Silence is Foo Mental notes on Ruby, Git, Rails and whatever geeky thing

ERROR: Error installing the_gem:
invalid gem format for /Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/cache/the_gem-0.0.0.gem

rm /Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/cache/*

rm /opt/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/cache/*

MUSh, a multi-service URL shortener in Ruby

I have to tell the truth, I'm really lazy, if there is a way to avoid to do something I will do so.

What about avoiding to open a browser or create a new tab and click a bookmark or type the address of a URL shortener service when I want to shorten a URL? If I have an opened terminal with IRb and Bash almost the whole day, why don't use it to shorten URLs?

Using the most pure principles of LDD (Laziness-Driven Development) I've created a gem called MUSh, a Multi-service URL Shortener, hence the name.

Yes, I know there are thousands of API wrappers in Ruby for bit.ly, etc. but most of them are fully-featured API wrappers and I didn't want all of those features, I just wanted to shorten URLs, that's it, well, I wanted command-line utilities as well, but I didn't find them in any existing gem.

I've been using MUSh for almost a month now, and it really helps me, that's why I decided to release it as a gem, if you want to install it just do it this way:

$ sudo gem install mush

It currently supports bit.ly, is.gd and u.nu services and it have one command-line utility per service:

$ isgd foo.raflabs.com

$ bitly -l your_login -k your_apikey -u foo.raflabs.com

$ owly -k your_apikey -u foo.raflabs.com

Hum, the last command doesn't help that much. I know. MUSh currently doesn't support storing your credentials so I use an alias.

In your ~/.bash_profile or ~/.bashrc:

alias bitly='bitly -l your_login -k your_apikey'

alias owly='owly -k your_apikey'

after adding your alias issue the following command to refresh your terminal or close it an open another one:

$ source ~/.bash_profile (or whatever is your file called)

and now you'll be able to use the bitly and owly commands without specifying your credentials, even without specifying the -u option.

$ bitly foo.raflabs.com

$ owly foo.raflabs.com

But what if I want to shorten an URL with a service MUSh doesn't support? If the service you want to use has an API that supports sending parameters via GET and returns only the shortened URL without any HTML code then you're in luck because you can use custom services in MUSh, let's see it:

From command-line:

$ shorten -s "http://service.url?params&url={{url}}" -u long_url.com

From a Ruby script

custom = Mush::Services::Custom.new
custom.set_service = "http://service.url?params&url={{url}}"
custom.shorten "long_url.com"

The {{url}} piece of code is a placeholder to let MUSh know where the service is expecting the long url, it's that easy.

If you're in a Mac and want to copy the shortened URL in one step, just use the pbcopy command:

$ bitly foo.raflabs.com | pbcopy

Then paste it with Cmd-V or with the pbpaste command.

MUSh was made in Ruby, so you can use it in your Ruby applications as well.

Bit.ly

bitly = Mush::Services::Bitly.new

bitly.login = "your_login"
bitly.apikey = "your_apikey"

bitly.shorten "http://foo.raflabs.com" # => http://bit.ly/bJO5IH

Is.gd

isgd = Mush::Services::IsGd.new

isgd.shorten "http://foo.raflabs.com" # => http://is.gd/eFZXc

ow.ly

owly = Mush::Services::Owly.new
owly.apikey = 'your_api_key'

owly.shorten "http://foo.raflabs.com"

Besides, If you want to shorten a URL in your Ruby or Rails console in a fast way add the following to your ~/.irbrc:

require 'mush'

def by(url)
  bitly = Mush::Services::Bitly.new
  bitly.login = "your_login"
  bitly.apikey = "your_apikey"

  bitly.shorten url
end

def is(url)
  Mush::Services::IsGd.new.shorten url
end

def ow(url)
  owly = Mush::Services::Owly.new
  owly.apikey = 'your_api_key'
  owly.shorten url
end

An use it like this

by "google.com"

is "google.com"

ow "google.com"

It's a nice set of shortcuts, I'd say.

Again, if you're in a Mac and want to copy the shortened URL in one step, just use my pasteboaRb gem:

$ sudo gem install pasteboaRb

Basically, pasteboaRb adds to_pb and paste methods to the Object class.

is("foo.raflabs.com").to_pb # => http://is.gd/eFZXc

Then paste it in any Mac application with Cmd-V, in the Terminal with the pbpaste command or in a Ruby terminal with the paste method.

paste # => http://is.gd/eFZXc

Thanks for reading.