Top > December 2011

12/31/11 by DW

This is where Dave Winer narrates his development work.

I found a bug in the user interface for switching the shortening preference in Radio2 from Adjix to bit.ly, something I need to do now, because Adjix is experiencing downtime.
In the Using Adjix panel, we have a checkbox that says "Check this box to shorten URLs with Adjix" -- but that's not what it controls. It actually determines whether or not the user's shortener prefs are to override the prefs set at the server level.
So if you were to uncheck it, you would not get shortened urls using your bit.ly account.
I changed the prefs system to give you a third page, that says clearly what this checkbox does. Screen shot.
Also modified the Adjix page to remove the checkbox, and made it clear on the bit.ly page that if you do nothing you will get Adjix-shortened URLs.
Now finally I think the prefs reflect reality! :-)
Parts

Radio2 HTML archive uses long URLs

We're having problems with Adjix today, and with Twitter -- at the same time. And I've just released two pieces I've invested a lot in. Very few people can get to them, given the hurdles I've put in their way.
Then I realized once and for all that we should, where ever possible, be migrating away from shortened URLs.
The ability to count clicks isn't worth the tradeoff. And anyway, after a period of time I no longer care about how many clicks a link is getting. It's mostly about current links that I care.
So I was going to change the way Radio2 generates the archive page, as a place to get started on deprecating short URLs. But I was already using the un-shortened links. So that's cool