A couple of days ago I was visiting a website and noticed they had their own URL shortening service. I was immediately intrigued. I thought this was a complicated process that required a good sense for programming but I had a feeling the owner of this blog didn’t have the programming skillz to create this on their own. I immediately turned to Google and did some searches on how I could obtain a customized short URL.

First, what is a short URL? You see them all over the net. Basically, it’s a service that takes an impossibly long URL and shrinks it down to something you could tweet or easily insert into an email. Some services out there are bit.ly, is.gd and tinyurl.com.

Anyway, I came across some sites that didn’t do what I wanted. Then I came across a lifehacker.com article from 2009 entitled, “Make Your Own URL Shortening Service.” That’s exactly what I wanted to do! I didn’t even read the article, I just looked for what software they used. It turns out YOURLS is free software under GPL. I sat on the idea for a couple of days and thought about what else I required. I had the server space (mediatemple), the YOURLS software, now I just needed a URL.

This was the most difficult part of the process. The idea of a URL shortening service is to have a short URL. Coming up with something that is both short and clever is quite difficult these days. Folks who read this may not quite understand how the Internet works now. It has grown beyond just a bunch of websites and blogs, it is now about personal branding. Thinking about it in these terms, I had to look at my brand. My primary and personal blog is justjason.com. I go by justjason almost everywhere, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, XboxLive, etc. So the URL I was about to buy had to align with justjason.

I thought about several different URL options and looked at various extensions. I wanted it as short as possible so I knew it had to have a two-letter extension. Ultimately, I decided on the new .co extension and took the plunge buying jasn.co. It speaks to the shortening service because I don’t have an “o” or an “m”; it aligns well with my brand because it’s just jasn; it’s personalized so folks know who it’s coming from.

I now had everything required to do this. Next, I needed to install YOURLS onto my server space. Though I did encounter a hiccup that only required me to re-upload the software, installation was a fairly straight forward process. After the successful installation, I am now the proud owner of a personal URL shortening service.

Why? The primary reasons for having a personal short URL is so that it’s immediately recognizable to my friends and family as something I am sharing. Also, when I post on forums, Twitter and Facebook, people will visit jasn.co and be redirected to my blog, justjason.com.

Swag Bucks scams you in the most legitimate way they can. The basic premise is, you sign-up, download the toolbar, search, vote on polls, participate in the community, refer friends and complete “special offers.” All of these actions will earn you Swag Bucks which you can in turn redeem for gift cards and various other types of merchandise.

In many ways its legitimate, it doesn’t scam you out of money, but it does scam you out of time. If you’re not careful, you will definitely be scammed out of your privacy. Many, if not most of the special offers are those you might find in your spam folder within your email. One special offer I clicked led me to an easy, “fun” quiz. After submitting the quiz it took me to an endless cycle of offers that, before I would be given the 10 or so Swag Bucks, I had to complete at least one of them. I decided to forgo the Swag Bucks and get out of that cycle.

There are a few offers that only require you to watch a video and within minutes you are awarded the Swag Bucks. There are also offers from well known businesses like GameFly and Netflix. Before taking advantage of these offers you have to ask, will I make money on the offer, and is this a service or subscription that I would be interested in if I didn’t earn Swag Bucks? If the answer to both those questions are “yes,” then consider the special offer. I decided I would take advantage of the GameFly subscription for 1 month.

The first thing I did was look at how many Swag Bucks I would get for subscribing. I would receive 1,232 Swag Bucks for a 1 month subscription at $8.95. Next, I went to the Swag Store to see what I could get for those 1,200 Swag Bucks. A $5 Amazon.com gift card costs 450 Swag Bucks. The subscription would cost me $8.95, but I would earn $10 in Amazon.com gift cards netting me $1.05 and leaving me with 332 Swag Bucks.

Just for signing up and using the Swag Bucks search engine I was able to earn and win 91 Swag Bucks. That, in combination with the remaining 332 Swag Bucks from the GameFly offer, left me with 423, dangerously close to the 450 required for another gift card. I searched for awhile and didn’t earn anything and I had gone over most of the special offers, so I decided to call it a night.

The next morning, I did some searches and didn’t win anything. I then checked the special offers pages and found some videos to watch and things to “Like” on FaceBook, which earned me the Swag Bucks needed for one more Amazon.com gift card. So, over the course of a few hours, I earned enough Swag Bucks for $15 in gift cards. It doesn’t sound like such a bad deal. However, because I took advantage of the GameFly offer I really only made $6.05 over the course of the few hours, or $2.02 per hour.

The average person will probably not earn $2.02 per hour. It was because I took advantage of the GameFly offer that gave me that high rate. You will, unless you are vigilant in referrals and take advantage of the special offers, earn substantially less. If you think about it, many people are unsatisfied with how much they are paid at work, that their time is worth more than the minimum wage they’re getting. If you’re satisfied in earning  less than $2.02 an hour in your spare time, Swag Bucks could be something fun to do.

One of the great things about e-books is you can get new releases for less than their hardcover counterparts. Which is good for publishers because releasing an e-book is cheaper than a physical copy because the cost of materials, production and shipping is almost nothing. However, there are instances in which there is obvious price gouging so despicable that it makes you wonder how ethical these publishers are.

I recently was checking on different books and series I thought I would like to read. Since I have a Kindle I will usually look there first. I certainly could go to the library, but I like using the Kindle because it’s just easier to manage the book, it’s lighter, sometimes smaller, easier to hold, I never lose my place because of a rogue bookmark and it’s always with me.

My first stop is Sue Grafton books on amazon.com. When I was in high school I tried reading, “A is for Alibi” but didn’t like it much. However, now that I’m a little… okay, a lot older, I thought maybe my taste in books have changed. I looked at the various books for sale and noticed a couple of really expensive books in the series.

The first book I looked at was “P is for Peril.” This book was published in 2001 and the Kindle version sells for $18.99. The mass market paperback is $7.99. An $11 difference! At the top of the product page it says, “This price was set by the publisher.” Penguin Publishing, the series seller is price gouging their customers! Other, later books in the Kinsey Millhone series are selling for $6.99-$7.99 except for “U is for Undertow,” her newest release, which sells for $14.99 on Kindle and $7.99 in paperback.

This pricing structure doesn’t make sense to me. An electronic version of a book that is 500KB in size, needs nearly no physical materials to produce, and literally costs the publisher maybe a penny of bandwidth is sold for $11 more than a physical paperback? What is special about these books that Penguin feels the need to charge so much?

There are undoubtedly other publishers doing the same thing and I might understand it if these books were still only available in hardcover, but they’re not. An electronic version of a book should cost no more than the cheapest available option and should actually be substantially less. There is no excuse and no reason why this is happening. It’s greed and it’s loathsome.

What are your thoughts on the matter? Are publishers acting unethically with they way they price e-books?

Amazon serves the reader. That’s why I just pre-ordered the new Amazon Kindle. I just bought a Kindle last year, and I have a personal policy that I skip a generation of hardware, which I vehemently broke just minutes ago. I couldn’t stop myself, I heard about the Kindle very early yesterday morning and immediately jumped on the Internet to check it out. It was beautiful and the pangs of desire set in.

I held off, and the pangs subsided a little, that is until I went back to the Kindle page and saw another picture of it. That was it, I had to have it. I clicked the “Pre-order” button and immediately walked up to my mom and told her what I had done. She, having been a terrible accountability partner has told me just to buy things I’ve wanted in the past, this time she told me not to. Then I showed it to her and we talked about a spending strategy.

When it comes to money and using credit cards, we are very strategic. It is all about your closing date. Buying things right after your closing date enables you to hold off payment for nearly 2 months! Because I didn’t have a balance on my Amazon card, I called them up and had them change my closing date to the 25th of August. The Kindle is released on August 27. This means it will show up on my September bill and I won’t have to pay it till the 23rd of October!! This gives me all of August, September and October to save up the $189.

There are 4 reasons why I chose to buy the latest generation Kindle.

1. Wi-Fi. The 2nd generation Kindle doesn’t have Wi-Fi and it’s a feature I frequently wish I had. Using Wi-Fi, over a 3G connection means battery life is greatly improved, providing 3 weeks of life versus 10 days with 3G.

2. New design. This design is amazing. It’s smaller, lighter and it comes in graphite which increases contrast. The part of the design I’m most looking forward to is the new 5 way controller. The one on the Kindle 2 just wasn’t as intuitive as I would have liked. The new controller looks like navigating pages, highlighting and make notations will be easier.

3. 50% better contrast. The Kindle 2 has decent contrast, but anything to make it easier to read is always a welcomed feature. Not only is the contrast supposed to be better than the Kindle 2, but Amazon also claims it’s 50% better than any other e-reader.

4. Native PDF support. PDF formating on the Kindle 2 was hit and miss and because of this I never took advantage of it. Now that the Kindle 3 has native PDF support there isn’t a reason why I I can’t read those books I have in PDF format.

Why the Kindle over other devices like the iPad or nook? I already mentioned the primary reason, Amazon serves the reader.

The iPad isn’t for the reader. It’s a device that does a lot of things, and reading is just one facet. It’s for media consumption and because of that it needs a screen that can handle much of what you throw at it. Sadly, reading on a screen that produces a fair amount of glare and is backlit is quite difficult, especially if you’re going to read for long periods of time or outside. If the goal is to read, the iPad should never be an option.

The nook is a nice e-reader, but is also not a device that I think serves the reader, it serves Barnes & Noble. The idea of the nook feels like it looked at what the Kindle didn’t have and they based all their design decisions on that. The Kindle doesn’t have a touch screen and doesn’t have a color display. The nook does, but it comes at the cost of the reader, with lower performance and battery life, not to mention the navigation is confusing and sluggish with the little amount of time I had with it.

There are still many other great features that make me want this new Kindle, including much longer battery life (up to 1 month), holds up to 3,500 books, new and improved fonts and faster page turns. There isn’t much about the Kindle that isn’t awesome. What do you think? Is Amazon’s new Kindle awesome?

It’s nice WordPress starts you off with a great classic line for new beginnings, “Hello world!” AnotherRobot is a blog about all the things I love, games, gadgets, computers, the Internet and anything else related to or loosely related to technology. I don’t want to get bogged down on the technical aspects of tech. I just want to talk, discuss, debate, and write about shallow things, like how awesome or not-awesome something is.

What about the blog? I set out to do things differently when I designed this theme. First, you’ll notice there’s no menu. It’s all about search. When I want to find something, I usually look for the search field. Second, it’s simple and clean. A single column design provides you with what you need and doesn’t hamper your experience. You know where to search, you know where to read, and you know where to click (that “Like” and “tweet” button beneath each post). This is quite a departure for me and a bit of an experiment.

There you have it, AnotherRobot hopefully interacting with other robots out there.