TinyURL is probably one of the most popular services out there to shorten a web link. For those out there that might not be familiar with this service, TinyURL is a free web service where you can enter a long web link and it will create a shortcut to that url and return a much smaller url that is easier to share.

Say you want to share the following URL with someone.

http://www.switchingtomac.com/tutorials/how-to-set-a-different-wallpaper-for-each-space-in-leopard/

You can go to the TinyURL website and enter this url. Hit the Make TinyURL! button.

You will receive a shortened URL that looks something like the following.

Copy this link and paste it into your Email, or in Twitter, or share it with someone on chat. I find TinyURL particularly useful with chat and Twitter. However, for someone like myself who uses this feature rather often this process is rather long. Here’s a cool hack from the folks at TinyURL which helps reduce the steps involved in creating a TinyURL.

To get this hack going you need to create a bookmark in your web browser with the following link. Although you can create this link anywhere in your bookmarks I suggest you add it to your browser’s toolbar for easy access. with most browsers you should be able to drag and drop it in your toolbar to create the link.

Now, when you are surfing the web and want to create a TinyURL for a web link just click on the TinyURL shortcut link in your browser’s toolbar while on the page whose URL you want to shorten and you will be directly taken to the TinyURL site and presented the shortened version of this link. Copy this link and use it anywhere you like.