Officially Use Bitly Pro

The other day I wrote about my little work around to use my short url with Bitly, but now Pro is officially here!

Verifying my short url was a snap, I adjusted the A Record a few days ago. It was slightly troublesome to verify the url to track, the html file that I downloaded to add to my site didn’t work, so I finally want to adjust the cname. After several agonizing minutes (I’m an anxious geek, I want to play wi SQUIRREL!), it finally verified, I threw a link into Tweetdeck, and yippee! It works, just as advertised.

Sadly, we do not yet have the option to customize the shortened url further, as you can with the regular bit.ly. So for now, I couldn’t take my post about dating conduct and shorten it to something like http://ttdu.de/dating. No big deal for most, but as I roll out some pages with specific content, I’d like to make a shortened url very specific to that page, regardless of title length. Mostly so I could remember shortened urls at a moments notice for tweeting purposes, rather than having to copy and paste again.

Anyway, bitly.pro is here, and I hope you take the time to check it out. I’m excited to shorten links that can be traced to me at a glance.

When you see something with http://ttdu.de/ in it, you can bet it came from me.

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Use Bit.ly Pro Now

Many of us woke up this morning to an email from Bit.ly. In it contained instructions to change the A Record for our short url. Eager to begin using the Pro features, I eagerly changed it, then checked my Bit.ly account. Nothing looked different, I shortened a couple urls, still had the bit.ly domain on them.

Well, that confusion was cleared up in a 2nd email tonight. The Bit.ly Pro site should roll out later this week.

The DNS settings (A-Record or CNAME) detailed in the previous email are steps you can take before the site launches. Sorry if our last email was unclear, and thanks for your patience!

Being the impatient geek that I am though, I learned a trick earlier today. You can start using Bit.ly Pro now. We don’t have access to the official site yet, but we can use our domain.

I purchased ttdu.de nearly a month ago, which now that I’ve changed the A Record, redirects to bit.ly. But if you manually adjust it, it already works with shortned urls. Take my post from earlier this week, Proper Date Conduct: How To Treat Ladies Right. It shortens to bit.ly/9vIf24. But if you swap in ttdu.de for bit.ly, leaving you with ttdu.de/9vIf24, you’ll find that it still goes to the right post. 

There is a catch though. I have found that when putting it into Tweetdeck, it will still take it and shorten it into a bit.ly url. The trick there is to add your custom url by itself, and then add the http:// in front of it.

I still eagerly await the full featured back end, but for now, I can start using my custom url.

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Geek Without Cell Phone

I don’t have a cell phone.

I haven’t had a cell phone for a year.

The only reason I think about having a cell phone is lack of wifi.

For the most part, I don’t miss it. The first few weeks without it took a small bit of adjusting. But armed with an iPod Touch and Google Voice, I have stayed connected enough. Sporadic wifi access on the go allows me to check text messages and “read” voicemail (transcription is a wonderful thing).

It helps that I’m not a fan of talking on phones. Never have been. Twitter, Facebook, text messages, email, those are simple, concise methods of communication. Too often a phone call can take 5 minutes or more, even though the purpose of the call was completed within 30 seconds. Also, unless you record your calls, you can’t easily look back at what you said, should you need to remember.

There are many people who still can’t grasp that I haven’t had a phone. I’ve simply had Google Voice set to run through Skype. If you’ve had a phone conversation with me over the last 12 months, I was probably in front of the computer, using Skype. Recently I picked up an Ooma Telo though. Partly because the Ooma has always intrigued me, partly because it will offer me some flexibility for future plans that I hope work out, and partly because I like gadgets. It didn’t hurt that on the day I bought it, Ooma announced new features are coming, like better integration with Google Voice.

How many of my fellow geeks could care less about their phone’s voice capability? Just admit it, you spend all day checking email, Facebook, Twitter, and other social web stuff. I’m finding more reason to have a cell phone now, but only because I want to check into foursquare, and many places don’t have wifi access.

It has been healthy to be disconnected though. I still find myself constantly pulling out my iPod to check things whenever I can, but when I have no connection to the net, I pay more attention to the things around me, I experience more of life. As hard as it may be for us geeks to admit, there is more to life.

So I don’t have a cell phone. I usually don’t miss it. If I get a cell phone again, I have absolutely no plan to include a voice package with it, only data. I challenge you to try it. Live without a cell phone. See how well you can survive.

Besides, that’s $100 every month that I no longer hand over to Verizon.

Time to use that wonderful comment section (where you can simultaneously post your comment to Twitter, Facebook, and other places. You’re welcome). How do you feel about your cell phone? Is it still worth having?

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10 Things We Didn’t Have 10 Years Ago

Happy New Year everybody! Welcome to 2010. Twitter has been abuzz with people saying stuff about #10YearsAgo. As for myself, 10 years ago I was a freshman in high school, using the family’s Performa 575, and not even a dial up connection at home. A lot has changed, as I’ve been through several computers (still a Mac guy, but presently running Windows 7, with about a 15Mbps connection to the world), spent some time in college, spent some time in Iraq, and spent a lot of time figuring out how to move forward in this rapidly changing world we live in.

Anyway, after seeing some stuff throughout the day, I’ve been inspired to make a short list of 10 things that we didn’t have 10 years ago.

1. Gmail – Released in 2004, Google changed the way we email. Do you remember 10 years ago? No way I could go through the amount of email I do, as quickly as I do, with what we used back then.
2. YouTube – Founded in 2005, and since purchased by Google, millions of people have gone on to use video creatively and share it with the world.
3. Hulu – We’ve had easier access to TV shows and select movies since 2007 with Hulu’s arrival. For many, this has provided access to TV shows they didn’t get on cable.
4. iPod – Apple dropped a bomb in late 2001 when they announced the iPod. The music industry will never be the same.
5. PS2/PS3/Xbox/Xbox360/Wii – Gaming has taken a flying leap forward with the releases in 2000/2006/2001/2005/2006. Advancing all the way to high def and physical activity, we’ve come a long way from Pong.
6. Mac OS X – The public beta came out late 2000, and brought a dramatic shift to the user interface of operating systems. This also paved the way for Apple’s transition to Intel processors.
7. Windows XP/Vista/7 – Windows finally broke out and ditched the gray interface this decade, progressing in 2001/2006/2009. Microsoft has truly seen the light of Apple, and gradually makes everything a little easier to use, even if a lot of it has obvious inspiration.
8. Twitter – Only here since 2007, Twitter is changing how people communicate with each other, how businesses communicate with customers, and how social media is done.
9. Facebook – Launched in 2004, they have rapidly grown to become not only the largest social network in America, but cash flow positive too.
10. WordPress – Millions of websites are based on it now, but WordPress wasn’t released until 2003.

What do you love today that wasn’t here 10 years ago? Take a look around, you might be surprised .

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Easier Logins

He already had me thinking about it (yes, a discussion on Twitter), but then he sent a tweet that pushed me to write about it.

Not that this isn’t being worked on. OpenID was started with that very intent. The problem is the general public doesn’t know what OpenID is. If we don’t know what it is, we won’t use it. If it’s too hard to use, we won’t use it. Furthermore, if it isn’t there to use, we won’t use it.

That’s right, a disturbingly large number of sites still don’t provide OpenID as an option. It’s astounding how many blogs out there have a comment system that requires me to have their specific login in order to comment, or at the very least, an alternative option. Blogger is among them, which is sad, because Google should know better.

Echo's Login Options

A universal login doesn’t necessarily have to be one login that is standardized world wide. I’m not sure I’d even want that. To me, a universal login is something that gives me 3 or more very popular options. There may be more, but off the top of my head I can refer you to JS-Kit’s Echo, Disqus, and Intense Debate. For those that have it, they all offer OpenID login. They also offer Facebook and Twitter login. Those pretty much cover it, if you don’t have at least one of those three accounts, you probably aren’t giving any though to commenting on anything.

So maybe universal login isn’t what we’re after. Just an easier login. Much of the blame can be placed on the shoulders of those running websites or blogs. They need to be on top of things and realize that they need easy options. Even with the options I have enabled with Echo, some people still think it’s a bit too much effort. So why would we sign up for another specific service just to leave a comment?

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