Putting a Tinyurl Icon on your browser Toolbar

[Guest guest]

Hi All,

 

Ignore this mail if you know how to use Tinyurl [ http://tinyurl.com

], and have the Tinyurl Icon on your browser Toolbar.

 

An URL (WWW address) is a specific and unique string of characters

that contains NO SPACES. For example,

the address http://www.vbma.org/ can access the VBMA Homepage, but

http://www. vbma.org/ will not work correctly.

 

An URL is akin to a phone number. If one wishes to connect to a

specific phone number, one must dial (or digitally transmit) the

CORRECT (exact) string of digits required. One digit misplaced,

dropped or added erroneously will cause the call to fail.

 

The same is the case for URLs. For example, clicking on

http://www.bvma.org/ can access Burning of the Valleys Military

Association (BVMA), not the VBMA website!

 

Some URLs (WWW addresses) contain very long strings of characters,

which may run to several lines of text.

 

When copied into an email, very long URLs can break up in the

recipient's email software. This means that the original address is

displayed with spaces between the first and subsequent parts (or

lines) of the email address.

 

Also, some URLs may include oriental characters (non-numeric, non-

alphabetic Chinese, Japanese or Korean characters) that are absent

from western-type keyboards. If one copies these URLs into an email,

the recipient's email software may not be configured to display the

oriental characters correctly.

 

If the recipient clicks on a wrongly-displayed link, he / she will be

unable to reach the correct URL.

 

Converting long URLs, or URLs containing oriental characters, into

Tinyurls overcomes these problems.

 

One way to do this is to copy the original URL, then access

http://tinyurl.com and paste the original url into the box marked

" Enter a long URL to make tiny: " and click on the " Make TinyURL! "

button.

 

This will return a unique tinyurl address that you can copy into an

email or lecture.

 

Your browser Toolbar is the line or space just below the address box

at the top of your browser (Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox /

Opera, etc). To put a Tinyurl Icon on your browser toolbar, follow

the instructions at http://tinyurl.com/#toolbar and check immediately

that it works, as follows:

 

1. Access any website of interest to you.

2. Click on the Tinyurl Icon on your browser toolbar.

This should return a tinyurl address for the page that you accessed,

WITHOUT the need for you to copy the original address into the

Tinyurl page.

3. Copy the Tinyurl address into your email or lecture. Clicking on

that address in the future will return the original URL

 

This is a very useful facility to have on your Toolbar.

 

Best regards,