Using yubnub / web command lines to impress friends
07.16.07 - 08:15pm
Yubnub, and some similar spin offs offer a quick and powerful way to wrangle the web. These web command line applications give users an easy gateway to many of the services they are already using, and provide an easy way to show off your geekness to those around you.
For example, if you wanted to search ebay for optimus prime, and who wouldn’t, you could simply type ebay optimus prime into the search bar on yubnub.org. Want to search wikipedia? Try typing wp optimus prime into the same search bar. The basic idea of yubnub.org is it provides a number of commands that you can pass arguments too, just like any other command line.
Yubnub gets more compelling when you bake it right into the browser. I have replaced the default behavior of my address bar in firefox to direct my query to yubnub.org, so I can easily type (apple-l OR alt-d), enter in wp optimus prime, and be directed to the wikipedia search results. Doing that always causes those around me to gasp in awe, at least in my head. More importantly, it saves me time, mostly the time it takes for the target site to load, me to click in their search bar, and then initiate a search.
The commands that yubnub.org supports are added by the very active community, so most sites you would want to use are already supported. One of the most useful yubnub commands is ls, which provides a list of commands that include your search term. For example, typing ls del.icio.us returns 3 pages of commands. ls google returns 29 pages of commands.
This is a big of a curse as well. Although there are 3 pages of del.icio.us commands, many of them do the same thing, or are only very slight modifications that people have added. Another issue I have found is people have added commands that you may not agree with. For example, I may want to google for osx irc client, but someone along the way made the osx command point to a less useful site then a mac-centric search.
Yubnub provides a number of ways to install itself. I prefer hijacking my address bar, but there is a search bar, multiple widgets, quicksilver, dedicated applications, and more.
Some spin offs have appeared lately, most notably yeahway and sugarcodes. yeahway offers private commands which in itself could be a very compelling reason to switch so I can easily override the behavior of any command I want, and finally have osx irc client go where I want.
Other yubnub links
Thanks for the review, Aaron. And let me know where osx should point to!
Jon
yubnub/ning
Jon :
Thanks for the comment!
I would love for the osx command to point to the mac google portal. I think this would be the command..
http://www.google.com/search?q=%s&btnmeta%3Dsearch%3Dmac=Search+Mac+Sites
Aaron
Oh and silly me, thanks for the fantastic service. I’ve been using it almost since it’s inception, and have loved every minute of it!
Thanks for the osx suggestion. Done.