NetID Lookup

As an Illinois student, I find myself constantly searching the Illinois Phonebook Gateway. Also known simply as the “PH” due to it’s URL (http://illinois.edu/ows/PH), the site will take a NetID (the user name that all Illinois students use for any computer/internet activity) or a name and display information (email address, phone number, postal address, major, etc.) about a student.

I have previously written a UIUC Firefox Search Engine Plugin that searches the Phonebook, but it just was not working for me because I always had to change the drop-down selection from Google to the PH and back again. There must be a better way.

So, I developed what I’m calling the NetID Lookup Extension. This is a simple Firefox extension that adds an item to your right-click toolbar. When text is selected, you can right-click on that text, click “Search NetID,” and a new Firefox tab will open with that text entered into the PH.

Right now it’s on the Mozilla Addons site, but is still classified as “experimental” - which means you have to log in (and set up a free account if you haven’t already) before installing it. If you install the extension and like what it does, please give it some feedback on the Mozilla page so that it can become a full-fledged extension. You can also find some more information on a page I created here (listed in the top tabs of this site).