ReadWriteWeb

Steven Wittens got sick of staring at terminal screens from the 80s, and decided to do something about it. He built TermKit, a graphic replacement for terminal, using WebKit. But Wittens isn't trying to build a GUI. TermKit is still a command line system. Instead, Wittens is trying to retain the power of the command line with modern displays.

Wittens acknowledges that the traditional UNIX-like command line has stood the test of time, he writes that many areas of computing have come a long way. "We've gotten a lot better at displaying information. We've also learned a lot of lessons through the web about data interchange, network transparency, API design, and more. We know better how small tweaks in an implementation can make a world of difference in usability."

GitMarks is a command-line based social bookmarking tool built on Git with Python. It's a script that grabs the content from a URL and stores in Git repository where it can be searched with GREP. It features tags and descriptions, and can import bookmarks from Delicious.

It seems like it could be useful for research teams, or to quickly dump lots of content in one place for future text mining.

Today is a slight departure from the usual Hack of the Day, as we recommend a site that's bursting with Linux goodness. Bumper Link of the Day, if you will.

If you're an avid user of the Linux command line, this one's for you. A growing collection of handy hints, commandlinefu, makes light work of tricky commands. You can quickly find the top commands or simply browse through the list. There are thousands, so it may take a while.

Ubiquity, the experimental Firefox add-on that lets you tell your browser what to do by typing in natural language commands, has just been updated to version 0.5. This preview release adds support for more languages, which is great news for non-English speakers dying to get their hands on this cutting-edge technology. What's more fascinating about this update, however, is the new way that Ubiquity works to understand your input. Instead of being limited only to what it already knows, it can now reach out and query web services to help it figure out what your input means.

Did our browser just get smarter?