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Are My Kids Too Young to see the Harry Potter Deathly Hallows Movie?
Categorized in: Grade School Mom
At home my kids have read the Harry Potter books so my 11-year-old son definitely wants to see the The Deathly Hallows Movie (part one) coming out this week. My seven-year-old daughter (who will be eight next month) also says she wants to see the latest Harry Potter film. My main concern is that the film may be too scary for her... and borderline scary for him. When my daughter finished books one through three, she decided to "take a break" and switch to something else. I suspect this was because the books were becoming a bit dark for her. Just the same, she hears all the buzz about the new Harry film and wants to see what it's all about. My son, on the other hand, plowed through all seven books and enjoyed every moment. He read the Harry Potter books in 5th grade and I think it was the perfect age to dive into this series, at least for him.
This brings me to the films and the question I raised. Remember, when Hogwarts was all in the imagination of the reader, no two versions were quite alike, and each new reader who entered Rowling's world of wizardry could make the story that suited their tastes. That all changed when the movie versions were produced. Moviemakers leave nothing to the imagination and they need to draw an audience to see the films. How exactly does that house on Grimmauld Place make itself visible? What does Diagon Alley look like? How about Dumbledore's office? And what do Harry, Ron, and Hermione really look like? Now we know; or, at least, we've been handed a pre-packaged version that most people connect to the books. Nothing is left to the imagination.
Here is the preview of The Deathly Hallows Movie (part one). Share your thoughts about when it is (or isn't) appropriate to see the movie version of a cherished book.
Finding the Right Books for My Child's Reading Level
Categorized in: Books | Grade School Mom
Each fall my kids start a new reading log for school. The teacher usually gives her students a lot of freedom to pick their books as long as the titles are at the appropriate reading level. Many parents (me included) are confused by all the leveling systems and would not know how to find a level Q book if their life depended on it. So what's a mom to do? Well, I learned about the Teacher Book Wizard from my daughter's first grade teacher and have been a fan ever since. Don't be fooled by the name, parents can use the Wizard too.
The Book Wizard will help parents find:
- Book and author information
- Reading levels
- Book-based lesson plans, booktalks and discussion guides
- Series lists
There is even a little widget you can add to your personal or school blog that let's you search on the spot: http://www.scholastic.com/tbwwidget/
The Magic School Bus is Back in Action!
Categorized in: Grade School Mom
Today's younger parents may remember The Magic School Bus from their own TV watching days, or from their younger siblings' love of the series. This show has really stood the test of time, entertaining and educating children (and their parents) more than a decade after its TV premier. If you are not familiar with the The Magic School Bus, it is an award-winning television series that was based on the children's books of the same name by former elementary school teacher and librarian, Joanna Cole. The show originally aired from 1994 to 1997 on PBS and was the first fully animated series on PBS Kids.
This fall television series is being introduced to a new generation of viewers on Qubo. While it's geared towards children between the ages of five and eight, younger children are sure to enjoy the scientific adventures lead by Mrs. Frizzle, the children's eccentric teacher. The Magic School Bus teaches children to love science and launches them on an exciting exploration of the world around them.
The episodes are well-written, teaching important facts while taking children on imaginative adventures that would be impossible in real life. Kids agree that Magic School Bus is "funny" and they "learn stuff" when watching. The Magic School Bus website also has a lot of fun activities. Lily Tomlin speaks the role of Mrs. Frizzle and introduces her students to science with a fun factor and is often heard saying, "Take chances, make mistakes, and get messy!" The Magic School Bus takes children on fantastic "field trips" into the middle of a volcano or even inside the human body.
My son was given his first Magic School Bus books as a preschooler. We discovered the DVDs while he was in Kindergarten. He was a budding scientist the show (and the books) were an early favorite. The website has recently been redesigned to entertain new fans of the Magic School Bus. Hop on board and enjoy the ride at www.scholastic.com/magicschoolbus.
New Scholastic Summer Reading World Record
Categorized in: Grade School Mom
The Scholastic Summer Reading Challenge is officially
over and we have set a new Scholastic World Record!
The Summer Reading program logged a total of 52,710,368 minutes by over 110,800 users from every state in the United States and 120 different countries. Kids around the world worked together, reading and logging minutes to officially break the Scholastic Reading World Record of 35,846,094 minutes, which was set in 2009. Check back to the Summer Challenge site on September 10th to see the final results. Great reading!
A Reading Record is at Stake!
Categorized in: Grade School Mom
Looking for ways to keep your kids on track this summer? Check out Summer Reading Challenge for some fun activities that will keep your kids tuned in to reading this summer! The Summer Reading Challenge can help kids to find books they want to read, play games, connect with other kids who want to talk about their favorite books. The Challenge is set to break the Reading World Record... but we need your kids to help!
It's All About the Potty
Categorized in: Guest Bloggers | Toddler Mom
I have been known to take the stance of "ignore it and maybe it will fix itself." For some reason, I feel like this has worked, but the two instances that come to mind where I applied this technique did not turn out as planned. Those would be when the dishwasher started retaining water with each cycle and when we potty trained.
Or rather, when we didn't potty train. I kept hoping some magical spell would occur overnight and poof our 3 year old would suddenly be diaper free. It didn't happen that way. In fact, it took our wonderful and kind preschool teacher giving a gentle nudge during parent teacher conferences to finally go cold turkey on the nappies.
As you well know we parents spend a lot of time dealing with poopy in one way or another. Without being crass, I feel like we all share common memories of our children's poopy life. There's the one that squirts all the way across the room when they're infants. There's the one that blows out the leg of the diaper. This is how it goes. And it's so important that our kids are able to comfortably and effectively poop, especially when they're suddenly sitting on the potty themselves waiting for something to happen. Enter our wonderful friend, fiber.
We know we need to get enough fiber through a variety of healthy foods and supplements. Try explaining that to a 3 year old who only wants to eat foods that are white to beige in hue. One day it may be all you can do to serve up a popsicle and call it a fruit. We do the best we can. Right?
I do have two suggestions for kid-friendly healthy fiber: crispy kale chips and fiber gummies.
Crispy Kale Chips
- Rinse a head of curly kale.
- Remove the leaves from the stalk and tear them into bite-sized pieces.
- Arrange in a single layer on a cookie sheet and blot dry with paper towel or clean tea towel.
- Douse with olive oil and mix to coat with your hands. (Moisturizing!)
- Sprinkle liberally with kosher or sea salt.
- Pop in a 350 degree oven for 15-25 minutes.
- Stir around a bit, turn the oven off and leave in the oven for an additional 20-60 minutes (this extra time crisps it up even more, but keeps it from over cooking).
The ideal is crisp, deep jade green, extremely munchable chips. My daughter loves these… on some days. You know how it is. But, she's always ready for a gummy.
I'm happy to say we've successfully left the diapers behind us and have made friends with the potty. And we did get the dishwasher fixed, but it took a while.
Looking Into the Lunchbox
Categorized in: Guest Bloggers | Toddler Mom
Let me be perfectly clear on this one topic: I am not a lover of change. I get nervous, worried, twitchy, even when my rational mind knows everything will be okay. Case in point: making lunch for my preschooler. In the grand scheme of things, this is not a big deal. But now near the end of the school year looking back on the beginning of the school year, I will tell you this particular topic caused me considerable angst.
The daycare where Hazel happily played and grew from the tender age of 3 months to the big girl age of 3 years provided breakfast, lunch, and snacks -- amazing! When it came time for Hazel's switch over to preschool I had lots of concerns for her: about how she would handle the new teachers and classmates, new routines, and new settings. But she is a resilient and brave girl and she did just fine.
My main worry for myself, I admit to you now, was what in the world I would pack in her lunch box every day. I was baffled. As a full time working mom, I just barely have the time and energy to get family dinner together every night. Now I would have to add another meal prep after that? Was this humanly possible?
I'm thrilled to say it was. For me the absolute key to this process was to break lunch down into groups with options for each. At the start of the year I'd consult a written list and even jot down lunches in a notebook to make sure I was keeping things varied.
If your child's lunch box is looking cavernous or you just need some new options, here's how I do it:
Pick one from each category:
- Leftovers from last night's dinner
- Half a PB&J or other sandwich
Dairy (I sometimes double up here and forgo the main):
- Yogurt
- Cottage cheese
- Cheese stick
Fruit or veg:
- Apple Slices
- Edamame
- 1/2 banana
- Broccoli spears
- Fruit Bar
- Crackers
- Brown rice cake
- Milk
- Juice
As all moms know, providing healthy, wholesome, varied, and well-received food for our kids ranks way up there on the list of essential parenting. From the day we brought baby Hazel home from the hospital, I have been awed by how big a role nutrition plays in the whole parenting experience. It's in my top three along with keeping her safe and showing her love. I'm proud to have cracked the code on the lunch box mystery. I'm intimidated no longer.
Next stop? PreK, here we come!
Canine Sibling Rivalry
Categorized in: Librarian Mom
One of my colleagues recently became a grandmother! I asked her yesterday how the new family was doing, and she said that the parents and baby are fine, happy, healthy...but the family dog is perturbed. I said, "There should be a new-baby-in-the-house book for dogs!" and we both laughed for a minute and then simultaneously remembered that there actually is such a book: Madeleine L'Engle's The Other Dog, in which Touche the Poodle catalogs the ways in which the new "dog" that her people have brought home is utterly inferior to her own charming self. Touche is particularly scornful of the diaper-changing that she witnesses, noting sniffily that "White cloths or no, I would never do it in the house," but eventually admits that "in spite of myself...I am getting very fond of our other dog."
L'Engle's book isn't the only one where a dog has to adjust to a tiny, screamy, attention-monopolizing intruder. As it turns out, there is a whole mini-genre on the topic. In McDuff and the Baby, by Rosemary Wells and Susan Jeffers, the scrappy little Westie, who first appeared as a stray rescued by Fred and Lucy in McDuff Moves In, faces disruption in his cozy retro household. With the arrival of the baby, Fred and Lucy no longer read the comics to McDuff, or take him for walks, and he can't hear the radio over the baby's crying. He retaliates, in charmingly understated fashion, by glowering at the baby (which no one notices), and then by refusing his food, which does get Fred and Lucy's attention. When they make an effort to include McDuff, he and the baby begin to enjoy each other's company, and the book ends with the two exchanging convivial "woof"s.
In Truelove, by Babbette Cole, the displaced hero is so demoralized by the change in the household that, after all his gifts and advances are ignored, and the love song he sings (or howls) for the baby gets him kicked out to the porch for being too loud, he runs away and joins a pack of homeless dogs and has to be rescued from the pound. The fact that this story is told mostly in the pictures, while the text is a series of cliched sayings about love ( like "Love gives you strength" and "Love makes your heart sing," ) makes it all the more poignant.
Any of these would be a great present for a family with a new baby and a beloved dog...or a beloved older sibling, who might be able to relate!
Inch By Inch, Row By Row: Some Books About Gardening
Categorized in: Librarian Mom
I am a city girl by nature and have come late to gardening, but this year I have finally gotten a patch of ground weeded, have obtained some good soil for it, and just two days ago, with my daughter's sporadic help, planted my first crop of peas and lettuce, two vegetables that I have been assured are EASY to grow. I sure hope so.
Before this spring, my gardening experience was primarily literary. The first garden-related thing I bought-- last year, even--was a packet of carrot seeds. I had a strong conviction that carrots were a guaranteed, rewarding thing to grow in a garden. I think I was strongly influenced by The Carrot Seed, Ruth Krauss and Crockett Johnson's classic tale of a little boy whose perseverence in tending to his single carrot-seed garden pays off with a gargantuan carrot that astonishes his heretofore-doubting family. But then a friend told me that carrots can be tough to grow in this climate, and since my primary goal this year is to start a garden that actually bears produce so as to encourage myself to continue, I thought I'd wait, at least until after the frost date.
So, peas and lettuce it was. We went out and planted them on Tuesday evening, and on Wednesday morning, despite knowing intellectually that the seeds will take a couple of weeks to sprout, I woke up wondering if they might have come up yet. And if not: why not? And when?? Just like Toad in "The Garden," (which can be found in the book Frog and Toad Together,) I wanted to run out to the garden and command them: "Now seeds, start growing!"
So many gardening books--like Paul Fleischman's Seedfolks, or that classic of all gardening novels, The Secret Garden--are about how working the earth and making things grow transform the gardener and even foster community. Gardening teaches, among other things, patience. Maybe, with time, my I'll become master gardeners, like the young girl who transforms her grumpy uncle's rooftop in Sarah Stewart and David Small's wonderful The Gardener, But for now, I'm just a beginner.
What I hope for this year is that my family will feel some connection with the earth and with nature, and maybe get to eat some peas and lettuce that we grew ourselves. Or possibly even some carrots-- just regular-sized would be fine.


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Darwinite Wire Wrapped Pendant Sterling Silver #3830
- Regular Price
- $33.99
- Sale Price
- $33.99
- Regular Price
- $53.99
- Unit Price
- per
This silver raw Darwin Glass aka Darwinite pendant is one of a kind. The natural tektite was wire wrapped in sterling silver by an artist in our studio.
Metaphysical PropertiesDarwinite Tektite energy is grounding, protective, and spiritually uplifting. Darwin Glass tektites are helpful stones for completing duties and accessing intuitive higher learning and spirituality. Grounding in ancient wisdom gives the stone a balance. Tektites have been used for aligning the energy centers of the physical body and balancing the system.
About Darwin Tektites
Darwin Glass is a rare tektite that is most often brown and brownish green, though it can also be black and white. Darwinites are only found on Mount Darwin in Tasmania, Australia. These tektites were formed about 816,000 years ago as a result of a meteorite impact.
You will receive the exact pendant shown. A necklace is not included. Close-up photography is used in natural sunlight to show detail. The item may appear larger than actual size. Please see size listed for the dimensions. 1" = 25.4 millimeters
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Meet your spare SolCup sleeve, she can be mixed and matched with your existing cup to add a variation of colour or simply a spare.
All Lids and SoL sleeves are dishwasher and microwave safe.
SoL sleeves are made from 100% food grade silicon.
#SoL Tip: if you drink long blacks or hot tea, sometimes 2 sleeves are better than 1! Just to keep your fingers extra safe, A second sleeve could be the perfect solution.


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House of wheechairs
This beautiful castle was built in the beginning of the 19th century, on the same spot where there used to be an old monastery dating back to the 17th century. It was owned by an aristocrat and his son, but during the cold war it was in use as a nursing home. Unfortunately it has been left abandoned since the 1990′s and nature is rapidly taking over. People from the neighborhood would love to see this place having a new destination. There were plans for appartments and to restore it back to a nursing home, but so far nobody has stepped up to execute…Read More
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1,300 Taiwanese form giant human QR barcode
More than 1,000 Taiwan people formed a human QR code Sunday in an event designed to promote the island to the world by cashing in on the rising use of smartphones which can read the barcodes.
QR codes are commonly used to direct users to websites, videos or social media sites.
Forming the QR code, highlighted by a blue word "Hi" in the middle, involved a total of 1,369 people carrying umbrellas on the square of the Taipei City Hall, organisers said.
"While there may be many other different ways to promote the image of Taiwan, we chose this special way to do so," a spokeswoman for the non-profit Sayling Wen Cultural & Educational Foundation, told AFP.
"As long as smartphone users take a photo of the trademark code, they can easily link to our website where various colourful events of Taiwan are shown and will be continuously updated."
Staff members from dozens of Taiwan companies such as air carrier EVA Air and bicycle maker Giant took part in the event.
Taiwan has been politically isolated since its split with the Chinese mainland in 1949 at the end of a civil war.
(c) 2012 AFP


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Dec. 9, 2009— -- Compared to the Gosselins, the Kardashians and the Hogans on television today, the fictional Keaton family, which defined the 1980s, appears almost quaint.
The Keatons -- Steven, Elyse, Alex, Mallory, Jennifer and Andrew -- were a nuclear family that stayed together over the seven-year run of the iconic television sitcom "Family Ties."
"By one of these quirks in the time-space continuum, we were the only nuclear family on television, the show's creator Gary David Goldberg told Matt Lauer when the five original cast members reunited on the "Today" show last year.
And America loved them. At the height of its popularity, "Family Ties," which was about 1960s hippie parents raising their conservative children during the Reagan years, was watched by a third of the television audience.
"We caught the crest of a wave there," said Michael J. Fox, who played Alex P. Keaton, the ultraconservative, success-driven son. "We thought we were having fun with it, but it was having fun with us. It was big, it was huge."
It's a testament to the show's enduring imprint that Meredith Baxter, who played the mom Elyse Keaton, could make headlines last week with the announcement that she is gay.
Brian Bonsall, who played the Keaton's fourth child Andrew in the show's last two seasons, made headlines of a different kind this week. The 28-year-old was arrested in Colorado for investigation of an assault.
According to Colorado Daily, Bonsall was picked up by police last Saturday at the home of his best friend Micheal Trujillo. Both had been drinking heavily and arguing loudly. According to the arrest report obtained by Colorado Daily, Bonsall struck Trujillo with a splintered bar stool, but remembers nothing.
"Bonsall then said that he and Trujillo both are bipolar and like drugs," the report said. "Bonsall said he takes a lot of drugs and sometimes those drugs make him forget things."
Perhaps Bonsall, whose face and neck are covered with numerous tattoos and piercings, is trying to forget his brief success as cute Little Andy. Sadly, he's followed the route of many former child actors.
Brian Bonsall Then and Now
Since playing the youngest sibling on "Family Ties," Bonsall has bounced around Boulder, Colo. According to Fox News, he never graduated from high school, instead forming a rock band, "Late Bloomers," in 1998.
He's also had mounting legal troubles, including for DUI and assault on his girlfriend. Last year, Colorado authorities were preparing new charges against him for violating his parole, according to the Colorado Daily. When Bonsall failed to appear at a hearing July 16, 2008, a warrant was issued for his arrest.
Now, Bonsall faces new third-degree assault charges and is currently being held at the Boulder County Jail. He's due to appear in court today.
Bonsall's cast mates have fared better since their days on "Family Ties." Here's a look at where they are now:
Michael Gross


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KNOXVILLE, Tennessee — Early lines on eight Tennessee games indicate that Las Vegas oddsmakers have little optimism for the Vols in 2014.
Tennessee opponents are favored in seven of the eight games released by the Golden Nugget as part of their annual early lines.
Here they are:
UT (+19) at Oklahoma
UT (+17) at Georgia
Florida at UT (+4.5)
UT (+12) at Ole Miss
Alabama at UT (+20)
UT (+18) at South Carolina
Missouri at UT (+4)
UT (-3) at Vanderbilt
Interestingly, roughly one-fourth of the 200 games handicapped by the Golden Nugget had line movements after their initial release to reflect betting trends. But only one Tennessee game was adjusted: Georgia is now favored by 16 points, down from 17. In other words, it doesn't appear the public is flocking to bet on Tennessee.
Of course, UT will likely be favored in the four games not listed.
If you're inclined to optimism, think of it this way: The Vols must only steal only one upset after winning the five games in which they will be favored to become bowl eligible.
If you're inclined to pessimism, the rest of this blog is for you.
A 19-point spread translates to a 2.7 percent chance of winning against Oklahoma. Or just an 11.45 percent chance at Georgia.
For the sake of this simulation, we'll give UT a 6.5-point edge against Utah State and an 8-point advantage against Arkansas State and Kentucky. We're giving the Vols a 99.95 percent chance of victory against Chattanooga.
Spin those figures through my simulator 1,000 times and this is what you get:
That's a 32 percent chance of winning at least six games and making a bowl, a 31 percent chance of having the same record as last year and a 37 percent chance of being worse.
I'll update the simulator with new numbers as the season goes on.
Think some of the odds are way off? Let me know.


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One of most popular posts I wrote is on A Tagging Bookmarklet for WordPress and WordPress.com Users, which offers a step-by-step process of how to create the tags and signature you find at the bottom of every post that I write. I'd like to clear up a little confusion about tags in WordPress.com for you.
1. A Tag is a Keyword in a Link
A tag is a keyword. It is created by adding the attribute
rel="tag" in any link going any where.
Lorelle on WordPress
This creates a "tag" for "Lorelle on WordPress". The tag is the words which the link wraps around. Without it, it's just a link. No more, no less.
With it, it is recognized by search engines and tag services crawlers which add that word or phrase to their "tag database", acting like a keyword. When a visitor types in the tag word or phrase in a search engine or tag service, like Technorati, any post with that "tag" or those keywords, even if not tags, will turn up in the results.
I'd like to emphasis the following as it applies to the process of tags and tagging.
- When pinged or as part of their normal schedule, search engines and tag services send out crawlers to your blog which scan your entire post and add it their directory. If they have a feature that recognizes the
rel="tag"in a link as a tag, it adds your tags to a section in their database, and your tags help them to categorize your post.
- Search engines and tag services store most or all of your entire post in their database. Any search of their "tags" will also include searching every word in your stored post data to generate the search results. Search results are not limited to only tags.
- A tag link can be to anything or any where. It does not have to be a link to Technorati. You will not be penalized for linking to non-Technorati sites.
2. Tags Serve Three Purposes.
- Tags link readers to keyword related content, on or off your blog.
- Tags help group content by category and keyword.
- Tags are recognized by search engines and tag services crawlers as tags and they are treated like keywords.
Tags do not cause people to rush to your blog. Tags do not increase traffic. Tags do not help search engines add you to their databases. Tags do not help your page ranking. Tags do not cause readers to be impressed with what you write. Tags do not help you with social climbing or social bookmarking.
Pings get the attention of search engines and tag services, not tags. The keywords in your post content helps search engines and tag services define your content for searchability and page rank.
3. Tags That Link Off-site Escort Visitors Out the Door.
When Technorati began, the idea of tags was based upon the mythology of "Web 2.0", the social determination of which content and information should "rise to the top". By assigning "tags" to articles or blogs, it helped categorize the information.
The categories were set by the blogger, helping to micro-categorize their writing topics, and therefore make it for you, the author, to control your content categories, and make it easier to search by tag categories rather than a free-for-all search dependent upon the mysteries of search engine page rankings. To participate in this new social "tagging" experience, you would go to Technorati and search for "tag words" to find related content, creating a new way of searching but also competition for other search engines like Google and Yahoo.
Tag users were encouraged to set their tags to link to Technorati so those reading their blogs would have the option find related content on the topic via Technorati. This is nice. It helps the reader find related content from a variety of sources, not just yours.
But what if you have 300 articles written on the same topic? Your link to Technorati just told the visitor to leave your site and find their information elsewhere.
If 5 people had posts with your same tag, it didn't matter because theoretically your 300 posts would be listed under that tag on Technorati. But if 46,000 people have written 164,327 posts with your same tag, your 300 related articles would be lost in the crowd. Especially as Technorati lists search results chronologically rather than as "most likely to meet your needs" and you haven't posted anything using that tag for 2 weeks and 6,986 posts by other people.
Do you think that the reader will scroll through that many posts on the list to find your posts? Hmm?
Depending upon where a tag links to, tags do help the reader find related content off your blog. It can also help the reader find related content on your blog. Depending upon your blog's content and purpose, you might want to consider offering tags to Technorati, Google, news services, WordPress.com, or other sites. Or you might have enough articles that you want to only allow the reader to view related content on your own blog. Or you might want to offer a combination of both to give your readers options. Below is information on providing the various on-site and off-site tag links.
4. WordPress Comes With Tags Built-In
WordPress, whether the full version of WordPress or WordPress.com, comes ready out-of-the-box with a tagging system built in. To create a "tag", simple add a category to your category list and file the post in one or more of those categories. Automatically, the category is a tag.
WordPress Themes generally use the
wp_list_cats() template tag to generate a list of your blog categories, typically in the sidebar. WordPress programming functions automatically adds
rel="tag" to all generated category lists on your blog.
If you want more tags, then you have some options for adding tags on a per-post basis and/or a tag cloud or tag heat map. For full version WordPress bloggers, I highly recommend The Ultimate Tag Warrior WordPress Plugin. For WordPress.com bloggers, I recommend A Tagging Bookmarklet for WordPress and WordPress.com Users. WordPress.com bloggers can also create a tag cloud such as I have on my site map, grouped by topic.
5. Categories as Tags Presents Challenges for WordPress Blogs
In WordPress, if you use categories as tags, the tags apply to your entire blog, not your posts. The list of categories typically appears in your sidebar. This presents some interesting challenges for the wise WordPress blogger.
Categories which link to "categorized" posts on your WordPress blog increase navigation on your site. They help the visitor find related content and move around from one group topic to another. I think of categories as a table of contents for your blog and tags as the index.
If you use categories as tags, then keep your category/tags to only a few. As they are displayed typically in the sidebar, a long list of tags in your sidebar can make it really, really long. The reader will have to scroll a long way down the page to see all of the topics you write about. If you have Pages, blogroll, feeds, ads, or other things in your sidebar, you end up with a seriously long sidebar. Is this pretty? Is this useful? Do 56 "categories as tags" really help your readers navigate your blog? Think about it.
If you are using a Kubrick/Default-based WordPress Theme, there is usually no sidebar on your single post view, only on the multi-post views of your blog. This means they won't see your full category list on the single posts, but they will when viewing the front page of your post where you have more than one post displayed. The only categories shown in the single post view for those types of Themes are the categories belonging specifically to that post.
What are the odds that the new visitor arrived on the front page of your blog where all your categories are visible? Slim or none, right? You can pick the Theme you want, but pay attention to where your navigational aids are if you restrict your tags to the built-in categories with WordPress.
Category lists in WordPress Themes are not listed as tags visually. So the reader only recognizes them as categories not tags. Or some WordPress Themes and WordPress bloggers change the title of Categories to something else, like "Topics I Write About" or "My Stuff" or "Topics". How do they know these are tags as well as categories? Should they? Do you treat categories differently from tags as you read and navigate through other's blogs? Should people know there is a difference or that they are exactly the same?
Categories as tags in your WordPress Theme sidebar result in a listing of posts on your site when clicked. What if you do want to provide off-site links to related content with tags? Since WordPress doesn't automatically provide that, you have to add the feature with The Ultimate Tag Warrior WordPress Plugin or A Tagging Bookmarklet for WordPress and WordPress.com Users.
If you add tags to your posts, how will you let the reader know if they they are about to leave your site or stay on? Some title the tags "Technorati Links" or "Technorati Tags" as a clue. I title mine "Site Search Tags", advising people that clicking these links will keep them on my site, not off.
There is a lot of thought that should go into your tagging and category decisions, and as much thought into deciding how to incorporate tags and categories into your WordPress blog. Identifying which are "categories" and which are "tags" may not be important, since they are basically the same, but most people treat them differently. Maybe you should, too.
6. Using Tags As Blog Navigation.
As mentioned in Point 3, tags which link to off-site references encourage readers to leave your blog. I like to think of my tags as helpful blog navigation. I like to help my readers find related content on my blog, and I like to keep them on my blog. Therefore, I manually add tags to the bottom of every post. These on-site tags are called "site search tags" or "intrasite links". When clicked, they generate a list of related articles on my blog.
The tags are also post-specific, set on a post-by-post basis. While I only have a few categories, I can have dozens of tags listed on my posts. My posts can be on a variety of subjects and I can direct the reader to very specific information that I might only have one or two articles about. Why would I need a whole category for a one post topic? I use the tags to act as a sub-grouping of categories. "Micro-categories", if you will. These are created manually, not by any special feature for WordPress users.
To set your tags to links on your site, you can set any link in your post as a tag or create a list, like I have at the bottom of the post, that link to search results on this blog based upon the tag keyword.
To create a tag link to another post on your site, add the link and then add the relationship to the link HTML:
A Tagging Bookmarklet for WordPress and WordPress.com Users
To create tag links to intrasite post search results, you can use one of the following, either written manually or used with the A Tagging Bookmarklet for WordPress and WordPress.com Users or The Ultimate Tag Warrior WordPress Plugin:
tagname
tagname
The results show will be a search results page based upon the "tagname" keyword, such as tags.
7. Using Tags To Link to Off-site Content.
If you choose to set your post-specific tags to offsite content, you have a lot of options. Again, I recommend The Ultimate Tag Warrior WordPress Plugin or A Tagging Bookmarklet for WordPress and WordPress.com Users.
To set the off-site location for your tag links, here are some examples (I left the titles off for clearer code, but make sure you put titles back in for compliance with accessibility standards):
- Technorati:
tagname
- WordPress.com:
tagname
- Del.icio.us:
tagname
- IceRocket:
tagname
- TagJag:
tagname
- BlinkList:
tagname
- BlogMarks:
tagname
- RawSugar:
tagname
- Sphere:
tagname
- Google Blogsearch:
tagname
- Yahoo MyWeb Tags:
tagname
- Lorelle on WordPress:
tagname
Hey, why not offer links to my blog for more information on a variety of tag topics? 😉
You can find more tagging options for WordPress blogs in A Tagging Bookmarklet for WordPress and wordpress.com Users. Note that this is what I use below to "sign" on all my posts. It includes the horizontal line and the signature and 9Rules graphics, so I encourage WordPress.com users to have some fun with this easy to use technique and add some personalization to their blogs. I'll be talking about how to bling bling visually accessorize your WordPress.com blogs soon, so use this bookmarklet technique to jump ahead of the rest of the crowd.
Understand Tagging a Little Better Now?
I hope this helps to clear up the differences and similarities between tags and categories. They are the same but different, and you can use them in a variety of ways to help you with your blog navigation and connection with off-site content. Think about how you use tags and categories when you read blogs, and then think about how tags and categories work on your blog. And let me know what you think about all of this.
Related Articles
- A Tagging Bookmarklet for WordPress and wordpress.com Users
- Categories versus Tags – What's the Difference and Which One?
- The Problems With Tags and Tagging
- Categories versus Tags: Defining the Limitations
- The Ultimate Tag Warrior WordPress Plugin
- Helping the Ultimate Tag Warrior Work with Jerome's Keywords WordPress Plugins
- Adding Del.icio.us, Digg, Technorati and Slashdot Links to Your WordPress Blog
- Putting Some Thought Into Blog Categories and Tags
- Tagging With Emotions Not Common Sense
- Tags Are Not Categories – Got It?
- What Do You Blog About? Check Your Tags
- Playing Tag With WordPress
- Top 10 Tips for Technorati Tricks
- Tidying Up Tags – A Technical Review
- Lorelle on WordPress Now Part of Technorati Tools
- Combining Ultimate Tag Warrior With Jerome's Keywords WordPress Plugins – Meet Tags in the Head
- Link Referrals – Linking to Site Search Tags
- Abuse: Keyword Spamming versus Tag Spamming
Site Search Tags: tags, tag, tagging, category, categories, tags+and+categories, tag+and+category, links, off-site, offsite, intrasite, onsite, on-site, intrasite+links, search, search, engine, tag+service, directory, traffic, navigation, technorati, wordpress, wordpress.com, wordpresscom, wordpressdotcom, keyword, keywords
Copyright Lorelle VanFossen, member of the 9Rules Network


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The Black Box range of Click-Lock C13 power strips provide a cost effective method for providing power directly into cabinets and racks. All the PDUs in this range are supplied with a 3m mains lead, terminated in a standard C20 plug. There are two versions, horizontal PDUs which will take up either front or rear cabinet space (measured in "U"), or vertical PDUs which are typically mounted to one side at the front or rear of the cabinet.
Built from powder coated, mild steel, all the Click-Lock C13 PDUs come complete with fixing brackets built-in. The range also come with a suitable on/off switch complete with a neon light to show the status of the switch. These PDUs also include a built-in external metal earth stud to correctly bond the units to cabinets.


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Financial audit is undoubtedly an unquestionable requirement of each business. Anyone who offers an enterprise is going to do fiscal review as a characteristic of your requirements and restrictions of industry and exchange. This treatment is only a careful examination and assessment of your budgetary proclamations of an organization. This technique may be carried out remotely by an outsider or may be performed inside by the representatives. This technique has become created obligatory through the legislature. The pinnacle reason for doing this technique all set to go portion is always to guarantee sensible exchange all businesses. The connection is for sure to indicate that the record they present on their allotment stands and the standard populace are actual and sincere to goodness and they are jogging their business regular with law. They provide purchase documents as evidences around then of your cash relevant overview.
Financial evaluations are finished at the near of each money relevant 12 months. The organization information practical experience fastidious examination to indicate the organization transactions are sensible, merely and reasonable-minded. As soon as the business is ended up being becoming clear of segregation and phony techniques it is actually permitted to carry on further more all on the job deck. On the other hand if the enterprise neglects to indicate that this acted in the review of the law, it must experience strong results, one of the most exceedingly terrible circumstance getting the abrogation of the allow of the organization. The aftereffect of the economic review procedure is imparted on the shareholders from the connection. Ever since the strategy is performed to basically guarantee excellent business morals in the marketplace and business divisions, funds relevant review is typically concluded by an autonomous physique.
As described as nature, the planet envelops the excellent and also the dreadful. There are numerous conceivable benefits for out from line methods and untrustworthy exercises to infiltrate into the trade entire world. This can effect swap organizations in the commercial industry as well as the regular men and women. Financial review keeps such degenerate stuff at narrows. Given that everyone is sensible to law, every association has got the self responsibility to insurance that the organization is about the simply part. Money associated review has helped the swap world get rid of businesses that accompanied shameless financial morals. There are many events to demonstrate this. There are actually illustrations in which the association's evaluator served to disguise the deceitful cash relevant exercise routines from the association. Though the evaluator will lose the right to review once exhibited to a sheet of unethical exercises.
Once the funds relevant overview was created compulsory by the law, there seemed to be a radical alteration of the trade and industry sector. The agencies along with the trade market acquired processed as well as the regular men and women were exceedingly profited. Exchange area will be the back of your region. In the event it performs rightly the whole land harvests and likes wonderful income and also the vacation spot from the budgetary review is to ensure the very same. There have been many changes created to the current regulations to make it significantly more productive. Monetary overview assists improve exchange as well as in a roundabout way makes individuals prosperous.
Inspired by: ezinearticles


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The Certified Athletic Trainer is a highly educated and skilled professional specializing in the care of the physically active individual. In cooperation with physicians and other allied health personnel, the athletic trainer functions as an integral member of the health care team in secondary schools, colleges and universities, hospitals, sports medicine clinics, industrial sites, professional sports programs, and other health care settings.
Many students attain a bachelor's degree in athletic training prior to pursuing advanced degrees in the fields of medicine or allied health professions such as physical therapy and physician assistant.
Certified Athletic Trainers find employment in the following settings:
Although these are typical settings, athletic trainers are also employed in a variety of other locations.
The U.S. Department of Labor predicts that the demand for athletic trainers will be extremely high between 2008-2018. The estimated employment growth is expected to be approximately 37% for the profession of athletic training by 2018. According to this study, employment growth for athletic training is higher than other comparable health care fields such as nursing (22%), occupational therapy (26%), physical therapy (30%) and speech language pathology (19%). It is estimated that more than 12,000 new and replacement positions will open in the field by 2018.
According to the National Athletic Trainers' Association in November of 2011, the average starting salary for athletic trainers varies widely based on practice setting and geographic location. Typical entry-level salaries range from $30,000 to $45,000. Approximately 70% of all athletic trainers pursue an advanced degree in athletic training or a related field. The average salary of an ATC nationally with a Bachelor's Degree is approximately 46,000 and 51, 100 with a Master's Degree. Salaries for athletic trainers with advanced degrees typically range from $30,000 to $80,000.
For more information on career opportunities, contact the program director.


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PHILADELPHIA — Yahoo said Wednesday it is expanding its original offerings, partnering with Liquid Comics to offer motion-comics.
The two companies said they'll make the first two titles — created by film directors Barry Sonnenfeld and Guy Ritchie — available online later this summer through Yahoo! Screen.
Motion comics blend elements of comic book art and animation, offering some movement and action but on a limited scale. It's gained ground and popularity in recent years as publishers big and small experiment with the medium, which can viewed online or on devices like tablets and iPads.
"This is compelling content from great storytellers, and we are excited to be adding Liquid Comics to our robust slate of premium content partners," said Erin McPherson, vice president and head of video for Yahoo.
By partnering with Liquid Comics and focusing on animation, she said Yahoo is enhancing its premium original content.
Together with Tom Hanks' new animated Web series, "Electric City," ''motion comics are the start of a unique animated offering on Yahoo," McPherson said.
Yahoo has been trying to boost the amount of original content on its site through partnerships with creators, and has recently announced tie-ups with CNBC and ABC News. It will debut the online movie "Cybergeddon," made by "CSI" creator Anthony Zuiker, this fall. Building premium, original content allows it to charge more for advertisements. Forming exclusive partnerships helps it reap more of the benefits.
The partnerships are an attempt to boost Yahoo's advertising revenue in the face of stiff competition from Facebook and Google. Yahoo's revenue rose in the first quarter by a measly 1 percent, far below the 23 percent gain for the overall Internet ad market in the U.S.
Sonnenfeld's offering is "Dinosaurs vs. Aliens." The director of the "Men In Black" films tells the story of aliens invading earth in prehistoric times only to face off against dinosaurs.
Ritchie, whose films include "Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels" and the recent "Sherlock Holmes," will have his "Gamekeeper" transformed into a motion-comic written by Andy Diggle. It focuses on groundskeeper whose life is turned upside down by mercenaries.
Sharad Devarajan, CEO of Liquid Comics, said the titles, along with plans for more, will help expand the reach of graphic novels and comics.
"Yahoo's impressive global reach will greatly enhance Liquid's goal of pushing the boundaries of comic books through digital platforms and technology and enabling our creative partners to share their stories with audiences worldwide," he said.
Yahoo: http://screen.yahoo.com/
Liquid: http://www.liquidcomics.com/
AP Business Writer Ryan Nakashima in Los Angeles contributed to this report.


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"According to an amusing little study, by paralyzing the frown muscles that ordinarily are engaged when we feel angry, Botox short-circuits the emotion itself." So WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR HOLLYWOOD?
The study in question, as detailed in Newsweek, worked on the familar premise that smiling makes you feel happier (whether whistling a happy tune is equally effective was not studied, but Rogers and Hammerstein were generally infallible in such matters.) And Botox, of course, provides a wealth of new expression-altering possibilities for the inquiring mind. So?
Havas found an even deeper effect. As he described at the annual meeting of the Society for Personal and Social Psychology last week, he had 40 volunteers who were planning to be Botoxed in two weeks read statements with particular emotional freight: angry ("the pushy telemarketer won't let you return to your dinner"), sad ("you open your e-mail inbox on your birthday to find no new e-mails"), or happy ("the water park is refreshing on the hot summer day."). After reading each sentence, the volunteers pushed a button to indicate they had understood it. Then, two weeks after their Botox injections, they repeated the exercise, reading and understanding another list of emotion-producing sentences...The volunteers pressed the "I've read and understood this" button just as quickly when the sentence conveyed something happy. But when it conveyed something infuriating or unhappy, people took longer to read and understand it. The emotions just did not compute as easily as before their sadness and anger muscles were paralyzed.
Well, that sounds good,
I one might think. But in fact, it's bad for communication: as one scientist quoted describes it, you're effectively inhibiting "fast, subtle cues about each other's understanding, intention, and empathy." And let's talk about the most serious issue: who needs to be able to understand every tremor of human emotion more than an actor? For their work, obviously, but also for red-carpet statements about current events, Barbara Walters specials, and, of course, acceptance speeches. One can only hope that advances in anamatronics will keep apace with these emotion-dulling trends. Nicole Kidman got pretty far on a false nose, after all: can a fully animated face be far behind? (Alternatively will we call it a day and return to Greek masks? Paging Von Trier.) Whether the new wrinkle-zapping iPhone app will be side-effect free is an open, blank-faced question.
Hello Botox, Bye-Bye Sadness-But Not For The Reasons You Think [Newsweek]
Forget The Botox! New iPhone App 'Zaps Acne And Wrinkles' With Red And Blue Lights [DailyMail]


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We also have a general tool hire division which specialises in hire of DIY tools and plant equipment.


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North Central College offers a series of speaker presentations throughout the year. From nationally recognized academic, political and humanitarian experts to best-selling authors, celebrities and film producers, guest speakers have included Cornel West, Caroline Kennedy, Madeleine Albright, Regis Philbin, Molly Shannon, Tavis Smiley and many more. Most of the presentations are free and open to the public.
Upcoming Events in Lectures & Films
More Lectures & Films events will be scheduled soon.


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When does the ordinary become extraordinary? When you see it up-close and personal for the very first time. I spent a lot of time in my garden over the summer and, apart from the hard work, I got to see some amazing sights. I began to see mundane things like dandelions and insects in a whole new light. I began a love affair with crickets when I first saw a nymph on my tomatoes way back in May. It was not love at first sight but later, as I was bemoaning the destruction of my beautiful cabbages by caterpillars, I was very happy to have those crickets on my side. I was lucky enough to capture a kamikaze caterpillar munching its way closer and closer to the waiting jaws of a hungry cricket. You might wonder how the caterpillar could miss the ominous presence of cricket until you see the reverse angle and are reminded how good their camouflage is. Extraordinary.
Like what you see? Then please subscribe to My Food Odyssey. For updates on my daily life you can follow me on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest.


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Online Divorce Stockton
Online Divorce Stockton California
If you're facing a divorce in the Stockton area and you search Google for "online divorce Stockton" or maybe "online divorce near me" (because Google knows you're in the Stockton area), you'll get 4 categories of websites on the first page of the search results. Most of those websites will either not be able to help you or you should not want them to help you. Most of them are not offering what you are looking for.
You are NOT looking for JUST a divorce. No one sells you a divorce, like it's a pair of shoes. In fact, you cannot buy a divorce at any price.
What you're looking for is an honest and competent professional service at a low no-BS flat fee. That online divorce professional will then perform a number of sequential actions correctly on your behalf and those actions will then lead to your local Superior Court granting you a divorce.
But you're looking for even more than that! You don't want to be cheated. You don't want to pay what is advertised as a $139 complete fee and find out that it is a per month fee. Your credit card is charged every single month until your case is final. You don't want to pay a "complete" $149 fee and then be up-sold to an ADDITIONAL $199 "premium" fee to avoid a 10-14 day delay in the delivery of your divorce docs. BTW, that's called a ransom, not a "premium" service. And you don't want to be tricked into hiring an online divorce company that tells you they have over 6000 client testimonials when they own the testimonial company and had the testimonial company website hosted on the same Internet server as their online divorce website. In other words, their moms wrote all of their testimonials. Their clients hate them, and I'll show you their Better Business Bureau complaints below.
I'm going to tell you in this article how to avoid all of those problems (and more) and how to get a cheap online divorce in Stockton safely and securely. I will break this down for you into just one choice between the two best available options in today's online divorce market. And I promise that the final choice will be easy. Read On
Online Divorce Stockton Search Results Are Dynamic
Bear in mind that search engine results are dynamic. They change constantly. What I report below was correct at the time of publication, but may not be exactly what you find if you try this at home.
Bear in mind also that it is never a bad thing to go to the second page of the search engine results or even deeper. There you will find many businesses that are excluded from the top page by various Google (or other search engine) prejudices that have nothing to do with the quality of work done by those online divorce businesses. Online divorce companies on the second and third pages of results will try harder to get your business and often do better work than businesses ranking higher in the search results.
You should definitely do your homework. Do not rely on any one source (including this article) to assist with your choice. Do follow your gut on your final choice. It will usually be right.
Avoid the Following 4 Types of "Online Divorce Stockton" Search Result Websites:
These are listed GENERALLY in order from top to bottom on the search results page.
Pay Per Click Ads by Online Divorce Companies
On the Google search engine results page, the top 4 search results and the bottom 3 search results on each page (at the time of this writing) are the paid ads. They are indicated by this image: The companies whose ads are marked by that image are paying Google for Pay Per Click. Those companies bid against each other for the top 7 ad spots on that first search results page because they know that uneducated divorce consumers are very likely going to hire someone on that top page. It's expensive real estate and you, as a wise Stockton divorce consumer, need to know about it and avoid it. In other words, you will be educated on this topic after reading this article.
At this writing the bid required to get onto the first page for the search phrase "online divorce" is about $6. If an online divorce company using Google's Pay Per Click bidding gets one paying client from every 20 clicks, they are doing well. The results of most companies are not that good. So if you search for "online divorce" and then click on one of the ads indicated by and then you hire one of those top 4 or bottom 3 online divorce companies on that first page, you just paid approximately $6 X 20 clicks= $120 to Google, and Google doesn't even handle divorce!!
You thought Google search was free, right? Nothing's free at Google Pay Per Click. You just hired a company that has to charge you $120 just to pay Google for your business before they even make $1 in profit. How smart is that – for them and you? And the company didn't pay that money. YOU DID!! You paid it in higher fees. That's why the large nationwide divorce website, completecase.com, charges $300 when smaller California-specific online divorce website, NetDivorce, charges $129 for the exact same service in the exact same case. How can they do that? By not being dumb enough to bid up their cost of case acquisition with Pay Per Click ads.
$129 or $300 for the same service is a fairly easy choice for most divorce consumers.
NetDivorce's case acquisition cost is ZERO. NetDivorce pays nothing to get cases. NetDivorce uses ONLY what is called Search Engine Optimization (SEO) – a wide range of fairly complex and time-consuming organic practices that enhances NetDivorce's ability to get its unpaid ad on that top search results page somewhere in between the top 4 and the bottom 3. In other words, by spending a lot of time to make good videos and write high quality interesting articles, like this one, containing information divorce consumers want to know and will spend time reading, NetDivorce EARNS its position on page 1. NetDivorce doesn't buy its position. NetDivorce earns it. And it costs nothing if you handle your SEO in-house, which NetDivorce does. And NetDivorce is very good at SEO. You will never see our ads in the top 4 or the bottom 3. You will usually see our ad somewhere in the middle of the first or second search engine results pages.
So don't hire a company dumb enough and lazy enough to play the Pay Per Click game. They play. You pay. Hire someone from that middle section on the Google search engine page – below the top 4 and above the bottom 3. They earned that position, and they've earned your business.
NetDivorce and completecase.com make about the same net profit per case – about $120. NetDivorce charges $129. Completecase,com charges $300. Same profit. Hire someone smarter from the SEO section of the search results page and don't pay for anyone's dumb-ass case-acquisition cost!!
Avoid Superior Court Websites
Any kind of search that includes "divorce" and "Stockton" will bring you Stockton area Superior Court and related government websites. Those might be useful if you don't have a life and you want to sign up to attend divorce workshops to be presented by county social workers to you and a few dozen other Stockton divorce consumers. They usually have such seminars every other month. They don't prepare the divorce paperwork for you. They teach you how to do it yourself.
At the time I conducted the search "online divorce Stockton" several times in order to write this article, I got 3 court websites on the first page of the search results. Your results may vary. I've seen as many as 5 court related websites in the top ten results on that first page of results. Somebody at Google thinks that court websites are going to help if you search for "online divorce Stockton." Well, you will file your case at the local Superior Court but you are not going to find any realistic help from court websites in preparing your specific case correctly and in any sort of reasonable time frame. Court websites cannot provide any advice on your case. They hand out brochures and other materials that tell you how to handle your own divorce. These are of informational value, no doubt, but not of any practical value.
Again, this may change over time. It just doesn't make any sense that a Stockton divorce consumer searching for "online divorce" would be shown Superior Court websites. It's a Google prejudice. Don't waste your time on it.
Avoid "Soft" Websites
What does that include? It includes sites that offer "how-to" posts or videos. It also includes "feel-good" sites such as those that offer divorce counseling or coaching or emotional help with divorce. I'm not saying that these sites do not provide any value. I'm saying that if you're in the market for an honest competent professional divorce service, these aren't it. Find secondary divorce sites in a separate search. Limit yourself to resolving your primary goal of obtaining a cost-effective online divorce in Stockton with the least pain attached.
Wiki-How how-to posts and YouTube videos will not be of great value because they are too generic. They will never have enough information to assist you in the specific facts of your individual case. Any such video would need to be hours long if it had enough info and then you'd still need to ask questions to help you get your specific online divorce.
As Google gets better at determining the intent of Stockton divorce consumers, you will find fewer of these "soft" websites showing up on the first page of results.
Avoid Almost All Online Divorce Mills
Your "online divorce Stockton" search will also bring you 6 to 9 big nationwide online divorce mills on the first page of results. Most of those are within the paid section. So you should avoid them for that reason alone (see the Pay-per-Click section above). You will also often see 2 or 3 of them in the "organic" results in between the top and bottom paid results.
If you make the mistake of actually going to one or more of the big nationwide divorce mill websites, you will find enough up-selling, fraud and trickery to make even a pyramid-scheme pitchman blush.
In fact, here is a pyramid-scheme/ get-rich-quick pitchman who owns at least 2 of those online divorce mills. His name is Jason McClain. His partner in the online pyramid scams is a convicted fraudster from the Ukraine. Some of their scams have now been closed down, but Jason McClain is still the owner and operator of mydivorcepapers.com and idivorceforms.com, two of the most fraudulent tricksters and up-sellers in the online divorce industry. You'll need to wash your hands afterwards if you read through mydivorcepapers.com's 78 Better Business Bureau complaints.
I've written frequently about all kinds of online divorce fraud in the past: online divorce sign up trickery, lying about how long it takes to complete an online divorce interview, price fraud, free divorce forms bait-and-switch, and one of my all time favorites, the client testimonial fraud of the aforementioned Jason McClain, who was dumb enough to have his own certified testimonial website hosted on the same server as his online divorce mills. In other words, he was writing or at least controlling the writing of thousands of his own testimonials telling Stockton divorce consumers how happy his clients were with his online divorce companies. This particular fraud is kinda funny – until you realize that YOU are the target. This testimonial fraud continues to be used as of this writing.
The following table details some of the fraud and competence problems of the top 4 online divorce companies in the California market.
|Price Fraud - This fee is for the first 30 days only.
|1. Price Fraud - This fee is for the first 30 days only.
2. Based in India
3. Incompetent - 105 complaints and F rating at BBB
|1. Price Fraud - This fee is for the first 30 days only.
2. Labeled as misleading advertisers by BBB.
3. Incompetent - 74 complaints and F rating at BBB
|1. Price Fraud - This fee is for the first 30 days only.
2. Incompetent - 80 complaints and F rating by BBB.
3. Uses self-owned fake client testimonial site.
Are ALL online divorce companies fraudulent and incompetent? No. My company, NetDivorce, is definitely honest and competent – with 37+ years of California divorce under our belts. Despite its inclusion in the table above for a very disappointing piece of price fraud, completecase.com is still a good and experienced company that does decent work at $299 for a one month usage period. 3stepdivorce.com is also an honest, well-experienced and competent company at $299. You would not go wrong, apart from that silly price fraud by completecase.com (now that you know about it), with any of these highly experienced firms.
Why Should You Listen To Me About Online Divorce?
For the average divorce consumer heading into his or her first divorce, the information available from a simple online search is not just confusing. It's downright dangerous. What do you believe? What do you absolutely avoid? What should you key on in your hiring decision? Two things only, and I will tell you what they are, but firstly, here's why I know.
My name is Peter O'Hanlon. I've been a barrister in the UK since July 1976. I obtained my law degree at age 20 and was called to the Bar of England and Wales at age 21, the youngest possible age. I practiced criminal law in the UK in the late 70's and later private international business law in California in the 90's.
I own and operate 1-800-DIVORCE, the nationwide network of independent family lawyers. I wrote the world's first complete divorce software package (for California divorce) in 1983-84. In joint venture, I put up the world's first online divorce website (for California only) at divorceweb.com in March 1999. From 1981 to 2001, I owned and operated California Legal Assistance Centers, which pioneered divorce by mail in California in the 80's and 90's. I've been the founder and CEO of netdivorce.com, the premier California online divorce provider, specializing only in California divorce online, since 1999. I founded the Online Divorce Association of America and wrote its Code of Ethics in September 2016. I've been on the front lines of California divorce since June 1981.
In January 2017, I launched Online Divorce Lawyer, a cloud-based suite of online divorce tools designed to assist local California divorce lawyers to cut their costs and to fight back against the online divorce mills (usually located out of state or in India) that have been beating them to the punch for local uncontested divorce business for the last 20 years. The advantages to you of hiring a local divorce lawyer on an unbundled basis (they prepare and review all of your docs and you do the legwork of filing the case at court) are huge. Most online divorce mills will charge you $300 for remarkably few divorce forms, and they do not specialize in California law or procedures.
At Online Divorce Lawyer, you get a local divorce lawyer on your team and you only pay for the services determined by the facts of your case. If your case remains uncontested and you don't need additional legal services (that would not be offered by online divorce mills anyway), your fee can often be at or moderately higher than $300, typically in the range of $400-800. You also get legal advice and the insurance policy of a lawyer who knows your case standing by in case problems arise.
Here's the Easy Choice I Promised
What is it that you need to look for in your divorce hiring decision? The only 2 factors you need to consider are cost and integrity. Integrity includes not just personal honesty but also knowledge of local divorce laws and court policies. Where can you find BOTH an advantageous cost for your low cost California divorce online AND the integrity of someone who is skilled and knowledgeable in California divorce and does not need to trick you, cheat you or up-sell you?
Here are the only two options:
And here's your simple and easy choice: If you want to pay a flat fee of $129 for a complete online divorce with no ups or extras ever and you don't mind not having a lawyer on your team because you are certain that your case is uncontested and simple, hire NetDivorce.
If you want a local lawyer on your team and don't mind paying a little more, usually in the $400-800 range, go to Online Divorce Lawyer and find the Online Divorce Lawyer nearest to you. It's as simple as that. I hope this has helped you and good luck in your case.