why sqwi.sh? - the about it all page

why did I do it?

Ah, yes, that old chestnut; why did you bother doing it, especially since there are already other sites providing the same service? Aha!! They aren't providing the same service! They are providing the same solution to excessively long urls, but I realised there was a gap in providing this as a service beyond purely shortening the url.

Basically, I was messing around with code one day, and realised that the basic concept would be pretty straight-forward to implement. Just a basic database look-up and then redirect; but then I realised it could be so much more. As I started to plug away and knock out a rudimentary redirect script/service I kept on coming up with more and more ideas for functionality which would be "easy" to implement. It's kind of snow-balled from thereinto the site you see today.

I've actually got quite a few more ideas for the site in terms of statistical analysis and data flow, but they're all works in progress. I realised I would never launch the site if I kept trying to start and finish every new idea. So, I've bitten the bullet, so to speak, and launched with what I've got. It's not a beta model that I've launched however; this is a fully tested and working service, but more functionalities and so on will be added as time allows.

If you do have a request for a specific functionality or data/statistical provision, please don't hesitate to contact me through the site, and I'll get back to you as soon as possible.

thanks goes to:

I need to acknowledge some other sites for their provision of free resources. Other than the multitude of sites I have visited via Google while double-checking my scripting and ensuring that this site works, there are sites which provide free web resources who need to be acknowledged here.

• Ryan Fait's site provided some great little css tricks and guidance as I reached the completion stages. GUI is so very important, but can become lost in the madness of making the engine.
• ButtonGenerator.com helped me easily create the menu bar. I have hacked their JavaScript a little, because I went a bit funky in my implementation, but credit goes to them.
• The buttons I use around the site were sourced from a very straight-forward tutorial I found, but I cannot locate it now. If it's yours, please let me know, as I would love to acknowledge you for them and link back to you.
• reCAPTCHA are awesome for providing a free CAPTCHA service which is also used to digitise books.
• I am using the free, unregistered version of the XML/SWF Charts tool from maani.us. It provides the ability to generate dynamic, on-the-fly, flash charts and embed them in the site easily. I did have to do a bit of work myself, in order to actually generate the XML and JS files customised to each request, but the tool made using them so much easier; especially the reference material on the site.