Shortening URLs

Are you blogging and sharing your blog posts in social media like Facebook and twitter? If yes, this post is for you.

For this post, I'll be talking about shortening URLs. I'll be sharing the two shortening URLs sites I know, bit.ly and tinyurl.com.

First let's define some terms.

URL - basically URL or Uniform Resource Locator is an unique address which identifies a resource on the internet or webpage. For example, on this site the URL of the homepage is http://elvinperia.blogspot.com. If you're reading this post alone (meaning there's no moving pictures on the header) the URL is http://elvinperia.blogspot.com/2009/10/shortening-urls.html. I hope you got my point.

Shortening URLs are very useful if you have a blog or a website which are promoted in social media sites more particularly in twitter. Twitter as you may know contains 140 characters per tweet. This means that if I paste this post's URL on my tweet (http://elvinperia.blogspot.com/2009/10/shortening-urls.html, which contains 59 characters), I only have 81 characters left for my post description. Description is important in encouraging others to view your link.

If we use shortening URLs then we will be able to increase the remaining characters of our tweet. More characters would mean longer description.

tinyurl.com is a web service that provides short URLs in replacement with long URLs. It was launched last 2002. The TinyURL homepage includes a a form that's used to submit a long URL for shortening. For each URL entered, the server adds a new alias in its hashed database and returns a short URL such as http://tinyurl.com/eperia in the following page.

bit.ly, like tinyurl.com, also provides short URLs in replacement of the original long URLs. It has lesser characters and provides some good statistics about the links.

Comparing this two shortening URL service, I prefer bit.ly because it contains lesser characters and because of it's additional functions.

Hope this helps.

Nothing is Constant but Change...

They say that the only constant thing in the world is change. Well, I agree. Everything has to change. Everything will change our appearance, personality, age, height, weight, habits and the list will go on. In short, nothing is permanent.

In one of our team building exercises, we discussed this thing called change. The facilitator/speaker shared this diagram. They said that every person who experiences sudden change in their life needs to go through this painful but memorable experience before they can move forward or take an action.

The diagram shows the cycle on how change affects our life. At first we are at the state of shock and at the end of the cycle we learn how to move forward. However, we cannot do that if we are on denial or we are angry or if we are on tears. We need to realize that something has change and we need to embrace/accept that change before we can make move on or create an action.

I'll be using Heroes as an example. By the way, check out my Heroes blog for the latest Heroes updates.

In the latest episode of Heroes (Season 4 Episode 5 : Tabula Rasa), there's this one deaf character who has synesthesia. A wide array of colors flashes her eyes whenever there is a sound. However, she thought she was cursed. She was in shock. She wants to deny it. She wants to turn it off. But someone made her realize that her ability is a gift and not a curse. She must accept it because someone has given her that ability. There's a purpose why she get it. He made it clear that this gift should be used to help others.

Hope you get my point. I understand that some change are deeply rooted in our hearts. It is hard for us to swallow. It is hard for us to accept but life must go on and we shouldn't be left behind. We should move on. We need to accept change as soon as possible. We need to embrace change no matter what.

Change is part of our everyday life. It's all around us. Every time we encounter change we need to move forward. Whatever change that happen, we should look at it as a blessing and not as a curse.

Highly Recommended Online Clubs

Recently, I've been learning and reading a lot. What am I reading? Just some free stuffs I got from these two highly recommended online clubs available. They're so generous in giving away lots of freebies from ebooks, interviews of successful people, tips and tricks on how to become successful in life. 

Do you want to be successful on your life? If yes, then I recommend the following online clubs. Click on the image for more information.

1. Cash In A Flash by multi-millionaires Mark Victor Hansen and Robert G. Allen

If you've already read the books, Chicken Soup For The Soul, Nothing Down, The One Minute Millionaire, or Cracking The Millionaire Code, then you probably already know one of these guys. The Best Selling Authors and Multi-millionaires Mark Victor Hansen and Robert G. Allen are releasing their new book entitled the Cash In A Flash - Fast Money In Slow Times and their giving it away for FREE! Aside from this they'll be providing you with a lot of ebooks that would definitely help you to become rich.

2. Bo Sanchez' Truly Rich Club

Bo Sanchez is the author of 9 bestselling books and publisher of seven magazines. He engages in small business and real estate to raise up more micro-entrepreneurs among his countrymen. He frequently teaches and writes about financial literacy, believing that our poverty is hugely a product of people’s low financial I.Q. on subjects such as debt-management, saving, investing, and business. Be part of his Truly Rich Club to discover abundance in your life.

So what are you waiting for? Join now.

PS. I am also accepting articles for submission/publication on this site. Email me @ elvinperia@yahoo.com. There might be a surprise waiting for you. Thanks.

PS2. Special mention to Jomar and JanMck for introducing me to these clubs... :)