Make Google Chrome’s OmniBar behave more like FireFox 3’s AwesomeBar

FireFox’s AwesomeBar gets most of its awesome from doing a Google I’m Feeling Lucky search when you type something and hit ENTER.  That got me used to typing what I want into it rather than where I want to go, so the shift to Chrome knocked me off-kilter a little.  Since I like Chrome so much otherwise, I figured this trick out:

1. In Chrome, click the wrench > Options
2. Under Basics > Default Search, click Manage
3. Click Add
4. Enter a name and keyword (I used “Google I’m Feeling Lucky” and “Google”)
5. Enter this for the URL (take out linebreaks–darn you, WordPress!): 

{google:baseURL}search?{google:RLZ}
{google:acceptedSuggestion}
{google:originalQueryForSuggestion}
sourceid=chrome&ie={inputEncoding}&q=%s&btnl=745

(Note that this is the same as the default URL for “Google,” but with “&btnI=745″ appended.  This forces an “I’m Feeling Lucky” search!)

6. Click OK
7. Click Make Default
8. Click Close
9. Click Close
I’m still looking for ways to improve this.  For instance, I’d still like Chrome to have an option for a Google search in the dropdown before I hit ENTER.

some simple things that make me happy

1. Putting together a homemade spaghetti sauce with lots of veggies and spices.
2. Throwing my Outback in low gear and powering up a hill (particularly if said hill leads to Williamstown).
3. The sound of a squash ball hitting the wall.
4. Watching a lathe on automatic feed turn down material.
5. Turning on a radio and instantly hearing a song I’ve been thinking about but haven’t listened to in a long time.
6. Writing useful functions that work properly and integrating them into my codes.
7. Watching a charcoal drawing take shape.

ummm

1. Apple
2. Windows XP Pro SP2
3. Seinfeld
4. Toboggan
5. 0.5mm mechanical pencil
6. Cycloid
7. White envelope
8. Balloon

all of a sudden, there are more good things on TV

1. Battlestar Galactica
2. Bionic Woman
3. Journeyman
4. The Office

list of stuff to get excited about this week

1. Tesla Roadster range results (250 miles-per-charge)
2. Neil deGrasse Tyson lecture
3. Back home!
4. Down East!

things that we need if we are actually serious about getting to the Moon and Mars and then *doing* something when we get there

1. A mostly-reusable Earth-surface-to-LEO lifter with a trivial launch cost (compared to the Saturn, STS, or Ares) and a high cargo capacity; i.e. an orbital version of SpaceShipOne with a bigger payload bay.
2. A system of modules for easily and robustly assembling space structures and vehicles (i.e. space stations and high-capacity, long-duration LEO-to-LMO transit vehicles).  This is where my research could come in.
3. An Earth-orbit assembly platform/rendezvous station, made out of the modular system specified in (2).  Similar platform modules to be dropped off in LMO.
4. High-cargo-capacity LMO-to-surface descent vehicles.  Mars surface-to-LMO vehicles with comparable efficiency to the Earth surface-to-LEO vehicles specified in (1).

Take-away message: cut this CEV crap, and don’t fall back to “faster, better, cheaper.”  Sink a good amount of resources into next-gen space technology R&D, and after the initial investment we’ll be able to do most anything for little additional cost.  Note that if we have (1)-(4) above, we could just as easily perform manned exploration of the outer solar system as the inner.  We need real vision to do this.  And we must do it, because we will develop the most complete understanding of the Universe through direct experience of it and we must expand out into the Solar System, at least, to ensure our survival in the event of the worst contingencies.

the way things used to be

1. Rock
2. Jetpack
3. Swiss Army Knife
4. Garthim
5. Sun
6. Swadesh list
7. Q

stuff to bring any family/friends who visit me to

1. David Sedaris at the State Theater (1 April)
2. Deep-dish pizza at The Nines (sooooo good, probably the best pizza I’ve ever tasted)
3. Dessert at Madeline’s  (there just aren’t words)
4. Toughannock Falls (because they are big and impressive)
5. Rhodes Hall B50  (“Space Systems Design Studio”…robot arms and levitating magnets, dude)
6. The I. M. Pei-designed Cornell Art Museum (with intriguing exterior acoustic properties)

the things I did yesterday make me happy

1. Finish the last problem on the last exam of the semester
2. Turn in the very last I will ever see of MAE 521: Theory of Linear Systems (or, Abstract Mathematics in Disguise as Engineering)
3. Speak to the undergrads about the forklift palette stacked with satellite building materials, the tool cabinet, and the stop sign that appeared in the middle of my lab
4. Walk outdoors in a t-shirt
5. Move a combuter into my lab
6. Finally move that 5DOF robot arm into my lab!
7. Go out for Mexican food and margaritas and stroll about the Commons
8. Go watch ‘Finding Neverland’

science fiction

1. The Battlestar Valkyrie
2. T-65 X-Wing Fighter
3. Prime motiles
4. Flux capacitor
5. The Arean Space Supremacy Executive
6. One reverberating carbonizer with mutate capacity
7. Precogs
8. Anson Guthrie