you to do it. You will probably not need all of them, you may get some ideas for more Quick Searches. And last but not least, you should assign the shortest possible keywords to the bookmarks you’re using all of the time. For example, if you’re Youtube fan, changing the keyword for Youtube bookmark from youtube to y is definitely a good idea.

Here is the list of over 20 Quick Searches included in the file:

Search Engines

  1. g <query> to search Google for the query
  2. goto <query> to search Google for query in I’m Feeling Lucky mode
  3. msn <query> to search MSN for the query
  4. yahoo <query> to search Yahoo! for the query

Dictionaries

  1. acronym <ABC> to decode the acronym using the Acronym Finder
  2. dict <word> to search for the meaning in Dictionary.com
  3. thes <word> to search for similar words in the Thesaurus
  4. urban <expression> to search for a slang expression in the Urban Dictionary

Shopping

  1. amazon <product> to find the product on Amazon.com
  2. ebay <product> to search eBay.com for the product
  3. froogle <product> to compare the prices of the product on Froogle.com

Graphics

  1. flickr <query> to look for photos on Flickr
  2. gimage <query> to search Google Images
  3. sxc <query> to find photos on sxc.hu

News

  1. gnews <query> to find the query in Google News
  2. ynews <query> to find the query in Yahoo News
  3. nyt <query> to search for query at The New York Times website

Various

  1. gmap <address> to find the address at Google Maps
  2. imdb <search term> to find actor/movie at the Internet Movie Database
  3. tech <search term> to search blogs at Technorati.com
  4. torrent <query> to find torrents at The Pirate Bay
  5. wiki <search term> to find information at Wikipedia
  6. youtube <query> to find movies related with the query at Youtube

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