Get Qurli.

Wednesday 23 July, 2008

See, the thing with short URI services like tinyurl is that they have this habit of going off-line when you least expect it. Sure, they have some nice features like stat counters and baubles and little bells that go bing, but at the end of the day, sometimes simple is better.

Sometimes, all you want is the link — not the full tactical assault required to go get it. What to do? Well, there are some advantages to the do-it-yourself model, like self-hosting. Namely that it’s my ass roasting over hot coals if it goes down. Having masses of (dv) horsepower, which has this frustrating habit of simply not going down, also helps. :)

Thus, with sod all fanfare, and a reasonably low care factor, I humbly present Qurli, a svelte, quotable, simple and blindingly fast URL shortening service. Long URLs suck. Embrace the axe.

I originally built this URI shortening service (pronounced “curly”) for me. A handy place to horde all those annoying, potentially throw-away 400+ character URIs that I just don’t want clogging up del.icio.us or The Lab bookmarks.

Then I realised, why not just share the love? So I have.

Please be aware the service is still ‘very beta’ — just like the fishstick, there is distinct chance it might not end well.