Sorry for two contest posts in a week, but I had to enter this one. John Chow is hosting a $6,000 cash giveaway sponsored by tiny URL service XR.com! $5,000 goes to your favorite charity, and the other $1,000 is yours to keep. All you have to do to enter is try out XR.com for yourself and post a review on your blog. (The post should also include a link back to the contest, which charity you would donate the $5,000 to and what you would do with the remaining $1,000.)
My test of XR.com was to shorten the URL to the ElfYourself dance I made last week. I've been using a competing URL-shortening service for a long time, so I'm comparing this experience to those I've had with the other service. Right off the bat there was a rather inconvenient difference. The service I've been using works through a button on my bookmarks toolbar. Anytime I'm on a page I want to create a short link for, all I have to do is click that button and a short URL is instantly created (I then have the option to replace the random string of characters in the link with a custom word, if I so choose). To use XR.com, one has to navigate to their site and paste in the URL they want shortened. They do offer the same option of creating a custom URL instead of a random one. After your tiny link is created, they offer a one-click button to copy the new URL to the clipboard, which only works in Internet Explorer. This restriction is completely unnecessary, as it is entirely possible to script this function for other browsers as well. The next big difference between XR.com and their competitor is that they mask the original URL and trap the redirected page in an ugly frame for self-promotion purposes. Not to sound too harsh, but... yuck. They do allow the visitor to break out of the frame, but still this is going to be confusing to visitors who don't understand what URL redirection and forwarding is all about. The bottom line: the more URL-shortening services, the merrier, but for convenience's sake I'll be sticking with my old service.
If I should win this awesome contest, my $5,000 would go to the American Cancer Society. So many people in my life have been affected by various types of cancer. I lost my Grandma Cheryl to lung cancer four years ago. My former neighbor and dear friend Muriel lost her husband to the same. Our friend's mother, Mrs. Ping, was taken by liver/colon cancer last year, and our next door neighbor by pancreatic cancer this past summer. My sister-in-law and mother-in-law are survivors of skin and breast cancer, respectively. And there are so many more. I can't stand this ugly disease and don't want to see another single loved one struck down by it.
The sensible thing to do with the other $1,000 would be to pay off some bills. But that's not what I'm going to do with it if I win. Except for the few hours I got to see Dana when she brought Vixen here in February, I haven't seen anyone in my family in over a year and a half. The $1,000 would go toward a trip home, or alternatively I would use it to bring some of my family here for a visit.
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