Fixed the lagginess

The site has become a little slow during the last couple of days. Should be all good again by now.

Introducing searchboxing.com

searchboxing.com is a new site that uses content from lookpicking.com to create a list of OpenSearch plugins, which are usable with OpenSearch-enabled browsers. It is my attempt to make the great content from the main app — lookpicking — available to browsers other than Firefox, and also to reach those who don’t want to install the add-on. Of course, it might also help to make more people curious about lookpicking. Please check it out, I think it is one of the easiest ways to test and add OpenSearch plugins to your browser as of now.
Go to searchboxing.com!

All is working

So apparently it was just a problem of the specific DNS server that I was using. Maybe somehow related to the recent censorship efforts of our administration? Well I switched my DNS servers, problem solved. Should anyone be having similar issues, please let me know.

Down (from Germany, at least)

Weird, probably a DNS-related issue. Investigating.
*edit*
Hm, probably there’s nothing to be done for me. Seems to be working fine from the US. Hope it will fix itself. Will doublecheck everything anyway.

Up again

As far as I can see, everything is up and running now. Since this is a completely new environment, I cannot be completely sure though. Please let me know if you find anything that doesn’t work.

Currently down, will be right back up

Lookpicking.com is down right now, explanation soon to follow. Will be up in a few minutes, and faster than ever.
*EDIT*
Ok, now while the new DNS entries are distributed, let me quickly explain what happened: I was planning the perfect transition to a new, better host, Mosso/Slicehost/Rackspace. It was scheduled for today, since I have payed my old host for a period that ends today. Not yesterday, I have payed for a year on the 18th of April last year. So my old host apparently decides to drop my account one day early. Well, this means that I have to use yesterday’s database backups. Everything from then on is lost, I’m sorry about that. Also, we have this stupid downtime. Apologies for that, too. But there is hope: I have tried the site on the new server, and it’s much faster. It is probably also going to be less expensive for me. To conclude, there is a ton of other reasons to favor Mosso over Hostingrails, but I wont go into all the dirty details. Just trust me. Or ask me.

Added OpenID support

Users can now sign up and log in using their Yahoo or Google accounts, as well as those from many other OpenId identity providers. Existing users can log in, go to ’settings’, and add as many OpenID identifiers to their account as they wish to. New users that initially sign up via an OpenID provider can set up a password later on. I have decided to go with an OpenID ‘aggregator’ called rpxnow for starters. Please let me know how this works out for you.

Search in page shortcut

There’s a tiny new feature in the newest version of the add-on: Hit ctrl-return, and your current search query gets copied to the in-page search bar at the bottom of the browser window. Hit return again, and it shows the first match in the current page. Or, hit ctrl-return to highlight all occurrences (cmd-return on MacOS). Get the newest version here.

Added a howto video for multifield forms

The newest version of the Firefox add-on supports controlling multiple form fields from the search bar (get the newest version of the Firefox add-on). Just input your query separated by forward slashes. All the details on how to easily create and use them are in this new screencast:

I have added some examples that are tagged with ‘multifield’. List them by clicking here (provided you are logged into lookpicking.com).

If anything is unclear, please feel free to ask your questions in the comments!

Added some howto videos

As my little utility is constantly getting more complex, I’m pretty sure not many people know how to use all its features by now. To change that, I have started to make some screencasts. This time they include audio, so I apologize in advance: I’m not a native speaker! If you find them useful, I will add more in the future. These are the first two (somehow the youtube high quality trick isn’t working from here, so you may wanna go here to watch them in better quality):

Lookpicking Howto 1: Searching with the Firefox add-on

Lookpicking Howto 2: Adding new search engines

Not to forget one that has recently been posted on CNET TV, showing the lookpicking add-on on Mac OS.