DNS shortcuts by OpenDNS
Posted by Paolo Mon, 23 Apr 2007 19:34:00 GMT
Today I discovered a nice feature of OpenDNS: if you register an account in opendns.com you will be able to map URL shortucts to web sites. They will be recognized automatically when you type them in your preferred web browser. For example I mapped “mail” to http://mail.seesaw.it, and this allow me to open my webmail page just typing “mail” in my firefox navigation bar. This could be even faster than using a bookmark if you’re already using keyboard shortcuts in your browser.
A sample: I often need to open the SeeSaw’s Basecamp account (http://seesaw.seework.com). I registered an OpenDNS shortcut named “bc” that points to that URL and now I can do something like:
- open firefox (ALT+SPACE, type “f” then ENTER) using Launchy.
- open basecamp in firefox (CTRL+L, type “bc” then ENTER)
Pretty cool! Of course you need to use OpenDNS in order to make that work.. Happy shortcutting!
You can actually do exactly the same thing in Firefox without OpenDNS: create a bookmark from the bookmark organiser, and give it a keyword. You can use a placeholder to fill in the rest of the request, but you don’t have to.
More here: http://tinyurl.com/gzoyx
@Paul - the beauty here is that these work on any browser and any computer that you have that you are using OpenDNS on. No need to merge or manage a ton of bookmarks. :)
But yeah, there are a few good ways to scratch this itch.
Oh, the OpenDNS settings are shared across different computers on the same account? I didn’t realise that, but if it’s the case, I can see a definite benefit.
Yep! You can even setup all your shortcuts on one computer and then just sign-in on your Treo and get the benefit of easier to type shortcuts since mobile devices are a pain to use.
I have a couple shortcuts that are handy there:
office gives me directions from my office to any address.
w gives me weather for any zipcode.
You get the idea. :-)
-david