FirstBits.com - remember and share Bitcoin addresses - page 11.

mouse

newbie

Activity: 56

Merit: 0

Quote from: joan on June 14, 2011, 04:37:31 PM

Idea/Suggestion:
Redirection of URL of type http://firstbits.com/1kk5k - to a page with the expanded address. (or to the main page with and perform the search)
This way people could link to their firstbits easily.

+1

was just about to mention this.

lemonginger

full member

Activity: 210

Merit: 100

firstbits: 121vnq

This is great! Love it! Enough to suggest that it be built right into clients.

FreeMoney

legendary

Activity: 1246

Merit: 1016

Strength in numbers

Quote from: TonyHoyle on June 14, 2011, 04:52:26 PM

Quote from: joan on June 14, 2011, 04:37:31 PM

Idea/Suggestion:
Redirection of URL of type http://firstbits.com/1kk5k - to a page with the expanded address. (or to the main page with and perform the search)
This way people could link to their firstbits easily.

Of course if you start doing that then no need to limit it to shortened addresses... http://firstbits.com/givememoney could work just as well :p

This is what firstbits avoids. You don't need our special database to convert full<--->firstbits. You just need the chain and the rule. So someone can clone it or make a chrome extension or a phone app and they don't need us to keep their database current, just the chain.

FreeMoney

legendary

Activity: 1246

Merit: 1016

Strength in numbers

Quote from: joan on June 14, 2011, 04:37:31 PM

Idea/Suggestion:
Redirection of URL of type http://firstbits.com/1kk5k - to a page with the expanded address. (or to the main page with and perform the search)
This way people could link to their firstbits easily.

Working on this.

Ricochet

sr. member

Activity: 373

Merit: 250

If this could somehow be tied into an SMS system, we could have a very viable way to buy something at a coffee shop with Bitcoin. SMS is more or less universal to all phones, while most prior thought has involved an app on a smartphone.

FreeMoney

legendary

Activity: 1246

Merit: 1016

Strength in numbers

Quote from: foo on June 14, 2011, 04:15:29 PM

Quote from: FreeMoney on June 14, 2011, 03:55:16 PM

The 1 identifies a string as a Bitcoin related address and isn't any harder to remember.

True, but I think it could be dropped for the same reason that people no longer start with "h t t p colon slash slash w w w dot" when they say the address of a web site.

So maybe take it with or without the "1"? Seems reasonable. Ah, no, not possible. 11feh and 1feh problems.

TonyHoyle

newbie

Activity: 59

Merit: 0

Quote from: joan on June 14, 2011, 04:37:31 PM

Idea/Suggestion:
Redirection of URL of type http://firstbits.com/1kk5k - to a page with the expanded address. (or to the main page with and perform the search)
This way people could link to their firstbits easily.

Of course if you start doing that then no need to limit it to shortened addresses... http://firstbits.com/givememoney could work just as well :p

joan

jr. member

Activity: 56

Merit: 1

Idea/Suggestion:
Redirection of URL of type http://firstbits.com/1kk5k - to a page with the expanded address. (or to the main page with and perform the search)
This way people could link to their firstbits easily.

SgtSpike

legendary

Activity: 1400

Merit: 1005

foo, I would say it is more akin to someone dropping ".com" from the end of a web address, then expecting people to still know what the address was for.

Putting a 1 before it should clue people in to the fact that it's the start of a bitcoin address, just like saying "firstbits.com" immediately tells someone that it is a website. Saying "go to firstbits" wouldn't tell a person much.

foo

sr. member

Activity: 409

Merit: 250

Quote from: FreeMoney on June 14, 2011, 03:55:16 PM

The 1 identifies a string as a Bitcoin related address and isn't any harder to remember.

True, but I think it could be dropped for the same reason that people no longer start with "h t t p colon slash slash w w w dot" when they say the address of a web site.

FreeMoney

legendary

Activity: 1246

Merit: 1016

Strength in numbers

Quote from: foo on June 14, 2011, 03:29:33 PM

Quote from: FreeMoney on June 14, 2011, 03:14:48 PM

Quote from: foo on June 14, 2011, 03:10:14 PM

Clever! I entered "1" and got the generation address from the genesis block.

How come the firstbits string is all lower case?

It's a lot harder to say and remember 1-uppercase B-lowercase C-3-uppercase D.

Yes, I get that, but I was puzzled by the loss of information. I guess it's technically not the "first bits" of the address, since you lose some bits by lowercasing the address.

A suggestion: make the decoded address a link to blockexplorer. Makes it easier to check that you got the right one.

EDIT: Another thought... isn't the "1" at the beginning unnecessary since it's always the same? Drop it and the short version becomes even shorter.

The link to block explorer is a good idea.

I was actually torn between the purity of keeping the caps and the risk of typos / ease of use factor. It makes addresses need to be less than 1 char longer on average.

The 1 identifies a string as a Bitcoin related address and isn't any harder to remember.

Thanks for the feedback.

foo

sr. member

Activity: 409

Merit: 250

Quote from: FreeMoney on June 14, 2011, 03:14:48 PM

Quote from: foo on June 14, 2011, 03:10:14 PM

Clever! I entered "1" and got the generation address from the genesis block.

How come the firstbits string is all lower case?

It's a lot harder to say and remember 1-uppercase B-lowercase C-3-uppercase D.

Yes, I get that, but I was puzzled by the loss of information. I guess it's technically not the "first bits" of the address, since you lose some bits by lowercasing the address.

A suggestion: make the decoded address a link to blockexplorer. Makes it easier to check that you got the right one.

EDIT: Another thought... isn't the "1" at the beginning unnecessary since it's always the same? Drop it and the short version becomes even shorter.

FreeMoney

legendary

Activity: 1246

Merit: 1016

Strength in numbers

Quote from: foo on June 14, 2011, 03:10:14 PM

Clever! I entered "1" and got the generation address from the genesis block.

How come the firstbits string is all lower case?

It's a lot harder to say and remember 1-uppercase B-lowercase C-3-uppercase D.

foo

sr. member

Activity: 409

Merit: 250

Clever! I entered "1" and got the generation address from the genesis block.

How come the firstbits string is all lower case?

SgtSpike

legendary

Activity: 1400

Merit: 1005

140 chars limit on tweets - good point!

FreeMoney

legendary

Activity: 1246

Merit: 1016

Strength in numbers

Yeah, and tweets, whats the limit there?

SgtSpike

legendary

Activity: 1400

Merit: 1005

Another possible use might be forum signatures. Since a forum signature here is limited to 300 chars, in the interest of saving chars, you might write:

FB: 18tkn
or
FirstBits: 18tkn

Instead of:

18TKNbSLTrd3a2W8mtoH5uNzFhWRWNcuHU

Either one would be significantly shorter, but would still allow you to ask for donations to that address in your forum signature.

AllYourBase

full member

Activity: 138

Merit: 100

This looks like it'll make it possible to actually memorize an address. Cool!

FreeMoney

legendary

Activity: 1246

Merit: 1016

Strength in numbers

Quote from: yeponlyone on June 13, 2011, 05:44:49 AM

Quote from: herzmeister on June 13, 2011, 04:04:08 AM

Shouldn't you list more results if there any?

Specifying only the first 4 'bits' for addresses in my book mostly gives me a wrong result. This can be misleading and dangerous if users are not aware how it works.

It is not always 4 'bits', it depends on what other similar addresses have entered into the blockchain prior to that one. to find out how many your particular address needs, just type it in the box and it will tell you. As for it being dangerous to the naive user, thats the case with most things in life and is simply unavoidable.

Freemoney, let me know if my explanation is wrong. And thanks alot for making this, I've thought for a while something like this would be very useful!

That's right. I'd hate for people to use it wrongly, but I think warnings and extra explanation are just going to confuse anyone who can't do it correctly. I would like to hear other opinions though. In general if you aren't sure about what you are doing just don't press send on your client.

SgtSpike

legendary

Activity: 1400

Merit: 1005

Quote from: joan on June 13, 2011, 12:41:09 PM

Quote from: SgtSpike on June 13, 2011, 12:32:50 PM

We do not generate the FirstBits address if the address is not found in the chain, for the very reason you mentioned.

Sorry, my mistake. I had clicked the "new" address button in the client to test. I didn't realize it had given me an address that had been used to collect change in a previous transaction Wink

Tried it again with a really new address, and it worked.

Oh, interesting... I didn't know that the client would do that either, good to know.

Topic: FirstBits.com - remember and share Bitcoin addresses - page 11. (Read 26280 times)