Year: 2012

Setup DuckDuckGo with Safari Omnibar

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While I disliked Google before it was popular, it’s hard for me to argue that Chrome is a damn good browser on the Mac.

Thankfully, the Safari Omnibar plug-in[1] brings the best feature of Chrome — the unified address box and search field to Mac OS X’s native browser.

The Omnibar includes Google, Google Image and Wikipedia search by default. Adding DuckDuckGo is simple, however:

  1. Right-click in the Omnibar, and select “Edit Omnibar Search Providers…”
  2. Add a new item. I assigned the trigger “d” to DuckDuck Go. In the URL field enter:
    http://duckduckgo.com/?q={searchTerms}
  3. Click Done, after deciding what to set as the default.

It’s that easy to get away from Google’s search engine and their browser. Happy non-creepy searching.

Update 1: It appears I’m a little behind the times. As Marco Frissen pointed out on Twitter, not only is the OmniBar available as a regular Safari extension via Apple’s site, but it comes with a normal prefrence pane within Safari. Whoops. I’m still using the SIMBL plugin still, for now.

  1. It’s actually a SIMBL plugin, which is a tad scary. Thankfully, it can be easily disabled by visiting /Library/Application Support/SIMBL/Plugins  ↩

App Recommendation: Launch Center

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For as long as I can remember, I’ve had the same four apps in my iPhone’s dock:

  • Phone
  • Mail
  • Safari
  • Settings

This week, in a major upheaval in my life, Launch Center replaced Settings in the Dock.

Now, this app isn’t one for everyday users. It’s closest Mac cousin is Automator, really. Here’s how App Cubby describes it on its site:

Launch apps and trigger actions from a quick, easy to use app! Call a friend, start an email, send a text, post to Twitter, turn on a flashlight — get to where you’re going faster than ever before.

In short, it’s Siri for your fingertips.[1] Instead of dealing with 4 or 5 taps to do something, Launch Center sets up an action to get right to where you want to be. They can even be scheduled, as of the newest version of the app.

To do this, the app uses custom URLs that other developers can include in their applications. Even the built-in Settings app uses them. Here are the shortcuts I have setup:

If you use your iPhone as a computer, you should check this app out. It’s just 99¢ on the App Store.

  1. With everyone wanting Siri to be able to interact with third-party applications, I can see it utilizing these app URLs to do it.  ↩

512 Pixels v1.1

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Version 1.1 of the site went live yesterday. Among the bug-fixes:

  • Margins should be even on the left and right of the page when viewed on an iPad or other small screened devices.
  • Load times should be faster
  • Images in posts now are served from S3
  • The space between the sidebar and body copy is larger
  • Footer widgets align with body elements better

Major props to my buddy PJ McCormick for this work. I went to high school with PJ, and have worked on several projects with him. He’s worth checking out if you need some cutting-edge web work done.

We have several more features we’ll be rolling out in the next few weeks, including a version of the site for you iPhone users.