If you frequently search the Westminster Library then you may be interested in this post. I have created a command for Firefox‘sUbiquity that allows you to search the Westminster Library Catalog without ever leaving your web page. You can even highlight text on any web page and automatically search the library catalog using that text.
The ubiquity notification bar appears on pages with Ubiquity commands
If you know all about Ubiquity, and already have it installed, then simply add the wtslibrary command by clicking “Subscribe” in the drop down notice on this page. Once you’ve subscribed to the command, activate Ubiquity and type in “wtslibrary”, then your search. To highlight and search, just select text on any web page (try it now on the word bavinck), activate ubiquity, and then type “wtslibrary” and return. So easy (and you may also be interested in this post)!
New to Ubiquity? I have a full introduction available, complete with instructions for installing my Westminster Bookstore Ubiquity command.
If you’re not ready to jump into the wonderful world of Ubiquity, try my simpler Firefox Search Plugin.
How does the wtslibrary command work?
You can subscribe to the “wtsbooks” command by browsing to this page with Ubiquity installed and clicking “Subscribe” when the notification window drops down.
To use the command, activate Ubiquity (your shortcut key) and start typing “wtslibrary”. Then type in your search and press “enter”. You can also select text on a web page (why not try it be selecting the following: bavinck), activate Ubiquity, type “wtslibrary,” and the text you selected will be automatically entered as your search.
Future prospects
For future updates to this command, bookmark this page or subscribe to my site. I hope to add more functionality in the future, like search previews (type “amazon” into Ubiquity to see what I mean) and other goodies. If you have suggestions or questions, please post them in the comments!
If you love the Westminster Bookstore, then you’re going to want to read this post. I have created a command for Firefox‘sUbiquity that allows you to search the Westminster Bookstore without ever leaving your web page. You can even highlight text on any web page and automatically search WTS Books using that text.
The ubiquity notification bar appears on pages with Ubiquity commands
If you know all about Ubiquity, and already have it installed, then simply add the wtsbooks command by clicking “Subscribe” in the drop down notice on this page. Once you’ve subscribed to the command, activate Ubiquity and type in “wtsbooks”, then your search. To highlight and search, just select text on any web page (try it now on the word bavinck), activate ubiquity, and then type “wtsbooks” and return. So easy (and you may also be interested in this post)!
New to Ubiquity? Keep reading!
What is Ubiquity?
Ubiquity is a plugin for Firefox (an excellent web browser) that allows you to interact with the web in a whole new way. It is a way of talking to the internet, telling it what kind of information you want and what you want to do with it. Bottom line: it’s the future of interacting with the web because it lets you do things more naturally and with less effort.
All this may sound like a lot of fluff. Why not see Ubiquity in action? The video below is an amazing demonstration of Ubiquity’s power and promise.
Easy. If you are using Firefox just go here and click the “Download Latest Version Ubiquity” link (or alternatively, just click here). Restart Firefox. You should see a page that tells you how to use Ubiquity and offers you a few options.
Note the keyboard shortcut listed in the top left corner of the page. It’s set to <CTRL>+Space by default (for Windows). You will use this shortcut to invoke Ubiquity and type your commands. Try it out now. Press the shortcut key, then type in “weather”. Wait for it…. Pretty cool, huh?
You may want to customize your shortcut key (especially if it doesn’t work, which is probably because that key combination is mapped to some other command on your system). I have mine set to WINDOWS+U.
How do I install more Ubiquity commands?
Ubiquity just provides the interface—the language by which your browser can communicate with you. For Ubiquity to be useful, you need to install commands. Ubiquity comes with a whole set of default commands, and installing new ones couldn’t be easier.
The ubiquity notification bar appears on pages with Ubiquity commands
If you go to a web page (like this one!) that contains a Ubiquity command, a little drop-down notice will appear asking if you want to subscribe. If you do, click “Subscribe” and follow the instructions on the next page. That page will look unnecessarily scary. It’s asking you if you trust the source. If you do, scroll down to the bottom and click “I know what I’m doing”. You might also want to check the “auto-update the feed” box, which means that anytime the author of the command makes a change, you will automatically have the latest version.
You can subscribe to the “wtsbooks” command by browsing to this page with Ubiquity installed and clicking “Subscribe” when the notification window drops down.
To use the command, activate Ubiquity (your shortcut key) and start typing “wtsbooks”. Then type in your search and press “enter”. You can also select text on a web page, activate Ubiquity, type “wtsbooks,” and the text you selected will be automatically entered as your search.
Future prospects
For future updates to this command, bookmark this page or subscribe to my site. I hope to add more functionality in the future, like search previews (type “amazon” into Ubiquity to see what I mean) and other goodies. If you have suggestions or questions, please post them in the comments!
The New York times recently covered the increasing popularity of Ubuntu’s flavor of GNU/Linux, attributing much of its success to Mark Shuttleworth’s leadership and wealth.
There’s a lot of sensationalism in the article. Like this:
But rather than preparing to code for the highest bidder, the developers were coordinating their largely volunteer effort to try to undermine Microsoft’s Windows operating system for PCs, which generated close to $17 billion in sales last year.
I don’t think Linux coders are all that subversive—we just want more control over our software. But still, it’s nice to see Linux getting some mainstream attention.
Christopher Tozzi at the excellent WorksWithU blog responds to some of points made by the NYT, offering a little balance and perspective. It’s worth a read.
Well, I’m back after the holidays. Quess what happened on my New Years?
For reasons that boggle the mind, I decided to type in the Linux equivalent of “format c:/”. Seriously. The result? My entire Windows partition is irrevocably gone.
Not a problem. I back up my data. Everything iimportant is safe, and all my dissertation research is secure, largely because of an excellent backup utility called Dropbox. I put all my important files into my dropbox and they are automatically synced accross multiple computers, and online. So after a little drag-and-drop, I’m back to work.
Back up Zotero
As many of you know I am a big advocate of Zotero for research and bibliographic management. It is worth noting that by default Zotero puts all required files in your Firefox folder, which is generally not backed up by most software. You can always add it to your Dropbox, but a better idea is to change your settings. Go into Zotero’s Preferences dialog and the Advanced Settings to set a new location for Zotero files. Put it in your My Documents folder under a subfolder called “Zotero.” Almost all backup software will backup you My Documents folder by default, so this is the safest place.
One Dropbox Limitation
One thing to be noted: Dropbox is not true backup software. True backup software archives your files on a periodic basis. Dropbox does something a little different; it mirrors you files. Any changes you make on your computer are automatically changed in your dropbox. If you overwrite or delete a file, it will be overwritten or deleted in dropbox.
This might be a problem, except Dropbox saves all revisions, so if you do something stupid, and then your stupidity is mirrored by Dropbox, you can “undo” your changes by going to the Web interface and clicking “Restore my files.” That’s what I had to do, and it worked flawlessly and quickly.
Thanks Dropbox!
Make a New Year’s Resolution
I have two suggestions for nerdy New Year’s resolutions: (1) Backup your data, (2) Use Super-User priveledges responsibly.
This is a post I wrote awhile back, but now includes a significant update (see below) that makes the whole thing worthy of re-purposing. Windows and Mac users should stop reading now lest their heads explode.
A Great Wireless Card
Switching to Linux from Windows is no longer as difficult as it used to be. I hope to post a full-fledged guide on switching to Linux in the near future, but in the mean time I would like to address one difficulty that has plagued would-be Linux users for some time: wireless cards and driver support. The persistent problem with Linux is that hardware manufacturers only program for Windows. The Linux community, with all its hacker ingenuity, has overcome this obstacle for most hardware, and big companies such as Intel and ATI have recently come-around and opened-up their drivers. Two problem areas remain, however: graphics cards and wireless cards.
The latter has given me a problem for some time, particularly with our old laptop. Built in cards usually work fine, but those PCMCIA and USB cards rarely include native Linux support. So, to cut to the chase, for all those Linux users out there, let me recommend the ASUS WL-107G. It redefines plug-and-play, which is not one of Linux’s strengths. Seriously, I removed my old card, stuck this in its slot, and with every expectation of needing to poke and proud, was sorely dissapointed to discover that the card in question “just worked.” OpenSUSE (and later Ubuntu) immediately recognized the card, installed the driver, accessed my WPA2-AES network, and was up-and-googling within 30 seconds. Amazing. If I hadn’t spend 2 months trying to get my Linksys card to behave, I would have said something like “Let’s see Windows do that!”
In short, the ASUS WL-107G is a PCMCIA notebook wireless card that runs in Linux, Windows, and Mac. It supports WEP, WPA, WPA2, with either TKIP or AES. In short, it will meet whatever security needs you have, in whatever Operating System you run, and for about $40 less than most other wireless cards with these specifications. If you are running a Linux box, and have had trouble with wireless, this is the card for you.
Important Update: Increase your Speed
For this and other cards based on the ralink 2×00 chipset (the WL-107G uses the rt2500 chipset), you may run into slow internet speeds when you first install. I did in Ubuntu. This is because the ralink drivers for some reason default to a 1 mbs data rate. To fix this, type the following into a terminal:
sudo iwconfig wlan0 rate 54M
You should be operating at normal speeds. You can use http://speed.io to test your speeds before and after marking the change.
Ok, so here is a list of Microsoft provided online storage/sync solutions, all of which are free. Windows Live Mesh offers an alternative to Dropbox if you need more than 5 gb of storage space and don’t need Mac/Linux support. These are all good options.
One of the real difficulties with Windows (at least versions prior to Vista) is the reinstall problem. After about 2 years or so your computer starts getting too slugish to be productive, and no amount of tweaking, defragmenting, or otherwise coaxing your computer to behave normally seems to help. Or perhaps something else has gone wrong. The bottom line: you need/want to start afresh, but are worried that you might loose something important in the process.
A Great Guide
Well, you’re right to be worried. Installing Windows is not a problem-free procedure. But there are steps you can take to make things easier and safer. Follow this guide for maximum security and minimum headache.
How to Backup your files (which you should be doing anyway)
One thing the guide does not mention (because it assumes you know to do this) is backing up your documents. You should already have a backup of your important files (Pictures, Music, Movies, regular documents, and program files such as your emails or Zotero database, etc.), so hopefully this step is pretty easy—just make sure that this backup is in a location that is not about to be erased when you reinstall Windows (the reinstallation will wipe your c:/ drive).
If you don’t already have a backup of these files, shame on you. You should. Really you should have 2 backup sets: one on an external hard drive, and one remote (that is, in an encrypted server somewhere far far away). As far as the remote backup set is concerned, Mozy Home and Carbonite are both great unlimited-space automated-backup solutions ($5 /month). Windows SkyDrive gives you 25 gb of free space (though you have to manage your files manually). And Dropbox provides 2 gb of free space and has a lot of great features like syncing across multiple computers.
Amarok is a Music Player that not only plays any music file you decide to throw at it, it also supports iTunes, can sync with your iPod, is (theoretically) cross-platform, and is generally pretty slick. The latest release has been a long-time coming, and is now finally available. If you are a Linux user, definitely go for the download. Mac and Windows users can still give it a try, though the application is still buggy on these systems.
Find a full explanation of this excellent software here.
I will be testing this new release over the next couple of days, and will give it a try on Windows, so stay tuned.
Update: It appears the design team has scaled down there original plans. For the time being iPod and iTunes support has been removed, but is likely to return in future releases. I’ll be keeping on eye on this software, but right now Songbird is probably a better open-source multi-platform alternative.
One of the advantages of using Linux is the ability to tweak everything (everything!) to your individual needs. So if you are not satisfied with the layout of you Greek keyboard, you can change it, or download someone else’s changes.
Vern Poythress has a simplified Greek layout available here, for example, which places the breathing marks over the parentheses keys.
I also recently discovered a layout by Simos Xenitellis, which supports a much larger set of Greek characters all without changing your layout:
This post is about writing Greek Polytonic using a new combined Greek layout that supports Greek, Greek Polytonic/Attic (ᾂᾷᾰᾱᾢᾥ) and Archaic (ͼϾϡϠϲϹϟϞ…).
Tiny application ShutdownGuard puts Windows automatic restarts back into your control.
I run an automated backup program on my Home computer (Vista) every night at 1am. Well, almost every night. Well, about every other night. The problem is that I have Windows set to download and install all those security updates, and it often decides to restart my computer as a result. When this happens my scheduled programs don’t run, and the only way to fix this is to turn off automatic updating.
I know many of you have had similar experiences. May I therefore suggest ShutdownGuard, a small and low-profile application that prevents Windows from its default “we know better than you” behavior.
