Create short URL's out of long ones

[JTheotonio]

I have been using Twitter lately to keep up with things.  It’s like instant messaging on the Internet.  Today someone posted a neat little website that you can use to create very short URL’s out of big long strings.  These short URL’s can be used in instant messaging and web blogs or even on this BBS.  There is nothing to sign up, register or give any personal information.  You just go here: http://twtr.us/twtr.html and pastes your big long URL into the field and then click on the button that says Create TWTR ! URL

Here’s a sample:
I took this URL:
http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=20240496&BRD=1659&PAG=461&dept_id=8103&rfi=6

And it made it into this one.
http://twtr.us/EB

Click on both links and you will see you get to the same page.  If you bookmark the page you can call it up every time you want to post a message here and include a big long URL.  Since it is a link you can add it to emails too, or word documents.
 

[Lance Dean]

The first I ever saw to do this was TinyURL:

http://tinyurl.com/

now there's SnipURL:

http://snipurl.com/

I myself find them useless for most applications.  The best thing I've found them useful for (and remember this one John) is using these URL shorteners for when you are limited to a certain number of characters.

Say for example, on one of the forums I frequent (I think it's Bottomgun or Rontinis) you are limited in the number of characters your signature can contain.  I was ticked when I couldn't make my signature look how I wanted due to long URLs.  Then I found TinyURL and made short links and wham! I had my signature within the limits and it looked how I wanted it to look.