Over the past couple of weeks, I have been working on a URL Shortener Service. When testing the ability to shorten really long urls (over 3500+ characters) I ran into an issue I had never seen before. When trying to redirect to the long url, NGINX would return a 502 error (upstream sent too big header while reading response header from upstream). After some research, I discovered the long url is sent in the header of the response. To fix this issue, I had to change the fastcgi_buffers and fastcgi_buffer_size setting in the location section of NGNIX. Read More
Category: Side Project
Introducing T.LY
Over the past several months, I have been working on a Link Shortener Extension for (Chrome|Firefox|Edge|Opera)which has grown to over 400,000 users! The feedback has been great and many users love how simple it is to shorten long links. The extension allows users to select their default shortener services such as T.LY, TinyUrl, Bit.ly, is.gd, To.ly, Cutt.ly, Brevis, Rebrandly, and Lnnkin. In one click, they can shorten a URL which is then automatically copied to their clipboard in less than a second.
Since the creation of the extension, the goal has been to give users an alternative to goo.gl which shut down in March 2019. This has worked well but shortener services come and go. So to make the extension more stable, I needed to create my own URL shortener. Read More
Has Everything Already Been Invented?
There is a famous quote “Everything that can be invented has been invented” believed to be by Charles H. Duell a commissioner of US patent office from 1889. Even though this quote is not accurate, it shows that many people believe the best inventions already exist. Of course, we know today this is not true. Think of the many inventions created in the past 30 years from technology to medical advances.
It is true that new ideas are hard to come by. I often find myself asking, “Why didn’t I think of that?” It seems that all my “good” ideas are already taken. The key is to remember that there may not be many new ideas, but that you can always improve existing products, apps, etc.
Blank New Tab Extension
Have you ever been blinded by the white background in chrome? If so, you will like blank tab extension, which replaces your new tab with a blank dark page. BlankTab will not slow down your browser and requires limited permissions.
Give it a try and let me know what you think!
