Amazon links and how to cut 'em

[Chris Borokowski]

Most of you probably do not have the patience to test
URLs for what information is necessary to reach the
same page, but I often become fascinated by boring
tasks.

This Amazon URL from a previous post

http://www.amazon.com/Real-World-QuarkXPress/dp/0321350308/ref=pd_bbs_2/
105-2878600-0412452?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1181662794&sr=1-2

Can be truncated to

http://www.amazon.com/dp/0321350308/

And you will reach the exact same page. How does it
work? The "Real-World-QuarkXPress" is there for search
engines, and the "ref=(long string of stuff)" is
session data to keep track of variables specific to
the user who found the link.

I'm not accusing anyone of doing this wrong, but I
wanted to share some knowledge I came across in my
ever-increasing quest for tedium.



User Interface design blog
http://user-advocacy.blogspot.com/
Code::Design::UI::Consulting
http://www.dionysius.com/


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