Actually, there is a pretty nifty trick if you want to dereference (preview) a shortened goog.gl link (that was created using the Google URL shortener)...
Google Calendars is an extremely useful, versatile and powerful calendar application which is available almost anywhere where you can find some sort of data connection...
Google Charts is an extremely stable and reliable web-based charting engine that is perfect for dropping into any project where you quickly want to produce...