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Friday, April 01, 2005

Foxylicious as the Start Menu of the Web

I recently wrote about Gmail as the Notepad of the Web. Well today I discovered another component of the self-assembling Web OS: the Start button, made possible by del.icio.us and the Foxylicious (Firefox+del.icio.us) Firefox extension. (If you don't already know, del.icio.us is a wonderful web-based bookmark manager).

We are all familiar with the Windows Start menu:



It turns out that if we create a Firefox folder called "start" in our Bookmarks Toolbar Folder which we then drag into the main Toolbar, we arrive at something very like the Windows Start menu:



If we now use the Firefox Foxylicious extension to sync this folder with our del.icio.us bookmarks, we now have a Start menu for the Web 2.0 era. The effect is especially striking if you have a "Programs" tag containing the applications that you use most often:



The Web OS is coming together indeed. We have our Notepad. We have our Start Menu. Email client. Usenet newsreader. Photo organizer. RSS reader. Word processor. Registry. Hard disk. What's the next desktop application to move onto the web?

5 Comments:

  • Hi Hashim - Computing's come a long way since BBS's and floppies, hey?

    By Blogger Jonathan, at 4/21/2005 9:31 p.m.  

  • Great article. I don't know how you managed to get a folder into the taskbar though, it doesn't work for me.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 5/04/2005 12:36 p.m.  

  • Hi Anonymous - To get a folder into the taskbar:

    * Click Bookmarks > Manage Bookmarks.
    * Click New Folder, type in "start", and press OK.
    * Drag the "start" folder into the "Bookmarks Toolbar" folder.
    * Close the Bookmarks Manager window. The "start" folder will appear in your Bookmarks Toolbar.
    * Click View > Toolbars > Customize.
    * Drag the Bookmarks Toolbar up into the main Firefox toolbar.
    * Close the Customize Toolbar window.
    * Remove the space reserved for the Bookmarks Toolbar by clicking View > Toolbars > Bookmarks Toolbar.

    By Blogger Jonathan, at 5/04/2005 2:06 p.m.  

  • Brilliant thanks!

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 5/05/2005 2:36 a.m.  

  • My pleasure! I'm glad you checked back.

    By Blogger Jonathan, at 5/05/2005 8:11 a.m.  

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