[T3] Sending links & TinyURLs

[John Benedetto <jbenedet@unm.edu>]

<x-flowed>--On Tuesday, June 01, 2004 12:19 PM -0500 Freddie 
<type3freddie@hotmail.com> wrote:

> > http://f1.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/rockinrichdotcom/detail?.tok=phRR1MBBQe
> > ijczrL&.dir=/b0d2&.dnm=6e32.jpg&.src=ph
> >
> > Rich & Nicole (Daughter), Orange County, CA
>
> That one didn't work either, at least not directly.  I recently started
> using Mozilla Firefox for my web browser which has this nice plug-in
> called TinyURLs.  You can get it for Internet Explorer too:
> http://tinyurl.com
>
> Anyway, this link http://tinyurl.com/3g6ag will get you to the same place
> as that big long one above.  Never worry about wrapping long URLs in email
> again!
>
> Freddie Lochner

Rich -

Your link worked for me... but I needed to cut and paste the two lines into 
my browser (yes, I admit it.. I'M LAZY!! :-). Place braces or brackets 
around web addresses when you send them... many e-mail programs will make 
the entire link clickable, even if it stretches across two lines... like 
this:
<http://f1.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/rockinrichdotcom/detail?.tok=phRR1MBBQeij
czrL&.dir=/b0d2&.dnm=6e32.jpg&.src=ph>
works in my e-mail client.

TinyURL's bug me... Not by themselves... they're great. It's only... I see 
too many HTML-formatted e-mail where the scammer or spammer displays ONE 
address, but that leads you to ANOTHER, different address.  For example, I 
have received both PayPal & eBay -related scam e-mails.  Even though it 
LOOKS like you are going to paypal.com or ebay.com, you actually end up at 
another site which asks for personal financial information and/or launches 
a trojan onto your computer!

Though no member of the list that I have ever seen use TinyURL's has ever 
done that (& I would venture no regular member ever would!)... the I.T. guy 
in me is irked - just a little bit - by them.  Of course, maybe I just 
don't understand them, and should research them a little... (I'm trying to 
be open minded here!).  Hmmm... looking at <http://tinyurl.com/>, I see 
this disclaimer: "TinyURL was created as a free service to make posting 
long URLs easier. Using it for spamming or illegal purposes is forbidden 
and any such use will result in the TinyURL being disabled and you will be 
reported to all ISPs involved and to the proper governmental agencies." 
Maybe I was too hasty.

In any case, enclosing a URL in '<' '>' characters should make it clickable 
for many people.

- john

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