I changed my mind about Twitter, and registered a profile. Be shamefaced Bart, not long ago you maintained that you will not ever have a Twitter account! Well, yes - but let’s say that my point of view changed a bit. I was digging through the web and - completely unintentionally - I found a list of Firefox plugins. Two of them (number 5. and 6.) can give you a great ability to make an untypical use of your Firefox search bar.
I have no clue how could you all use that sucky “search bar” thing - as far as I know when I need to do a search I just type “g search phrase” into standard address bar of my browser, then I hit enter. So let’s say that additional search bar filled full with affiliate links that Mozilla has included in it may be even totally useless, and in fact it would be great to completely remove it from the toolbar. And - I didn’t know about it - but there is a very simple way to get rid of that thing. Read that comment added by Asa Dotzler of Mozilla below my writings (it actually makes me feel sooooo damn cheap on my shameful lack of the basic FF know-how so I’m updating that post once again, you won’t notice 
)
So… These two plugins mentioned somewhere above allow you to post updates to Twitter directly via your Firefox search bar. Think: “hey, what a great occasion to use it as the most comfortable miniblog tool in the world!“.
Two awesome extensions that actually make totally useless thing useful, this just cannot be true. And you see, unfortunately it isn’t - both of them are currently not available for download. I wrote my own - kinda funny, it required only 10-lines long XML file. If you would like to download click here, all instructions are included within the readme file. I use it together with tweaked version of Wordpress plugin written by Alex King.
After four weeks of silence, author of that blog finally enters 2008. Better late than never - glad to see I’m not alone in publishing my first post THAT late this year.
Happy New Year? 
January 28th, 2008 #
Removing the search bar is as easy as adding or removing any other element from the toolbar. See View -> Toolbar -> Customize.
- A
January 28th, 2008 #
Really, I think I have checked that thing before… View… Toolbar… Then Customize… OMG why nobody told me I am able to to drag&drop things to AND from the toolbar? Thanks a lot Asa
Time to add a little update…
January 29th, 2008 #
You can change the layout totally. For example, my search bar is on the right (since I use it a lot - more than the address bar in fact), with the menu bar next to it, followed by the address bar. (The menu bar has the Edit and About menus removed.) This saves a lot of screen space.
The search bar is really useful to me since I’ve added custom search engines for Gamespot, IMDB and other sites in addition to the standard Wikipedia and Google. I use it all the time.
And why don’t you update more?
January 29th, 2008 #
I wonder why don’t you add keywords to your searchers and save even more space doing searches straight from address bar. You like to click a lot don’t you? Anyway, there’s a list of OpenSearch plugins, you may find it useful
Why don’t I update more? Just updated! Okay, frankly speaking when I’m moving my attention to other things, I always find it difficult to get back to writing.
January 29th, 2008 #
Ah you updated. What bird is that?
January 29th, 2008 #
The Blue Jay, native to North America. It is adaptable, aggressive and omnivorous. See it in action
January 29th, 2008 #
Looks different in that picture.
January 29th, 2008 #
The address bar wouldn’t be convenient for me. Often I copy paste words and then choose Google or Wikipedia. If I was using the address bar I would have to press home and then press ‘g’ and then the spacebar instead of directly pressing enter. Two keystrokes extra.
January 30th, 2008 #
@Marc: Same difference. Even 4-button shortcuts seem to be more comfortable than any use of mouse, when you got used to your keyboard!
@Adithya: Things look different in every picture I post. I mean, they are all GIMPed
February 4th, 2008 #
thats good bart, you are still posting useful things again. i will try to use your new ideas…
February 4th, 2008 #
i am still using twitter but not much. why? guys there are many services but there are not enough time.
February 6th, 2008 #
Glad you found it useful. There are so many services indeed, but a number of them (like Twitter, Google Reader, or Gmail) are actually designed to save your time. In the least I’m trying to find a balance and stick only to the ones that worked for me that way haha