31 July 2017

keyword shortcuts in chrome

The following works by typing a keyword into the address bar (omnibar) and pressing enter to jump to a specific url. In Google's Chrome (as of version 59.0), this isn't available through the bookmark manager like it is in Firefox, but you can easily use the Search Engine Shortcuts feature in Chrome to work the same way.

How to create a keyword shortcut in Chrome

  1. Right click the address bar (omnibar)
  2. Select edit search engines...
  3. Click on 'ADD' - which appears after the default search engines section
  4. In the dialog that pops up:
    • in the search-engine field - name your bookmark
    • in the keyword field - enter your keyword shortcut string (what you will need to type in the omnibar to quickly jump to this 'bookmark'
    • In URL field - type in the url you want to associate with the keyword

Placeholder for additional text

The url can contain a special placeholder: '%s' (without the quotes) that will serve as a placeholder for additional text that you can enter if you press tab after typing the keyword shortcut.

For example, I use a keyword shortcut that jumps to list of bookmarks on https://pinboard.com by given tag. For that:
  • I use 'pint' (without quotes) as keyword,
  • and https://pinboard.in/u:jaysen/t:%s/ as url.
Then to access all my bookmarks on pinboard that is tagged with 'todo' as example
  • I type 'pint' in omnibar,
  • press TAB
  • type the tag I want to visit - in this example 'todo'
  • and ENTER This takes me to https://pinboard.in/u:jaysen/t:todo/

21 July 2017

growing pains

"The tribes and clans of early man never left us, they just expanded outward like ripples in a pond, becoming more intricate." - without losing too much of their easy use of violence and coercion.

We can reshape - build networks of decentralized public power using smart tools for communication and knowledge-sharing, decision-making and organisation.

But then again, we should never underestimate the potential  for things to get very much worse instead (or first?), as the priests and warlords - now corporations and politicians - steadily turn up the manipulation and violence to keep things running in their favour.