

Show HN: ca.pitali.st, not a weekend, but afternoon project - klapinat0r

Hi hackers,<p>long time reader, first time "real" submitter.<p>This is by no means a revolutionary idea, or even execution, but rather something I've always wanted to do, just to see if I could write a good implementation of it.<p>So without further adieu: http://ca.pitali.st/<p>Yes, it's just an URL shortener. Please check out the API and if there anything you like about it, please share, so I can take this feedback with me to my future projects.<p>If there's something you REALLY hate, that's feedback too. Don't be afraid to hurt my feelings; this was put together in less than 4 hours to see if I could beat the 100+ lines of the node js link a few days ago (and I did. this is 97 lines + 6 lines of RewriteEngine).<p>The reason I submit this is for useability feedback mainly. To get more in contact with "the consumer" (even though I doubt anyone would use this service, but I'd really like it if I could get some consumer feedback).<p>That's my description, have a good day.<p>- klapi
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manuscreationis
Well - It works!

<http://ca.pitali.st/CQHTDF>

I know nothing about how the algorithms for building these kinds of work, but
very cool none the less.

Preview function is especially nice.

Add a submit button - not everyone knows to hit enter without some kind of
prompt.

Good luck with your project

~~~
klapinat0r
I've thought about security (vuln's), collision and security (proper
redirects, url validation, js sandboxing), but it is really simple. I can
publish it publictly later.

Thank you for the kind words. Button added.

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sneak
Make sure you regularly submit your db here:
<http://www.archiveteam.org/index.php?title=URLTeam>

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soult
Let me give you some advice: The hard part about URL shorteners is not the
coding work, it's keeping that thing up. You should keep it online for decades
to come, even if you just have a few 100 people using it. There won't be any
revenue at all and most people will prefer bit.ly over your shortener. Sooner
or later spammers will find your shortener and abuse the hell out of it. You
will probably get blacklisted, maybe even dropped by your hosting provider.

As for the urlteam stuff (urlteam member here): The best thing would be to
just release a text file with all the short url to long url mappings. Make
sure that the file is regularly updated and that it works (I am looking at
you, ur1.ca people).

~~~
klapinat0r
Thanks for the insight on url shorteners workings, and the good points.

