TinyURL

Have you ever tried to send someone a link to an item from Amazon.com?
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0451209710/sr=1-1/qid=1138295809/ref=pd_bbs_1/102-5935873-5010568?%5Fencoding=UTF8

Sometimes links can be so long that they break apart in email programs and no longer work. Why do they break? Because a URL cannot have any spaces in it. When a URL spans across multiple lines in an email message, some email programs will add a hard return that breaks the link in two.

The solution?

TinyURL

Tiny URL is a free service at www.tinyurl.com that takes a long link such as my amazon.com link above that was 115 characters and creates a new link, http://tinyurl.com/an9rm, of only 24 characters.

Best of all, the new link never expires. TinyURL has a huge database where they store the old and new URLs together so that if you click on the TinyURL link in 2 years, the link will still work.

Try it yourself!

Library Success: A Best Practices Wiki

Looking for programming ideas from other libraries? Or a listing of free online reference resources? Then pop on over to Library TechBytes and find out more about Library Success: A Best Practices Wiki.

For more info about wikis in general, click here.

Mouse Cleaning


Is your mouse misbehaving? Does it jump around the screen or not respond to your movement? Well if it is, it may just need a good mouse cleaning. If your not sure how to clean a mouse (a computer mouse that is) check out this illustrated guide…

How to Clean Your Mouse: An Illustrated Guide