I need to send a mate a link to an item on eBay after breaking his strimmer. The nice people at eBay have reworked their URL structure recently to improve SEO, so a link to a single item now looks something like this:

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Medium-duty-bump-head-for-Kawasaki-brushcutter-strimmer_W0QQitemZ190302614007QQcmdZViewItemQQptZUK_Home_Garden_GardenPowerTools_CA?hash=item2c4eeb71f7&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14&_trkparms=65:12|66:2|39:1|72:1686|293:1|294:50

..which is not exactly Twitter, Live Messenger or email friendly. Long URLs break often in email and instant messengers when they ‘wrap’ at the end of a line (like the above is doing).

Solution

Here’s the old style linking system that still works: http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=190302614007

So you can use that structure for a link to any item. Just paste…

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=

…into your browser, email or anything followed by the item number, as above, and it’ll work.

If you can’t find the item number in the complicated URL, remember its on each item listing page here:

Bonus trick for Chrome or Firefox users:

Chrome and Firefox both allow custom searches to be added easily via bookmarks. These allow you to type a ‘keyword’ into the address bar, then a ‘search phrase’, and automatically search a specific site for it. This useful functionality is perfect for getting a link to an eBay item. What you do is create a custom search with the keyword ‘el’ (for ‘eBay Link’, but use whatever you’ll remember, keep it short!) and point it to ‘http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=%s’. Note: the ‘%s’ is substituted for the search phrase – in this case an item number – when the search is done.

Chrome Instructions

Open the Chrome options:

Then follow this process:

1. Click the  ’Manage’ button in the ‘Default Search’ area.
2. In the ‘Search Engines’ window, click ‘Add’.
3. Name the new custom search.
4. Give it an easy to remember keyword.
5. In URL enter: “http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=%s”.
6. ‘Ok’ the window, and ‘close’ out of the others.

Here’s the visual process:

Now to use your new custom eBay item linker, type “el [item number]” into the Chrome address bar, and hit ‘enter/return’. You’ll notice that as soon as you’ve typed “el” and a space and start to enter the item number, Chrome shows that you’re about to do a custom search:

great right? Yea I love it too.

FireFox instructions

In firefox it’s a very similar process:

1. Open the ‘Organise Bookmarks’ pane with Ctrl + Shift + B (on a dirty mac it’s Shift + Command + B).
2. Under ‘Unsorted Bookmarks’ add a new Bookmark and name it ‘eBay Item Link’ or whatever.
3. In Location enter “http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=%s”.
4. Add an easy to remember keyword like ‘el’.
5. Click ‘Add’ button then close out of the bookmarks pane.

Here’s a visual prompt for the process:

And here’s what it looks like when you use it:

There, If you know a better or quicker way, or have an issues, please leave a comment below.

Yesterday I found out how to run Chrome in ‘Incognito Mode’ from a shortcut. However, now I have two identical ‘Chrome’ Icons in my Quicklaunch bar, and need a way to distinguish them.

Which ones the incognito link? New icon needed!

Problem

Solution

Make a modified Chrome icon! Here’s the one I made:

If you want THIS cheesy icon, click on the image to download it.

Using the Icon: Once you have another icon to use [or you have downloaded my one by clicking on the image above], here’s how to use it:

• Save the .ico file somewhere sensible. I put mine in the same directory as the chrome executable for tidiness. The paths to the XP and Vista install locations are listed below in the ‘Make your own icon’ section.
• Right click on your ‘incognito’ shortcut, select ‘Properties’, and click the ‘Shortcut’ tab. Then click the ‘Change Icon’ button shown below:

The Change Icon button is in the 'Shortcut' tab of 'Properties'

• In the ‘Change Icon’ window that pops up, browse to the .ico file you’ve saved.

Browse to the ico file, and click on your new icon

• Now just ‘Ok’, and ‘Ok’ again, and you should see your new icon showing on your shortcut.

Make your own icon: If you want to make your own version of the chrome icon, get yourself an icon editor which is capable of pulling icon data from exe/dll files. You’ll also want one that can handle transparency properly. I grabbed a 30 day trial copy of Axialis IconWorkshop. Once that (or another icon editor) is installed, you need to ‘open’ the icon from the chrome.exe file which resides here in XP:

C:\Documents and Settings\[your username here]\Local Settings\Application Data\Google\Chrome\Application\Chrome.exe

and here in Vista:

C:\Users\[your username here]\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe

The icon editor should simply ‘pull’ the icon info from within the .exe file when you try and open it. You will notice that the .exe file contains 6 different versions of the icon: 16×16, 32×32 and 48×48 pixels with 256 colours and one ‘flat’ transparent background colour. And then 3 more in the same 3 sizes with Alpha transparency (256 levels of opacity, per colour, giving you nice smooth transparency).

Using the icon editor, edit as many versions as you need. For example, if you use XP, and have both a desktop icon and a quicklaunch icon, you will need to edit the 16×16+alpha version (for your quicklaunch shortcut) and the 32×32+alpha version for the desktop shortcut.

I found the easiest way to add the sungalsses to my icon was to ‘export’ the 6 icons from IconWorkshop as a PSD file, open them in Photoshop, do the work there, save them, then ‘import’ back into IconWorkshop.

That’s about it. All you then need to do it save the collection as one .ico file, and follow the instructions above in the ‘Using the icon’ section to use it.

Good luck! Any questions, comments or corrections – just post a comment below.

I use Google Chrome’s Incognito window mode regularly to view multiple Google Analytics accounts at the same time on one PC. It’s very useful – it means I don’t have to keep signing in and out of my primary google account – but what annoyed me each time was having to open chrome, then open a new ‘incognito’ window from there, which leaves the old ‘normal’ window open in the background.

Solution

Since Chrome came out of beta, the ‘??incognito’ command line switch has been available.

So, to get this switch working with a short cut, do the following:

• Copy the existing Chrome shortcut in your quicklaunch bar, desktop, or start menu.
• Rename the shortcut to something obvious, I called mine “Chrome Incognito”.
• Right click on the shortcut, and select ‘properties’.
• The Properties window opens, and you can select the ‘Shortcut’ tab as shown below:

Note the 'Target' path field

• In the ‘Target:’ field, add the switch ‘ ??incognito’ to the end of the target path, as shown below:

incognito 'Switch' added to target path

• Click ‘OK’ to save your changes.

There, all done, that shortcut will now open Chrome in incognito mode window. If you have other normal chrome windows open, they will not be effected by this window. For example, you can stay logged into a google account, a live account, or any other persistent cookie/session driven system. Incognito windows are also great for logging into online banking sites if you’re a bit paranoid.

Note: If you have a 0.* version you will need to upgrade to v1.* or higher.