New Tab Jumpstart

New Tab Jumpstart ( https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/8914 ) isn't the name of some geeky new action movie, although that would be kind of cool. It's the latest in the ongoing development of a decent new tab behavior for Firefox. We've covered several attempts at getting this just right, and New Tab Jumpstart is one of the best so far. It seems largely inspired by the speed dial made popular by Opera and now Google Chrome, but that's not a bad thing.

Chrome users will find the layout of Jumpstart very familiar. The majority of the page is taken up by a grid of frequently-visited sites that you can pin permanently or delete. On the right, there's a search box, a list of recent bookmarks, and a list of recently-closed pages. It's a sensible starting point for a new browser session, although it lacks the eye candy of, for example, Safari's start page.

-from Download Squad

SearchMerge

With all the hype around Twitter as the future of search, it makes sense that someone would put together a search engine that combines Google results with results from social sites around the web. Enter SearchMerge ( http://searchmerge.com/ ). It's basically just a text entry field and a selection of sites to search, including Twitter, Friendfeed and YouTube, but it has the potential to be very useful. Or, it would, if there were any apparent rhyme or reason to the order of the results.

A search for Download Squad turned up a Last.fm page, our website, a year-old Vimeo video, and a post about netbooks from February, in that order. The results were all relevant, but they could be sorted in a more logical way. SearchMerge is also fairly slow when you're using it to search every available site. The real-time search option is neat, but suffers from the same long wait for results. It's a great idea, but it has a long way to go in the implementation.

Unemployment Rate Data made easier by Google

If you go to Google.com and type in [unemployment rate] or [population] followed by a U.S. state or county, you will see the most recent estimates!

Unemployment rate, Los Angeles County, CA
11.3% of the labor force - Not seasonally adjusted



Yay! You still may need to provide an adequate source though, and not just the Google search page.

u.nu :: the shortest urls. period.

Yet another URL shortening service: U.nu

From their website:
u.nu :: the shortest urls. period.: "Why u.nu is the 1-4-u

* u.nu is the shortest domain name available.
* u.nu doesn’t use look-alike characters, such as l, 1, I, 0, and O.
* u.nu isn’t picky about upper- and lower-case, so you can easily read your URLs to someone over the phone, or send them via SMS.
* u.nu is a palindrome (if you ignore the dot)."

Status-bar Scientific Calculator :: Firefox Add-ons

Status-bar Scientific Calculator :: Firefox Add-ons

This is genius! This extension uses the Firefox Status Bar (yes, the small row on the bottom of your Firefox Browser), as a calculator. Great for those simple math queries. With a quick glance, it seems to also have some advanced functions -- trig functions, logarithms, frequently used constants (pi, e, etc). It's a lot easier than pulling out the calculator that came w/ your Windows Operating System!

Enjoy!

Ooops. Error in Earnings Exporter 2_00g

Hello,

Its embarrassing to say I made a boo boo when I did the formulas to the "Category Analysis." The Percent of Total Questions was incorrect, and it calculated something that had almost nothing to do with it. Thank you Kathy Bond for letting me know of this error.

You can download the new version here or view the Earnings Exporter page here. I'll also have a few screenshots up for you on the Earnings Exporter page.

Thanks again!

Earnings Exporter v2_00g released! Category Analysis

Hello,

I just finished a rough version of the Earnings Exporter with added analysis on your categories. You can download it here. Now you can see which categories are earning you the most money per hour!

Expeditors, this doesn't help you guys too much. However, you guys may find the daily analysis charting nifty.

Keep in mind that this is VERY rough. It may not be as visually appealing as you may expect, but it does its job.

New features:

• Category Analysis
• Daily Analysis Charting

Known Bugs:

• Some graphs may not be working on the first click. Try viewing some other charts first, and coming back. Sometimes this helps.
• I still don't know where the 1004 error is coming from. If that's the problem you're having, and it has worked before, sometimes trying again the next day will help. (Otherwise, I'm sorry)