resab.org

Smart folders: Smart folders are similar to smart bookmarks but require far less work. There are a few ways to make smart folders for things like your browser history and browsing habits, but one of my favorite uses is to create little folders of bookmarks based on where you’ve been.

Save the backup JSON file to your desktop and e-mail it to yourself in Gmail. Be sure to set up a bookmarks label and tag every backup with it so you’ll save yourself some time searching later on.

Step 3: Use smart bookmarks and folders to discover new content
Are you an iTunes user? If so, you may be familiar with smart playlists, the playlists that will automatically fill with tracks based on what boolean values you set up. Firefox 3 has two similar features called smart bookmarks and smart folders that let you do this using query strings or simple searches. Now as a warning, this isn’t as simple to do as it is in iTunes, which has drop-down menus, but the good news is that there a ton of pre-built options you can simply copy and paste.

Firefox 3 keeps multiple backups of your bookmarks, but so should you.

To start, just get back to that organize bookmarks menu (Ctrl+Shift+B) and use the search box on the top right. When you type a name it’ll search both history and bookmarks. You can pick either of those, or both categories, and save it as a search, which will now reside in your bookmarks toolbar as a smart folder. If you add or visit a site with that word or domain in the name it will automatically show up in that list, saving you from having to re-categorize it. These are incredibly useful if you drop them down into the bookmarklets bar, since they’ll act as drop-down menus that will save you crucial screen real estate.

Smart bookmarks: Smart bookmarks are a grouping of links that change based on what values you plug into them. To make your own, click on bookmarks, then “organize bookmarks” (you can also hit Ctrl+Shift+B). Highlight “bookmarks menu” from the source list below, then right-click on it and select “new bookmark.” All the magic for making a smart bookmark is in the location field, which is where you’ll be dropping in a line of code that does all the heavy lifting. These codes can range from simple queries to a string that will search a domain and give you the latest stories, or simply those related to a keyword. The possibilities are nearly endless. The sad truth is that this method is complicated. MozillaZine has a huge thread on the ins and outs of building your own code strings, as does CyberNet News. Just keep in mind that you’ll have to have some basic coding knowledge to build your own from scratch.

(Credit:
CNET Networks)

To quickly add pre-existing tags without typing anything, just hit the little down arrow in the bookmarking menu. This will list all of the tags you’ve typed in before, and simply clicking on any one of them will add it as a tag.

Of the three, my personal preference is Delicious, if only for its community and browser plug-in that was recently updated to work in both Firefox 3 and IE7. We’ve written about Delicious many times before, but the gist is that you can access your bookmarks from anywhere, and when saving a bookmark it’ll automatically suggest tags for you based on what other people have saved that same link with. It’s a huge time-saver, and if you’re seriously into Firefox 3’s tagging system, you’ll end up saving a lot of time by integrating it with Delicious.

With tags, save typing and a visit to figure out what a site is about.

Related:
Set Web e-mail as default Firefox e-mail
Three useful Firefox 3 ‘awesome bar’ hacks

Saving sites you've been to in a certain genre can be a time saver. Smart bookmark folders let you do this the easy way.

(Credit:
CNET Networks)

We’ve put together a small guide to help you take advantage of bookmarking in
Firefox 3. If you put these lessons to use, you’ll go from having a big, clumsy menu of sites you like to an ever-changing list that can quickly be parsed and prioritized with minimal effort.

My way of doing this is to use two of Google’s services, Gmail and Google Calendar, to bundle reminders and file storage in one place. Step one is setting up a Google Calendar reminder every month for a backup. Now, every time you get the reminder just go organize bookmarks, then click on “import and backup.”

If you do want to access that dialogue without having to delve into the full-fledged bookmark editor, just click on the star again and you’ll get that same drop-down menu with quick fields you can fill in to edit tags or simply remove the link from your bookmarks.

Step 4: Import/export and backing up your bookmarks
There’s nothing worse than having to try and remember all the things you’ve bookmarked in case of a hard drive crash or corrupted file. Save yourself the trouble and make backups from time to time.

(Credit:
CNET Networks)

Step 5: Make it social
OK, so you don’t want to use Gmail and Google Calendar while saving and uploading files. I really can’t blame you. A far simpler solution is tying in your bookmarks with a service like Delicious, Magnolia, or Mister Wong.

If you don’t feel like sharing with anyone else you can also check out Foxmarks, which also has multi-browser bookmark sync and backup.

Step 1: Master the quickie
On a site you like? Don’t bother with keyboard shortcuts (although Ctrl+Shift+L is dead easy); just hit the new star button in the address bar. It’ll quick-save it to your bookmarks list the same way the keyboard shortcut does, although it saves a click or two by skipping the “edit this bookmark” dialogue that usually pops up when you try to squirrel a link away.

Step 2: Use tags
Tags are helpful. If you’re bookmarking a site you think you’re going to keep around, it’s worth tagging. The biggest reason is that Firefox will now use tags as shortcuts in the address bar, meaning that if you tag this article “awesome,” typing awesome into the bar will automatically pull up this page as one of the top results. It’ll also take any tags you’ve previously added and autofill them for you as you type. This makes it easy to fill in some simple descriptions quickly and efficiently.

Besides the face-lift, one of Firefox 3’s less flashy, but incredibly useful features, is the new bookmarking system. Yeah, there are still folders and bookmarklets, but joining the party are useful items like tags, smart backup, and a new way to track which sites you’re actually visiting to help weed out what’s unneeded.

Now, what if you lose everything and need to re-import? If you’ve got a copy of that JSON file laying around you just import it using that same menu you just used to do the backup. Likewise, you can go back to previous versions of your bookmarks by selecting an earlier date from the drop-down list, although I wouldn’t recommend doing that unless you’ve made a mess of the ones you have.

These were just a few tips on how to manage and master bookmarks in Firefox 3. If you’ve got any of your own, feel free to share them in the comments.

Watch a more detailed explanation of the product here. But as Yanko Design cautions in its post on the subject: whatever you do, don’t call it a digital Post-it!

E-notes even have a visual alarm/organizing function that changes colors. That we like.

Does the world really need Post-it 2.0? Ask those of us with Post-its habitually plastered on our monitors, walls, backs, and foreheads, and we’d probably be hard-pressed to come up with suggestions for improving the classic attachable notes.

Still, the designers at Sequoia Studio have come up with an inventive concept product called E-notes. The notes use tactile and flexible electronic paper technology and are powered by a solar captor. They can be stuck and unstuck to surfaces easily using a glue inspired by the adhesive that keeps the gravity-defying gecko in place. The best part? They can be reused, thus saving paper.

(Credit:
Sequoia Design)

Snow and soggy conditions at the primary landing site in Kazakhstan prompted Russian flight planners on Friday to order a 24-hour delay, from April 7 to 8, for the return to Earth of a Soyuz capsule carrying outgoing space station commander Mike Fincke, flight engineer Yury Lonchakov, and space tourist Charles Simonyi.

The mission had been scheduled to conclude with a touchdown on April 7 northeast of Arkalyk, Kazakhstan, but the landing zone has been moved to a backup site about 180 miles to the southeast, where conditions may be more favorable. Touchdown now is targeted for 3:15 a.m. EDT on April 8.

Fincke and Lonchakov were launched to the International Space Station aboard the Soyuz TMA-13 spacecraft October 12. Their replacements–Expedition 19 commander Gennady Padalka and flight engineer Michael Barratt, a NASA physician-astronaut–were launched March 26 aboard the Soyuz TMA-14 spacecraft. They were joined by Simonyi, a Hungarian-born U.S. software developer making his second privately funded trip to the space station.

During a change-of-command ceremony Thursday, Fincke formally handed the station over to Padalka, saying “all systems are in order, and Yury and I can now take a little bit of a rest and get ready, along with Charles, to come back to the planet.”

“Thank you very much, my best friend,” Padalka replied. “Expedition 19 is very happy to get (the) space station in great operational condition…We’re ready to work on behalf of all our space agencies and..all human beings.”

With a handshake, Expedition 18 commander Mike Fincke, right, transfers command to Expedition 19 commander Gennady Padalka. Crew, from left to right: Charles Simonyi, Michael Barratt, Padalka, Yury Lonchakov, Fincke, Koichi Wakata.

(Credit:
NASA TV)

If all goes well, Fincke, Lonchakov, and Simonyi will say farewell to Padalka, Barratt, and Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata the evening of April 7, sealing hatches between the Soyuz TMA-13 spacecraft and the downward-facing port of the Russian Zarya module around 8:45 p.m.

Undocking is planned for 11:55 p.m., with a 22-second deorbit rocket firing expected at 2:24 a.m. on April 8. The three modules making up the Soyuz spacecraft will separate just before atmospheric entry at 2:52 a.m., and the central crew module carrying Fincke, Lonchakov, and Simonyi will descend to a parachute-and-rocket-assisted touchdown at 3:15 a.m.

Assuming an on-time landing, Fincke will have logged 178 days in space, pushing his total time through two space station expeditions to 366 days, third on the list of most experienced U.S. astronauts behind Peggy Whitson (377 days) and Mike Foale (374 days).

Lonchakov will have logged 178 days in space on this flight for a total time of 201 days over three missions. Simonyi’s total will be 13 days in space for this flight for a total of 27 including his first station visit in 2007.

Soyuz TMA-13 spacecraft, foreground, with Progress supply ship in background.

(Credit:
NASA TV)

Simonyi’s visit was arranged through Space Adventures, a Vienna, Virginia-based company that has brokered seven space tourist flights using available seats on Russian Soyuz capsules, beginning in 2001 with U.S. businessman Dennis Tito.

But plans to boost the station’s crew size from three to six in late May could mean a hiatus in tourist flights, at least in the near term. While one seat on a Soyuz flight scheduled for launch this fall apparently has opened up, it’s not yet clear whether the Russians will fill the slot with a professional cosmonaut or allow Space Adventures to book one of its clients who has gone through training as a backup.

“There is a possibility that one of Space Adventures’ clients could launch on Soyuz TMA-16, which is currently scheduled for launch this September 30,” Eric Anderson, CEO of Space Adventures, told reporters Friday. “We have learned from Roskosmos (the Russian space agency) that the third seat aboard Soyuz TMA-16 may not, in fact, be used by the cosmonaut from Kazakhstan, and if that seat is not used…Roskosmos is considering both the possibility of another spaceflight participant opportunity for Space Adventures or using the seat for a professional Russian cosmonaut.”

Esther Dyson, a respected high-tech journalist, entrepreneur, and Space Adventures investor, trained as Simonyi’s backup and attended his launch at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. But it’s not clear whether she could fly on such short notice or whether she could complete required training in time. There are no other known clients who are thought to have a realistic shot at the September flight.

Even so, Anderson expressed optimism that additional seats will open up occasionally, and he said the company is pressing ahead with plans for privately funded Soyuz missions, starting in 2012, that would include a Russian commander and two tourists per mission.

But it’s not yet known whether the Russians can build enough Soyuz capsules and rockets to support expanded space station operations as well as tourist flights. Between the end of shuttle operations in 2010 and the debut of its replacement in 2015, the Soyuz flight rate will have to double to support six-person crew operations aboard the space station.

“I am aware of the questions that have been raised regarding the ability of the Russian space industry to supply an increased number of Soyuz missions,” Anderson said. “Building rockets is a complicated business; it’s certainly challenging, but…I’m confident (that) by 2012, for example, the prospect of adding a fifth Soyuz is something that is reasonable.”

But tickets to space, assuming that the seats are available, will be increasingly expensive.

Tito’s ticket reportedly cost $20 million. The price has since gone up to about $35 million, according to Simonyi. In a prelaunch telephone interview with CBS News, Simonyi said the future of commercial spaceflight is “certainly not my concern.” But, he added, “my feeling is (that) the commercial pressures will be toward resolving this and (having) more flights.”

Even at the current list price, Simonyi said, the experience of flying in space is worth it for those who can afford the cost.

“The price is going up,” Simonyi said. “Future seats that NASA has bought are even more expensive. This has to be put into perspective because other means of getting to space are even more expensive. So this one is actually quite cost-effective at the current state of technology.”

(Credit:
Flo TV)

FLO TV, provider of the FLO TV live mobile TV service, announced last Friday that it plans to go national, with at least 39 additional markets by the end of the year. This was sparked by the DTV transition last Friday, which freed up the broadband spectrum needed for FLO TV’s dedicated network. Fifteen new markets went live as soon as the DTV trigger was pulled, and those include Boston, Houston, Miami, and San Francisco (at last!). The 24 other markets aren’t slated until later this year. Qualcomm also said that existing markets like Chicago and New York will enjoy extended coverage.

This is a fairly ambitious project, considering the only two wireless carriers with FLO TV services now are AT&T with AT&T Mobile TV and Verizon with V Cast TV, and there aren’t a lot of handsets that support the MediaFLO technology. As a reminder, FLO TV does not use existing cellular networks to transmit signal–it uses Qualcomm’s own dedicated network to broadcast live mobile television, offering simulcast and time-shifted programming from a number of networks like CBS, NBC, MTV and ESPN. (Note: CNET News is published by CBS Interactive, a unit of CBS.) While we remain doubtful about the long-term success of FLO TV, we have to say the technology is intriguing, especially since it doesn’t rely on easily bogged-down cellular networks.

Read Maggie Reardon’s usage of FLO TV during the presidential inauguration to see how it worked for her.

In addition to a legacy of adventure and entrepreneurship, Steve Fossett leaves behind a top secret project he’d been working on. He had bought a highly advanced underwater submersible he hoped would take him to the bottom of the Mariana Trench, lower than any point on Earth humans have gone. Reporter Daniel Terdiman joins today’s podcast to talk about the project and where it goes from here.

Apple is strongly denying a rumor posted on CNN’s iReport page that Steve Jobs suffered a heart attack this morning. iReport is a citizen journalism section of CNN, where people can submit their own news stories. CNN has removed the post in question, but the report caused a sharp drop in Apple’s stock price before company representatives were able to deny the charge.

Also in this podcast, Windows XP gets another lifeline, a date has been set for the Large Hadron Collider to be turned on again, and we look at which gadgets at Ceatec might actually make it into the real world.

Listen now:

Download today’s podcast

Today’s stories:

Steve Fossett’s unfinished legacy: Deepest ocean exploration

Jobs heart attack rumor not true, Apple stock swings

Windows XP gets another lifeline

Skype: We didn’t know about security issues

Date set for restart of Large Hadron Collider

Gadgets go greener, thinner, and wireless at Ceatec

Sony’s ‘David Blaine’ starts 30 days of living in display window

Hands on with Sony’s new PRS-700 digital reader

Report: New HP smartphone aimed at consumers

What’s the big deal about WiMax?

(Credit:
Dell)

Quick! Head to Dell and grab the Xbox 360 Pro 60GB console for $249 shipped! You must use coupon code M69N0GW8WF$71V at checkout to get the deal (the system normally sells for $299). Why the big rush? The code expires after 650 uses, and I’ll bet my
iPod it won’t last the day.

This holiday bundle includes two kid-friendly games: LEGO Indiana Jones and Kung Fu Panda (click through for reviews). As for the
Xbox itself, it includes the much-wanted HDMI output–though you’ll have to provide your own cable.

What else is there to say? This is 50 bucks cheaper than everywhere else, and you get two free games (which you could probably eBay for another 50 bucks). If you miss out, or just want the higher-end Xbox, Dell has the 360 Elite 120GB system for $329.99 shipped (use coupon code 7H7JHWM8?HQTBR). It comes with the same two games and an HDMI cable.

Find more deals, coupon codes, and bargains on CNET’s Shopper.com.

In what appears to be a first, the US House of Representatives now has a Congressman who can code…in assembly. That’s right, a Congressman with geek skills.

Democratic Representative Bill Foster won a special election this past Saturday in the 14th Congressional District of Illinois. This was the district that former Republican Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert held from 1986-2007. Hastert stepped down in November of 2007.

Congressman Bill Foster

Foster, a physicist with a Ph.D. from Harvard, surprised many when he won the district. After all, it had been a Republican stronghold for more than twenty years. After being sworn in on Tuesday, Foster has already made his mark, by providing the single vote needed to pass a significant ethics reform bill.

More surprising than the fact that Foster won in a heavily Republican district, more than his public position against telecom immunity, is the fact that Bill Foster is a computer geek.

According to a February article in the Chicago Tribune, Bill Foster has got coding skills:

The Democrat, Bill Foster of Geneva, is a get-out-the-vote geek. He’s a knock-on-doors nerd who wrote the software program credited with propelling Democratic challenger Patrick Murphy to a narrow victory in 2006 … “It was pretty remarkable,” said Nat Binns, a spokesman for Murphy’s campaign. “He dropped in from nowhere and approached the get-out-the-vote effort as a scientific puzzle.

“He helped us crack the code and figure out where we needed to go and how to do it really efficiently,” Binns said. “It was brilliant. We were able to knock on 140,000 doors on Election Day, which was a big part of why we won (by just 1,518 votes).”

Foster’s unofficial title was “campaign physicist.”

Foster worked as a researcher at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab) for 22 years. One of his main projects involved the design of equipment and data analysis software for the lab’s high energy particle collision detector.

Given Foster’s background, his experience in software development, and the research environment in which he worked, it’s almost certain that he worked on Unix systems at some point, too.

I spoke with Tom Bowen, Congressman Foster’s campaign manager, who confirmed that the Representative does indeed have programming skills. He told me that Congressman Foster has written code in assembly, Fortran, and Visual Basic. Mr. Bowen also added that during one project, Foster designed integrated circuits that were later used in Fermilab’s particle accelerator.

As for the Congressman’s laptop? He owns a Dell that runs Windows. Oh, well. He can’t be perfect.

What this actually means to tech policy remains unclear. Computer programming skills do not automatically lead to sound logic or wise positions on important issues. A quick read through Slashdot user comments easily demonstrates this. However, it’s likely that someone who has actually used a computer for scientific research will better understand the complex issues at play. At the very least, we’re not likely to see a Ted Stevens style “Series of Tubes” moment from Congressman Foster.

With any luck, Foster will be assigned to tech and science relevant committees. Top picks would include the the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, as well as the Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet which is chaired by Net Neutrality cheerleader Edward Markey.

We at Surveillance State predict Foster can expect massive love from the Digg/Slashdot crowd. Furthermore, while many politicians get invited to talk at Google, it’s likely that Foster could actually correctly answer a few of the company’s notoriously difficult interview questions.

Hat tip: Adam B at DailyKos for first pointing out Foster’s tech credentials.

(Credit:
Meritline)

So you pulled that cramped old 40GB hard drive out of your notebook and replaced it with 160GB of storage goodness. Ever wonder what you should do with the leftover drive? Simple: stick it in an enclosure and use it as a portable USB hard drive.

You supply the drive; Meritline.com has an enclosure for just $10.99 shipped (after entering coupon code HW1971413OFF, which expires 1/25). It’s compatible with all 2.5-inch IDE and SATA drives, and it includes both IDE and SATA external interfaces (cables, too). You also get a carrying case and a little screwdriver for opening and closing the enclosure. The drive itself gets powered by the interface, so there’s no need for an AC adapter.

For 11 bucks you can get yourself a terrific little portable hard drive for transferring files, on-the-fly backups, and so on. Sweet.

Find more deals, coupon codes, and bargains on CNET’s Shopper.com.

The new Lenovo ThinkPad T400s

(Credit:
Lenovo)

(For more hands-on impressions, make sure to check out our review of the T400s.)

ThinkPad laptops from Lenovo (formerly made by IBM) are among the most ubiquitous PCs found in offices around the world. Of course, most of those systems are boxy 14- and 15-inch models, which aren’t usually the sharpest-looking machines in the coffee shop.

To keep up with the increasingly design-conscious consumer, Lenovo is taking some cues from its own popular X300 laptop –a slim, upscale 13-inch–and incorporating them into the new ThinkPad T400s, a reasonably svelte 14-inch mainstream business laptop that’s 0.83 inches thick and starts at less than 4 pounds.

Helping keep the size and weight down are an LED display, solid-state hard drive, and carbon-reinforced fiber frame. Making it a viable choice for a wide range of business environments are configuration options that seem more flexible than what we’re used to seeing in ultraslim systems (which are often limited to low-voltage CPUs and no optical drives). According to Lenovo, the new T400s will offer:

Choices of Intel 2.4GHz and 2.53GHz Core 2 Duo processors (standard voltage) Choices of solid-state drive storage up to 128GB, or 250GB hard drive storage 9.5mm slim DVD burner or Blu-ray player
Ethernet, Wi-Fi, and optional WiMAX3, WWAN, Bluetooth and ultrawideband connectivity
34mm Express Card slot or 5-in-1 multimedia card reader
Support for Lenovo’s ConstantConnect and Protect technology that allows users to maximize integration of their BlackBerry smartphone and ThinkPad laptop
Nearly six hours of battery life Supports up to two monitors via a display port and VGA connector
Meets the Energy Star 5.0 criteria for energy efficiency
Built-in USB/eSATA port

A few other promising-sounding tweaks went into the T400’s design. Lenovo claims internal studies have shown that the Esc and Del keys are the most used, at 700 hits each per week, so the company simply made those keys a little larger. Spaces between keys were minimized to keep food and debris out, and the touchpad is now flush with the wrist rest, delineated by a textured surface. For Webcasting and VoIP use, the onboard speakers are louder than the previous (nonslim) T400, and there’s a physical mute button above the keyboard that can mute just the built-in mic.

The Lenovo ThinkPad T400s is available now, starting at $1,599.

As CNET News.com reported last week, Yahoo laid off more than 1,000 employees on Tuesday. One source inside the company said the number was 1,100, which is slightly higher than expected. The layoffs bring the headcount down to about 13,200 employees.

Yahoo human resources had booked every conference room at the Sunnyvale, Calif., headquarters to meet with employees being laid off, according to the source.

Yahoo executives warned last month that they would be laying off about 1,000 people in February. That was before Microsoft’s offer to acquire the company. Yahoo has rejected the bid, but reportedly has signaled it would consider a higher offer.

“We are aligning resources to support our big bets: starting points, must buy, and open,” a Yahoo spokeswoman said. That refers to Yahoo’s new mission of being the most popular starting place for people on the Internet and the most popular advertising platform, as well as the company’s focus on opening up Yahoo’s network to third-party publishers.

Asked to confirm the exact number of employees affected or what departments they were in, the spokeswoman said the company was not providing details.

“We’re making these targeted reductions in areas of our business that don’t support our critical growth initiatives,” she said.

(CNET News.com’s Stefanie Olsen contributed to this report.)