On Feb 1, 2006, at 10:09 AM, John Francis wrote:
Thats strange Bill. You have frequent problems with tinyurl?
I've never run into any.
I can rarely get tinyurl to work for me.
It's possibly being blocked by your service provider.
All very interesting, but it rather obscures the main point.
Just providing a tinyurl, with no other choice, is a bad idea.
There was a main point? ;-)
For some people the tinyurl might not work.
Other people won't click on a tinyurl (and even some who might
click on a tinyurl if they know where it is supposed to go, and
who trust the person telling them, won't blindly click on a link
that comes with no explanation).
Then there are the philosophical objections that this introduces
an unnecessary single point of failure; if tinyurl is unavailable
then you can't get to any of the real destinations.
All true ... which is why I normally present long, difficult to type
and email links in something like the following manner:
...
If you're interested in the Pentax FA24-90, it's specifications can
be found on the B&H website:
<http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?
O=productlist&A=details&Q=&sku=222155&is=USA&addedTroughType=search>
or
http://tinyurl.com/baao4
...
If one wanted to be nasty, one could always put in a tinyurl.com link
to something else: it is, after all, nothing but a copy and paste
action. Your credibility would plummet rapidly.
For those that are paranoid by nature ... well, I won't even go there.
Godfrey
