One thing I love about Firefox is the fact that so many things seem to just happen. I see something, in this case it was a URL that was only written out in text (no hyper link,) and I thought: "Wouldn't it be great if I could just highlight it and go?"

Turns out you can - sort of. If you're browsing around a site and find a text link only available in text format ( bill2me.com ) highlight it and then drag it to the address bar. Just hit enter and away you go. If you're using the bookmarks toolbar you also have the option of dragging the highlighted text there to get an instant bookmark for later inspection.

As an added bonus you can copy a URL out of a text document, swap to Firefox and bookmark the link just by right-clicking on your bookmarks toolbar and selecting paste.

As I mentioned previously Yahoo! Pipes has a great deal of potential. The more you use the service the more you begin to see what can be done with it. Probably the most obvious use that jumps to mind (in fact its mentioned in the official description for the service) is mixing several feeds into one. While I wouldn't necessarily do this to many of my "must read" feeds, it certainly does make managing some of my less important ones easier.

The first mashup I created was designed to take a series of comic strips and mix them down into one feed. Besides simply showing the comics I wanted I also wanted to remove any of the "news" posts that tend to get mixed in. In this post I wanted to talk a bit about how I created the mashup and filter that accomplished this.

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If you've read about Yahoo! Pipes already chances are your interest has at least been piqued, the concept is definitely interesting.  Take a look at the official description:

Pipes is a free online service that lets you remix popular feed types and create data mashups using a visual editor. You can use Pipes to run your own web projects, or publish and share your own web services without ever having to write a line of code.

While Pipes certainly sounds powerful it's safe to say that the service is still in a beta-ish state. There's plenty of functionality, don't get me wrong, but every time I've had a stroke of inspiration I've found the service woefully lacking. It's not really enough to mash a couple feeds together, you really want the ability to quantify and label your results - right now Pipes really only lets you list them.

Despite being in its infancy, though, Pipes has a great deal of potential. In its current form Pipes can be used to combine multiple feeds, search multiple sites, and even filter your results. Earlier today I setup a 'pipe' that combines a couple of my favorite video game comic feeds, filters out any "news" items, and shows only the new comics (or their permalinks.) It may not seem like a lot but because I almost never read the "News" posts it certainly cuts down on clutter in my Feed Reader - it also combined three seperate RSS feeds into one.

Over the next couple of days I'm going to share some very basic uses for Pipes that I've found.  The goal, really, is just to show off some of the things you can do while using Yahoo!'s new service.  If you're at all interested in Yahoo! Pipes please feel free to share your questions or insights.

Last week I implemented a major change in how I handle bookmarks and have been so happy with it that I decided I should share. Let me start by attributing the main concept used here to Virtually Shocking's recent post about the Firefox Bookmark Bar as well as a Cranking Widget's post titled "How to Use Firefox Live Bookmarks for RSS Feed Probation."

The basic process here uses ideas set forth in the previously mentioned posts as well as my own truncated GTD process. While you can certainly accomplish this without the use of any Firefox add-ons, I'll start by recommending two specific ones. For all of you Google fans I recommend starting with the Google Sync plugin. All the steps we make in this process will be mirrored across all FireFox browsers that you have Google Sync installed on.

The second add-on that I recommend is del.icio.us. In the same way you'll need a Google account to use Google Sync you'll also want to grab a de.icio.us account. [The del.icio.us add-on will be marked by italics while the service will be in plain text.] There are SEVERAL del.icio.us add-ons floating around the Firefox Add-on Library, the one I'm recommending is super simple and doesn't add any toolbars or sidebars. Some of the ones that do add toolbars can interfere with Google Sync so you want to avoid them if you're planning on trying this out.

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Engadget today is reporting on a plan by French authorities to issue USB drives stocked with Open Source software to 175,000 Parisian high school students. For now the list of OS programs is up in the air. The Greater Paris Regional Council, which appears to be in charge of the initiative, will be taking bids from firms interested in providing the drives. Apparently the wining bidder will be choosing which Open Source apps make the cut.

Just about everyone is expecting Firefox and Thunderbird to end up on the drives but I thought I'd include a few other "must have" open source apps that would be great for students.

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