Today's internet offers virtually unlimited free storage and distribution, if you're willing to forgo certain niceties. One of those niceties is control and limits on distribution. Virtually all free services require you to release your information under licenses that at the least allow the service provider to redistribute your materials freely.

Much of your answer relies on your goals. And, we each have different reasons for using a URL shortener. Most use shorteners by default via some social media tool, to cram long URLs into limited character spaces.

Which URL shortener creates the shortest URL? Creating an unabridged list of URL shortener services is virtually impossible. These are a hand full of free services publicly available.

The easiest way to protect your brand is to immediately reserve your preferred username on all social media websites, just in case you decide to use that space in the future. Few things are as frustrating as preparing to build communication in a new social media, only to find someone is squatting on your brand or username. Remedies are often simply unavailable.

Google services provide several social media destinations, like Picasa, Google Reader, Orkut, YouTube and services like Blogger, Gmail and Google Docs. Many people find themselves stuck with an old primary email address associated with Google or perhaps several accounts assocaited with several email addresses wanting to funnel these services into one single account. Google does not make this easy.

You can not simply conflate your accounts. You can, however, change the associated email addresses and delete duplicate accounts.

PlacePop seems to be yet another locator ap. But, I like it. After a short sign up process I searched my local coffee house. It wasn't in the system, so it asked me to add it. My favorite part of the experience was that it found images from the website and asked me if one represented the business. I quickly picked the sketch of the Coffee House and we were off.

Some things I'd like to see:

Tekany has been a technology service provider and consultancy for years. Most of you have never heard of the company. And, up until now that was much by design. We have worked behind the scenes to consult entertainment and retail business to build strong online brands and consumer interaction. Today we launch our public authoritative information resource: tekany.com.

This video shows you how to batch crop images with the free tool Irfanview.

You will need notepad (or pencil and paper), a file manager (like Windows Explorer) and Irfanview. Irfanview is a free, very powerful graphic editing tool.