Has anybody used this before?

[JohnBoy45]

Are you sick of posting URLs in emails only to have it break when sent causing the recipient to have to cut and paste it back together? Then you've come to the right place. By entering in a URL in the text field below, we will create a tiny URL that will not break in email postings and never expires.

http://tinyurl.com/

 

[JayC]

I use it. I really like it. I've never had a problem with broken links needing to be pasted back together, though. What drives me nuts is when someone posts a really long link and it stretches the entire thread out. I see this in all forums. I wish they would make TinyURL mandatory. /forums/images/graemlins/tongue.gif Anywho, for those who use Firfox, there is a very nifty little plugin. If you are visiting a site with a long URL, all you have to do is right click on the site page, and click "Create TinyURL for this page" in the menu that pops up. It is automatcially copied to your clipboard so you can paste the TinyURL.

https://addons.mozilla.org/extensions/moreinfo.php?id=126

 

[BillyP]

<font color="blue"> What drives me nuts is when someone posts a really long link and it stretches the entire thread out. </font>


I was under the assumption that all you had to do was follow the instructions and name the link (URL) /forums/images/graemlins/confused.gif

 

[Hakim]

You are right Billy. In TBN, if you use the "Instant Markup" for a URL, the lengthy URL's can be reduced to a single word or two.

Also, in e-mail bodies, if you start and end the long url with an arrow, as like this <http://www.countrybynet.com/forums/postlist.php/Cat/0/Board/homesteading> --

the URL will not "break apart" in the email (note: this does NOT apply to forums, just e-mail and documents).

Finally, the problem, potentially, with TinyURL and similar services, is that if they go out of business or are not available, the link will not work. I agree that it is handy, but for certain critical links that you want to be around for many months or even years, you may not want to use it.

 

[JayC]

<font color="red"> I was under the assumption that all you had to do was follow the instructions and name the link (URL) </font>

The problem isn't too bad here at TBN, but some of the other forums I go to have that problem. With TBN, it is easy to name the links. The other sites don't do that and most (including me) don't know the markup to properly name a link. The mods are usually very good here at TBN at shortening long links. They don't touch them at other forums. /forums/images/graemlins/crazy.gif