Edit (2010-05-20): “hl=all” no longer works. Assuming you don’t want pirate-speak (“hl=xx-pirate” which still does), I rewrote the post.
If you can’t stand the new clutter on Google, there’s a blog devoted to reverting (the Opera userjs there worked):
http://theoldgoogle.blogspot.com/
To disable suggestions, make this your homepage.
In total, about a half-hour that should make your day.
Edit (2010-04-21): Fixed broken videos.
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I have some friends who stubbornly believe that twitter isn’t worth the time and frustration. The biggest hurdle I face in changing their minds is that, for the most part, they’re right. It’s not twitter’s fault, though. The creators of the service did what you’re supposed to do in this day and age with a new technology. They created it and turned it loose and left the responsibility on us (the users) to make it worthwhile. I believe wholeheartedly that it *can* be worthwhile, if used properly. The interesting thing about this “proper” use is that it’s altogether subjective. So, I’m going to put together a guide, from my point of view, for using twitter in a way that it won’t make you want to delete your account or attempt to find a way to fit sufficient malicious code in 140 characters to tell some fucktard’s computer how to stab him in the face.
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I’ve noticed a cluster of conversations and situations recently which all seem to relate back to an excellent book by Chris Anderson about how Free has become a price point that companies in the digital age need to consider or compete with. I first heard about the book because I’m following Mr. Anderson on twitter, and he’s understandably talking about it frequently (you can believe that, if I spent a year and a half writing something, I’d be harping on it more than he is). It has certainly gotten a few people riled up, as will tend to happen when you force folks to acknowledge that some of the things they’ve relied on to be true in the past are changing. (more…)
One of my failings as a geek is that I sometimes grow complacent when it comes to things not working the way I wish they would. I will work on stuff for quite a while in order to make it behave the way I want it to, but once I’ve deemed something too much of a PITA to fix, I just learn to deal with it. Because of this, I often keep doing something the “hard way” long after someone has come along and made it work the way it always should have. This is the case with using Gmail for mailto: links in web pages. I had given up on being able to click those links and use something besides a mail client configured in the OS. That being said, I’ve yet to find a mail client that I actually like, so I just use the web interface for my beloved gmail account, and for as long as I can remember, have just copied the To: address out of mailto: links and then gone over to gmail to do my thing. Well, that was dumb of me, check this out:
http://lifehacker.com/392287/set-firefox-3-to-launch-gmail-for-mailto-links
Nifty, huh?
It reminds me of a quote I heard a while back. “The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.” – George Bernard Shaw
I salute you, unreasonable people, and thank you for making my life better.