Privacy for pointers

Link-length reduction services like TinyURL, bit.ly and is.gd have been around quite a while now, but I've tended to steer clear of using them as it leaves a trail of interesting links which I probably don't want others aware of. Added to that, some of them don't store the full link so are semi-pointless. Last night, therefore, I 'rolled my own' and am happy enough with it now to start using it as required. Writing code can be fun, though wasting over three hours trying to work out why something just won't work and — eventually — finding out that you had typed a ',' where you should have had a '.' is most annoying!