Handy web related hint!

Anyone who's using Twitter will realise that it shortens big URLs (web addresses) to bit.ly/somecode addresses (cos it's only giving you 140 characters to spill your life story). Or, you might have seen tinyurl.com addresses around too, which do the same thing. Save you typing www.thisisareallylongdomainname.com/thisisthebitaftertheslash/gibberish.com and allows you to type tinyurl.com/sdfoll or something.

Anyhoo, these can be bad for you, in that you don't know where you're being sent on the interweb - you don't know what type of site you'll end up on. Internet Explorer users scroll to the bottom of the post....

So somebody clever has developed a Firefox extension at http://tinyurl.com/9hnqrz (same destination, just used as an example!) which allows you to hover over these shortened addresses before you click on them and find out where they're going to lead you. I've not been using it for long, but it seems helpful. Firefox users, scroll to the bottom of the post and nod sagely....


Internet Explorer users - Firefox is more customisable and nicerer. Switch soon. Then read the paragraph above this one.

Flutter - the new blogging software?

I came across this video on a website called barelydigital.com, outlining the latest advance and competition to twitter - maybe there is too much in twitter? See for yourself in the video.

In other news, I tried a bottle of Guinness the other evening. Not draught Guinness, the old-fashioned (!?!) "extra stout." I must say, it tasted a lot like Guinness, unsurprisingly, with the coffee/chocolatey notes and all, but it was a little livelier - not as smooth, and without the characteristic head. I presume this was because it was carbonated with "ordinary" CO2, rather than "fancy" widget-delivered nitrogen? The bottle (500ml) is lovely, with the Guinness signature cast (I presume) into the shoulder, and a smart but olde-worlde label on the front.

It was enjoyable, if a little unsettling visually, to be honest. We are subjected to so much advertising in relation to the look of the draught product that seeing the extra stout in the glass makes you fear it's gone off! Also, because of the carbonation, I found it difficult to imagine myself drinking more than one bottle of this at a time - probably a good thing given the stomachularly unsettling effect that the stout has on my digestive system.