Help Kids Write Short Stories With Short-Stories-Help-Children.com
Short-Stories-Help-Children.com provides a welcome twist to parenting and enables kids to publish stories and solicit comments. Originally launched in December of 2006, the site aims to cut through much of the tedium of learning from the parenting professionals. 

Short-Stories-Help-Children.com is a light-hearted, refreshing look into parenting for those moms and dads struggling with their first gradeschoolers. It deals with raising kids in today's complex world of marketing hype, peer pressure and behavioural issues. 

The site provides commentary about educational methods, literacy in its various forms, learning disorders, distractions that hurt productivity, discipline and violence in schools to name a few. The site also invites parents to share their experiences. Basic concepts are clarified by the analogy of writing short stories to show parents how to focus a child's attention and efforts...click to read more

TVGuide.com Launches Advanced Video Search Engine
TV Guide, who provides the web's only video search engine for professionally produced video content, is now offering advanced video search functionality via their Online Video Guide.   TV Guide's video search engine includes movie trailers, complete TV show episodes, news clips, previews and programs across all genres and networks.  Using the new advanced video search capabilities, you can search professionally produced video by genre, network, date, clip, full episode and more.  For example, using the advanced video search for the phrase "American Idol", and limiting the search just to network and cable news sources, the results bring back a manageable and useful set of 48 video matches. Try a similar search at a general search engine where you can't limit searches by genre, network, or quality, and you'd have to scan through millions of off-topic results. Also offering the ability to browse by category, celebrity, program and popularity, TV Guide's Online Video Guide and search engine is a fast, simple way to search for professional entertainment video online...click to read more

Noted Jazz Author Ted Gioia Launches Jazz.com With 3,000 Pages of Unique Jazz Content
Jazz.com recently announced the launch of its website at www.jazz.com  -- a comprehensive jazz portal with thousands of pages of reviews, interviews, features, discographies and photos.  A team of more than thirty writers, photographers and artists has been working for almost two years in preparation for this launch.  Under the direction of Ted Gioia, author of The History of Jazz and West Coast Jazz, this team has prepared more than 1,000 new reviews, a comprehensive jazz encyclopedia, and other exciting content of interest to the global jazz community. Key features of the site include... • The largest collection of track reviews – focusing on individual songs, not entire CDs – available anywhere.  This unique resource provides in-depth assessment, rankings and recording details for a comprehensive range of tracks, covering the full history of the music from its New Orleans origins to the present day  • New reviews published every day.  All reviews come with links for purchase or downloading  • The Jazz.com Jazz Blog, updated daily and covering the latest and greatest happenings in the jazz world • Interviews with leading figures in the jazz world, including Billy Taylor, Manfred Eicher, Ron Carter, Maria Schneider, Stefon Harris and others  • Visual Jazz galleries featuring the work of the greatest jazz photographers and artists, including Ray Avery, Herb Snitzer, Michael Symonds, Jos Knaepen and Suzanne Cerny • The Dozens:  a regular column in which jazz.com selects twelve must-have tracks...click to read more

AutoPartsPlace.com Accelerates Auto Parts Search Process With New Catalog
Auto Parts Place, an industry-leading auto parts supplier, has announced the launch of an enhanced online catalog and online support tool designed to fast track the process of searching for and buying auto parts. “Our revamped online catalog makes it easier for car enthusiasts to find exactly what they're looking for, quickly and effortlessly,” stated Nicholas Campbell, VP of Operations for Auto Parts Place. “With millions of domestic and import auto parts in stock, our new site better connects our customers with the products and information they need in an instant.” According to Campbell, the new online catalog improves the auto parts sites search functionality tenfold. In addition to being able to search by year, make and model, visitors to the Auto Parts Place website can now browse specific categories such as brakes, carburetion, exhaust, and fuel injection to name a few, shortening the buying process even further. Fans of fast cars will no doubt appreciate the boosted speed that the new search function offers and those who value design will equally enjoy the new, modern look of the site. Campbell notes that the addition of the new catalog is just part of a series of recent upgrades to AutoPartsPlace.com that will make buying auto parts a convenient and painless process. To enhance customer service even further, Auto Parts Place has installed an online support feature on the main page of its website, adding a human element to the ultra modern shopping experience. Customers can now get instant help from live customer service representatives by...click to read more

ClikitySplit.com Launches Web’s First Visual Marketing Search Engine
ClikitySplit.com this week officially launched what they call the web’s first visual, rich multimedia, dynamic, marketing and search engine.  Consumers worldwide can quickly, visually, and geographically locate and research desired points of interest on interactive maps via plotted dot icons and dynamic billboards. Search engines presently vertically list search results on statically formatted pages.  Consumers typically only view search results listed on the first page and waste time looking at outdated information.  To find search results in different categories (e.g. restaurants near their hotel) they have to start a new search.  Such is a time consuming and frustrating user experience. Recognizing the need for more efficient search, ClikitySplit has enabled consumers to prioritize and select search results geographically, eliminated paginating of search results, and freed valuable time to gain relative, real time, decision-influencing information.  ClikitySplit’s relevant search results are shown visually, simultaneously, and quickly since there is no refreshing of the map. The dynamic billboards accessed by mousing over the plotted dot icons give consumers both the location of, and up-to-the-minute information about, a selected point of interest. Restaurants and hotels are ClikitySplit’s first area of high traffic concentration.  Consumers can locate their desired point of interest, zoom in the interactive map, and receive dynamic information (e.g. special hot offers, menus, etc.) via ClikitySpkit’s proprietary “dynamic billboards” which contain photo slideshows, video, audio, and up to 10,000 characters of text.  Consumers can, quickly and easily, comparison shop by searching geographic areas and find last minute bargains, promotions, and other critical information.  They can further filter their search by using the chain, price, and type of cuisine sorting features...click to read more

Share Candid Wedding Camera Photos Online With iTheeSnap.com
Founded in 2007, iTheeSnap.com brings innovation and ease-of-use to the disposable wedding photography market, including online ordering of premium FujiFilm cameras, film development, negatives, prints, photo DVD, free shipping and online photo sharing. We’ve all been to a wedding reception, grabbed a disposable camera at our table, and captured a moment we know the bride and groom will appreciate. Perhaps it was a bouquet toss, a laugh, or the joyous reunion of family and friends who’ve come together to celebrate a marriage.  But what happens to all those moments afterwards? They disappear into albums and shoeboxes, seen only by the newlyweds. In time, the wedding is defined by the formal poses snapped by a hired photographer – and all of those great candid moments are forgotten. It’s been like this ever since the advent of disposable wedding cameras. Even with the advent of social networking and web 2.0 interactivity, no one has come up with a simple and practical solution that allows wedding guests to revisit a wedding and view the moments they’ve photographed. Few newlyweds are up to the arduous task of scanning the negatives from their disposable cameras, let alone creating a way to share those digitized photos with their many guests. iTheeSnap.com, provider of complete wedding camera solutions, has the answer. iTheeSnap.com has been listening to customer requests and adding features that improve and simplify candid wedding photography. With the launch of web albums, iTheeSnap.com now automatically scans, uploads and creates a secure web album that allows full photo-sharing access for wedding attendees...click to read more

December 14 through January 1, 2008: URLwire.com offline for holidays

BrilliantEarth.com Conflict Free Diamond Jewelry Site Appeals to Socially Conscious 
Brilliant Earth is a refreshing e-commerce company celebrating natural beauty and environmental and social consciousness. When Brilliant Earth co-founder Beth Gerstein got engaged in 2003, she was hard pressed to find a jeweler who knew what a conflict diamond was, let alone someone who could guarantee their diamonds came from a source that does not perpetuate civil war, child labor, and environmental harm. The BrilliantEarth.com website is the perfect balance of luxury with socially and eco-conscious. The values of the company are embodied through the aesthetic  and content of the website. The site is often commended because it is informative and easy to use with a breadth of functionality (diamond search, create your own ring, etc.).  Although the experience of buying an engagement ring can be daunting, the Brilliant Earth website creates a feel good, stress-free experience. The Brilliant Earth website provides a trusted source of conflict free diamonds, and appeals to socially and environmentally conscious individuals who desire a conflict free diamond or want to understand more about the issues surrounding conflict diamonds. Ms. Gerstein commented about the site, "BrilliantEarth.com was founded to provide consumers with an eco and socially conscious alternative to harmful diamond industry practices. Our company offers conflict free diamonds from Canada that allow customers to enjoy stunning jewelry without compromising their values...click to read more

Faxrecoverysystems.com Site Helps Stop Unsolicited Junk Faxes
Fax blasters have long been known to send illegal junk faxes to businesses and homeowners.  Fax Recovery Systems tackles these unwanted intrusions head on, and can recover money for the unwilling fax recipient. The federal Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991 (TCPA) prohibits the sending of unsolicited facsimile advertisements (i.e. junk faxes) to businesses or residential fax machines unless a "business relationship" with the company on whose behalf the fax was sent already exists.
According to Joel Nussenblatt, president of Fax Recovery Systems, the rise of other communications systems such as email blasts has not eliminated the daily imposition of unwanted faxes.  “This is an insidious form of advertising where the receiver is paying for the advertisement, through his paper, his ink or toner, and tying up his phone lines,” he said.  “As unpleasant as email blasts can be, there is no expense involved in deleting the message, but this is not the case with faxes.” Nussenblatt added that the constant calls from fax blasters are also an invasion of privacy. Fax Recovery Systems seeks out law firms across the country specializing in TCPA law to help stem the flow of unsolicited faxes.  The company receives copies of the unwanted faxes, researches their origin and may refer them to law firms. These law firms go after the senders of the junk faxes for violations of the TCPA law.  Their mission is to “take the profit out of the activity.”  Fax Recovery Systems clients can recover up to $50 from settlements made by the law firms for the junk faxes that they send to them. “People do have rights when it comes to unwanted faxes – the TCPA has made that clear,” added Nussenblatt.  “We understand the law, and...click to read more

WhitehouseCountdown.com and Sha Na Na Launch "Vote For Me"
Animation Satirizing 2008 Presidential Campaign
When the animators at WhitehouseCountdown.com decided to create an animation that cast a comic light on the dizzying array of potential presidential candidates, they knew they wanted it to have a rich, engaging soundtrack.  “We’re not songwriters,” said creative director, Diego Velez, “but we felt that the right music would really make our animation come alive.”  It was during one of their initial brainstorming sessions that a team member remembered a rock song he had heard years ago when Nixon was president. “With one simple word change the song became as relevant to 2008 as it was to the seventies.  When I heard it, I knew we had found our soundtrack,” added company president, Bill Newell. Tracking down the song’s composer, Sha Na Na’s managing partner, was relatively simple and he was delighted to get on board.  “We have always combined good music with good humor and I thought this was a great use of our song,” said Screamin’ Scott Simon. “The irony that something we recorded in response to the political malaise of the seventies is equally relevant today, is both funny and somewhat unsettling.  We love the animation and couldn’t stop laughing when we saw the final cut!” The animation can be seen on You Tube as well as on www.whitehousecountdown.com...click to read more

Rentalo.com Launches SmartSearch Vacation Rental Home Search Tool
Rentalo.com has launched it’s new SmartSearch tool to enhance the internet’s most user-friendly, and largest vacation rental Web site, beginning the next revolution of online travel. Designed to take the frustration out of searching many, often hundreds of vacation rental listings, SmartSearch makes it faster and easier for users to find  the right accommodation and property. Rentalo.com overhauled its entire search interface to let users narrow down its extensive vacation rental property inventory to a short list of lodging alternatives.  Travelers can now refine and filter their rental accommodation search by nightly budget—something no other vacation rental site offers—and  specify property types such as vacation rental homes, hotels or bed and breakfasts. SmartSearch  also allows travelers to inquire about multiple vacation rental properties, immediately and simultaneously, thereby saving time when comparing lodging alternatives. The result of the SmartSearch overhaul is the new Rentalo.com, where travelers can now visit a single place to discover more than 200,000 vacation rental listings in 15000 destinations worldwide. Rentalo.com is the place to find the best vacation rentals, including...click to read more

Luxury Retreats and AAA Launch Showcase for Villas in Italy
Luxury Retreats, a world leader in luxury villa rentals with over 1,300 properties across the globe, is announcing the launch of a new website devoted solely to its private homes, farmhouses and villas in Italy. Guest favorites like Tuscany, Umbria and the Amalfi Coast will be showcased, as well as some lesser-known but beautiful regions like Emilia Romagna and Liguria. Italian Villas by Luxury Retreats is a joint offering with the American Automobile Association's (AAA) Home & Villas Program.  "When we thought about setting up an offshoot of our main website, Italy was the first place that came to mind," said Ben Tuff, Luxury Retreats' Director of Marketing. "There is so much variety in just this one country that we wanted to show off." Italian holiday villas are extremely popular due to the authenticity factor – when you stay here for a week or two, it's easy to feel like a real Italian. Many of Luxury Retreats' villas in Italy are farmhouses a few centuries old, updated and renovated with modern amenities. The environment is leisurely, perfect for family vacations where all you want to do is hang out together. "When you're looking out from your patio to vineyards in Tuscany...click to read more

Lovethebook.com Launches News and Reviews Site for Book Lovers
Do you love to browse for books? Are you offended by unsightly web sites that are cluttered with advertisements and inappropriate recommendations?  Are you interested in non-mainstream views and progressive politics? Welcome to lovethebook.com: The book lover's site for books. Lovethebook.com award listings are unparalleled in their breadth and depth, with an ever growing list of book awards categorized by genre, year and age. Over 250 book awards are currently included together with nearly 8500 award winning books with full details including book jacket, description, reviews and price if available for purchase.  You can easily spend a pleasant hour (or two) perusing these lists, just as you might wander through a library or a bookstore. What's the latest news in book and literary awards? Find out by reading the lovethebook.com book awards news page or subscribe to the dedicated rss feed for book awards and news. While many online bookstores present the same authors—bestsellers, book-club picks, celebrity tomes—lovethebook.com spotlights books you might not see elsewhere. Lovethebook.com has broad listings of both small, alternative and independent press books, and university press books.  Designed for browsing pleasure, they feature select small press and university press books. Publishers, authors and readers are invited to suggest candidates.  The latest news in books and authors can be found on the lovethebook.com book notes and book news...click to read more

Merriam-Webster Unveils Visual Dictionary Online
Merriam-Webster and QA International joined forces to introduce a new component to illustrated references on the Web: the Visual Dictionary Online (www.visualdictionaryonline.com).  Visitors to the new site may either search ideas within organized subject fields to quickly locate more than 20,000 terms with full definitions or consult more than 6,000 stunning illustrations of a wide variety of objects from all aspects of life. Navigating Merriam-Webster’s Visual Dictionary Online is effortless and a great deal of fun. 15 major themes offer a variety of engaging, browsable topics. Students can search for illustrated science topics like nuclear fission, anatomy of a frog, and plant cell. Train buffs can scroll through the rail transport section. Homeowners can follow the plumbing system or browse the do-it-yourself section. Or, users can type a term like narwhal into the easy index search box to zero in on an illustration of the marine creature with a spiraled, ten-foot tusk. “Following the success of last year’s Merriam-Webster’s Visual Dictionary”, said John M. Morse, Publisher and President of Merriam-Webster, Inc., “we’re thrilled to extend our relationship with QA International and to broaden our reach with the launch of the online version. QA shares our company’s dedication to quality and excellence, and was the perfect choice to partner with on a project with the scope and magnitude of the Visual Dictionary Online.” “The collaboration with Merriam-Webster has helped add an exciting new dimension to our state-of-the-art graphic images,” said Caroline Fortin, Publisher and Vice-President of QA International. “The result is a unique visual experience that goes beyond object-identification to answer questions about function, significance, and purpose.” Additional features include a Game of the Week, played by...click to read more

Saletastic.com Launches AJAX Coupon Widget
Saletastic.com, the Internet's leading consumer deals and coupons aggregation site, announces the launch of a cross browser AJAX Coupon Widget, just in time for the holiday shopping season.  The AJAX Coupon Widget enables shoppers to quickly and efficiently lookup coupons and promotions from their favorite online stores, while experiencing an integrated and interactive Rich Client Interface.  With hundreds of online retailers and thousands of coupons and promotions, it's difficult for shoppers to keep up with the ongoing promotions.  They have to constantly check the website or use search engines to find coupons.  The AJAX Coupon Widget will change that by providing an integrated interface that will help shoppers stay up to date with current deals and coupons from their favorite online...click to read more
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.NPR Teams With Member Stations to Launch NPR Music Site
From rock to jazz…classical to urban…folk to world…NPR and NPR Member public radio stations, on-air and online, have been leaders in music discovery and arbiters of musical tastes and artists. NPR and 12 NPR Member stations recognized for music programming have launched NPR Music, a new, free, comprehensive multimedia music discovery Web site. Featuring on-air and online content aggregated from NPR and the participating stations as well as original-to-NPR Music materials such as interviews, reviews, blogs and live performances, www.NPR.org/music permits users to explore, experience and enjoy all the music genres that are found on public radio. NPR Music is a collaboration between NPR and KEXP and KPLU Seattle; KUT Austin; WBGO Newark; WDUQ Pittsburgh; WFUV and WNYC New York; WGBH Boston; WGUC Cincinnati; WKSU/Folk Alley Kent, Ohio; WXPN Philadelphia; and American Public Media/Minnesota Public Radio. All partners will provide content including live concerts, studio sessions, features and reviews. NPR Music also links to the live broadcast music streams of all participating stations. Additional stations and producers will join in the coming months.  Specific sections of the site are dedicated to rock/pop/folk, classical, jazz/blues, world and urban music. In each genre, program...click to read more

Barcode Label Yourself With Adazon’s Free Online Barcode Labels
Barcodes are showing up everywhere today whether it is a product on the shelf in a store or being printed on a shipping label leaving your company's warehouse.  With Adazon’s label capabilities, they are taking it a step further by barcoding people.  This barcode is not placed on the skin, but on apparel and accessories. With this new tool, Adazon enables customers to create a barcode of any word, name, number, or phrase and put that barcode on a hat, shirt, mug, mouse pad or even a baby bib. Just think, you can actually barcode your baby!  This could be a fun way to identify employees, children (if you have more than 2 or 3), or students. It is just a fun way to play with barcodes. Click http://www.adazonusa.com/barcode_generator.php and try it yourself. Adazon provides the opportunity to remove their logo or keep it to show your friends where you made the barcode. The barcode creator allows the customer to use different symbologies and to change the size of the barcode. The human readable description of the barcode can be shown or hidden if you only want to see the barcode image.  Just right click on the image and save it to your computer for free.  Adazon specializes in custom barcode labels, barcode equipment and preprinted and prime product labels...click to read more

HiddenCameraSpecialists.com Offers Parents Peace of Mind with Nanny Cams
HiddenCameraSpecialists.com offers parents a means of validating their nanny’s behavior when left alone with their most prized possessions.  Even after locating a high quality nanny service and ordering a full line of background checks, it can still be difficult to feel completely confident in the nanny you have selected.  That's why purchasing a hidden camera to record the day’s events can prove to be the best method of obtaining the peace of mind that is so desired. HiddenCameraSpecialists.com offers a wide variety of nanny cams and hidden cameras to protect and secure your family and your valuables.  Tiny pinhole cameras are inserted in various household or commercial type products and blend perfectly into their surroundings.  These cameras are so well disguised that the naked eye will never detect or suspect that their actions are being observed and recorded. Most nanny cams are very similar in technical specifications so choose the object that the camera is placed in that best fits the environment in which it will be used.  Be careful to pick a wired camera only if the object that was selected would utilize wires naturally.  In addition, when reviewing the options remember that the wired and black and white cameras are usually less expensive than their wireless and color counterparts, but may not provide full camouflage or display the fine details. In addition to nanny cams...click to read more

Asbestos.net Relaunches Web's Most In-Depth Asbestos Information Library
When the publishers of the web site Asbestos.net set out to re-create the site after nearly 10 years online, they had one goal in mind – to create the single most comprehensive resource on the Internet, or perhaps in any form, on the topic of asbestos and the effects that it can have on the lives of people in the United States or around the world. And after extensive research, consultation, writing, editing, and coding, that goal has been accomplished: Asbestos.net is currently the most in-depth source of information on asbestos available - anywhere. Trusted Content - The purpose of Asbestos.net is to provide the most complete and comprehensive single resource on asbestos-related issues available on the Internet. This website has been created by a dedicated team of researchers in the fields of law, medicine, history, journalism, industrial science and safety, chemistry and geology over the course of several months.The problem and frustration that many encounter when searching for asbestos-related information on the World Wide Web--whether one is looking for legal, medical, scientific or historical information--is that invariably, one must wade through thousands of ads from law firms who are clamoring for asbestos clients. Legal issues are definitely a large part of what is happening with asbestos matters today, but there is much more to the picture. Asbestos is perhaps best described as the 'devil's rock' – a compound so strong that it can withstand the fires of hell, and so deadly that it can kill a person in a matter of months. Made up of a variety of different minerals, asbestos has been used since ancient times in many different shapes and forms, from table cloths that could be 'burned' clean, to wicks in candles, and many other uses. And while there were varied reports throughout time of illnesses caused by the mineral, it wasn't until the late 19th and early 20th century that the true dangers of asbestos became known – Asbestos causes cancer, in most cases a rare form known as Mesothelioma...click to read more

MLS Service Launched For Costa Rica Real Estate and Investments
Costa Rica Consultants, one of the country’s premier real estate firms, today announced the launching of the most comprehensive on-line catalog listing of Costa Rica Real Estate and investment opportunities available in an effort to simplify property purchases and investment opportunities for prospective buyers and speculators. "This on-line property catalog lets potential buyers and investors view the information in their own home, in their own privacy, on their own time and on just one website," said David Patey, president and chief executive officer of Costa Rica Consultants. "Then instead of contacting several real estate companies in Costa Rica for information and showings, the buyer works with one company. This is huge for the buyer and/or investor in saving time and resources.” The Multiple Listing Service (MLS) style on-line catalog encompasses all types of properties including homes, condos, farms, land, rentals, and lots in Costa Rica and will be available on both websites -- www.costaricaconsultants.com  and www.propertycostarica.com.  This will allow interested buyers and investors the opportunity to access the information from more than one source....click to read more

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