This lovely picture shows the new addition to my desktop, a sticky note above a command line. Boring? I love it. Before this when I wanted to search the internet, it was a matter of launching the browser, wait for it to load, surf to search engine, enter the query, then wait for the search to complete. A minimum of five steps.
Enter surfraw, a command line based search program. With the above pictured setup searching the internet is as fast as selecting the appropriate elvi from my handy list, google for google, etym for etymology, ebay for ebay, etc… and enter it on the command line like this:
sr ebay sailboat
…to search sailboats on ebay
sr wetandwild Des Moines
…for Des Moines weather
sr amazon -search=books emphyrio
…to find the rare Jack Vance book
In each case, entering the command opens a webbrowser showing the completed search. One step instead of five.