Tuesday, May 21, 2013

How to preview bitly shorten URL before actually clicking/visiting the site

Mostly sites like twitter have length restriction on URLs so you will see bitly links being shared.

Sometimes it is not safe to just blindly click the shortened link (specially if you are not sure about the source). In such case you can follow the below method to first get an idea of where the link will take you

1. Add "+" sign at the end of bitly address. For example if you want to check out
http://bit.ly/10RSmFM , 
just type
http://bit.ly/10RSmFM+ 
to see where it points.

2. Alternatively you can type http://bit.ly/info/10RSmFM (i.e. add "info" in between).

Similar trick works for google shortened URL

Monday, May 20, 2013

Slitaz : A pretty lightweight linux disto

I needed to install a very minimal light weight linux distro (which could be quickly downloaded and used). I found one which was pretty small and easy to install.

This one is called Slitaz (www.slitaz.org ).

The iso file for installation is just 34.7 MB (downloads pretty quickly). Installation is also quick and it is quite stable and fast. Here are the steps I followed to install it from usb (if you need it).

Download iso from http://www.slitaz.org/

Follow the steps described for ubuntu here to make a bootable USB (https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Installation/FromUSBStickQuick) .

Just remember to select "Slitaz"  instead of "Ubuntu version" in step 1 of Universal-USB-Installer.exe.

Found it useful since I needed a quick way to install and check my files/backup data.