Danny’s lucid and extensive review of URL shortening services [1] brings his expertise in these matters to our attention once again. However, one "short" coming of many such services is the fact that some may not provide a history of the actual URL and page title for efficient review and reuse over time.

WTF was u0Bf0 again?

Appending an edited version of a shortened URL to a saved Favorite/Bookmark has become yet another step in efficient URL management that could and should be managed by the shortening service itself.

It always pays to scroll past the fold on a web page which is how I actually discovered that bit.ly does in fact store a history of all URLs I can easily review and reuse but I have to be on the bit.ly page which I think is a trade-off I am okay with.

[1] http://bit.ly/u0Bf0

Ever see anything like that yourself? That’s been what has been happening to me since this past April of 2009. My Passport credentials are validated and I am logged in but then I cannot access and view webcasts from http://msevents.microsoft.com. Almost three months now and I have not been able to stay informed, trained and educated about those matters which my software development pursuits depend.

Microsoft’s tiered call center merry-go-round support being what it is I certainly hope this  MOSDAL support toolkit will help resolve this type of access and authentication conflict. Microsoft’s Knowledgebase Article kb900625 [1] describes the download as a network diagnostics tool that collects and reports system configuration, network configuration, and logging information for service-based products.

[1] http://support.microsoft.com/kb/960625