Month: June 2005

Whoever would’ve thought that the Web would get a command-line interface? Whoever would’ve thought that such an interface could be so gosh-dang useful?

Yubnub bills itself as a “social command line” for the Web. Users are allowed to assign command-line type abbreviations to Web addresses and Web-based apps. There are, of course, hundreds of already assigned CL codes, many of them in familiar command-line syntax (“ls” for a list of available commands, “man” for the “manual” to the site (okay, it’s a lame little FAQ, but still…), “who” for a “whois” search, etc). Then there are Web-centric commands, like “g [search string]” for a Google search, “login [site URL]” to return a bugmenot site password, “torrentspy [name of media]” to search for matching bittorrent files). This software gets seriously useful when you install the Firefox search box plugin for it.

Almost immediately after the announcement that Macs would make the switch to Intel chips, an Intel version of Mac OS X started making the rounds online. People began to install it on their PCs. Steve Jobs, who’s brought suit against people for less, doesn’t seem especially concerned. Naturally, there’s a theory about it.

One Free Minute is a cool-looking sculptural object that broadcasts your phoned-in rants, for up to one minute. You call the number, and if the sculpture is “live,” your rant is broadcast for all to hear. If not, it gets stored on an answering machine for later playback. Right now, the sculpture resides in “America’s demographically average city” Columbus, Ohio, but plans are in the works to take the sculptural mouthpiece on the road. Exercise your right to free speech (while there’s still time).