Chrome Omnibar - Search contents of a particular site

I didn't notice this before, but I was using Chrome's Omnibar to load up Facebook, and before I finished typing in facebook.com on the RHS a little widget popped up saying "Press Tab to search facebook.com".

So I hit tab and the Omnibar brings up another widget on the LHS that seems to switch the Omnibar to search only the contents of Facebook.

Very useful, as the majority of the time when I'm searching I don't want to search the whole of the Internet, but just the contents of a particular site, for example Wikipedia

Strangely, the Facebook search results doesn't bring up the search dialogue like in the Wikipedia search result, but just a link to search

I did a bit more poking around and discovered that which sites are searchable are stored in the configuration. Just load up options, basics tab, hit manage:

And there's a list of sites which Chrome can search the contents of

Excel modal windows FAIL

I would have thought certain conventions in UI would have already been firmly established in this day in age. For example the the final result of the modal windows vs tabs debate ending in not one or the other, but both

i.e. as in the web browser space:

And similarly, Firefox, Chrome, IE all following suit.

Why is it then, that Microsoft Excel (the reason why the PC became popular in homes) still doesn't support modal windows which aren't limited by the application frame itself?

At least they got their priorities straight. Spending time on the Ribbon. And the ability to load up spreadsheets with more than 65,000 rows. Oh and fixing that bug which blew away your undo history the instant you saved an Excel document.

Maybe it's time for another competitor to enter the Spreadsheet space?

Joe the Plumber

This Joe the Plumber thing is getting blown out of proportion.

Here's a graph to solidify just how fair McCain's tax cuts are to 60% of tax payers (last three bars on the graph).

Actually, Joe the Plumber isn't going to be paying more tax with this $250,000/year income. He'll be paying the same as he did last year.

Who thought physics could be entertaining?

Remember Crayon Physics Deluxe?

I've recently stumbled upon a similar physics type game called Fantastic Contraption which is like Crayon Physics Deluxe, but not vapourware :)



I didn't realise how these games drew quite a few parallels with my profession until I saw other people's solutions and how I realised that (like coding) there is no right solution to solving the problem, but they are degrees of elegance in solving the problem itself.

I also found myself using common design patterns, such as all terrain vehicles, triangles, cranks and catapults.

Seeing other people use these same systems you could kind of figured out those who knew what they were doing and those which were just adding wheels here and there, making their stick "just that bit longer" so they could hack together a solution which would solve the puzzle.

These would make an interesting job interview question :)