TECHNOLOGY AND THE BUSINESS OF GOVERNMENT

Welcome to Tech Insider’s Tip Thursday, in which we bring you practical computing tips and information.

This week: Command the Web.

Earlier this week, Tech Insider blogged about the emergence of command lines on the Web, such as specialized Google search terms. (Click here for a previous Tip Thursday on Goggling better.)

Web site YubNub (the word means “Hooray” in the Ewok language) takes command line concept even further.

Creator Jonathan Aquino and others have crafted hundreds of Web commands. For example, say you want a random number up to a maximum value of 1,000. Type in random 1000 into the YubNub search box. Suppose you want to search a term in Wikipedia. Type in wp [search term]. Want a Google map? Use gm [location].

You can use YubNub as you would a normal search engine Web page. Even better, you can integrate it into the search engine box in the upper right-hand corner of most browser windows. (YubNub itself defaults to Google when you make a normal search query; it’s truly win-win here.)

Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 7 lets you chose which search engine you want as the search box default. It even has a handy Web page allowing you to directly pick some old standbys, such as Google and Yahoo!. Navigate manually to it by clicking on the arrow next to the magnifying glass icon in the upper right-hand corner. In the drop down menu, choose Find More Providers.

To add YubNub to the choices, paste in this url into Step 3 of the “create your own” box: http://yubnub.org/parser/parse?command=TEST. For Step 4, call it whatever you like. Finally, hit install.

You can then make YubNub your default search provider by going back to the arrow drop down menu, and selecting Change Search Defaults, and choosing appropriately.

Firefox users can make direct use of a plugin.

Other search engine users, see this page for instructions.

NASA is promoting a return to the Moon with a slick computer-generated video. Click below to watch a lunar base quickly unfurl, listen to the Hollywoodesque drum machine-powered soundtrack and feel the roar of the mighty rocket engines. And click the comment link below to let us know if the video will help NASA convince congressional appropriators to fund the trip.

Hat tip: Boing Boing

A new Washington-based wiki premised on libertarian principles sparked a Library of Congress response when founder Jim Harper boasted it would be better than the Library’s online legislation tracker THOMAS, says ars technica.

WashingtonWatch.com, launched last month by Harper, director of information policy studies at the Cato Institute, seeks to track the “net present value” of government spending, taxation and regulation. In a statement sent to reporters, Harper said the wiki would be a “more user-friendly and interactive way for the public to learn about legislation” than THOMAS.

“After the announcement, he was contacted by Matt Raymond, the Director of Communications at the Library (and the author of the Library of Congress' blog)," says ars technica writer Nate Anderson. "Raymond said that he possessed ‘statutory and regulatory authority governing unauthorized use of the Library's name and logo and those of Library subunits and programs,' and he asked that Harper stop using the names ‘Library of Congress’ and ‘THOMAS’ in his marketing materials.”

Anderson says he contacted Raymond, who said the use of THOMAS’s name was made “‘in the context of marketing and endorsement,’” and therefore verboten.

As for WashingtonWatch.com, it now attributes the “more user-friendly” remark to an article in Capitol Hill newspaper The Hill.

Hat tip: Slashdot

Al Qaeda in Iraq uses cell phone text messages as a way to organize local protests, writes Small Wars blogger and Iraqi-based counterinsurgency adviser David Kilcullen.

“This is classic AQI info ops -- stirring up the population through a combination of manipulation, intimidation and fear of other groups. The level of coordination and media manipulation applied in this case is also a hallmark of AQI info ops,” Kilcullen adds.

Domestically, text messaging has a reputation as something mostly for kids. Messaging requires an agile thumb and often involves use of annoyingly cute abbreviated slang. But texting’s propagation in Iraq should remind us that when it comes to communication, it's the message, not the medium, that's important.

Hat tip: Smart Mobs

More proof that everything old becomes new again: an article by Northwestern University design professor Don Norman on the future of computer and human interfaces. His prediction? The return of the command line.

Command lines all but disappeared from the popular (though not professional) computing world with the widespread diffusion in the 1980s and 1990s of graphical user interfaces. Why type when you could click and drag?

But command lines are already returning as a popular ways of interacting with data, Norman says. Search engines like Yahoo, MSN, etc., are developing ad hoc line commands to make their results more precise. (We’ve offered some tips on improving your Google results.)

“Even though these three services are called search engines, they are in fact becoming answer services controlled through their command line interfaces,” Norman writes.

Unlike old green screen lines, the syntax of new command lines is more naturalistic, and the underlying software more flexible and robust. Should a search engine not understand a command, Norman notes, “the system gracefully retreats from the status of answer service to that of search engine, often returning pages that are of direct relevance.”

(Hat tip: pasta and vinegar)