Amateur Bloggers Getting Sued

I came across this article and I thought some of you would be interested in reading about amateur bloggers and some Proffesional bloggers who have been blogging for years are getting sued for not wording their articles right, most are geting sued for defamation of character. A Miami real estate agent Mr.Lechuga began blogging to share his knowledge of the local market. He didn't bargain for a $25 million defamation lawsuit when he wrote that a Miami developer had gone bankrupt decades ago

Non-journalists entering the world of blogs, online feedback forums, online videos and news Web sites provide information that newspapers and other media can't or don't. But many are now turning to professional journalists for help with dilemmas they're facing: When is something libelous? What's the difference between opinion and news? And how do you find public documents?

About a dozen would-be reporters navigated the basics of journalism at a recent training offered by the Society of Professional Journalists in Chicago. The group plans similar seminars this month in Greensboro, N.C., and Los Angeles.

Lechuga, who didn't attend the training, said it would have been a good idea. Having jumped into the world of online publishing with a finance degree, he said the claims against him - which are still pending - arose from a question of semantics, and he would have chose his words differently if he had a second chance.

Roy Peter Clark, a senior scholar at the Poynter Institute in St. Petersburg, Fla., which supports working journalists, praised the effort to offer training to so-called citizen journalists.

"I think that what we're moving toward is some king of positioning between amateur and professional," Clark said.

Amateurs have long contributed to professional news reports, including the film of John F. Kennedy's assassination and photos from the Virginia Tech massacre last year, Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and the tsunami in Southeast Asia in 2004, Clark said.

Now, many distribute their content on their own, and some have gotten into trouble, said Clint Brewer, the national president of SPJ.

Geoff Dougherty, editor of the Web site ChiTownDailyNews.org and a presenter at the SPJ program, is trying to prevent that by offering his reporters online training.

"I see us in five years as the go-to source for Chicago news," said Dougherty. "It's a big goal."

Robert Cox, president of the Media Bloggers Association, said more than 100 judgments valued at $17 million have been handed down against bloggers over the last three years - about 60 percent for defamation, 25 percent for copyright infringement and 10 percent involving privacy.

"It's the tip of the iceberg," Cox said. "Bloggers are being asked to write checks. The threats against bloggers are very real. The costs are very real."

Other groups offer help, including NowPublic.com - a site that gathers photos, video and news tips from the public and distributes them to news organizations, including The Associated Press. NowPublic, funded with venture capital, offers resources for contributors and helps them learn to police themselves, said co-founder Michael Tippett.

MJ Tam, who has blogged about motherhood for eight years and attended the Chicago workshop, said she worried about how far she could go in rating baby products.

"I just want to make sure I'm doing the right thing," said Tam. "How far can I take criticism? What's considered libel? I need those basics."---

Web News

Be Sure to Leave Your Comments!

Adolix Software for ebook covers, Dvd covers,CD covers

eCover Engineer v5.
Description
The first impression is very important for potential customers. And the first thing that they encounter when they meet your product is the box shot. That's right! . And for many of them, this is the moment they decide to proceed or to search for another product. If you have a beautiful ebook cover or software box, they are half convinced. But there is another problem. A professional cover for software costs a lot of money. Some of them need to be updated. Why spend so much money on something that you can do for free with ecover generator and cover creator software like eCover Engineer? Why waste precious time on something that you can do in a few minutes with an ecover generator product. Design ebook covers, CD covers, DVD covers and software box covers with minimum costs. Use our free templates to create amazing covers for your products.
Benefits
Create covers for standard box, e-book, thin box, wide box, custom box, spiral notebook, wide spiral notebook, boxes with 2 books, Boxes with 3 books, Boxes with 4 books, magazines
With our cover creator software you can design ebook covers, CD covers and DVD covers.
Benefit from real-time 3D Editing and Rendering
Take advantage high image quality. Export your work as BMP, JPG or PNG
Import and use for your work a wide variety of picture files like BMP, JPG files, PSD files and almost any type of image
Resize the width, height and depth of the Cover. Create custom shape boxes.
Rotate, roll and resize the designed object.
See your work from any angle. Use camera rotation / movement options. You can rotate the camera along its X, Y and Z axis relative to the center of the Cover
Change light color.
Use shadow effect and see your work reflected
Specify floor's texture and background color.
Use our product on less powerful computers. Find a balance between speed and quality.
Save your work as templates so you can reuse it later.
Send templates and output images by email
Use our product in a lot of languages. Multi language support: English, French, German, Brazilian, Russian, Romanian, Japanese
Use award winning graphics editor Paint.NET to modify our templates or design new images for your products.
Download Free Trial
You can download the Free 15-Day Trial Version of eCover Engineer (5.5 Mb) by clicking on the link at their web page at Adolix Software. Download time: 5 min and 46 seconds at a 56Kb Dial-Up connection.

After download, open the file eCoverEngineerSetup.exe and the installation wizard will appear. Follow the easy steps in order to complete the installation.
Download Free Templates
Click on any image and go to the templates special page. You can find there packs of 5 royalty free templates that can be installed
Open templates by clicking the "Open Template" button within eCover Engineer.

Be Sure to Leave Your Comments!

Google Co-Founder buys Seat to Outer Space

NEW YORK - The company that sends wealthy tourists to the International Space Station says that Google co-founder Sergey Brin has paid $5 million to reserve a seat on a future flight.
Space Adventures made the announcement Wednesday in Manhattan.
Company officials also say they have struck a deal with the Russian space agency to launch the first entirely private Soyuz flight to the space station in 2011. Two seats will be available.
The Virginia-based company has sent five tourists into space so far. The sixth customer is due to go up in October. He paid $35 million for the seat.Be Sure to Leave Your Comments!

Improve Page Loading TIme

We share with you what we have been doing to improve the page loading time of our Blog. If a web page takes too long a time to load, the readers will simply hop on to another site. Making it load quickly also saves the dial-up internet users' money and time. While it is true that the download time depends on the readers' internet connection speed, we can as Blog owners tweak our layout and source code to speed up the page download. There are online tools that you can use to check the download time of your Blog. We used this Website Speed Test to check the load time of our 3 Blogs. You can enter a maximum of 10 web addresses. It will show you the page size, load time, and average speed per KB. This is what we got:-Generally, it is best to keep the load time to under 2 seconds, but anything up to 8 seconds is acceptable. These results are therefore satisfactory and our efforts in minimizing the load time have paid off. Although it looks good on record, there were still times when our page took longer than it should to load. As we shall explain, some of these factors are beyond our control. Here are some of the tips that can improve your site's performance:- 1. Sounds, Videos and Gadgets .................................................................................................................It is interesting to include music, videos, flash programs, slideshows, gadgets and special widgets into your Blog. However, we all know that these files take time to load. The first step is therefore to remove those that you really don't need. For instance, rather than to embed all the videos into the sidebar, try creating text links instead. Those who are interested in viewing can click them to view the videos that you have uploaded onto Youtube or other hosts. Also, if you are embedding a background music file, choose one that has a very small file size (e.g., MIDI files instead of WAV files). 2. Images and Pictures .........................................................................................................If you have a lot of images in your Blog page, optimize them by reducing the file sizes. In Internet Explorer or Firefox, you can right-click on the picture to view the “Properties”. If the size is above 10KB, or 10000 bytes, it is time to change it. One of the things you can do is to edit the image using photo editing softwares like Picasa and resize or crop the images. In some software where you can select the quality of the image, save them in a Low or Medium quality format, rather than High quality.From our trials, we found that GIF images (images with .gif extensions) load faster than JPG images (images with .jpg or .jpeg extensions) and have smaller file sizes. GIF images are not as sharp but are appropriate for standard graphics and buttons like those you see on our sidebar. Stick to JPG images for photos as they are clearer. Experiment with your graphics by converting the JPG file to GIF file. How to do that? If you have photo softwares, simply open the image and save them in the other format. Otherwise, if you are using Windows XP, locate the image in your hard disk and double click on the image. You will be looking at the image in “Windows Picture and Fax Viewer”. There is an icon that looks like a floppy disk at the bottom right corner (shown in the picture below). Click on that. Under the “Save as type”, you can select a different format, like GIF or PNG. This will convert the picture to another format. Now that you have the same picture in 2 different formats, compare the file size. Display the one with the smaller size in your Blog. If you do that for all the images, it should greatly reduce the load time of your web page.There are also free online image optimizing tools that you can use to reduce the image file size. Try entering the words “online image optimizer” into the search bar and you will find a number of sites that will do the job for you.
Search World-Wide-WebEnter your search terms Submit search form........................................... 3. Connection t0 external servers.................................................................................................... Every connection to an external site to retrieve information will add to the download time. . When you list your Blog in the directories, it is always good to provide a reciprocal link to their sites. You can either create a text link to them, or an image link as we had done. The problem is that in retrieving all the images from these locations, it will drastically increase the load time of your page. Let me give you an example to illustrate how you can resolve this problem. When you register your Blog at Blogvillage, you will have a code that looks like this:-
Whenever your page loads, the browser will go to their site to retrieve the image “23251.jpg”. Assuming you are registered with many blog directories, the browser will have to visit each of these sites to retrieve their image buttons. This slows down your Blog download. We believe that these blog directory hosts may not like that too as it will put a strain on their server. What we can do is to download the image “23251.jpg” onto our hard disk by entering the full image URL in our browser and when the image appears, right-clicking it to save. Next, we upload it onto a free server. You can read about using free hosts like Google Page Creator and Google Groups. We have also a rather comprehensive list of free Image Hosts and File Hosting Services in our article on Manage Blogger Image Storage Space. Check out those sites and choose one that is fast, reliable and enables hotlinking to the uploaded files. Take note of the image URL and the link in the above example will be changed to this:-
Do that for all the image buttons. It takes a while, but the net result is that your readers will benefit from your work. Be consistent. If you choose one host, stick to that one. The browser will need to contact only one site to retrieve all the images and this should cut down the load time of your web page.Having said that, there are some external servers which we cannot do away with. For instance, some of these Topsites and Toplists give you a tracking code to track the visitor statistics and rank your site. There will be something like this “tracker.php?do=in” or “button.php?u=” in their image link. If we want our Blog to be ranked, we have no choice but to use their code. On a number of occasions, these sites were down, and our page load times were longer than usual because the browser was unable to retrieve the information from these sites. We try to monitor and temporarily disable the codes for these sites, but this is something which we have to bear with should we want to continue being listed in their directories.Text links are of course preferable if you want to do away with the images. Should you need to understand the difference in codes between text links and image links, you may refer to the article on Hyperlinks and ImageLinks.. .............................................................................4. Width and Height............................................., tags....Images... and tables ...come in different sizes. If we specify the dimensions in the code, the browser will be able to set aside the space allocated for these images and tables and load the rest of the contents that they have quick access to. If we don't specify the values, the browser will have to load the entire contents of the image or table before moving on to another.Image codes contain a “src” tag. In our codes, we will specify the width and height like this:-
You should do the same for tables. A typical table HTML code with the width setting will look like this:-

Table contents

5. JavaScript and external script .................................................................................Minimize the use of JavaScripts in your Blog. These are the languages that the browser must load and interpret. A complicated script may take time to execute. You can tell a JavaScript code from this line found in the code:-
script type="text/javascript Statcounters and Ad servers like Google Ads use scripts. We noticed that if these sites were slow in delivering the information, our page loads were affected. There are also third party widgets and gadgets you put onto your Blog that use scripts to activate the contents. Monitor them. If you find that they are causing a delay in your page download, consider removing them or switching to other providers ................................................ 6. HTML clean up For those who know HTML codes well enough, you may go into your template code and remove the whitespaces. These are the extra lines or spaces between the codes. You may compact the code, but not so much as to make it difficult to read and edit the code in future.There are also the empty tags that you can remove. These are often caused by people using wysiwyg (what you see is what you get) editors to write their codes. After some editing, you may have meaningless opening and closing tags like these with nothing in between:-

It is alright to remove these unwanted tags since they don't do anything when there are no words in between the tags. However, do that only if you are familiar with HTML codes................. 7. Simplicity in design ......................................................................................................................Many of the fast loading sites are simple in design, with no frills whatsoever. Consider adapting these into your Blog. Among all the templates, we find the Minima template one of the simplest. The others which contain background images are slower because the browser has to access separate servers to extract the images...................................... ............................................................................ 8. Links........ check Bad links are links that, when clicked, point you to an invalid or non-existent site. Some people have blogrolls through link exchanges. A site may be working fine at the start when you exchange links. Months later, that site may be removed and the link turns into a bad link. It is prudent to check these links once in a while to ensure that they continue to be valid.

Huge Contest MacBook Airs $1,000 Giveaway

Bloggin ads is a site that helps to improve your blogging and also does blog reviews. Right now there is a huge contest going on at blogging ads.com, and you definitely don't want to miss out. There are only 3 prizes, but there will be 12 different winners. But wait, before you close the browser thinking that the prizes are worthless, please take a look at what the prizes are

2 x MacBook Air (a value of $1,799 each)
1.6Ghz Intel Core Duo
2GB Ram
80GB Internal Drive
13.3″ Display
Built-In WiFi and Bluetooth
10 winners x $100 (a value of $1,000)
So be sure to enter...

Free Keyword Tools you need to make your site a success

If you plan to create more blogs or websites in order to earn monwey from Adsense you may need to find some niche sites to start with. Then, in case you need to use a keyword tool that can suggest you the volume of searches for that particular item. By comparing the number of searches for that items in various search engines and also the number of existing sites, you will then be able to select those worthwhile keywords and start to build a niche site. In light of that I have collected some useful keyword suggestion tool for my readers to use. These are some useful keyword tools for you to use, and I list some of them below:
Word Tracker Free Keyword Tool: http://freekeywords.wordtracker.com/
Keyword Discovery Tool: http://www.keyworddiscovery.com/search.html
Google Trends: http://www.google.com/trends
Good Keywords (Free Software) http://www.googlekeywords.com/
Free Keywords Tool: http://www.freekeywords.com/

Get into Cash Blaster Pro and make Money, Money, Money

Cash Blaster Pro is it the next Google!


Hi Bloggers, while checking out whats going on on the web, Icame across an interesting website called Cash Blaster Pro

What intrigued me about this website was the one million dollar giveaway that will be shared to the members when they launch on 1th July 2008. The Web 2.0 Upgrade is coming!

We all know the world’s biggest websites are all Web 2.0 sites. For example YouTube, Myspace and Facebook. But did you know only 5% of all websites are Web 2.0 enabled.

On July 1st, 2008THE WEB WILL NEVER BE THE SAME!

GIVING AWAY MONEY & CHANGING THE WEB
Have you ever wanted to be in on the NEXT BIG THING before everyone else? We are about to show you what our member's are calling THE NEXT BIG GOOGLE!
No, we are not just another mySpace clone or Social Networking website. We have taken this trend to the Next Level. We are doing something that NO ONE has ever accomplished before...
ENTIRE INTERNET UPGRADEAT A CLICK OF A BUTTON!
This MAJOR TREND known as Social Networking has become the NORM on the Internet, though still less than 5% of all websites are considered to be Web 2.0 enabled.The Web 2.0 Upgrade is an astonishing breakthrough in what is being called THE NEXT STEP IN THE EVOLUTION of the Internet...and why people are touting this company to become the NEXT BIG ONLINE TECHNOLOGY COMPANY...and THE NEXT HUGE "GOOGLE" SUCCESS STORY.
Our technology is NOT just another Social Networking website. The Web 2.0 Upgrade, upgrades the ENTIRE Internet to Web 2.0 functionality! Every site at a click of a button! WOW! Q. "What makes you different from other Web 2.0 Technologies?"A. "All other new Web 2 Social Networking communities reside ON a website, or you have to add code to a website to enable it. Our technology upgrades EVERY website on the Internet to Web 2.0 functionality at a click of a button!"
Join for Free Now Click on this and get in on the action:

...or read more about the income potential below!

When we launch on July 1st, we will officially open the doors all product sales and advertising revenues that are generated through our massive user-base will be shared with our affiliates! This can generate a huge ongoing income due to the enormous growth potential of our membership with the Free Web 2.0 Upgrade!
YOU MUST UNDERSTAND... This company is NOT driven by the fact that there is a business opportunity like most affiliate programs. This opportunity is technology and FEATURE driven by a Technology Concept that will revolutionize the web...and we have an "Oh by the way, there is a free affiliate option" when joining.
Why is this important? Because it doesn't limit our growth potential to just home-based business people. The Web 2.0 Upgrade has MASS APPEAL! REMEMBER: We are upgrading the Entire Internet for FREE! Who wouldn't want to upgrade from Web 1.0 to Web 2.0 for FREE? Is this real? Is it as good as we say? Go now and Check it out for yourself you have nothing to lose and everything to gain. Remember, it's FREE to join and there is NEVER any obligation to buy anything in order to earn.
FInd out for yourself now

How to Avoid Scams on Craiglist

Craigslist is a great online market place. Unfortunately it doesn't provide any protection for the buyers or the sellers. As a result, the buyers are frequently cheated by the fraud sellers. Sometimes the sellers also get scammed by the dishonest buyers.Following are some tips to avoid scams of craiglist:* Deal locally with people you can meet. This way you can avoid most the craigs list scams.* Search the internet with the name and phone number, email or address of the person or company with whom you are going to deal. And see whether any negative comments on the net are found against them.* Never send payment in advance via bank wire or western union, moneygram or any other service before receiving the goods.* Be aware of fake cashier checks & money orders. Banks will cash them and then hold you responsible when the fake will be discovered later on.* Never give your financial information (bank account number, social security number, ebay/paypal info, etc.) to anyone. Those who ask for such information are most likely fraud on craigslist.* Avoid deals involving shipping or escrow services and know that only a scammer will guarantee your transaction.* If someone is offering to sell a commodity on craigslist at much lower price than it's actual market value then be careful with the deal.* Communicate via email instead of instant messengers. In case of email communication you will have proof which you may show to police later on, if required. But must give a phone call to verify phone number.Check out this official page of craigslist. It may help you a lot.While craigslist is free and a good place to find out anything at cheap price you need to be careful to avoid the scams on craiglist.

Blu-ray DVD format may not dominate for years

Monday, June 2, 2008
LOS ANGELES - Blu-ray stomped HD DVD to become the standard format for high-definition movie discs, but years may pass before it can claim victory over the good old DVD.

Noemi Velazquez, a 44-year-old warehouse worker, can explain why. She took one look at the $399 (euro257) price tag of a Blu-ray player at a Best Buy store one night this month in Glendale, California, and kept going.

"I have to admit, Blu-ray is great," she said. "(But) I'm going to wait until they go to half-price."

Analysts, movie studios and the Blu-ray Disc Association, a manufacturing group, all say Blu-ray discs will eventually dominate video sales. The question is when.

Consumers are balking at the $300- (euro193)-plus cost of most Blu-ray players especially because only limited movie titles are available in the format.

"People aren't going to pay three times as much for a platform that's only half-baked," said Steve Wilson, a consumer electronics analyst with ABI Research.

Many also are waiting to see how cable, satellite and online video services play out. But, above all, consumers seem satisfied with standard-definition DVDs and players - even consumers who upgrade to high-definition TVs that can tap into Blu-ray's sharper picture and clearer sound.

Velazquez said that because she was still paying off a $1,000 (euro644) high-definition TV she bought in October she was happy for now to keep watching pay-TV movies and standard-definition DVDs on it.

Sony Corp.-backed Blu-ray was crowned the next-generation video technology in February after Toshiba Corp., creator of the competing HD DVD format, abruptly said it would drop the fight. The move came after Warner Bros. decided to join most other studios by going solely with Blu-ray and video rental chains followed suit.

Manufacturers are planning a souped-up lineup of titles and special features on Blu-ray discs to boost sales this summer and during the coming Christmas season in the hope that Blu-ray can turn around the sagging home video market. And retailers are creating new displays to explain Blu-ray's benefits.

U.S. consumer spending on home video rentals and purchases in all formats, including DVD, HD DVD, Blu-ray and VHS, fell 3 percent to $24.1 billion (euro15.53 billion) last year. The figure was expected to drop another 2 percent this year to $23.6 billion (euro15.21 billion), despite a sixfold increase in Blu-ray disc spending to $1.3 billion (euro0.84 billion), according to Adams Media Research.

The Blu-ray increase is not enough to offset an expected 6 percent drop in overall spending on DVDs.

Adams says it could take two more years for Blu-ray sales to put the home video market back on a growth path.

"The group that bought $2,000 (euro1,288), 40-inch (100-centimeter) TVs are the ones that will lead the charge," said Tom Adams, founder of the research firm. "Everyone else will come along when the price comes down."

To jump-start the changeover, studios are beginning to release movies in Blu-ray with enhanced bonus features like picture-in-picture director commentary. The new bells and whistles are meant to entice consumers to plop down as much as $10 (euro6.44) extra for a Blu-ray disc compared to a standard DVD.

Blu-ray machine prices are starting to drop. Wal-Mart Stores Inc. began stocking a $298 (euro192) Magnavox model in mid-May, said spokeswoman Melissa O'Brien. That's cheaper than most alternatives but a hefty price hike from a typical $50 (euro32) DVD player.

The format also faces sales challenges that DVDs did not when they took over from VHS in the late 1990s. It doesn't save any space compared to DVD, and there's no need to replace a DVD collection even once you buy a Blu-ray player because it will play your old discs.

There also is a proliferation of direct-to-home offerings appearing on cable, satellite and the Internet that threaten to stop Blu-ray growth in its tracks. Blu-ray backers say, however, consumers prefer physical copies of movies over virtual ones, especially when some online rental services impose a time limit.

And Blu-ray's adoption curve is similar to - maybe even faster than - that of DVDs, backers say. Blu-ray players, now available for three years, cost $100 (euro64.40) less than DVD players did at a comparable point in their life cycle, said Dorinda Marticorena, a senior vice president at Warner Home Video, a unit of Time Warner Inc.

"DVD was exactly the same thing. Players were expensive and there were not many titles. Lo and behold, the awareness went up and demand went up," said Andy Parsons, chair of the association's U.S. promotion committee. "It'll happen in good time."

Blu-ray still has a long, uphill climb. Last year, more than 101 million U.S. households could play DVDs, compared to 3.7 million that could play Blu-ray discs, including those with PlayStation 3 consoles, according to Adams.

But that's double the 1.6 million DVD devices that were in U.S. households in 1998, the comparable second year they were available. By the end of 2008, 14.4 million U.S. households are expected to be Blu-ray compatible, compared to the 9.4 U.S. million households that could play DVDs in year three.

Source: Web News

Mom in Web bullying case turns grief into activism

DARDENNE PRAIRIE, Mo. - When Tina Meier's 13-year-old daughter committed suicide after being bullied on the Internet, her grief was so encompassing she felt at times she couldn't breathe. She had trouble being around loved ones who reminded her of her child. Even today, recollections of those first holidays after Megan's death are foggy at best.
But in recent months, the Missouri woman has focused on ways to protect other children from bullying, even leaving her job as a real estate agent to dedicate herself to the Megan Meier Foundation.
"Megan is still my daughter, no matter what, and I am going out there and fighting for her still because she is still my daughter," Meier said.
A group of friends and relatives helped Meier create the foundation, which seeks to educate and encourage positive changes to prevent bullying and cyberbullying. Meier and the volunteers are working to improve laws. They speak at schools and to parent groups. They hope to begin offering scholarships to children who help other children in some way.
Megan hanged herself in her closet on Oct. 16, 2006. Her tragic story became public only last fall following an article in a suburban St. Louis newspaper that prompted widespread interest in her case.
Megan had a history of attention deficit disorder and depression. Her suicide came soon after she received mean messages through the MySpace social networking Web site.
Earlier this month, a federal grand jury indicted 49-year-old Lori Drew, a neighbor of Megan and her family. She is accused of one count of conspiracy and three counts of accessing protected computers without authorization to get information used to inflict emotional distress. The charges were filed in California where MySpace is based. MySpace is a subsidiary of Beverly Hills-based Fox Interactive Media Inc., which is owned by News Corp.
Authorities have said Drew, Drew's teenage daughter and another teen took part in an online hoax, creating a fake boy named Josh Evans who befriended and flirted with Megan online. Drew allegedly wanted to know what Megan was saying about her own daughter online. Shortly before Megan's death, the comments from Josh and some other Internet users turned cruel, with "Josh" allegedly saying the world would be better without Megan.
Drew's attorney, Dean Steward, said she has been advised by her lawyers not to speak about the case. Another lawyer for Drew previously said she did not create the account and was not aware of any mean messages sent to the girl before her death.
Meier, 37, said her grief hits her in waves, and it remains difficult to talk about Megan's death. Meier's life has gone through other changes as well. She and her husband, Ron, divorced. Meier now lives in a town house not far from her old neighborhood with her 12-year-old daughter, Allison.
In an interview with The Associated Press at her home in the St. Louis suburb of Dardenne Prairie, Meier said she does not believe Drew meant to drive Megan to suicide. But, Meier said, she believes Drew "played with fire" and should receive the maximum penalty: 20 years in prison.
Meier hopes the foundation's work will allow something right to come from a wrong. She is also working with http://www.stopcyberbullying.org on its efforts to prevent online harassment. And, she's encouraging people to take the Megan Pledge, an effort asking Internet users to stop bullying.
Talking about Megan's experience to middle and high school students is something Meier said she feels she needs to do. She tells them Megan was a real girl, with real dreams, and talks to them about how taunting other children can have consequences.
The presentations can be an emotional drain that leave her feeling she's made of Jell-O, or prompt an extended crying bout. But Meier said she gets a lot out of them, especially the conversations with parents and children after she tells them Megan's story.
Some kids tell her they are having a tough time. Others have admitted bullying classmates, and say they'll try to change their ways.
"I just get my head in a different place. I just go, and I talk to them because my goal is, if there's one child I can change or help in any way, that's what I focus on," Meier said.
Friends and foundation colleagues Christine Buckles and Paul Arthur believe the foundation's work has been helpful to her.
"They say a mother is the strongest woman in the world. That's absolutely true with Tina," Arthur said.
Meier said almost all the communication she receives from the public is encouraging. But she also receives comments from those who take her to task because her daughter was on antidepressants, who criticize how she raised her child, even those who judge her for divorcing her husband.
Meier is convinced those messages come from people who don't know her and the whole story. "If I sat and listened to that every single day, and read that every single day, I wouldn't move forward," she said.
Meier believes the work of the foundation is making a difference because she hears from people who tell her so.
"I'm going to try and do the best I can do to, hopefully, know that no other family goes through this," she said.
---Web News

What can you sell in your blog?

In your website, you are able to sell whatever you want. This includes banners (125×125, 468×60….), text links, reviews, packages, ebooks, a kind of membership or anything else you want to sell. In fact, there is a plugin for wordpress called WP Auctions, which you can sell whatever you want though bids. Of course, that’s if you are using wordpress to manage your blog, but as you see, there is no restrictions to sell on your website.

Gorilla Sushi having another Contest

Anoother Fun Contest is going on at Gorilla Sushi, and you could win $100.00 so go and and get into the contest you have a chance at winning. Just follow these rules:Use the code between these lines for the image:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The rules and links are between these lines:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
To gain entries into the contest, just do any of the following:


- Make a comment of value (not just "i agree", etc.) on a post = 1 entry (remember to comment on all blogs)

- Subscribe to RSS via email = 2 entries (per blog you subscribe to!)

- Write a post about the contest on your blog (must include a link to this page and the links below to participating blogs) = 25 entries




Please note: If you are already subscribed to any of the sites below, you are already earning entries. Also, to get credit for posting about the contest, your post's link must show up in the comments below or in the comments on one of the other blogs below.



How much easier can we make it? So you can sneak in with just one entry by simply posting a comment here, you can increase your odds by reading and commenting on a few more posts here and at one of the blogs below and maybe subscribe to a couple, or you can really up the odds and subscribe to all all of our blogs (which you'll enjoy reading anyway), comment on a bunch of posts, and blog about this contest. The more entries you earn, the better your odds, of course. If you're going to post about this contest, just grab the image and code from here.


The deadline for this contest is 12:00 AM JUNE 1st, 2008.



Who wants to pay you?

- JoeTech.com

- Link Bait

- Gorilla Sushi

- CK Marketing

- The Big Bald Blog

- How 2 Blogger

- Jason Boom

- Mr Javo

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Posted by: Lilyruth

Protect your Stolen Mobile PHONE

You've synced your email, address book, and calendar to your fancy smartphone, which has internet access, photos, and videos on it, too—but how do you keep a thief from ringing up your bill, or worse, stealing your identity using your phone? Tutorial site WikiHow runs down several steps you can take to protect your phone and disable it if it's stolen, like locking the handset with a PIN code. Register your phone with your carrier so that you can disable it the moment you realize it's stolen, wikiHow recommends, and mark the phone with ultra-violet pen so you can prove it's yours.

Why to Use Images within Blog posts?

Lets face it, using images within your posts not only helps to get more visitors but it also attracts them to read your article.

Why to Use Images within Blog posts?
Images within posts serve as visual cues for your visitors. It helps them to understand what the blog post is about. Researches have shown that, most of the people(including me) view and read on the screen much different than the printed page.
Lets face it, using images within your posts not only helps to get more visitors but it also attracts them to read your article.

Why to Use Images within Blog posts?
Images within posts serve as visual cues for your visitors. It helps them to understand what the blog post is about. Researches have shown that, most of the people(including me) view and read on the screen much different than the printed page.

Get into this Contest and Win Free Domain Name

Its easy, its Fun, get in on the fun and get into this Contest and you could win a Free Domain Name.......DOTCOMBLOG.NET ...............Am Choosing (2) WINNERS -ANYONE CAN ENTER.. 1st Place Winner will win the Free Domain Name... 2nd Place Winner will win $ 5.00 via PayPal into their PayPal account...Contest ends June 20th.. Im choosing TWO WINNERS This is What you can do to Earn Entries:

Blog about the Contest (5 Entries)

Add me onto your technorati favorites(3 Entries)
Subscribe to my RSS Feed (5 Entries)

Leave a Comment (1 Entry)

Winner is chosen through Pick of a hat... so the more entries you have the more your name will be in the Hat...

Sites that Save You Money

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Microsoft Offers Cash To Use Its Search Engine

Microsoft plans to entice advertisers and users of its search engine with savings on online purchases on a site called Live Search cashback.

Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) unveiled plans Wednesday to entice advertisers and users of its search engine with cash-back savings on online purchases, launching a site called Live Search cashback.
The new site is ostensibly a product search site, but any of the products found by using Live Search cashback can be bought for a certain percentage off even the cheapest price that comes up from a variety of stores participating in the promotion. Advertisers, meanwhile, will only pay per purchase, not per click.


More Internet InsightsWhite PapersBuilding an Online Customer Experience Competency: Five Steps The 9 Noble Truths of Custom Experience: Website Wisdom for Everyone in the Organization Pro Football Team Improves Connection With Fans Through New Social Networking Site Microsoft has been looking for ways to increase its share of the Web search and advertising market dominated by Google. It recently backed out of a $40-billion-plus acquisition bid for Yahoo, though talks are reported to be underway to buy or partner with Yahoo's search and Web advertising businesses. Top Microsoft search and ad exec Satya Nadella is expected to lay out Live Search cashback and other Microsoft search plans later on Wednesday at Microsoft's annual advertiser conference.
Live Search cashback is based on Jellyfish Cash Back, a technology Microsoft bought last year. Another Jellyfish service, Smack Shopping, features sales of items that decrease in price over time until stock runs out. Past deals included 36.5% off an iPod Nano, for example.

On Live Search cashback, a Canon (NYSE: CAJ) PowerShot A470 Digital Camera is available on the site from $109.50 to $147.86 from 22 different online stores, including large retailers, and Microsoft is offering cash back of anywhere from 2% to 11.5% off those prices, depending on the store. There are deals for a wide variety of products: one gives 10%, or $999, back from the purchase of a $9,999 2.15 carat diamond engagement ring.

To get cash refunds, users first have to sign up for the service, which requires a Microsoft Windows Live ID. Users will also be asked for address, e-mail, and phone number information, which appears mandatory in order to receive cash back. Only U.S. residents are currently eligible.

This isn't the first time Microsoft has rewarded people using its search engine. Last year, Microsoft rewarded users for playing search games with a site called Live Search Club. That initiative provided a temporary boost in Microsoft's search market share, but was later found to have been gamed by hackers looking to increase their awards.


Source: Web News

Make money online Fast $ 45.00 just for signing up

Several of you asked me to post some more money making deals and here is another one that you can make money online right away as soon as you sign up you are making money. Make Money Online with MoreNiche.com This program right out of the gate will earn you $45 dollars for signing up and also pay $20 dollars per person you refer into their program. So, there is a huge incentive to join and invite your friends. The program itself appears to be great. They have tons of products, such as Aloeride, Wasspoker, Proactol, etc. that you can promote and market on your site. Some will pay you up to $300 in commission. It sounds to good to be true? But it is so go and check it out for yourself now and start earning some money today. Click on this Link http://track.moreniche.com/hit.php?id=4539&w=115744&s=44

Codes for Home, Generators, Drop down menu

home » generators » drop down menu
You can find these generators at Javascript Internet .Com and also at Basix.Com Check out these easy to make Drop -down menus. You can always use them on your blogs.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dropdown Menu Generator
Simply select the options you would like in your pulldown menu, enter the text and URL for each listing, and click the button to generate the source code. Easy! And, we can even mail the generated code to you!

Load selected page immediately
Use button
Use image button (url=)

Pulldown Menu Entries:
Text Shown Link URL

DOTBLOGGER
Cut and paste the code above, or ...

... we'll send the generated code to you!


(just click "Send it!" once!)

Bloggers Make Money Online Fast and Easy

Earn cash by writing honest reviews about our advertiser's products and services.
Write reviews in your own tone and style, and gear them to your audience's interest. This is the qickest, fastest, way to make money online and have fun doing it. You also have six to seven days to think about what you want to write and then turn it in. There's alot of buzz going around how this is just the thing for mom's who want to work from home.