I can understand shortened urls not being allowed in forums -- loads of people frown on them online because you have to rely on the person(s) giving you the link to be honest & nice rather than some cold-hearted cybercriminal.
Google & you'll find sites like these to expand any short urls you see online *before* you go there:
checkshorturl[.]com/
expandurl[.]net/
Note: I used to use longurl[.]org, but get a DNS error when I try to reach it just now -- I haven't used those 2 links above, so can't say anything more than I just found them with Google.
* * *
You ***may*** find by 2020 that there's an alternative to *nix you ***might*** consider, delenn. Google has Android for mobile devices, & Chrome for netbook-type hardware, but besides their current work trying to bring Android apps to Chrome, they're quietly working on a new OS. Lots of speculation that they're going after the Windows market. And all 3 OSes are *nix-based.
Microsoft is trying to go after the iOS & Android markets, but with the failure of Windows phone, they're sticking more to maintaining a presence in those markets with their apps. That is generally expected to change as they develop 10, making it smaller, making it more modular [more-or-less one OS with different GUIs tacked on depending on the device], and make it compatible with the ARM processors most mobile devices use. Google fighting back, trying to expand into a traditionally Windows-only market, may be their best, or at least most expected defense.
*That Said*, now that Microsoft has backed off on their efforts to discourage people from using 7 [for a while there it looked like they were going to force migration to 10], 7's market share has risen, including on Steam (!). With AMD's new CPUs giving more people a reason to upgrade their PCs, I expect many of them will find their free 10 licenses de-activated, and so move back to 7. You *might* find Windows 7 alive & well years beyond that 2020 deadline, similar to the way that XP held on, with Microsoft feeling forced to continue support.
