The Kyle File

I got my workspace grid back! Seems it's compatible with GNOME 3.8 now. Yeehaw!

The Workspace Grid gnome-shell extension is awesome! It gave me back the 3-by-3 grid I was missing from GNOME 3.2 and fallback mode.

The test of my TweaK API wrapper script was a complete success! So, since it works, I can go ahead and share the website. Anyone who would like to use my code to get the shortest link on the planet can go to http://tweaky.tk. The page there will give all the information needed to use my script, including a link to download it. If you have an account on Dlvr.it, you can simply add Tweaky as a 3rd-party shortener by setting the endpoint to http://tweaky.tk/wrapper.php?link=@URL@. Also, Tweaky works very similarly to the shorten function of the TweaK API. You can send an HTTP get or post request to http://tweaky.tk/wrapper.php with the link parameter set to the long link you wish to shorten. Tweaky will return only the HTTP response code, and, if the long link is good, the short link returned by TweaK. Enjoy the shortest links on the planet, courtesy of TweaK and Tweaky.

Update

The TweaK API and website no longer work, as they have been replaced by Freenom's Random Domains API, allowing for 5 times the domains, and therefore 5 times the short links. The Tweaky website and wrapper API have been discontinued, as anonymous registrations via the Random Domains API are limited to 25 per day. Any references to broken links to the TweaK API and the tweaky.tk website are preserved for archival purposes only.

I have finally been able to complete my TweaK API wrapper script. I had to nearly completely rewrite the code, because the curl_exec() function is disabled on my host, and although I am one of the server administrators, I felt it would be more secure to leave it disabled. Then, dot.tk’s “abuse and copyright infringement department” sent me a rather nasty looking automated form email telling me that they had cancelled the domain I was using for the script, because either the web address was inaccessible or it violated their terms and conditions. The problem with that is that they cancelled the domain name within 4 hours of the time I registered it, so of course it wasn’t even ready for use, and I was busy building the wrapper script, and hadn’t even written a basic index page yet, not to mention the fact that the DNS hadn’t even really had a chance to propagate. Well, as far as I can tell, that problem has been solved, and I was able to successfully validate my script as a shortener on Dlvr.it. If it works as it should, the tweet for this blog post will have only one link, and it will be a random 5-character .tk domain name. As far as I know, these links are the absolute shortest URL’s on the internet that are available from an API, weighing in at exactly 15 characters including the http://. If it does work as expected, I will share the link to the wrapper script with anyone who wishes to add it to their own dlvr.it account or download or use the code.

I have finally been able to complete my TweaK API wrapper script. I had to nearly completely rewrite the code, because the curl_exec() function is disabled on my host, and although I am one of the server administrators, I felt it would be more secure to leave it disabled. Then, dot.tk’s “abuse and copyright infringement department” sent me a rather nasty looking automated form email telling me that they had cancelled the domain I was using for the script, because either the web address was inaccessible or it violated their terms and conditions. The problem with that is that they cancelled the domain name within 4 hours of the time I registered it, so of course it wasn’t even ready for use, and I was busy building the wrapper script, and hadn’t even written a basic index page yet, not to mention the fact that the DNS hadn’t even really had a chance to propagate. Well, as far as I can tell, that problem has been solved, and I was able to successfully validate my script as a shortener on Dlvr.it. If it works as it should, the tweet for this blog post will have only one link, and it will be a random 5-character .tk domain name. As far as I know, these links are the absolute shortest URL’s on the internet that are available from an API, weighing in at exactly 15 characters including the http://. If it does work as expected, I will share the link to the wrapper script with anyone who wishes to add it to their own dlvr.it account or download or use the code.

Update

The TweaK API and website no longer work, as they have been replaced by Freenom's Random Domains API, allowing for 5 times the domains, and therefore 5 times the short links. Any references to broken links to the TweaK API are preserved for archival purposes only.

It didn’t quite work. TweaK returns two links. The good news is I think I can fix it by making a wrapper API that will only return the first link. A search indicates that someone already did it, but I can’t find the source code for the script, and I want to be able to release the code into the public domain, which means I’ll be doing it myself. Looks like it won’t be too hard, but until it’s done, if you see a pair of my links on Twitter or StatusNet and you want to click it, just click the first one that looks like bcd34.tk. The second one that looks like tk./bcd34 doesn’t seem to work.

In other news, since before the upgrade of StatusNet, my blog posts haven’t been reaching Identi.ca. I hope they get that fixed soon. I can’t seem to figure out where the problem is though, so I plan to eventually migrate this blog to Wordpress, of course hosted at HostingPad, so that I can just install plugins rather than dealing with all kinds of third parties to share my posts across my social networks.

Update

The TweaK API has been replaced by Freenom's Random Domains API, allowing for 5 times the domains, and therefore 5 times the available short links. Links to tweak.tk are broken, preserved for archival purposes only.