Did someone ever send you a link to a web page, but it won’t work because it was split onto two lines?
Send web links in confidence using one of three free programs that shorten them so that they won’t be mangled by the time they reach their destination.
All three have cute, catchy names: BudURL, SnipURL, and TinyURL. (URL, by the way, stands for Uniform Resource Locator, and is the official term for a web address).
All three work the same way. Copy the URL you want to shorten, go to one of these three sites, paste it into the “Long URL” box, and click a button to generate a short URL. Just copy that new URL into your e-mail and you are all set. Being able to shorten URLs is very handy for me, as I frequently send to my clients links to information about organizing products at stores like Staples and The Container Store.
In addition, all three of these programs can be added to your toolbar, which reduces the process to a one-click operation. While you are visiting a web page that you want to send, simply click the button on your toolbar and the program will open up with the short URL already generated.
My favorite is BudURL because when I use the toolbar button, the short URL on the next screen is already selected, so all that’s left for me to do is copy it. That saves some mouse action.
Let me know what you think of these time-saving programs!
