Category: Internet


  • Disqus

    I am trying out the Disqus comment system for this blog through the WordPress plug-in. I’ve had an account through them for years for my Tumblr. Not sure why I did not bite this bullet years ago. More and more sites I visit use it. It lets commenters authenticate through Disqus, Facebook, Twitter, or Google. The…

  • Log In With Facebook

    Lately I have come to appreciate web sites that let me visit without connecting to Facebook. The sites asking me to connect use the same technology for the extremely annoying advertisements that disable doing anything on the web site until I figure out how to close it. Or lately, this technology is used to make…

  • Sneaky Search Engine

    I use Google search from my Chrome omnibox quite a bit. One of my favorite searches is “define <term>”. Somehow my “define” got hijacked so that when I typed it, Chrome switched to a search of word.sc. Fortunately, I knew this probably would be Chrome’s settings for Search Engines (top right wrench or three horizontal…

  • IFTTT Twitter Triggers

    Because of Twitter’s impending API terms changes (how third parties can access their service), third parties like If-This-Then-That are dropping Twitter. Ugh. I only had two recipes using Twitter. Post any tweets I tag #ln to LinkedIn. I don’t even think I triggered it once. Copy my tweets to Dropbox. I deleted both, but decided I needed…

  • Google Labs’ Ngram Viewer lets us look at the use of phrases over time. For example, my name, Ezra, appears to have been most popular usage peaks back in the 1600s and 1700s, but has been more consistently used since the 1800s. This kind of thing can get me lost for hours at a time.…

  • As a Valdosta State University student, we nicknamed the student paper the Speculator. Incorrectly reading between the lines were their specialty. Grammatical errors and spelling mistakes were part of their standard. But it was amusing to see them go after the administration. Not so much to be reported on when I made big mistakes. As…

  • Context Menu

    Almost everyone using a computer to access the Internet uses the left click on a link to go to its location. Exceptions might be left handers who switch the buttons on a mouse, those using screen readers, or similar small niche users of the Internet. I tend to multi-task, so I will scan a page…

  • Twexports

    Data portability is good both for users and systems. But I like being able to export my data for another reason: search. Some times I want to build on an old conversation. It would be easier with an eidetic memory. Lacking that, knowing the terms I would have used, searching for it should yield that conversation.…

  • Scrambls encrypts social media posts and lets users specify exactly who can see them, across all social media sites. The user can form groups from friends and family, going as broad as everyone with a Gmail account down to a specific colleague or even those who know a certain password. Everyone else (including the social…