UPDATE (Oct 26, 2010) :: I disbanded my original URL shortening service and have created a new one with an even shorter URL! I’m leaving this page up for posterity, but I’ve changed the links where applicable. Also, I wrote about my new URL shortening service, so you may want to head on over there first!

This time, it’s mine!! After I got onto Twitter and Facebook, I starting noticing all these little weird looking links and came to realize they were just pointers to much longer links. URL shortening services have sprung up just about everywhere. The issue of really long links is more of a problem to Twitter users because you only have 140 characters to type your message, but they’re starting to gain traction for just about every use. Use my new URL shortener to shrink you long urls today!

You would want to/need to shorten a url when you don’t have much space to post one or you want to make it easier for someone to remember. Now, there are tons of sites out there that can shorten long links into something tiny, but I didn’t want to trust my links in the hands of some fly-by-night service. Instead, I opened my own service and now I’m offering the service to everyone.

xi.io URL shortener

What is it?

Take this link for example: http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FKindle-Wireless-Reading-Display-Generation%2Fdp%2FB0015T963C%3Fpf_rd%5Fm%3DATVPDKIKX0DER%26pf%5Frd%5Fs%3Dcenter-1%26pf%5Frd%5Fr%3D0Y2V14K8W4X1MTQ9XB9B%26pf%5Frd%5Ft%3D101%26pf%5Frd%5Fp%3D1253201642%26pf%5Frd%5Fi%3D507846&tag=ledfrog-20&linkCode=ur2&camp=1789&creative=9325. It’s a direct link to Amazon.com’s Kindle page. Now, imagine you’re on Twitter and you want to send that to your followers. It’s not going to happen.

Instead, you drop on by my new site and create a link that looks like this: http://xi.io/8m. Much nicer, wouldn’t you agree? In fact, this URL went from being 358 characters long down to only 15! That’s a difference of 343 characters!! You can use these links for any purpose and the best part is, you can also search for keyword text, so instead of getting a randomly generated number, you can get a text phrase (if available).

How is this site different?

It’s not so much different in features as it is in name. Other services such as goo.gl, bit.ly and u.nu all offer the same services, but as you can see, they all use International domain names.

Personally, I find two things wrong with this. The first reason is that the links are not universally recognized by a lot of Internet users. If fact, I’ve talked to some people that say they never click on links like that at all! This can provide low click-through ratios for your links.

The second reason is that these domain names are controlled by the countries who own the extension. This can, although probably not likely, lead to the domains becoming obsolete or even being taken back by the local government.

What can you do with a shortened URL?

The uses for this service are only limited to your creativity! Here are some ideas:

• Use shorter links for Twitter posts
• Cloak affiliate links
• Mask a long URL for marketing materials
• Use a shorter URL for your site to make it easier to tell your friends how to get there

This service is free and allows you to make an unlimited amount of links. Check it out by going to xi.io now!

<< Back to main project page

There are a few reasons why you might want to tint your windows. For me, it was about the looks (as you’ll see below), the ability to reduce heat and UV rays inside the car and most importantly, for theft reasons–if you can’t see something in the car you like, you’re less likely to break in.

Anyway, I just want to share with you my story behind this project. I found some video “ads” on YouTube for this place in Costa Mesa, CA that had an impecable warranty on their products, so I researched the location and customer reviews and decided to take my car there. I must say that this place (and the people working there) blew my expectations away! See below for a full review and more information.

Without further ado, here’s the before and after shots:

[nggallery id=1]

For those of you who are interested in the place I got them tinted, it was a place called Signature Tint in Costa Mesa, CA. I can’t say enough good great things about this place and the guy who runs it. I mean, from a strictly business point of view, this guy knows how to take care of his customers!

Here’s my little story: I originally found this place on YouTube after Dave (the owner) put up two videos of other Mini Coopers that had just been tinted and I emailed him to ask how much it cost among some other details. He responded back within the hour with a price and all my questions answered. Since this was before I even got the car, I didn’t make an appointment at this time. Once I finally got the car, I looked around at some other tint places and even asked people I knew who had their cars done to see if the quote I got was good or not.

At first, my friends were saying it was a little high, but I informed them of the lifetime warranty from this place and they agreed it was worth it. I decided to go forward with the project so I called on a Thursday to see when the next appointment could be made. He was pretty booked up and I could only go on Saturdays, so he told me to call back that Saturday to see if he had any time for me.

At this point, I wasn’t worried about being “squeezed” into a timeslot since this project was not a super high priority, but I called anyway and he told me to come down around 2:30pm. I did and when I got there, I was taken care of from the second I walked in the door.

The shop was a very simple place with nothing more than a few samples of the different tint shades, a couch and DirecTV. He had told the customer in front of me that he’d call them when their car was done and started helping me. Since I already knew what tint I wanted, this process was fast. He then explained to me that he would squeeze my car in right away because I wasn’t from the area and I had planned to wait in the lobby.

Not more than 2 hours later, my car was done, I was paid for and Dave was offering me a free car wash and detail at the place up the street. I told him I couldn’t take him up on his offer that day because I had to be somewhere, but he said I can come back at any time and get the free wash plus he wanted to take some video of my car to post on YouTube.

My total cost for this project was $215 out the door and for that, I got the best tint you can buy done by the most professional people I’ve ever dealt with. And the product guarantee: Dave said if anything happened to my tint, and I mean ANYTHING, I was to bring it back and it would be replaced for free! This was his quote:

I don’t want you driving around with my tint on your car if it’s messed up.

Now that’s service!! If you’re interested in checking this place out, here’s some information you’ll need:

Signature Glass Tinting
670 West 17th Street, Unit G
Costa Mesa, CA 92627
949-515-TINT (8468)
EMAIL: sigtint@aol.com
WEB: www.signaturetint.com
Visit them on Yelp for more customer reviews!

They don’t just do cars either!

In the beginning, I was setting each game to be freeplay, but I sooned realized that not every game was accessible in this fashion. This was particularly true with the older games. So the other day, I was on eBay and noticed a seller with some tokens listed. I was able to score 1000 for about $60 after shipping and tax. This beats the $0.24 per token that Suzo/Happ charges!

Anyway, I got the tokens yesterday and followed a tutorial I found on another blog, but I still couldn’t get the tokes to drop properly. I had to make the standard adjustments and then one of my own. Here’s what I added:

If you look at the hole to the left, you’ll see that I added a brass tab in there. I was able to rip out two brass connectors from an old microswitch, bend it slightly in the shape of an ‘L’ and then super glue it into that spot. What this fixed was a problem where the token (slightly lighter in weight than a quarter) was rolling off the coin cradle at the wrong angle and sliding too far into the mech, which caused the coin to be rejected. The only true way to solve this problem without having to buy token-only mechs is to get a heavier coin/token.

Well, for one, I didn’t want to spend any more money on this and two, I wanted to be able to accept quarters without having to undo any mods. So, what my brass tab does, is it actually bounces the coin down the acceptence slot rather than letting it get jammed into the back corner. The only downside I can think of this is that now these mechs will probably accept any coin similar to a quarter in size. Oh well…I’m not running an arcade or anything.

As much as I wish that title were coming true, what I really mean is that I’ll be building a model of the World Trade Center. So far in the years since 9/11, I’ve had a wall mural of the famous picture with the Brooklyn Bridge, pictures ranging from desktop size to wall size and also a huge U.S. flag draped on my wall in remembrance.

Now, I decided I wanted to have a real, tangible object I could have on display, so after some searching, I finally found a website that has paper models that can be printed out on card stock, folded and glued together to form not only the Twin Towers, but the entire World Trade Center complex as it appeared before that tragic day.

The website I found is SkyscraperModels.us and they actually have a pretty good size list of other buildings as well as a few they’re still working on.

I’ve built a paper model before (the old Disneyland marquee), so I’m pretty familiar with this process. Basically, you print out the hi-rez pictures onto thick photo paper or high quality card stock and then you simply follow the directions on how to fold and glue it all together.

Normally this process takes a couple of hours at most, but I tend to make some adjustments as I go along. These are usually added to increase the element of detail or just to make it more sturdy. In any case, I’ll keep this page updated with my progress as well as adding pictures as I go along.

Stay tuned…