Mac Gems: TinyURL Service: "TinyURL is a useful service; TinyURL Service makes it convenient, as well."
TinyURL is a clever resource that takes the hassle out of sending URLs via email. Unfortunately, it adds hassles of its own. You have to copy the destination URL, go to TinyURL.com in your browser, paste the URL, click on the Make TinyURL button, copy the resulting “Tiny” URL, and then paste that URL into your email message. Not a horrible procedure, but certainly not a smooth workflow. Rachel Blackman (a.k.a., Riverdark Studios) has made the process much simpler with TinyURL Service 0.2 (; free). (Thanks to Scott at MacUser for finding this one!)
As its name implies, TinyURL Service is a Mac OS X Service; to install it, you drop it into /Library/Services (to make it available to all users on your Mac) or ~/Library/Services (to restrict its use to only your own account). After logging out and then back in, TinyURL Service will be available to all Services-aware applications.
You use TinyURL Service in one of two ways. If you’ve already pasted your too-long URL into an email message (or any other text field), you just highlight the desired URL and then choose Application Name -> Services -> Shrink URL; after a couple seconds, the full URL will be replaced by the Tiny version.
Alternatively, you can save the step of pasting the URL in an email message first by highlighting that URL in, say, your Web browser’s address field, and then choosing Application Name -> Services -> Shrink URL to Clipboard; this converts the URL to a Tiny version right then and there, and then copies the Tiny URL to the Clipboard for pasting anywhere you like. (The basic Shrink URL command has a keyboard shortcut, Shift+Command+T, but I wasn’t able to get it to work; you may have better luck by assigning your own shortcut—to either or both commands—using Service Scrubber.)