If chores are a constant battle in your family, then there is a Website for you: ChoreWars.com.
Basically, your household's chore workload is transformed into an online role-playing game, like the ones your kids are already playing.
The family determines what the chores are, and how many "experience points" each one is worth, making a nice little competitive incentive between the players. So, a little healthy sibling rivalry could give you a much cleaner house!
The Valentine's Day Storm Worm virus is out there. The Storm Worm virus has used other holidays, especially those associated with greeting cards.
The virus is delivered in a bogus email that directs users to click on a link in order to receive an electronic greeting card. What really happens is some really nasty software (a.k.a. malware) is installed on the user's computer, making it part of what is called a "botnet"--a network of computers that have been taken over by malware for illegal purposes.
If there is a blog of ours that you would like to track, go to an entry, click on that blog's name, and go to the bottom of the page. You should see an icon that looks like this: 
. Click on that icon and it will give you subscription options. If you use an RSS aggregation service, like a MyYahoo or Google Reader account, et cetera, you can add our blog's feed to it.
Lately, you may have received an email claiming to be from the IRS, telling you that you have a refund coming. You are instructed to perhaps click on a link and provide all sorts of personal information, including your social security number. Some emails might imply that you could be in some sort of trouble if you don't comply.
These emails represent what are called "phishing" scams, in which con artists send out emails that appear to be from legitimate companies or organizations in order to get your personal information, especially your SSN. With this information, they can rob your identity, opening new lines of credit and sticking you with the bill. For more information about
Customer Feedback Central is a great site that provides lists of product-review Websites in the following categories:
These sites provide feedback from actual customers.
Do you remember that "Seinfeld" episode when Kramer takes an armload of unwanted Pottery Barn catalogs and throws them inside one of the company's stores?
Every feel like doing that? How do you stop getting those catalogs, anyhow?
Catalog Choice is a service that helps you opt out of catalogs that you don't want.
What a lovely surprise, a 'classmate' has sent you an electronic greeting card! How nice.
The only thing is, that "greeting card" may just be hiding nasty little computer viruses that could harm your computer, or spyware that resides on your computer and allows other people to access it without your knowledge.
Some of these bogus e-cards appear to come from the "Greeting Card Association," a real trade group which DOES NOT issue greeting cards, or other legitimate-sounding companies. Often the email's subject line says a "a former classmate" or "a family member" has sent a greeting card.
Don't let strangers read your mail!
Yahoo! Mail users are now offered the option to "Keep me signed in for 2 weeks unless I sign out." This can be a real problem for users of public PCs like those we offer at this library.
Unless you sign out of Yahoo! Mail, the next person to visit Yahoo! sitting at the same PC you used will find your account completely open!
There is a significant change this year in the beginning and ending times for Daylight Saving Time (DST) in the U.S. This may also affect your computer! While not expected to be as big a problem as the turn of the century "Y2K Bug," computer users may be perplexed or inconvenienced by the DST issue.
The U.S. Energy Policy Act of 2005, passed by the U.S. Congress, extended DST in the U.S. by approximately four weeks. As a result, beginning in this year, DST will start three weeks earlier --on March 11, 2007-- and end one week later --on November 4, 2007-- resulting in a new DST period that is four weeks longer than previously observed.
Once in a while we happen across a Web site that offers a new perspective on our world. Ten by Ten is one of those sites.
The creators of 10x10 explain their creation better than I can, "10x10â„¢ ('ten by ten') is an interactive exploration of the words and pictures that define the time. The result is an often moving, sometimes shocking, occasionally frivolous, but always fitting snapshot of our world. Every hour, 10x10 collects the 100 words and pictures that matter most on a global scale, and presents them as a single image, taken to encapsulate that moment in time. Over the course of days, months, and years, 10x10 leaves a trail of these hourly statements which, stitched together side by side, form a continuous patchwork tapestry of human life."
