You know I love Firefox, right? I know that I’ve said it enough times.

Today I want to throw a brief tip out there and give you something to download to help you use Firefox to find things on the internet quicker.

Smart Search Bookmarks are something that (as far as I can tell) are unique to Firefox at this point, Opera doesn’t have them (easily accessable), nope on Google Chrome and we all know that Internet Explorer would never have something that would make web browsing this easy. Did I just hear someone ask about Netscape, seriously? It’s dead; it has to be smellier than Lazarus was by the time Jesus got to him.

So, now that we’re past my lame attempt at humor…

These bookmarks allow you to search just about any search on the internet by typing it into your location bar (the place you type “www.CruTech.org” when you want to come here) with a short prefix to make it search the right page. For example, we’re going to set it up so that if you want to search Google all you have to do is type a “g” before your search term and hit enter, like this:

To do this, go to Google.com first. Right-click (Control-Click for Macs) in the search box and choose “Add a Keyword for this Search…”

When you do that a pop-up box will, well, pop up.

In the Name box, type “Google Search” (or whatever will help you remember what it is when you look at all of your bookmarks), put “g” in the Keyword box and I’d suggest putting it in a new folder named “Searches”; you can get to the folders by clicking the small button with just the triangle in it.

Click “Add” and you’re good to go.

Go up to your search bar and type “g CruTech” and hit enter.

Ta-da!

Remeber, you can use this for just about any search box out there. I use this a ton to search on Wikipedia and other sites, including the directory for all of the sites that are associated with Campus Crusade for Christ.

I’ve included a file that you can download and import into your bookmarks. It has all of these searches included:

Prefix – Search Site
acronym – Acronym Finder
amazon – Amazon.com
ebay – eBay
flickr – Flickr (images/pictures)
froogle – Froogle Quick Search
g – Google Quick Search
image – Google Image Search
lh – LifeHacker (Technology Blog)
quot – Stock Symbol Quicksearch
technorati – Technorati (Blog Index)
thes – Thesaurus
slang – Urban Dictionary (slang search)
w – Wikipedia
local – Yahoo Local Search
fb – Facebook
ccci – CCCI Search
bible – Bible Gateway (search reference or word to find)
weather – Weather Channel (search using zip code or city name, ex. “weather 22207″)
cc – Creative Commons (great for images, text, etc with light copyrighting)
imdb – Internet Movie Database
bs – YouVersion (bible study resources, search scripture references)
half – Half.com (cheap books, etc.)
wookie – Wookiepedia (Star Wars encyclopedia)
d – Dictionary
map – Google Maps
blue – Blue Letter Bible
yt – YouTube
ebible – eBible.com

You can download the file here, right click and choose “Save link as”. Remember where you save it so you can import it to Firefox:

Bookmarks.html

Enjoy!

Last week we talked about how to create a good password (or p1a2s3s4weobrady) and I mentioned that there are some programs out there that can help you manage all of your passwords.

For those of you who took my advice and are using Firefox (available on Windows, OSX and Linux) you may have noticed that there is a built-in password manager. It is even able to lock people out of your passwords if they don’t have the master password, but I’ve run into some glitches with it and it doesn’t help if you have to use InternetExplorer or Opera or the new browser that Google recently released.

KeePass

My suggestion, and the program that I use to manage all of my passwords is a program called KeePass. KeePass is available for just about anything you’re running – Windows, OSX, Linux, BlackBerry & PalmOS; you’re also able to put it on a USB thumb drive and take it with you to make sure you don’t run into a situation where you’re away from your computer and don’t have your bank password.

The creators describe the program this way:

KeePass is a free open source password manager, which helps you to manage your passwords in a secure way. You can put all your passwords in one database, which is locked with one master key or a key file. So you only have to remember one single master password or select the key file to unlock the whole database. The databases are encrypted using the best and most secure encryption algorithms currently known…

I’ll describe it this way – it can make passwords, it can keep passwords, it can fill in password forms for you, it can let you take your passwords with you and it makes them easy and secure to copy and paste from the program itself. Also, the program doesn’t get all grabby, it lets you export all of your passwords and usernames to a file if you want to use a different program instead and it will import them from Firefox.

There are a full list of features here.

Using It

After you download and install it using your normal processes, you can get right to it. Let’s start with setting up your database and then we’ll talk through the options and more powerful uses.

First click the New Database button, or go to File -> New (or hit Ctrl-N for you shortcut fiends).

You’ll get this awesome little box up, you start by creating your password for the database. You can use a relatively simple one, but remember this database will have all of your passwords in it. I’d suggest using the techniques we talked about last week.

As you start typing it in, you will notice that it blocks it out (so people can’t read your password over your sholder. You can click the button on the right and see your password characters.

Also, the colored bar indicates the quality of your password and how complex it is (and how hard it will be to hack/guess it).

Good. Great. Secure.

Crap. Garbage. Poo.

Also, you have the option of tying it to a second file on your system. The added security feature is based on the fact that you hide this file in a random spot so that someone can’t just easily steal  your database and make off with your “life”. I would reccomend using this if you use this portably. I don’t use this feature, but I can see why you would. You can also use by placing the Key file on a portable drive so that it only works when you have that specific drive connected to the computer.

This is what the side of your main screen will look like now. As you see they expect that the KeePass application will be useful in a number of settings and for different reasons. Currently, I only use it for my internet passwords, but I am starting to input passwords for FTP servers and my home b anking program.

Now to create your first password file, hit this button (or Ctrl-Y).

You’ll get this window:

You’ll get an image like this. I have inserted the information for the example Johnny.Crusade@gmail.com account. Click on it to see what the data will look like. Make sure you read the Help file for more info on how to do this! (Hit F1.)

When you get your info entered, your database will show some of the filled in info like this image above.

Also, it provides security so that when you are walking away from your computer you can lock your database at the press of a button. (Or two Ctrl-L.)

As you set up things more, make sure you look at the options (Tools-> Options or Ctrl-M).

You don’t need to change much of anything if you don’t have specific preferences for what you want your user experience to look like. The only one that I would say that you NEED to change is the “Security” tab, make sure you check the one that says “Lock workspace when locking Windows, switching user or sleeping.” The other security feature of locking it after a few seconds is nice too.

I would suggest you look at this image and check the highlighted boxes (leave the dull ones alone):

Let me just say before I sign off, keeping your passwords secure is essential for your safety and security online – get to know this program and make sure you (and no one else) knows your password.

I’d also suggest taking the advice I shared in April about how to learn any program – and by that I mean: read the tutorials in the help menu – you can get to it by hitting F1.

Now, remember stay secure and don’t just let anyone near your passwords.