Linked by Thom Holwerda on Mon 12th Jan 2009 23:18 UTC, submitted by Sebastiaan
Mozilla & Gecko clones You may have thought Mozilla could not open up beyond its current state, but you may be wrong: Aza Raskin, Mozilla Labs' UX Lead and Sebastiaan de With, a freelance icon designer, have completely opened up the process of designing a new logo for Mozilla Ubiquity. The second round of conceptual exploration has just started, and the popular vote is very welcome on the blog or in the comments. What's your favorite concept, and why?
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Wow
by jaduncan on Mon 12th Jan 2009 23:59 UTC
jaduncan
Member since:
2005-11-19

That video impressed me oh so much. I am newly sold on microformats and the semantic web in general. I also note with some amusement that basically the whole high tech world seems to have settled on mainly using Google products.

Reply Score: 2

RE: Wow
by ari-free on Wed 14th Jan 2009 08:20 UTC in reply to "Wow"
ari-free Member since:
2007-01-22

I think a google only approach would be the last thing mozilla (or any browser maker) would want after Chrome.

Reply Score: 2

Ubiquity
by Rahux on Tue 13th Jan 2009 00:38 UTC
Rahux
Member since:
2009-01-13

I've been using Ubiquity since the first prototype and it has pretty much been the only reason I think I'll continue to use Firefox (along with Linux support) as my preferred browser over Chrome. 3.1 is shaping up to be an excellent release and I hope Ubiquity becomes part of the default eventually.

Having said that, I would also love to see Ubiquity as a stand-alone app too, something that can be invoked like Launchy or Katapult. That would be an incredibly powerful tool.

Reply Score: 2

Eh...
by Bill Shooter of Bul on Tue 13th Jan 2009 00:42 UTC
Bill Shooter of Bul
Member since:
2006-07-14

Still not sold on the usefulness of it. Using it might save me a couple seconds here and there.

But, the security & privacy implications are probably interesting. How much information does ubiquity have access to? How easy is it to create a custom command that launches a CSRF attack, or similar?

Reply Score: 3

Tied into services?
by TheIdiotThatIsMe on Tue 13th Jan 2009 02:43 UTC
TheIdiotThatIsMe
Member since:
2006-06-17

It seems like a great idea, but I wonder how tightly tied into specific services it would be? For example, when looking up maps, I'm assuming it's using Google Maps? I know many people prefer Mapquest.

If you wanted information on a movie, either dvd or theatre, where would it pull the information from? The reason I ask, is that many people use a *lot* of different services for different things. For example, me personally, I like Google's email and search, Yahoo's movies, Mapquest, IMDB, MSN's Stock, etc. Would you be able to select what service it uses, or will it mostly be tied in with one or two providers?

Reply Score: 2

RE: Tied into services?
by Arno on Tue 13th Jan 2009 10:25 UTC in reply to "Tied into services?"
Arno Member since:
2006-01-10

It seems like a great idea, but I wonder how tightly tied into specific services it would be? For example, when looking up maps, I'm assuming it's using Google Maps? I know many people prefer Mapquest.


In the video you can see that you can easily add new scripts. It shouldn't be a problem - if it gets popular- to find a script for your favourite services so it won't be tied to any service-provider.

I hope it will improve fast cause I like the add-on, but it slows down firefox on start-up. But it's still a 0.1 so I shouldn't complain.

Reply Score: 1

not something i want to use
by sagum on Tue 13th Jan 2009 11:09 UTC
sagum
Member since:
2006-01-23

This isn't something that i'd want to use.

trying to talk to my computer is just annoying. seeing what I am doing is much better then just telling the computer what to do. What i mean by this isn't what the video is showing.

For example, when the video shows adding event to calender. I much prefer to look at mine before adding any slots just to be sure there aren't going to be times where things have a possiblity for overrun or where I may need a timeout (or not) depending on the event, such as a known problem client. And by look at it, I want to see at least a day view with hour by hour.

Also, I don't think everyone explains things in the same way, and I know this is what most of its about but there are still keywords, such as 'map-this' thats not english, its a command word.

There are people who'll give much more detail, such as 'show me a map of all the locations I've selected' where other people will just say 'where are these?'

The first is pretty limiting to what the program needs to find and show, but the later can be from what sites they're from, the location of the links on a map .etc

they aim to use scripts, while this is great if they're kept upto date with the sites they're designed to work with, when sites change and scripts need updating or users have to find new scripts to sites/services, then it just seems like more effort then is needed.

Good luck to them though, certainly seems like a start on AI computing.

Reply Score: 2

Those days are back!
by jal_ on Tue 13th Jan 2009 13:41 UTC
jal_
Member since:
2006-11-02

Ah, the days of the CLI are returning! Just type your commands and the computer does what you are saying, because of scripts. This must really turn on any Unix enthusiast ;) .

Reply Score: 2

RE: Those days are back!
by Doc Pain on Wed 14th Jan 2009 12:07 UTC in reply to "Those days are back!"
Doc Pain Member since:
2006-10-08

Ah, the days of the CLI are returning!


Can you tell me when they actually did disappear? :-)

Just type your commands and the computer does what you are saying, because of scripts. This must really turn on any Unix enthusiast ;) .


It's a very comfortable concept of doing things. Instead of WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get), it's much easier just to YAFIYGI (you asked for it, you got it). :-)

But yeah, script driven stuff can be handy to minimize interaction for doing boring stuff and have more time to concentrate on more important things. To take the calendar example, the less time you spend on managing your appointments, the more time you've got for them (and between them).

Reply Score: 2

RE: Those days are back!
by fresch on Wed 14th Jan 2009 15:55 UTC in reply to "Those days are back!"
fresch Member since:
2006-09-12

Hehe, my thoughts exactly! These guys are patting their backs so hard, they probably didn't even notice they were reinventing the wheel.

I was going to point out how they were using the selection as a commands argument, but that isn't so new either (open `favorite-text-editor“, select text, go to "Edit" menu and hit "Copy".)

Not even their "It's scriptable; by you!" concept is anything new - greasemonkey anyone?

So what is really new? I'll tell you: The Package and The Presentation! And as we all know, that's what it's all about.

;-P

Reply Score: 1

don't oversell
by jack_perry on Tue 13th Jan 2009 14:52 UTC
jack_perry
Member since:
2005-07-06

Talk about anticlimactic. It's a convenience: nothing you haven't been able to do for years via task-switching and an intelligent use of the web.

That said, it will probably be "ubiquitous" within a couple of years.

Reply Score: 2