18.639 making shorter links

               Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 18, No. 639.
       Centre for Computing in the Humanities, King's College London
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   [1] From: James Cummings <James.Cummings_at_ota.ahds.ac.uk> (22)
         Subject: Re: 18.630 making shorter links

   [2] From: Pat Galloway <galloway_at_ischool.utexas.edu> (14)
         Subject: Re: 18.630 making shorter links

--[1]------------------------------------------------------------------
         Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 07:30:23 +0000
         From: James Cummings <James.Cummings_at_ota.ahds.ac.uk>
         Subject: Re: 18.630 making shorter links

Willard,

A number of people have rightly suggested www.tinyurl.com as a good method
to make shorter links. I'd like to add my voice to that crowd of
people. One of the benefits that may have escaped people is the browser
integration possible with tinyurl.com. In my preferred browser of firefox
there is an extension which exists that means that if I right-click on any
page, one of the context menu options is to "Create a tinyurl for this
page". If I right-click on a link I get offered the ability to create a
tinyurl for that link. I do not visibly visit the tinyurl website (the
browser does that all for me) and it automatically copies it to the clipboard.

This firefox extension makes it extremely easy to pass on links to pages
that interest you, as long as you don't care about the link being permanent.

More information about this firefox extension is available at:

http://tinyurl.com/3wucu

which I suppose is better than:

https://addons.update.mozilla.org/extensions/moreinfo.php?application=firefox&version=1.0%20&os=ALL&category=Miscellaneous&id=126

Just thought I'd pass on that useful extension.

-James

--
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   Dr James Cummings, Oxford Text Archive, University of Oxford
   James dot Cummings at oucs dot ox dot ac dot uk
--[2]------------------------------------------------------------------
         Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 07:34:47 +0000
         From: Pat Galloway <galloway_at_ischool.utexas.edu>
         Subject: Re: 18.630 making shorter links
One other observation: even a dead original link has some historical
validity, but once you begin referring to virtual links all you make clear
(maybe) is that you used a go-between; and it's not clear whether you can
use that address to find pages through the Internet Archive's Wayback
Machine, even though they may be preserved there. All of which is
historical data about how people used the Web, of course, though maybe not
what you had in mind.
I think it might be worth contemplating whether the self-indulgence of
nearly infinite filenames on our personal computing devices has led to this
state of affairs, as much as has poor information architecture in site
design....   :-\
Pat Galloway
School of Information
University of Texas-Austin