Today I was listening to this Week in Tech 207 when I, again, heard the downside of URL-shorteners. There is a security risk in clicking on a shortened URL because you don't know beforehand where the link is going to. You presume that you can trust someone that mails you the URL or you follow on Twitter. But the link might actually lead you to a malware or fishing site. Are URL shorteners therefore bad? No, just use them wisely. Only reluctantly click on them if you really trust the person sending it to you AND you are using anti-malware software. I know people that never ever click on a shortened URL.
Why are we using URL-shorteners then? Because they are short and a tweet is only 140 characters long so you save a lot of space for text. Because an SMS is only 160 characters long and it is a hassle to copy a long url to a browser. Because mailclients break a long URL with linefeeds. Because...
At the moment bit.ly and tinyurl are the biggest URL shorteners according to TechCrunch:
They both offer very simple ways to preview a shortened URL. With tinyurl just put "preview" before the url. So http://tinyurl.com/2x6rgl becomes http://preview.tinyurl.com/2x6rgl. With bit.ly put a "+" after the URL which is the same as "info" in between. So http://bit.ly/GH4Cn becomes http://bit.ly/GH4Cn+ or http://bit.ly/info/GH4Cn. Tinyurl is promoting the preview option but on the bit.ly site it is hidden in their blog.
Searching for the preview options of the other URL-shorteners I found longurl which gives you the option to enter a shortened URL which it then exands for you. They also offer a Firefox-plugin and an API. Some Twitter-clients such as Tweetdeck, but also search.twitter.com, offer options to (auto)-expand a shortened URL which is almost the same as previewing it. They might be using the longurl API, but that is something I don't know.
To summarize: URL-shorteners are great, but use them wisely. And if you are not sure of the content preview or expand it first.
I would advise bit.ly to promote the preview option a bit more, just like tinyurl does. They have a Firefox-plugin, but not everybody is using Firefox.
Today, 17-7, my new iPhone 3GS arrived, together with a T-Mobile plan and a new number. After hearing some bad stories about the T-Mobile coverage I was happy to see that the coverage in my house and neighborhood is fine. 3G is working happy. Migrating from the iPod Touch was a no-brainer. I made a last backup of the iPod Touch to iTunes and used that backup to "restore" the iPhone 3GS. The only thing I had to re-enter where my passwords for mail and wifi. The only down-side is that I bought it together with an Artwizz SeeJacket Crystal case. The case also covers the screen and it sometimes feels that the sensitivity of the screen is a little sluggish. I sometimes have to hit the home button and go back to an App to reinitialize the sensitivity. It might not be the case but the Phone App finding the network, "restore" from an iPod touch or other CPU hogs. I have to investigate this further.
Tonight I took the iPhone with me on a 10k run replacing the iPod touch. I was listening to No Agenda when I saw the Zaltbommel bridge in a sunset. Photographers call this the golden hour. I just had to try the auto-focus camera on the 3GS on this play. For a "phone" camera the picture looks fine. The lens is semi-wide and the focus is good. Everything else is auto-auto and thank god Apple didn't try to implement a software zoom function. I suspect that I will blog more iPhone 3GS news soon.
Update 19-7: The problem with the screen does not seem to be an issue with the case. Without te case it sometime looks like the OS is hanging; the sensitivity of the screen is bad or not responsive at all. Using the home button or the power button and unlocking again gets it out of that state; sometimes not for long.
Update 8-8: After all it seems that the cause of the problem is the case, especially when I clean the case after opening it. Cleaning the case with a cloth makes the case electrostatic making the screen unresponsive after closing the case. Cleaning the case with water and a paper towel prevents that. Problem solved after all.
