Two Cents and a Thousand Words

Shorten me, please

April 24, 2009 at 12:24 pm · Comments (0)

With all the URL shortener opinions lately, there’s been a lot of discussion of the usefulness of these services. Do they degrade the value of links and the Internet? Do they destroy usability? Will they cause an LHC-style black hole? What’s a Twitter-loving guy to do?

Build your own, of course.

Today I’m introducing jusr.us, the newest and only officially-sanctioned Justin Russell URL shortener. (Officially-sanctioned means that I’ll be the only one creating jusr.us URLs.)

Check out some of the best links ever!

Is there any real use in doing something like this? On the technical side of things, sure, there are a few advantages. But really, it’s just a reminder that we live and work in a great space on the web and have to remember to have fun every once in a while.

I’m Justin Russell

April 22, 2009 at 9:19 pm · Comments (0)

Back in the summer of 1999, “JRuss2001’s Home Page” was put online for the first time. The site featured a directory of calculator programs, song parodies, web site suggestions (including AltaVista as the best search engine), and a recommendation to use MSIE 5.

Eight redesigns and almost ten years later, I’m now publishing the newest revision of justinrussell.com. Given that the focus of the web has moved away from personal home pages to social web services, this new version serves as a launch point into these external sites and provides a listing of the latest content and favorites I’ve gathered on those sites. (Think of it as Collage 2.0.)

This is my first home page redesign in over two years, and I’ve had some help with this one. After inviting comments and feedback on Twitter, a bunch of people – including Caitlin, Lyndsy, Gary, Amy, and Hans – helped me work out some bugs and spruce the site up a bit. It’s still a work in progress, but it’s my favorite home page revision to date.

Now it’s off to BarCampBoston!