All you need to do to get started is point your browser towards thin.gs and then type in the link you wish to shorten.  Next, you hit the "Short it" button and then copy your link.  They also have a pretty basic, but still useful API to play with too.  To use it, just point your browser to:

http://thin.gs/api.php?url=yourdomain.com

Where "yourdomain.com" is the web address you want to shorten.  You can also drag and drop this bookmarklet to your bookmarks toolbar to use thin.gs on any website to shorten any link.

Want to try it out for yourself? Head on over to thin.gs.

The bookmarklet will only work in Firefox 4 or Google Chrome – but if you are using either of those two games, you will soon find out this can be a pretty fun and addicting time waster.  When you first start it up you go through a few options to tweak and then you too can start picking up website elements with the ball you control – rolling it all over the website until you have picked up everything there is to pick up.

Want to give it a shot? Head over to kathack.com and drag the bookmark there to your bookmarks toolbar.

When it comes to redesigning your website, sometimes you only want to make small changes.  Maybe you just want to see what one webpage element would look like like over here, rather than over there.  Rather than messing up your website layout, try using the Liquid Page bookmarklet.

I am not going to claim to know how this awesome bookmarklet works, but it does.  Ok, maybe it is some JavaScript voodoo magic.  This video does a great job at describing the process.

Here is a little more about the bookmarklet from the developer:

Drag the link (“LIQUID PAGE”) shown below to your browser’s bookmarks toolbar. You can then use it on any web page. Simply load the page and then click the link. Be aware: You cannot try the functionality out on this page by simply clicking the link (it’s in an iframe). Please also note that there is a slight delay after clicking while some Javascript (i.e. jQuery) is being loaded – just wait for the confirmation dialog.

Go grab this awesome web design bookmarklet at AlexSchreyer.net.

You might need to resize your browser window for a number of different reasons. 

Maybe you need to check to see what your web site looks like at a smaller resolution?  Maybe you want to take a quick screenshot?  Now, of course you can resize the browser by dragging the edges around till you get the perfect fit, but that is often tedious and if you are a perfectionist like myself, you have a hard time getting the browser back to the perfect shape and size it was before, until now.

How to Create the Resizing Bookmarklet

Thanks to a little JavaScript, and a very simple bookmarklet, you too can be saving multiple screen resolution sizes to change to at a moment’s notice, without the need of any extra Firefox extension. 

Right-click on the bookmark toolbar in Firefox, and select “New Bookmark…”

Here is how you will need to fill out the variables on the New Bookmark dialog box:

• Name: Could be anything, I would put Resize – 1024 x 768
• Location: Here, you want to put javascript:window.resizeTo(1024,768)
• Tags: Nothing, keep this blank
• Keyword: Type in r1 (when you type r1 into the Firefox address bar, your browser will be resized)
• Description: Nothing, keep this blank too

Now, hit the button labeled, “Add” and you are all done.  When you click that bookmark, your browser will be resized to 1024 pixels across 768 pixels up and down.  You can now repeat the steps above to create multiple bookmarks for other sizes you might want to keep handy when working on your web site’s design.  Just replace the 1024,768 in the Location text box on the New Bookmark dialog box with another size (for example, how about 800,600 ?).

Last thing for you to do would be to click the bookmarklet you created and make sure it works.

Example – Paying homage to the cooking show old TV cooking shows, I have created the same bookmarklet we created above right here.  Feel free to drag and drop this link (Resize – 1024 x 768) to your Firefox bookmarks bar.  Only thing that won’t work with this one is the keyword we used above.

Hope that helps as a very basic introduction to JavaScript and in quickly creating a bookmark to give Firefox a little more quick resize-ability. 

Ever been browsing an article or guide online that you wish you could print out, without all the junk that the web site provides?  Print Friendly offers to make any web site out there easier to print.  You can use their web site tool to enter the URL you wish to simplify for your printer, or use the bookmarklet to gain access to the tool at any time. 

You can then e-mail the printer friendly version to your friends, tweet about it, or edit the document removing pictures or blocks of text. 

Want to add this interactivity to your own web site layout, maybe under each article that you post?  You can do that too by grabbing the Print Friendly button code.  For WordPress users, there is even a plugin you can install to add it to all your blog posts automatically.

Overall, Print Friendly is a pretty nice service, if you are looking to do a little article simplification, perfect for print. 

To use it, all you have to do is save the bookmarklet to your bookmarks toolbar, and then click it anytime you are checking something out that you want to temporarily save.  For example, let’s say you were checking out this post here – and wanted to try out the Toread service later today.  You could click your bookmarklet, save this link and return to it later in the day.

The “save it for later” services like this save on bookmark clutter being added to your browser, work in a number of different browsers and locations, and are easy to sort through at any time. 

Go visit toread.cc and let me know if you like it better than the other alternatives out there.

I love looking at bookmarklets.  These handy bookmarks that allow just about any browser to do even more amazing things are really handy to have.  Want to convert any web page to a PDF to read later?  I have found a bookmarklet that does that too.

The people behind PDF Download have produced their  own bookmarklet to convert web pages into high-quality PDF files free from any browser.  Just drag and drop this link to your bookmarks toolbar, and click it when you want to export to PDF:

Save Page as PDF

Here are the setup instructions for all the various browsers out there:

• Google Chrome
• Safari
• Firefox (also see full add-on)
• Internet Explorer (also see full add-on)
• Opera

Only negative I could find is I got the “server is too busy” message more than a couple of times.

Know of anymore bookmarklets that will allow you to export a page into an entirely different format?  Me neither,  but if you do – please share.  PDF Download’s solution will work for the time being though.  Save on paper and export to PDF.  That tree outside your window will thank you.

All you have to do is highlight the one you want to use, select “copy” and then paste it into your next Twitter post.  Simple, yet effective.  You can check out their official blog for more information on the project.  I like it, but wonder how the other status services like MySpace, Facebook and the like will take to these “purdy” characters?

Google

To open up Google, just drag this bookmarklet to your bookmarks toolbar:

+ Google

Google Notebook

To open up Google Notebook, just drag this bookmarklet to your bookmarks toolbar:

+ Google Notebook

Google Talk

To open up Google Talk, just drag this bookmarklet to your bookmarks toolbar:

+ Google Talk

Google Calendar

To open up Google Calendar, drag this bookmark to your bookmarks toolbar:

+ Google Calendar

Google Reader

To open up Google Reader, drag this bookmark to your bookmarks toolbar:

+ Google Reader

What other useful Google resources would make for a good bookmarklet?  These are the ones I find myself using the most, how about you?

Here are a few things to look forward to in WordPress 2.6:

• Post Revisioning
• A “Press This” bookmarklet for tumblelog style quick posting
• A new image editing dialog that offers lots of control over the images in your posts
• Theme previewing as seen on WordPress.com
• Built-in word counting in the post editor
• The ability to relocate your content directory
• The ability to move wp-config.php out of your web root
• Drag-and-drop sortable galleries
• Bulk delete, activate, and deactivate for plugins
• Check box range selection with shift-click

You can check out the full list of goodies over at Ryan’s blog and also pickup the beta 1 if you have a place you’d like to play with it.