I like Twitter, especially at it keeps messages short by limiting users to only 140 characters per message.

If you wish to send web links using Twitter, precious characters can be used up by sending long URLs. However, Twitter gets around this by converting URLs into TinyURLs. These are, as the name suggests, tiny URLs that, when clicked on, take users to the webpage of the longer URL. TinyURLs are also useful in emails and forum postings as their short length prevents them being broken.

However, there is a downside. The TinyURL link doesn’t give you an indication of the website you will be taken to if you click on it. For instance, you can go to Mactropolis.com via the link http://tinyurl.com/5s2qle but you wouldn’t know that from the TinyURL. As it is a dangerous online world, some users may wish to know where they will be sent before they arrive

Fortunately, TinyURL have thought of this and provide two options:

The first, is for the creator of the URL to send a TinyURL that contains a preview link, for instance http://preview.tinyurl.com/5s2qle

The second, is for the recipient to activate a TinyURL Preview cookie on his or her web browser. If the user does that, he or she will be taken to a TinyURL page that shows the full URL and, from there, the person can then decide whether or not to proceed.

You can obtain the TinyURL Preview feature by visiting http://tinyurl.com/preview.php

Leave a Comment

written by Mike Bradbrook \\ tags: TinyURL, TinyURL Preview, Tips, Twitter

If you’ve heard of the locater service ‘LoJack’, you know you can get it for a number of different products including cars and laptops. There’s no such service for the iPhone… Until now that is!

TUAW’s Erica Sadun is at it again, and has put together ‘findme’, an iPhone tracking app. The findme command-line tool returns the identifier, longitude and latitude of the cell phone tower closest to your iPhone… But the twist is this… It keeps you notified via Twitter.

All you need is a Twitter account with updates ‘protected’. This way only people you allow can see the info that findme is sending to Twitter. Pretty cool if you ask me. Give your friends access to this Twitter feed, and they can follow your movements when you are on vacation… or heck, just when you’re driving around town

To run the app you will need to have a jailbroken iPhone and curl utility. There’s also a handy script that you can use to send a ‘tweet’ via curl. Create a daemon to run the script once and a while, and you’re done!

For more info on findme direct from Erica, click here.

Leave a Comment

written by Mr. Mayor \\ tags: findme, iPhone, Twitter