Wednesday, May 11, 2005

Tip: Random-number generator for Firefox

If you're like me and use random numbers a lot (e.g. for deciding which of 4 things to do each evening), imagine if you could just type "random 4" into your browser and get back a random number.

Well now you can! (if your browser is Firefox)
  1. Drag the following link to your Bookmarks menu: http://www.random.org/cgi-bin/randnum?num=100&min=1&col=5&max=%s
  2. In your Bookmarks menu, right-click the new bookmark ("randnum") and click Properties
  3. Set the Name to: Random Number
  4. Set the Keyword to: random
Now you can type "random 1000" into the address bar and you will get a random number between 1 and 1000!

P.S. The 4 things that I randomly decide which to do each evening are: (1) emailing a random contact, (2) reading a page from The Pragmatic Programmer, (3) reading a page from the Osbourne Illustrated World History, and (4) reading a page from Nonviolent Communication.
at

2 comments:

  1. Anonymous5/17/2005 6:53 a.m.

    Just wanted to let you know that this post has been on my mind a lot as of late. Something about the idea of using a RNG to pick a task appeals. Sounds like a good way to pick one of the too-many books I have on the read stack as that night's read.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Jonathan5/17/2005 6:55 a.m.

    Hi Floozle. Glad to hear from another person who "gets" random numbers. And I like the TLA!

    ReplyDelete