Hand Made

Ubiquity Prototype Released by Mozilla Labs

Jason — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 14:31:49 +0000

Has our ability to easily work with all of the data and APIs available on the web been handicapped?

I’ve been thinking there must be a better way for non-technical users to work with Google Maps, flickr, search, and Wikipedia - and a better way for us all to post to Twitter among other things. Mozilla Labs may have provided the answer with Ubiquity.

Ubiquity for Firefox from Aza Raskin on Vimeo.

As a preface to the installation instructions: I initially posted began posting instructions because it appeared that installation on Mac OSX would be a little complicated. However, installing Ubiquity turns out to be really easy on either Mac or Ubuntu.

Installation on Mac OSX 10.5:

(10.5.4 tested, but should work on all versions)

Just visit the Ubiquity Introduction Post at the Mozilla Labs Blog and click the link to Install the Prototype. (Or, just click here.)

Installation on Ubuntu 8.04:

(This should work on all versions of Linux running FireFox 3)

Same as Mac OSX, just visit Ubiquity Introduction Post at the Mozilla Labs Blog and click the link to Install the Prototype. (Or, here.)

Got it installed? Now, you could visit the tutorial if you want, or you could head over here and get more verbs.

I have just started using Ubiquity this morning, and while I am a big fan of the Webkit and Safari, I could easily see Ubiquity taking me back to becoming a consistent FireFox user.

What do you think?

Working with Google Maps in Ubiquity

Where will you be September 14th?

Jason — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 16:51:25 +0000

I’ve got some new digs. Hope you like’m.

Jason — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 06:31:32 +0000

I’ve stayed up a bit late tonight to upload my new design for jasonbrummels.com. I’m headed to toward making this blog a little bit more personal, and a little bit more informative. I hope I can bring something interesting to your screen on a more frequent basis.

(I’ll be working up a new more business oriented blog over at Drive Method here in the next few weeks. I’ll post up when I send it live.)

New Posts Coming Soon!

Jason — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 04:53:26 +0000

I promise…

Ok. I am not a Paris Hilton Fan, but This Video Got 2.8 Million Views in 24 Hours

Jason — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 16:16:16 +0000

I apologize for mentioning her here. I hope I never do it again. Did I mention that this video was viewed 2,800,000 times in 24 hours?

Obama Calls McCain’s Campaign What It Is: Ignorant

Jason — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 16:06:58 +0000

I picked this story up at the Huffington Post.

Stephen Colbert’s take:

Jon Stewart continues to be one of my personal heros.

Jason — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 19:21:32 +0000

VMWare Fusion 2 Beta 2 Released

Jason — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 13:29:53 +0000

VMWare Fusion 2 Beta 2 includes Unity 2.0, mirroring of Mac folders, virtual machine snapshots, video improvements, and better memory management. I regularly run Windows XP and Ubuntu 8.04 using VMWare, and it really is quite impressive already. I’ll be testing out the beta today.

The Motorcycles Are Coming!

Jason — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 03:20:41 +0000

Not really the best news piece, but it is still interesting that the mainstream media are taking notice. If fuel prices continue to be higher (seems likely…or almost fair?), those old bikes shown in the video will turn into newer bikes and scooters, creating a motorcycling environment similar to (but never the same as) Europe.

Cuil. Better Search Results Format?

Jason — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 15:43:16 +0000

I regularly check the Google Operating System Blog looking for what is new with Google, new Google products and projects, and interesting new technology. Considering how much traffic the blog gets, I find it very interesting that they regularly talk about new and upcoming services that are similar or in competition with Google’s own services.

Today, is one such instance. I hadn’t heard of Cuil before, but thanks this blog post, I imagine Cuil’s traffic has spiked.

Cuil

The post is not entirely favorable, and not entirely negative either. In fact, just performing one search on Cuil will likely lead you to very similar conclusions.

However, I quite like the look of Cuil and the display of results. While you are not bombarded with as many urls as with a Google search per page, the layout is arguably much easier to read and much more useful when deciding which link to follow.

Cuil Results

Give it a try yourself.