8.04?

[Darren Mansell]

On Sat, 2008-04-05 at 10:51 +0100, Avi Greenbury wrote:
> On Sat, 5 Apr 2008 12:37:04 +0300
> "Dotan Cohen" <dotancohen at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> > On 05/04/2008, Derek Broughton <news at pointerstop.ca> wrote:
> > >  > Don't use tinyurl. How do I know it's not pointing to malware? Do you
> > >  > trust that tinyurl will stay in business for as long as that link is
> > >  > valid?
> > >
> > > Huh?  I'll continue to use tinyurls.  They're more useful than
> > >  longer-than-one-line urls.  I don't care if they don't stay in use as long
> > >  as the link is valid - though the odds are that they will actually stay in
> > >  business _longer_ than most referenced links.
> > 
> > Does the fact that the URL spans more than one line really bother you?
> > I understand why tinyurl would be useful if one must remember the URL
> > or say it over the phone. But for transfering over email, are the
> > security, latency, and reliability problems worth it? That, and you do
> > not know to where the URL is pointing until you go to the tinyurl
> > site?
> 
> I'd suggest that they are, given that you're the first person I've come accross to have experienced them.
> 

Sorry to butt in. I've missed half of the discussion too. I just wanted
to say heres another person who can't stand tinyurl. So theres two.


> > >  > Do you want them tracking you?
> > >
> > > They won't be tracking _me_ if I post a tinyurl...
> > 
> > Oh, I see, and what they do to those who follow your link doesn't
> > concern you. Then why do you care that they will see a long url, if it
> > doesn't concern you?
> 
> I'd have thought that the majority of people won't really mind that there are a bunch of Ubuntu users out there looking at the ubuntu bug tracker.
> I'd also have thought that anyone who feels strongly enough about this kind of thing is already used to having to go the long way round things in an effort to avoid the black helicopters.
> > 
> > >  > Do you want the link to be unaccessible when tinyurl is
> > >  > performing updates or down for other reasons?
> > >
> > > Again, do I care?  Nobody uses tinyurl to point to their own sites, they use
> > >  them to reference citations.
> > 
> > So the reference citation is only valid when tinyurl is not performing
> > maintanance?
> 
> No.
> The reference citation is only valid while it works. TinyURL are (read: should be) perfectly capable of performing maintenance without bringing all their functionality down.
> And, if they do happen to be down for whatever reason when someone wants to access the link, and that someone cannot wait for it to come back up again, it's hardly difficult to find the 'real' URL.
> 
> > 
> > >  > Is the increased latency and bandwidth necessary?
> > >
> > > Is it _noticeable_?
> > 
> > For me at the university, and for many dialup users, yes it is.
> > 
> 
> I don't use dialup _that_ often, but when I do I can't say I notice TinyURL making things take a huge amount longer.
> The notable difference is that IE-only sites and .doc files

My broadband connection has recently been capped to 150Kbps. While I
battle my provider to take it off my connection is lousy. As I run Hardy
I'm currently doing updates a lot. If I click a tinyurl link it can mean
30 seconds rather than 15, or 60 rather than 30 to get a page, and quite
often means I won't bother clicking it. 

I also want to see where I'm going and see absolutely no point to using
a smaller link unless you are writing it down for someone or have to
remember it.

Thanks for loaning me the soapbox :)

> -- 
> Avi Greenbury <god at lordandmaker.co.uk>
>