Use TinyURL to condense links:

If you often send your friends links to websites or news stories, but find long URLS somewhat cumbersome and prone to breaking up, you might want to give TinyURL a visit.

This website lets you enter a long URL into their interface, and shoots back a shortened version for easier reading, discussion and transport.

For example, this is a link to an article by David Pogue in today’s New York Times about the many iPhone applications that are currently available:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/05/technology/personaltech/05pogue-email.html?bl&ex=1233982800&en=60e0a8a5ed47f70d&ei=5087%0A

It’s a bit on the long side and quite confusing (the URL, not the story), so I can’t really call someone on the phone and give them this link very easily. But once it goes through TinyUrl, this link becomes:

http://tinyurl.com/bjfngx

Neat, huh? What’s more, these links never expire, so this tiny URL will forever mark this story.

Office MacGyver: need a quick charge?

While on a recent business trip that ran a little longer than expected, I realized my charger was sitting back at the home office as my BlackBerry’s battery was dwindling to nothingness. Not able to find a way to charge it – and not able to find a spare charger using the ‘hotel lost and found trick’ – I stumbled across a neat solution at a nearby Brookstone store.

 

Their Instant Cell Phone Charger ($20 USD) uses an AA battery to give your phone a little extra juice to make a 30-minute call or keep it running for a few hours more. This small device (about the size of a small flashlight or lipstick tube) comes with a number of adapters that not only fit BlackBerry phones, but Nokia, Motorola, and Samsung phones, too.

I’m keeping mine permanently tucked into my laptop bag to make sure I never leave home without it.

UPDATE (02/17/09): It seems that Brookstone is no longer carrying this specific item, but you can find one at Amazon (click here) for a little over $16 USD.

A new way to scan and organize documents:

Pixily is a new document-scanning service that hopes its customers will digitize all the paper they have in their office and store it online on their servers where they can be neatly organized.

They provide you with postage-paid envelopes that hold about 50 sheets of paper that they will then scan and upload to their site (where you can add your own documents, too). A $14.95 monthly membership gives you one envelope and enough disk space to hold 3,000 pages, while their $59.95 monthly plan provides you with four envelopes and space for 12,000 pages.

Then again, you can always buy an HP N6010 sheet-feed scanner that scans 18 pages per minute for about $385, or a Fujitsu ScanSnap S510 scanner that does pretty much the same thing (but seems to have better reviews) for just under $425.

Use Host Monk to shop for web hosting:

If you are building your own website, but don’t know where to begin, Host Monk should be your first stop online.

This website offers impartial web hosting comparisons, so once you have your domain name registered, this site will let you know where you can get the best price to host it.

Let’s say you want to host your website through a virtual private server’s hosting site, but do not want to pay more than $25 each month. Let’s also say you wish to use a Linux platform, have no more than 10 GB of disk space, have up to 100 GB of bandwidth, and opt for an unmanaged system. This website will suggest eight companies that can handle this request ranging in price from $6 per month to $24.95 per month, and offer review for each one from a number of sites including CNET.

That said, I am pretty fond of the customer service provided by GoDaddy (though some may dislike their politics), and the low prices offered by DreamHost (that often include domain registration and hosting).

Other used electronics buyers:

Aside from Gazelle, it seems that there are a number of other spots online that will pay you for your old electronics, which means you can shop around and find the best deal.

MyBoneYard is similar to Gazelle, but uses a different pricing structure. They’ll buy the laptop I mentioned in yesterday’s post for about $20 (a little less than Gazelle), but seem to have better deals on other items. They don’t offer cash, but will send you a prepaid Visa card as compensation.

TechForward is also interesting to note. This Los Angeles-based company sells “buyback plans” that let you sell your new electronic device to them in the future, for a fixed price.

For example, if you just bought a laptop computer for under $1,000 this week, they will sell you a “buyback plan” for about $30 that guarantees you the right to sell this computer back to them in six months for about half of what you spent today. Or you can choose to sell them this new computer in 18 months for about 20 percent of its purchase price.

Then again, you can always donate your used cell phones to a good cause.