Last week, I secretly released version 1.2 of my Copy ShortURL add-on. It contains a lot of improvements based on your feedback! Here’s the 411 on the new features and how to use them:

is.gd is the new default
I switched to is.gd (from tinyurl) as the default shortening service. I am affiliated with neither of them, but I though the point of short URLs is, well, being short. So is.gd wins on that front. If you don’t like that, don’t fret, because…:

You can pick your own short URL service now
If you have a short URL service that you like more than the default, you can pick your own now. Instructions are in the README file on github (towards the bottom). By setting the preference extensions.copyshorturl.serviceURL in about:config, you can for example use tinyurl, bit.ly (requires an API key) and lots of other URL shorteners. If you have additional service URLs to share with the class, please leave a comment!

Notifications
Initially, there was no way to tell if the add-on had already done its job, except for checking your clipboard contents (hint, if in doubt, yes, it worked). So I added unobtrusive Growl notifications for platforms that support it. For example:

If you don’t have Growl, a Firefox notification bar is shown instead:

Finally, Copy ShortURL is now compatible with Firefox versions 3.6 to 4.0b5pre.

Hope you like it, and feel free to leave a comment here or file issues on github if anything is not working as expected.

Since I last blogged about the Copy Short URL add-on, I stumbled across another, very popular example of automatically exposed short URLs:

WordPress.com as well as self-hosted WordPress instances have automatic short URLs now, starting with WordPress version 3.0.

For example, this blog post on wordpress.com about a possible proof for P != NP has the shiny short URL http://wp.me/pr9Ir-1lN.

A recent blog post on my blog, in turn, has: http://fredericiana.com/?p=2921.

Of course, it’s a little sad that the auto-generated short URLs on self-hosted WordPress instances are so ugly, and they are not really short enough to use them easily on twitter or with other character-sensitive applications. But considering how long your average blog post URL is in the first place, it seems like a great win nonetheless.

An unrelated side note: I filed a bug to expose bugzil.la URLs on Mozilla’s bugzilla instance. It’s not picked up or resolved yet, so if you want to see the support as much as I, feel free to comment on or CC yourself on the bug!

Noah’s Ark The fail pet collection is glad to welcome a new member! bit.ly, the URL shortening service used by default on twitter, hosts a family of pufferfish in their logo, and consequently, a really big one of them is also responsible for guarding their 404 page:

Let’s hope all the sea creatures in my giant fail pet aquarium get along well…

Thanks for the link, dolske!

Greenstorm Film is an independent production company from Moscow, Idaho. They make great short films, such as this one, called “The Package”:

I find this really funny . There’s another one, more grotesque but no less amusing: The Great Couch Caper.

I like how creative these guys are, and how well they put everything in scene. Another example of their talent is this music video of a cover version of “Airplanes” by B.o.B. (which, by the way, also features some really good musicians!)

And now that I’ve hooked you up on their filmmaking, you’ll be pleased to know they are working on a feature-length film named “The Protagonist” (trailer), due to be released in the fall. I, for one, can’t wait to see it.

Thanks, Jenny, for pointing out Greenstorm, and thanks, Noah, for the cool performance in the video