Google Productivity Tip: Easily Search Websites using the "site:" tag

There are many google tricks, but this is one of the more handy for me. Whether it's in the search box, your quicksilver bar, or on your igoogle page, adding "site:[some website here]" will restrict the google search to the domain you enter. This is handy for some sites that don't have an adequate search capability, or just when you are looking for that blog post you found earlier on some random little productivity blog. If you have any other tricks or tips you'd like us to feature, put them in the comments or reply me at @multithreadblog.

Mac Productivity Tip: Fluid.app

One of the programs I use the most on my mac is a free application called Fluid (http://www.fluidapp.com). Fluid very simply, creates a copy of safari that is restricted to a certain website. So you can create an “application” that only runs facebook, or google calendar, or whatever you need. It’s more powerful than that, with built in support for URL shortening, plugins, and skins. Also, if your app crashes, it won’t take the tabs you have open in Safari with it. Here’s how I use it. Today’s examples are going to be google calendar, google tasks, and the excellent music site www.lala.com.

Google Calendar is an easy one. You simply launch fluid, put in the URL (http://www.google.com/calendar), and hit go. It creates the .app, places it in your applications folder and launches it. You can then launch the app, stick it in your dock, and most importantly access it instantly from quicksilver.

this feature places it nicely out of the way... in your menubar

Google tasks is slightly more complicated. Use this URL (http://mail.google.com/tasks/iphone), and hit go. For extra flair, you can go to the menu bar, and select “Convert to Embedded MenuSBB”. This places it in your taskbar as a handy menu item that drops down on click. Very handy.

the asterixs are wildcards, allowing you to hit any page on the site

Lala.com has one special feature that I will highlight. Lala.com can share the current playing track on twitter, but fluid.app by default restricts your browsing to the domain you set it up on originally. You can expand these restrictions in the pref pane, under Advanced Preferences. Just add twitter.com as one of the options. If you don’t do this, it’ll open up the link in your default browser.

google voice is a very handy app... as is delicious, and google docs!

Lastly, as a mac fiend, we usually like things very pretty. Fluid has an option when you create the app to choose an alternate icon. If you don’t, it’ll use the website favicon, which isn’t quite high enough resolution for me. A great source of icons is http://www.flickr.com/groups/fluid_icons/. Plenty of user submitted high res png goodness to choose from.

So that’s it. As you start to use this, you’ll find yourself sticking more and more of the sites you use constantly in these fluid instances. It’s a bit like a bookmark, but it’s really handy, especially for you social network nuts. PC users, you don’t have to feel left out. The same basic principles hold true for Google’s Chrome browser, which has a very similar feature. If you have any ideas, questions, or suggestions, please leave a comment.

Mac Productivity Tip: Safari Bookmarklets

I keep flip flopping back and forth between safari and firefox, but one feature on safari that keeps pulling me back is the hotkeyed bookmarklets.

Safari and other browsers have two kinds of bookmarks... traditional bookmark folders (which I don't use anymore, more on that in a later post) and what is called the bookmarks menu. In safari, these bookmarks can be accessed by pressing CMD + [number key], where [number key] is the number in order. So in my toolbar, above, CMD + 1 is "Share on FriendFeed," and CMD + 2 is "Read Later."

The real power of bookmarklets is that they can store little javascript programs, not just websites. In fact, that's what all of my bookmarklets do, and they are real handy. I'll focus on just one of them today. It's the one labeled "Read Later". It hooks up to www.instapaper.com.

Instapaper is a great service, that can be best summed up as a place to store temperorary bookmarks. So when I encounter a long blog post, or a youtube video, or a shop item I want for later, but I don't want to log it in a text file or create a bookmark, I simply press CMD + 2, and it's logged away until I come for it. Very handy for all those little things you come across at work that you want to save till later.

So that's it. Bookmarklets can be used on any browser, even stinky old IE, but I wanted to highlight the power of them on Safari. Other bookmarklets I use constantly include Subscribe in Google Reader, Add to Wishlist, and Bookmark on Delicious. I'll talk more about bookmarking and delicious later.

Mac Productivity Tip: Using the Help menu as a Universal Shortcut Bar

Are you a l337 keyboard shortcut maniac? Do you wish you could access menu items using a spotlight/quicksilver like interface? Well now you can! Press CMD + SHIFT + /, and on most leopard applications the Help menu will show up, with a spotlight-like box in focus immediately. Start typing what you want to find like "stabilization" for getting at the Analyze for Stabilization in iMovie '09, and items that match the text will show up in the window. This trick is also great for finding filters and tools in photoshop that you can’t remember the shortcuts to.

I'm going to feature some more tricks for keeping you productive and happy, stay tuned!

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