disruption.ca

TinyURL is a neat little service that lets you create a very short link from a long one. The TinyURL Explorer is a bit of code that lets you browse TinyURLs that people have created. It works using frames and javascript, and lets you load random urls or enter your own.

There are a few problems with the system. The biggest is that a lot of sites use frame breaking code, so you sometimes loose the interface. If this happens you need to hit the back button to return to the explorer. The html hasn’t been validated, and the hackish table based layout looks goofy in Safari. I haven’t tested using IE, so who knows what sort of other problems might exist.

I was originally inspired by Alf’s post on exploring TinyURLs. The concept is also borrowed from the random personal picture finder. The original picture finder seems to be gone, but you can visit a Spanish version.

Of course, nothing is new on the internet. A google search reveals another site doing something very similar.

Writing this was an interesting way to learn some Javascript. I’m kind of tempted to reimplement it using some sort of server side scripting though. Server side would be less responsive, but it would allow the display of more information about the pages. It would also allow a feature for marking urls as interesting, and providing a list of cool sites that people find using the system. Another change I am tempted to make is having the system controls in a popup window. This might be a little awkward to use, but it would prevent the frame breaking problems. Though I suspect this project won’t hold my interest long enough for me to explore these options.