mavrev.org

Introducing urlShort 2.0.0

matt — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 04:00:00 +0000

We just released urlShort 2.0.0, the latest and greatest release of the urlShort Project. Version 2.0.0 features a revamped and updated user interface for both the web and bookmarklet views, a brand new automatic installer (complete with options for specific features), basic statistics (total visits since creation), optional embedded media (.FLV, .MP3, .GIF, .JPG, & .PNG), and sub-directory support for URLs, plus copy to clipboard (finally)!

Download urlShort 2.0.0
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Announcing mavrev.org

matt — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 00:47:07 +0000

For quite some time Maverick Revolution has contributed to the open source community with our urlShort Project. More recently, we've also put together the Better Twitter Greasemonkey script compilation. Up until today, urlShort has been hosted on SourceForge.net, which was great for a while. It was free, fairly straight-forward, and easy. But recently SourceForge decided to change everything, and it's been, quite frankly, a pain in the ass to find things now both as an admin, and as a user. In addition, their hosted apps service was almost useless for us.

As a result of both of these we decided to move urlShort off of SourceForge.net. Major thanks to Tobie for providing the hosting for mavrev.org, and the urlShort Project. With this move, we have switched everything over. Our trac, SVN, forums, and website for urlShort are all on mavrev.org now. In addition, mavrev.org will host other open source projects in the future, as well as offering articles relevant to the open source community through blog postings similar to mavrev.com.

In summary, mavrev.org is the same as mavrev.com, but strictly for open source projects. Currently that only includes urlShort, but that will be changing in the future.

Built with urlShort: m.brep.us

matt — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 18:32:06 +0000

We all know that short URLs are important for sharing links on social sites like Twitter because of character limits, but did you ever think that they could be useful for sharing music? Services like blip.fm do this, but they require a separate account. So what if you just want to link your Twitter friends to a great MP3 track?

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urlShort 1.2.0 Released

matt — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 23:18:04 +0000

Just a few minutes ago, I released the latest version of urlShort, the free open source URL shortener. It's not quite what I had planned, but it's by far the most improved version yet. Version 1.2.0 features URL previews/warning which displays the full URL that you're about to continue to, as well as offers a thumbnail image (via SnapShots).

In addition, 1.2.0 fixes two critical security holes, of both Cross Site Scripting (XSS), and an SQL Injection vulnerability. Major thanks to m0nkee at GNY.ME!, who implemented the preview functionality, and located the vulnerabilities.

To use the URL preview functionality, the user must first select to enable it by placing a cookie on their machine. Our own urlShort service has been updated with these changes (enable URL previews).

Go download urlShort 1.2.0 now!

Read more on mavrev.com...

Independent URL Mapping Directory Service 301works Announced

matt — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 15:38:46 +0000

Earlier this morning the URL mapping directory service 301works which will allow short URL service providers the ability to regularly publish their URL mappings in order to preserve links in a historical archive. The service will be managed and maintained by GNIP. This new development comes as a result of tr.im announcing their closure and subsequent reopening, where it became painfully obvious that short URLs need a sort of "wayback machine" archive in order to ensure links exist even after their provider closes or discontinues service.

We will be regularly updating our own mappings from our urlShort service, and plan to offer support in future versions of the open-source urlShort Project for automatic archiving through 301works. Our long term goal for the urlShort Project is to provide anyone, publisher or user, with the software and information they need to operate their own short URL service, in an effort to improve transparency and reliability. This goal goes hand-in-hand with 301works' goal to correct the inherent problems with URL shortening.

The full press release is below.

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Built with urlShort: uri.is

matt — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 22:06:26 +0000

Have you ever wanted to post something on Twitter, but found out that its over 140 characters? Of course you have. And after you discovered that, you probably considered blogging it (if you have a blog that is), and decided it wasn't worth your time. You probably resorted to multiple tweets, which quite frankly, is annoying. So what are you supposed to do then? If only there was a way to quickly and easily tweet something over 140 characters...

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Short URLs and the Future of the Web

matt — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 04:35:35 +0000

While Maverick Revolution does develop and maintain the urlShort open-source URL shortener (and also runs our own service using the code.), it is important to take the time to think about the problems with URL shortening, and what we can do in the future to combat these.

Read more on mavrev.com...