lifehacks

LifeHack: Abuse Tinyurl for Any Info

Submitted by tomo on January 5, 2011 - 9:08pm

Here's a trick for storing and compressing information in a pinch.

Let's say you have an address or a set of directions or maybe a shopping list.

Example: "Calle de la Magdalena N8, 5D Floor, Madrid, Spain 28012"

Stick it into http://bit.ly but prepend "http://" to the text, to make it look like a URL: "http://Calle de la Magdalena N8, 5D Floor, Madrid, Spain 28012 "

When we go to the resulting shortened URL http://bit.ly/dL9MXS we get an error, but Chrome displays back:
"Oops! Google Chrome could not find calle de la magdalena n8, 5d floor, madrid, spain 28012" and voila! we have the text we wanted.

All we have to write on our hands, remember, or pass around via text message is the string "dL9MXS". It takes less work than using a pastebin and the resulting URL is shorter anyways.

Any other practical uses for this trick? Leave a comment!

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Asian-American expat living in Vietnam over 3 years. I am involved in tech startups and do Drupal consulting. I choose to live in Saigon and Vietnam and I want to see the city and its people reach their true potential.

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