Geoff, my fellow GearFire blogger, had a question about whether it was possible to quickly search websites in a similar manner to how I launch my bookmarks. The answer is yes.

If you read my previous post on launching bookmarks, you’ll notice that Launchy also mentions the ability to index Firefox’s “quick searches.”

So what are quick searches? It’s Firefox’s way of letting you use a keyword to represent a website’s search box.

The process of setting up the keyword is explained on the Mozilla website.

After you’ve setup a keyword, you can use Launchy to load the search.

1) Press “Alt+Tab” (the default) to bring up the Launchy window
2) Type in the keyword
3) Press “Tab”
4) Type in what you want to search for
5) Press “Enter”

For example, if I wanted to search for a Dell 2007FP LCD monitor on eBay (my keyword for an eBay search is “eb”)

Happy (faster) searching!

Following up on my “Stop Mousing Around” article, I present a mouseless way of loading bookmarks.

The key is to use Launchy. There have already been Gearfire posts outlining how to use Launchy to search your documents and launch your applications.

Launchy also includes a built-in plugin called “Foxy” which indexes your Firefox bookmarks. Just make sure it’s checked (usually it’s by default) like in the image below.

Now you just press the standard Alt+Tab (configurable to anything you want) and start typing in the name of the bookmark. Gearfire is always a good choice.

This can be really useful for anyone who has a ton of bookmarks, but can’t find where they saved them. You no longer need to “organize” your bookmarks, just Launch them.

If you’re a Firefox user (I know you Intenet Explorer users see that banner on our homepage), I have a tip that can cut down your mouse usage, saving you time and potential RSI.

Everyday, we enter our credentials into login forms, infomation into registrations, and queries into search boxes. Everyday, we pull our hand away from the keyboard, point our mouse to the textbox, only to return our hand to the keyboard having accomplished nothing.

A much quicker way of entering data into any textbox is simply to “find” the textbox’s name.

First, we set Firefox to “search as you type.” This removes the need to press “Ctrl+F” or “/” to bring up a find dialog.

For example, let’s say you want to log into Gradefix. Just start typing out “email”. Firefox will highlight the text. You then press the “tab” button on your keyboard and you’re cursor will be in the username textbox. To enter your password, just press “tab” again.

Cheers to happy hands and wrists.

It is easy to feel overwhelmed if you are opening multiple links from a single page. Depending on your situation, you may be opening five or more links, and it is annoying to have to move back to your original tab each time you open a link. Luckily for you, there is a quick and easy about:config hack that can force links to open in background tabs, which means you won’t be disturbed from your browsing.

In order to force all links that open in a new window to load in a background tab, type about:config in the URL bar and change browser.tabs.loadDivertedInBackground to true.

Force links to open in the background [Lifehacker]