In the circles I run in — copywriting and marketing — AI gets plenty of attention for being able to do things like research. And for writing various types of copy and content.
But I’ve found it useful for another creative and helpful thing for my freelancing business.
I won’t suggest you use it for what I’m about to share… as it’s probably not going to be for 99% of people.
And I’ve come from a background of LOTS of coding… so am pretty relaxed with this stuff.
Although you are certainly welcome to do the kind of thing I did if you want.
But it does demonstrate some of the power you have surging at your findertips when you type into ChatGPT (and other AI software).
And this might spark some ideas for some things you might find AI useful for… but may not have run across yet.
Now, it’s true… things might get a bit geeky from here on in. But I’m sure you can handle it. And hey… we’re all a bit geeky in one way or another, aren’t we? 😉
Cutting to the chase:
I used ChatGPT to write a small bit of software to overcome a limitation in a widely used piece of software.
The story is…
I was using YOURLS. Which does redirects from typically short URLs to longer ones.
These kind of services are used all over the internet. And are often used in social media to have short and less unweildly looking links.
And the coolest thing is… you can change the URL they redirect to. So, for example, if you’re doing something like running a promotion you can change it to a “Sorry, it’s now closed” page when you’re done.
Sometimes it’s for affiliate links, like to my calendar booking software: https://milham.me/savvycal
Or it might be a link to send to prospective clients to make an actual booking with me.
Now… the problem with YOURLS is that if I want to use it on different domains… I have to install a new copy of the software on each one. Each with its own new database. And if it needs updating in the future, then I have to update it in more than one place.
I wanted to have one place where every domain could point. And also use the same data.
So I asked ChatGPT to write some PHP code to create a URL redirection service that just uses a simple text file. I asked for the short URL on the left. A space. And the long URL on the right.
And it did it. And it works!
Now, the actual promting was much more specific. And I had to ask it to do plenty of tweaks. But we got there.
So to add or change my redirects now, I just edit a simple text file. Then copy it to one place on my web hosting account.
Now https://milham.me/systeme will point to the same place as https://a.chrismilham.com/systeme using the same code and data.
Plus, it’s plenty faster than the YOURLS version. Because reading a text file is way faster than hitting a database server to look up the redirection.
Super simple… and Chris is a happy camper.
And the cool thing with ChatGPT is… I can feed my program source code back into it and ask it to make any enhancements I might want in the future.
If it was just me coding… I’d take ages. Because I’d have to be looking up documentation all the time. I don’t speak PHP code with the fluency I once did.
This is an incredibly powerful timesaver.
The speed of getting something working with AI help is a-maaazing!
If you’ve also used AI for less talked about things… I’d love to hear.
Over and out,
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Chris Milham