Blog Tipz

Quix is a new bookmarklet and service that makes it painlessly simple to access common services, and even easier to interact with your WordPress blog or social networking services like Twitter. While the service isn’t completely new, it surely does replace some of the bookmarklets that I had kept in the bookmarks bar. For bloggers, it can help improve the time it takes to perform common functions, such as shortening links or sharing pages through Twitter.

Before I look at the features, it might also be worth looking at where the service stems from. There are many services only that provide these bookmarklets – links you drag to your bookmarks bar to shorten links, share links, or get information about websites. When each has a specific function, it can dramatically clutter an area that you want to keep as clean as possible, defeating their purpose. Shortwave is a similar service, but doesn’t contain nearly the same level of functionality out-of-the-box.

As you can see in the screenshot above, even the website where you can find the bookmarklet is extremely simple to navigate and use. While the service is meant for everyone, it is intended for serious Internet users who need to quickly access a large number of “command line” functions. It won’t slow down your browser like other plugins/extensions, and has been made to be easy to use. For more experienced users, it can even be expanded to include more functions/shortcuts.

Below I’ve listed some of the common commands that can be used (many great for bloggers).

• codex – Search the WordPress codex.
• plugin – WordPress plugin search.
• wp – WordPress function search.
• archive – Check archive.org for the current page.
• gdb – Search Google Blogsearch for links to the current domain.
• bitly – Shorten current page with Bit.ly.
• evernote – Clip current page with Evernote.
• db – Bookmark the current page in Delicious.
• tn – Tweet the current page.
• s – Twitter search.
• t – Twitter user.
• tumblr – Share on Tumblr.
• post – Share on Posterous.

Check out the service, and let me know how it has come in handy (or what you may be using it for). Again, you can find the bookmarklet at quixapp.com.