Ideal Newz - Money, Movies, Health, Jokes For All

Ideal Celebrity - Sarah Jessica Parker / Sex and the City Secrets

2008-05-17T10:38:00.000-07:00

Sex and the City Movie Secrets Revealed

Kristin Davis, Sarah Jessica Parker, Cynthia Nixon and Kim Cattrall on the set of "Sex In The City: The Movie" in New York City on September 21, 2007.
James Devaney/WireImage.comBuzz up!

The stars of Sex and the City have dropped hints about the question on the minds of all fans: what happens in the movie?

"Something major happens that fundamentally changes who Carrie is," Sarah Jessica Parker told us:

The movie "doesn’t pick up right where the series ended," Parker says. "It's a few years later... it's so packed with stuff."

Cynthia Nixon says her character, Miranda Hobbes, "is still in Brooklyn, is still unhappy about it, and still advancing at her job, in her firm."

As for baby Brady?

"Her son is thriving, but her marriage is kind of mmm — not doing so great," she explains. "We are dealing with unfaithfulness, but even more than unfaithfulness, I think we are dealing with the daily grind that can take its toll on a relationship."

Meanwhile Charlotte York Goldenblatt is "struggling to be a good mother," Kristin Davis says. "She has her adopted daughter, and she’s an overachiever."

Kim Cattrall, who plays Samantha Jones, told about being older in the movie, but when asked who has the most sex, responded, "Guess!"

As for rumors of tension on the set of their flick (due out May 30), the stars deny any infighting.

"It’s almost like going back to high school, yet not," Davis says. "There’s a sense of familiarity between us, and we are in many ways like sisters. We finish each others' sentences and we were never separated from each other."

The first day back on set "was wild," adds Nixon. “We were back in these outfits, and these heels again."

"And we had to re-learn how to walk down the street and walk in unison and not teeter over in our heels, but it kind of felt great," she adds. “What it felt like was a four-headed eight-legged organism!”

Besides, Davis says, "This is how we earn our check — wearing these shoes."

BIO: SARAH JESSICA PARKER

An actress with uncommon depth and effortless style, Sarah Jessica Parker continues to build upon a versatile career in film, television and on stage, which has remarkably spanned over twenty years.

Parker received recognition for her role as Carrie Bradshaw when she was awarded a Golden Globe® Award for Best Actress in 2000, 2001, and 2002 as well as a Screen Actors Guild Award in 2001. Parker has also been honored with four Emmy® nominations. The show which received the Golden Globe Award for Outstanding Comedy Series three years in a row in 2000, 2001, and 2002 was also honored with an Emmy for Outstanding Comedy Series in 2001. In addition to her starring role, Parker is also an executive producer on the show.

Parker was last seen in David Mamet's satirical comedy, "State and Main." Starring with Alec Baldwin, William H. Macy, Charles Durning and Patti LuPone, the film follows the experiences of a film crew making a movie in rural New England. To the cast and crew's surprise, the townspeople prove to be unusually movie savvy or get that way very quickly. Parker plays the lead actress opposed to baring her body in the critically acclaimed film.

Some of Parker's latest screen ventures include Hugh Wilson's live action version of Jay Ward's 1960's classic cartoon, "Dudley Do-Right" opposite Brendan Fraser and Alfred Molina; Paramount's "Til There Was You" opposite Dylan Mc Dermott and Jeanne Tripplehorn, directed by Scott Winant; Alongside Jack Nicholson, Glenn Close and Danny De Vito in Warner Brothers' "Mars Attacks," directed by Tim Burton; Simian Films "Extreme Measures," directed by Michael Apted with Hugh Grant and Gene Hackman; TriStar's "If Lucy Fell," directed by and co-starring Eric Shaeffer along with Ben Stiller and Elle Macpherson; Paramount's "The First Wives Club", directed by Hugh Wilson with Bette Midler, Diane Keaton and Goldie Hawn; Miramax's "Substance of Fire," directed by Daniel J. Sullivan, in which she recreated her off-Broadway role from the Jon Robin Baitz play; and Disney's hit comedy "Miami Rhapsody," directed by David Frankel with Antonio Banderas and Mia Farrow.

Other starring roles include her portrayal of the actress of dubious talent, Delores Fuller in Touchstone's "Ed Wood," directed by Tim Burton and co-starring Johnny Depp; Disney's "Hocus Pocus," directed by Kenny Ortega with Bette Midler and Kathy Najimy; and Columbia Pictures "Striking Distance," directed by Rowdy Herrington, opposite Bruce Willis. She starred opposite Nicholas Cage in New Line's hit comedy "Honeymoon in Vegas," directed by Andrew Bergman, but Parker's breakthrough role was SanDeE* in TriStar's "LA Story" opposite Steve Martin. Parker's early motion picture roles include "Flight of the Navigator", "Girls Just Want To Have Fun," "Footloose," directed by Herb Ross with Kevin Bacon; Paramount's "First Born," directed by Michael Apted with Teri Garr and Peter Weller; "Somewhere Tomorrow," directed by Robert Wiemer and United Artists' "Rich Kids," directed by Robert M. Young with John Lithgow.

Parker first gained recognition in the popular CBS series "Square Pegs," which still runs in syndication. Her other television credits include the NBC movie of the week "In the Interest of the Children," "The Ryan White Story," "Dadah is Death"; NBC's critically acclaimed "A Year in the Life" series and mini-series; "Twist of Fate" and the Hallmark Hall of Fame production of "The Room Upstairs."

Parker has had a successful career on stage as well. Parker starred in David Lindsay-Abaire's sold out run of the quirky comedy "Wonder of the World" at New York's Manhattan Theater Club for which she received a Drama Desk nomination. She also performed in a successful six month run in the Tony nominated Broadway production of "Once Upon a Mattress." This followed her critically acclaimed performance with Matthew Broderick in "How To Succeed in Business Without Really Trying." Prior to these productions, she dazzled audiences in A.R. Gurney's "Sylvia," which also had a sold out run in New York's Manhattan Theater Club. She appeared in "The Innocents" on Broadway, directed by Harold Pinter, co-starring Claire Bloom. She also appeared in the Off-Broadway play "By Strouse," which garnered her the role of Annie where she starred on Broadway for two years.

Additional stage productions include rave reviews for her work in the Off-Broadway production of "The Heidi Chronicles," a Wendy Wasserstein play; "Wrestlers," directed by Burt Reynolds; and the Ensemble Studio Theater's One Act Marathon of "April Snow," with Harris Yulin and Lois Smith.

Born in Nelsonville, Ohio and raised in Cincinnati, she appeared in her first television special, "The Little Match Girl," at age eight. She studied ballet with the Cincinnati Ballet and American Ballet Theater and singing with the Metropolitan Opera.

Currently, she is the National Ambassador for the U.S. Fund for UNICEF, and was awarded the 1995 American Civil Liberties Union Award.

Parker currently resides in New York with her husband, actor Matthew Broderick.

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Ideal Movie - THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA: PRINCE CASPIAN

2008-05-16T23:09:00.000-07:00

OUR REVIEW

by Dave White

Who's in It: William Moseley, Anna Popplewell, Skandar Keynes, Georgie Henley, Ben Barnes, Peter Dinklage

The Basics: The kids go back to Narnia (one year later, but 1,300 years later in Narnia time) to help Prince Caspian defeat the evil Telmarines and make the place safe for all Narnians again. But where's Jesus-Lion Aslan to help them? Nowhere to be found, unless you're youngest and most faith-possessing Lucy and you can see him when no one else can.

What's the Deal? That sense of magical otherness that greets you on your first visit to an enchanted land of icy witches and all-seeing animal pals is pretty much impossible to recapture on your second pass through. So it's smart of the movie to dig deeper into the heroic action stuff. And if you don't know to look for them, then you'll take this double-edged fable that's full of biblical references at face value and just enjoy all the epic battling. Whether it's good or bad to be ignorant of the Bible isn't really for me to say.

Title-Guy Problem: Barnes as Prince Caspian is kind of an empty shell and spends the whole film with a wooden expression of grim determination on his face. It's really the continuation of the Pevensie kids' story anyway. You're on Caspian's side, of course, but if he didn't have four protectors backing him up, you might not care as much.

Scene-Stealing By: Eddie Izzard, who voices a highly confident mouse warrior. I have no idea if this is in the original book. I'm going to guess not. But still, he's really funny.

Hey, Parents: For those of you lulled into a false sense of security with the PG rating, you should know that people get killed left and right in this thing, and it's full of war violence. It's just the kind of war where people die without much bloodshed.

CRITICS' REVIEWS
SOURCE	RATING	THE GIST
POSITIVE REVIEWS FOR THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA: PRINCE CASPIAN
MSNBC	N/A	"… a rousingly entertaining adventure that children and adults will enjoy in equal measure."
New York Times	N/A	"Its violent (though gore-free) combat scenes and high body count may rattle very young viewers, but older children are likely to be drawn into the thick political intrigue."
TV Guide	3 stars/4	"Chockablock with intense battle sequences and suffused with a sense of paradise lost …"
USA Today	3 stars/4	"… an exhilarating fantasy adventure marred only by its length and protracted climactic battle scenes."
Variety	N/A	"… a bit darker, more conventional and more crisply made than its 2005 predecessor …"
MIXED REVIEWS FOR THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA: PRINCE CASPIAN
Chicago Tribune	2 stars/4	"… delivers without much visual dynamism, and with a determined emphasis on combat."
Entertainment Weekly	B-	"… this is a movie that showcases battle. Lots and lots of battle."
Hollywood Reporter	N/A	"… a worthy if somewhat less wondrous successor to that 2005 phenomenon."
Rolling Stone	2½ stars/4	"If anything, this sequel could have used more hellfire. You leave feeling covered in a blanket of bland."
Village Voice	N/A	"Adamson has retooled the old-fashioned, handmade charms of his first Narnia into a schoolboy epic strung together by CGI-laden action sequences featuring men and boys wearing metal while showing mettle."

Ideal Vocabulary Trivia

2008-05-16T03:17:00.000-07:00

A Cat-egorical Quiz

Here’s a trivia test that will allow you to scratch the surface of your vocabulary skills. This is the purr-fect kind of test for cat lovers—all the answers start with “c-a-t.”

1. Not moving or showing any response
2. Special publication for goods sold by a company
3. Ancient military device for hurling missiles
4. Clouding over of the lens of the eye
5. Subterranean burial ground
6. Insect larva
7. Short rest
8. Place where models tread
9. Boat with two hulls
10. Supplier of food for social events
11. Rude remarks from an audience
12. Person or thing effecting change
13. Religious instruction
14. Class or division
15. Intense release of emotions
16. Closely fitted garment
17. Ruminant animals
18. Sudden disaster

By Fred Wrona

Answers :

1. Catatonic

2. Catalogue

3. Catapult

4.Cataract

5.Catacomb

6.Caterpillar

7.Catnap

8.Catwalk

9.Catamaran

10.Caterer

11.Catcalls

12.Catalyst

13.Catechism

14.Category

15.Catharsis

16.Catsuit

17.Cattle

18.Catastrophe or Cataclysm

Ideal Do it Yourself Project

2008-05-16T02:57:00.000-07:00

Table Centerpiece of Dried Flowers

This beautiful arrangement is easy to make and will add style to any corner of your home.

From The Make-It-Yourself Gift Book

This floral centerpiece will ensure that there is always an attractive arrangement of flowers on the table. To keep it looking fresh and colorful, do not stand the arrangement in direct sunlight and keep it dust-free by gently blowing over it with a cool hair dryer once a month.

You Will Need

· Low, round basket or vase

· Foliage, such as Carthamus, Nigella, Nigella Sativa, Nigella orientalis or Alchemilla

· Flat-headed flowers in tones of yellow, such as Achillea filipendulina, Achillea verticor, marigolds and sunflowers

· Approximately 20 yellow roses

· Dry foam bricks (available from florist's suppliers)

· Florist's spike

· Adhesive clay

· Pruning shears

· Craft knife

What to Do
Preparing the Flowers and Foliage
1. Air-dry the flowers and foliage: Sort the leaves and flowers into small bunches and remove any excess foliage from the lower stems. In a dry, dark and airy place, either stand the bunches upright in an empty container or secure the ends of the stems with string and suspend them upside down. The plant material will take a week or so to dry, depending on the size of the individual pieces and their moisture content.
Dried roses, whether dried at home or commercially, have a tendency to close up as they dry. To achieve a "full-blown" appearance, hold the rose over the spout of a steaming kettle until you see the petals begin to soften and go limp. Using a hairpin or a piece of florist's wire, gently open out the petals, returning the rose to the steam as necessary. Use the steam moderately or the rose may begin to drop some of its petals. This technique may also be used for peonies.

2. When working with the flowers and foliage you will achieve a more balanced and professional looking arrangement if you use groups of one type of flower or foliage rather than individual flowers or stems. Prepare your materials beforehand and have separate piles of each type of flower or foliage ready trimmed and within reach.

Establishing the Base
1. Use a craft knife to cut a piece of florist's foam to fit the basket or vase. The foam should extend about 1 1/4" above the rim of the container.

2. Fix the florist's spike to the bottom of the vase with the adhesive clay. Push the foam firmly onto the spike.

3. With the knife, cut off the sharp corners of the foam and round the top and sides to fit the container.

4. The flowers will be densely arranged and will overlap the container so that the foam will be invisible once the arrangement is complete.

Establishing the Center and Outline
1. The finished shape of the arrangement will echo the shape of the container, and this is achieved by working with flowers and foliage with comparatively short stems (approximately 6"). This will allow you to control the outline of the arrangement more accurately than is possible with longer stems and will also make it possible to pack the flowers very closely together.

2. In the center of the container, place a group of foliage, such as carthamus, to establish the maximum height and width of the container.

3. Working from the center, add groups of achillea, roses and foliage tightly around the central group of carthamus. As you work outward, begin to gently angle the stems so that the flowers begin to slope outward.

4. While you work, keep turning the arrangement to ensure that you are creating a balanced shape, and also bend down and look at it from tabletop level. Remember this arrangement will be viewed from a sitting position as well as from above and sometimes an arrangement that looks wonderful viewed from above reveals flaws when viewed from the side.

5. Work systematically from the center point, allowing the groups of flowers and foliage to flow curvingly into one another; avoid making straight lines. Imagine a herbaceous border as you work and picture how the flowers gently blend together.

6. As you reach the outer edges of the arrangement, begin to angle the flowers and foliage more and more acutely until the stems are pushed horizontally into the foam. Then continue the outline of the arrangement by angling the stems upward into the foam to break the line of the edge of the container. The arrangement will look more natural if the bottom edge of the flowers and the foliage curves softly and partially conceals the container.

Ideal Networking - Any Better Marketing Ideas?

2008-05-16T02:51:00.000-07:00

Passing the Buck

Every dollar tells a story.

By Sony Hocklander And Barbara Bartocci

In May 2000, Ozarks artist Dean Bracy reached dejectedly inside his mailbox, expecting the same emptiness he'd found for nearly half a year. A look of disbelief, then a grin, spread across his face. Stuffed inside were 37 picture postcards and letters. Was his "crazy idea" starting to pay off?

Six months earlier, Bracy had opened a bank account with 10,000 $1 bills. Each bill, as it went into circulation, was carrying his handwritten message: "Where does a dollar go? Send me a postcard! d.d.B., Rte 1, Box 282, Highlandville, MO 65669. Have a great day!"

Replies were soon averaging 70 a week. To date, over 7,400 strangers have poured their dreams, joys, wit and woe into hastily scribbled notes, thoughtful letters, original poems and even prayers. Some have sent hand-drawn illustrations and funny photos.

Steven discovered a dollar in his wallet while buying Starbucks coffee. "It was the first day of my honeymoon with my beautiful bride," he wrote on a postcard that pictured California sea lions, "which means the dollar was in my wallet in my pocket through the whole ceremony and reception! Your dollar has traveled up and down the California coast this last week...have lots of happy days!"

A self-styled poet, whose signature was a happy face, penned: "Peek-a-boo/Don't know you/Got your dollar/Spent it too/What's your name?/ What do you do?/Want to know/Just what and who."

Neither the poet nor anyone else who wrote knew whether Bracy was a man or a woman, young or old. They didn't know why he penned his message, nor could they guess the inspiration that lay behind it.

The idea for the project came to Bracy on a visit to Seattle in 1999. He attended an exhibit of mosaics, each fashioned from hundreds of squares, all meticulously hand-painted. Boom! Like a thunderclap, he envisioned himself creating his own giant mosaic made from hundreds of picture postcards.

He imagined that if he circulated thousands of $1 bills, he could generate enough postcards to create several works of art.

After learning from the Bureau of Engraving and Printing that writing on the edge of bills wasn't illegal, he approached a friend for a loan: $10,000 to purchase new one-dollar bills. And consumed by his vision, Bracy quit his job. For ten weeks, nine hours at a stretch, he carefully wrote his message with a black felt-tip marker.

But as winter melted into spring and no replies came, a disappointed Bracy went to work for his dad, a building contractor. Forget your crazy idea, he told himself. Then came the day in May when the postcards began to arrive. Some made Bracy laugh out loud.

Elizabeth, age 11, wrote from Georgia: "Dear D.D.B., I got your dollar ...I have two stinky mean brothers, two birds, one cat and two dogs. Do you have any stinky brothers or pets?" Chris, a California cabbie, filled a jumbo-sized postcard: "So waddya write to a stranger anyway? There I was drivin' along in my taxi on a killer, sunny, San Francisco day when my adventures were interrupted by a dollar bill with writing all over it. Missouri, huh? Is that one of the square-shaped ones? Kidding, of course. I'd guess Highlandville is nothing like SF, home of the double half-caff Chai Latte and Web designers' pizza."

"Dear Dollar Bill Buddy," wrote another inventive writer, "Some crazy lady stuck me on her refrigerator. I couldn't move. Now I'm in an envelope on my way to buy an ID tag for her newly adopted black Lab. I feel so used. She treats her dog better than me, but at least my life now has a purpose. Love, your $1.00 (aka "Bill").

Kirk from Florida sent a large box holding a Sunday Miami Herald, color snapshots of his pets (Dina the dog, Sweet Pea the cat, and his parrots, Frick and Frack) and a fresh green coconut. Karen from Sacramento sent a photo of herself stuffing an oversized sandwich in her mouth. "Here I am, doing what I do best!" she wrote.

Before long, travel brochures, maps, menus, bumper stickers, refrigerator magnets, baseball cards, five lottery tickets showed up. People detailed their lives, politics and their towns.

"Your dollar bill made it to Lincoln, Montana," wrote another Westerner. "Our small town is known for three things: home to the Blackfoot River from the film A River Runs Through It, the coldest temp in the lower 48 (-70 degrees) and the place where they found the Unabomber."

Bracy's dollars have turned up at the scene of a crime, as a gift to a newborn, and in the garter of an exotic dancer. They have been wagered by gamblers like Donna (who won $900 at a casino in Redding, Calif.) and unselfishly given to charities.

Dean tucks each reply -- and anything that comes with it -- into a clear plastic sleeve, which he files according to postmark date.

The intimacy and pain of some notes is enough to bring one to tears.

"Your dollar went to help bury a mother and four-year-old son who had no reason to die," a distraught writer from Illinois wrote. A father from Sikeston, Mo., whose son had recently passed away, also asked, "Would you be so kind as to use this postcard in your project as a memorial to our son?"

The messages have enlarged Bracy's vision. He believes he has a snapshot of the American spirit. You can glimpse part of it on his website: www.wheredoesadollargo.com.

"What's most amazing is the effort some people put into their responses," Bracy says. "It's very humbling." A writer from California, who precisely penned his note backward in neat letters, perhaps said it best. Bracy read it reflected in his bathroom mirror: "Everything you do, everything you experience, everything you think affects who you are. You have an incredible amount of input into the creation of yourself."

Ideal Finance - Timeless Advice

2008-05-16T02:46:00.000-07:00

It’s Time to Change Your Financial Advisor if...

It helps to have a good investment advisor. But a bad one can spell disaster. Here, according to experts at the financial website PersonalFn. com, are some warning signs to watch out for:

He only recommends the season’s flavour. If so, he’s not creative enough. Many advisors follow the herd and make you invest in what everybody else is — like new fund offers (NFOs). Usually these schemes enjoy a moment of glory, one that may not last for long.

You’re keeping him for the commission he offers. A widely prevalent practice (despite being illegal) among advisors is to give you part of his commission. Select an advisor for his analyses and advice. Commission offered by the advisor could be a ploy to disguise his inefficiencies.

He only advises lump sum investing. An advisor who makes you invest large amounts at one go is probably doing that to increase his earnings and may not under-stand the nuances of market-related investments made over time.

He only delivers and picks up the forms. Oddly this is what the bulk of the advisors do. An investment advisor’s primary role includes creating a portfolio based on your needs, risk profile and successfully managing the same.

- PersonalFn.com

Save on Shirts

You’ve possibly forgotten your friendly neighbourhood tailor, because you’ve been buying readymade branded shirts at Rs.1200 apiece. Most good tailors can clone a branded shirt that fits you perfectly. So, even if you buy the best fabric that readymades use and pay the tailor (about Rs.150 for a shirt), you could save more than 50%. And he’ll also “tailor” your shirt to your taste — a larger pocket perhaps, button-up collar, or a shorter sleeve.

There is a very easy way to return from a casino with a small fortune: Go there with a large one.

- Jack Yelton

Mutual Funds: Do SIPs really work?

Mutual funds offer you systematic investment plans (SIPs) where you are committed to invest a fixed amount of money every month in an equity scheme. The number of units you get will depend on the prevailing price: You get fewer units when the market price is high, and more units when the stock market is down. Your cost averages out, and hence SIPs are based on what’s called “rupee cost averaging.” But do they always work to the investor’s advantage as the mutual funds claim?

The answer, according to researchers: Not always, but only sometimes. Every known stock investment strategy will work at times, but nothing works all the time. And SIPs are no exception.

Of course, SIPs will work for a while if the date at which you start buying units falls just before a significant market crash (like May 2006). You’d have been even more lucky if the market slumped for a year after you joined the scheme (like most of 2002). Since you can’t predict these downturns, there’s little reason to believe that SIPs will give you an advantage.

Yet, why do many people persist in believing that SIPs always work? It’s, first, the effect of mutual fund ads and newspaper articles that constantly spread the myth. But there’s probably also a psychological appeal: If the market dips, people will be happy because the units become cheaper. If the market goes up, people will be happy anyway!

- M.S.

Q: Should I invest in new fund offers?
Answer: To most unsuspecting investors, a mutual fund’s new fund offer (NFO) looks cheap, because units are sold at Rs10, while the units of an older scheme are sold at a price determined by its net asset value (NAV), which may be higher than Rs10. Schemes that have done well may have very high NAVs and so they will seem costlier. For instance, one unit of HDFC Prudence (launched 1994) sells for about Rs105 while Reliance Growth (launched 1995) sells for about Rs250.

But it does not mean that your risk is low when you invest in an NFO at Rs10 per unit. In fact your risk of losing money may be much higher with an NFO than if you were to buy into an older scheme, say, at Rs250 per unit. Units of the older scheme, like HDFC Prudence or Reliance Growth, are priced higher only because their fund managers have done a good job and grown their NAVs. But with an NFO, you have no history to look at. So go for an old scheme that has performed well, since there’s a good chance it’s going to stay that way. Visit ValueResearchOnline.com or use Outlook Money magazine to study an older scheme’s annual returns before investing. And, if it’s an equity fund, it’s best to hold your cash and invest when there’s “bad news” and the stock markets are down.

Ideal Hacking - The Net 3.0

2008-05-16T02:25:00.001-07:00

When Karen Lodrick's identity was stolen she decided to fight back.

To Catch an Identity Thief

"I Hunted Down the Woman Who Stole My Life"

By Anita Bartholomew

"I've Got to Follow Her"

Karen Lodrick ordered a latte at Starbucks while waiting nervously for the bank on San Francisco's Market Street to open. She had been anxious and distracted of late but couldn't help noticing the scruffy-looking pair standing next to her: a tall man wearing a navy baseball jacket and a large woman in jeans and Gucci glasses, carrying a brown suede coat and a Prada purse. The woman looked vaguely familiar. That coat. A cold tingle of fear ran through Karen as she took it all in. The distinctive faux-fur trim along its edges looked as unkempt as the woman who held it. And then -- bingo -- she knew. Karen's ID had been stolen five months before. Her bank account had been emptied, and her life sent reeling out of control. The coat she was looking at was the same one she'd seen in the bank surveillance tape, worn by the woman who'd stolen Karen's ID.

Karen followed the pair onto the patio and watched as they settled at a round table under a burgundy window awning. She called 911, asked that a police officer meet her, then settled at the next table, watching and waiting on this morning in April 2007.

Just the day before, Karen's bank had called after closing hours to tell her that she'd left her driver's license at a branch on Market and Church streets. But Karen had never been to that branch. And her real driver's license was still in her wallet. The con artist must have come back to retrieve the phony license.

A cell call from her friend Ed Fuentes interrupted her thoughts. She walked toward the hedges that bordered the Starbucks patio, out of earshot of the pair, and told him her suspicions.

The large woman and her companion stole glances at Karen, looking increasingly nervous. Then they got up from the table and separated. The man turned south. The woman headed north.

"Ed, I've got to go," she told her friend. "I've got to follow her."

"Don't do anything crazy, Karen," said Fuentes. "She could have a gun."

"I've got to do it." She feared that if she didn't act, the identity thief would disappear, along with any hope of ending her bad dream. The chase was on.

Dipping into Her Accounts

For five months, the thief had dipped into Karen's accounts like they were her own private piggy bank. She scammed thousands of dollars more, using credit cards she opened in Karen's name. The banks were unable to stop her. The police could do nothing. Creditors demanded payment for the thief's transactions. Karen closed her accounts, only to have the criminal crack open the new ones she'd opened and drain those too.

The woman turned a corner. Karen's phone rang. The caller ID said "unknown caller." Karen looked up the street and saw that the woman had her cell phone out. Could she be checking to see if the real Karen Lodrick was on her tail? And where were the police?

As Karen approached a recycling center at the corner of Buchanan Street, a man stood looking quizzically at her, then at the woman she was following.

"Do you know her?" she asked.

"No. Do you?"

Karen told him she thought the woman had stolen her identity. "You're not the first person to say that about her," he said, arousing her suspicion about him as well. Was he an accomplice? Karen again called 911 as the woman took off up the hill, looking over her shoulder at Karen every few seconds.

"I need somebody to come to Buchanan and Market," Karen told the 911 operator who answered. "She is running. I need the police."

"What's the problem, ma'am?"

"This woman has been taking my identity. For the last five months. It's been a living hell."

There was an odd voice mail from Karen's bank waiting when she returned home to San Francisco in November 2006 from a family reunion in Michigan. Karen called back, and the service rep asked if she'd made any large withdrawals and mentioned one in the amount of $600. Karen assumed it was a bank error and asked the rep to verify the debit card number.

"That's not my card," she said.

The bank representative insisted -- mistakenly, as Karen later learned -- that someone had called from Karen's phone to order the new debit card. After much back-and-forth, Karen convinced the rep that it wasn't hers, and he canceled it. What he failed to mention was that a second new debit card had been issued on her account. And it was still open.

Cleaned Out

Concerned after the bank rep told her the order came from her home phone, Karen asked her neighbors if they'd heard about any break-ins. They hadn't. But several people in her building mentioned that they'd seen mailboxes hanging open. A thief had apparently broken into the mail and stolen at least four envelopes: two with debit cards and two that provided the debit card PINs.

As far as Karen knew, the thief had stolen $600. Bad enough, but not life-altering. It wasn't until she got to the bank, and a representative turned the computer screen around for her to see, that she understood what had occurred. Screen after screen showed dozens of withdrawals, just over the past few days. About $10,000 was gone. Karen's balance was zero. Her overdraft protection plan had automatically deducted another $1,200 from savings to cover the shortfall after the thief had cleaned out the checking account.

Karen filed a police report, closed her now-empty account and submitted a claim. With no money to cover checks, she couldn't pay her bills, her rent. She couldn't even buy groceries. Late fees were compounded by black marks on her credit report. And that was just the beginning.

At five-two and 110 pounds, Karen Lodrick was tiny compared with the nearly six-foot-tall woman carrying the brown suede coat. Block after block in downtown San Francisco, Karen chased the woman, keeping the 911 operator on the phone to let her know exactly where they were.

She lost sight of the woman after she turned a corner. But as Karen looked through the French doors leading into a stately old apartment building, there she was again. One glance at Karen and the woman took off down the hill toward Market Street, a main thoroughfare with multiple lanes in either direction.

Traffic whizzed by. Locals strolled the tree-lined sidewalks and walked in and out of funky coffeehouses. Some, toting bags of bottles and aluminum cans, meandered toward the recycling center. People of every description moved along Market Street. But she didn't see any police officers.

Reaching into Her Life

As the identity thief passed an abandoned shopping cart, Karen saw her arm swing out. She tossed something inside. Karen raced to the cart. "I got what she dropped," she told the 911 operator. "It's a wallet. A Prada wallet." Karen wanted to look inside, but she had no time.

The thief ran into a busy intersection against the light and flagged down a taxi. Karen panicked. "She is not going to get away," she cried to the operator. "I am not going to let her escape." She caught the taxi before the driver pulled out.

"Don't let her go!" she implored. "She's an identity thief." The driver lifted his hands off the wheel and held them up. Her escape thwarted, the woman got out and confronted Karen.

"Why are you chasing me?"

For an instant, Karen felt doubt. What if this wasn't the thief? She tried to convince the woman to wait for the police. But she took off down Market Street again, toward Octavia, where the freeway spilled out its traffic. Karen kept after her.

A vintage orange streetcar pulled up to the bus stop, and the woman jumped aboard, Karen right behind. Adrenaline pumping, she was totally focused on the thief.

"Please don't drive away," Karen told the driver. The thief quickly ducked off again. "Why don't you just wait and you can talk to the police?" Karen called.

To Karen's surprise, the woman answered, saying she was on probation and would be arrested. Karen now had no doubt she'd found the right person.

It drove Karen crazy that it took about two weeks for the bank's credit card division to process the problem and recredit money to her account. She felt hopeful when the bank called to tell her it had a surveillance video of the thief. On it Karen saw a big, dark-haired woman in a suede coat and designer sunglasses at an ATM. Karen signed an affidavit that she didn't know the woman, got a printout of her image, and that was it.

Meanwhile, the thief reached deeper into Karen's life. She used her Social Security number and other information to get a counterfeit driver's license, showing Karen's license number but the thief's picture. With the license and the Social Security number, she reopened accounts that Karen had closed years before.

One day, the Dell computer company called Karen to confirm that it was all right to send "her" $7,000 order to an address different from the one on her account.

"Close that account and don't deliver those computers," she told Dell's rep, explaining someone had stolen her identity. She asked for the address the thief had wanted the equipment sent to. Dell refused to give her the address, saying she'd have to put the request in writing.

A Prolonged Nightmare

Karen placed fraud alerts with the credit reporting agencies. But that didn't stop the thief from opening more accounts in Karen's name. Again and again, she asked the bank to put an alert on her account, but when she checked, it wasn't there. The thief got into her new bank account, and the whole cycle began again. She was at her wit's end.

To add to her frustration, the bank claimed Karen had failed to come in to view the surveillance video. It didn't matter that she'd signed an affidavit. The bank couldn't find it and cut off access to her funds. She viewed the video again and signed another affidavit. The bank lost that one too. She signed another.

Now, with a phony driver's license, the thief was stalking her third checking account.

For half an hour, up and down the streets, around corners and into alleyways, Karen Lodrick, frightened but determined, pursued the woman with the suede coat. Karen lost her twice when she slipped into buildings to hide. And then she lost her a third time at an indoor parking lot. "It's over," she told the 911 operator. Exasperated and exhausted, Karen zipped open the Prada wallet.

Two of her bank statements were tucked into one side of the large wallet. On the other were the two debit cards used to clean out her account in November. She also found one of her own paychecks. But what chilled her most were tiny "cue cards" with her name, Social Security number, driver's license number and address.

The 911 operator assured her that an officer would be there as soon as he finished an emergency call, and Karen agreed to wait by the entrance to the garage. When the cop arrived a few minutes later, Karen told him what had occurred, feeling little hope that he'd find the woman now.

But only moments later, the officer found her -- crouched between a car and the building, smoking a cigarette.

"Idiot! You should have kept running," Karen told her.

Epilogue
The arresting officer said the identity thief, Maria Nelson, had at least 60 prior arrests, was indeed on probation and was wanted in another jurisdiction for similar crimes. When Nelson came before a judge 44 days later, however, thanks to a plea deal with the prosecutor, she was sentenced to only time served plus probation.

Meanwhile, Karen keeps getting billed for phone service and items at a department store that she didn't buy. And she fears her ID may have been sold on the black market, prolonging her nightmare.

Ideal Humor - Kidz

2008-05-16T02:15:00.000-07:00

As kids see it

A few years ago, I learnt just how much young children take to heart the things we unknowingly say to them. When my daughter was four and quite a handful, I would, at times, in sheer exasperation, call her a pest.
One day, my husband informed me that our housing society had fixed an appointment with the pest control company to get rid of cockroaches and termites. Hearing this, my usually bubbly daughter became quiet and asked with trepidation, “Are they coming to control me?”

- Parvathi Shekhar

The rule when my children were young was: If you complain about my cooking, you have to cook the next day. One busy afternoon, the skin on the chicken I was roasting got too dark and my eight-year-old son eyed the meat and said glumly, “Burned chicken again.” Looking at me, he quickly blurted, “Just the way I like it!”

- Noella Andress

My husband and I were packing for a two-week vacation when our daughter and her family came to say bon voyage.
As they left, our four-year-old grandson, Griffin, reminded us, “Don’t forget to send me an e-mail! It can say: Dear Griffin, we bought you something.”

- Vicki Deeton

Laine, our six-year-old daughter, came home from school very excited to show us what she’d learnt in her safety programme.
“This is what I have to do if a stranger approaches me and tries to take me.” She took a deep breath, grimaced and yelled, “Help! Help! This is not my mother! I am being adopted!”

- Maureen Howell

We live in bear country and one day spotted a mother bear and her cubs picking berries nearby. I sat my two youngsters down and told them, “If you ever see a bear, run to the nearest house, go in and close the door tight.”
My daughter looked up with big eyes and asked, “Do I knock first?”

- Myrna E. Wallis

Colin, my six-year-old cousin, hurt his head so badly that his dad took him to hospital. On the way, his dad prepared him for what would happen.
“The nurse will take a picture of your bones to see if any are broken,” he said reassuringly. In the waiting room, Colin appeared more and more anxious.
“Dad,” he worriedly asked, “how's the nurse going to get my skin off to see my bones?”

- Tonya Thibeau

Our granddaughter was on her way to a friend's house for a sleepover when she asked her dad how many pieces there were in a motorcycle.
“Why do you want to know?” he asked.
“Because,” she replied excitedly, “Leah's dad says if we clean his motorcycle, he’ll pay us $2 apiece!”

- Jessie Sparks

My daughter, a teacher, takes care to expand her children’s vocabulary. When my eight-year-old grandson, Steven, was visiting, I tucked him into bed after a story, prayers and a kiss. He padded downstairs soon after.
“Grandma, I’m not sleepy now,” he pleaded. “Can’t I be nocturnal for just one night?”

- Hennie VanderSchee

The grocery store lineup was long, and I was wondering how to keep my three-year-old daughter busy when, to my relief, an elderly man ahead of us turned to chat.
“What’s your name?” he asked my daughter.
“Rebecca,” she said.
Eager to carry on the budding conversation, she continued, “And my baby brother’s name is Nolan.”
Every shopper in line was now paying attention. Delighted with her captive audience, Rebecca added, “And my daddy’s name is Lover!”

- D.L. Woodman

Our minister concluded his Mother’s Day sermon by pointing to the congregation and firing a question: “Where would you be right now if it weren’t for your mother?”
The silence that followed was broken by a six-year-old boy. “At home,” he replied.

- C.E. Goodwin

My four-year-old son and I were walking along the bank of a river when he got the sudden urge to toss a stick into the water. But there weren’t any sticks around, so I reached into my pocket and took out a coin.
“Here, this is better,” I said. “Throw this coin into the river and make a wish.”
He closed his eyes, made a wish and threw the coin.
“So you made a wish?” I asked him.
“Yes,” he said. “I wished I had a stick.”

- S. O’Connor

We were playing “I spy something with my little eye” while having dinner. When my six-year-old daughter’s turn came, she asked us to guess something with the letter F. The three of us, including my wife and son, scanned the entire room and mentioned visible articles such as fork, frame and flowerpot. All of us were wrong. Finally we gave up and asked her for the answer. “Family,” she replied.

- Viren Dayal, Mumbai

Ideal Mother

2008-05-16T02:00:00.000-07:00

Full of Life

When an expectant mother learns she has breast cancer, she faces a wrenching decision.

By Laura Yorke

Shocking News

You hear all the time about mothers who put their lives on the line for their children. Women who stand up to danger or search tirelessly for a cure. Women who endure pain or hardship of their own, who won't take no for an answer. All for the children they hold in their arms every night.

This is the story of one of those women -- brave, strong and determined. Only the child she fought for was still just a promise. And in a twist many people would call a miracle, the unborn child ended up saving her life. This is the story of Michelle DeSantis and Michael, the son who almost wasn't.

The winter of 2002 was a magical time for Michelle. She and her husband, Jim, a stockbroker, had just purchased their dream house, a five-bedroom Colonial on an acre of land in a quiet town on Long Island. After struggling with developmental delays, their six-year-old, James, had started regular kindergarten. And now Michelle thought she might be expecting again. Out to dinner one Friday with her best girlfriends, toward the end of the evening she confided that she'd missed her period a couple of weeks before. Everyone knew how much Michelle wanted another baby, and none of them could stand the suspense. So she and her friends drove around, looking for a late-night convenience store. They bought a home pregnancy test kit and -- bingo! -- it was positive.

Busy with James and getting ready for the move, Michelle did not immediately visit her ob-gyn. She finally made an appointment through her sister Marie, the administrative secretary to her doctor, Adam Romoff. Routine blood work confirmed Michelle's pregnancy at nine weeks. Dr. Romoff also gave Michelle a breast exam. Feeling something in one of her breasts, he ordered a sonogram, standard procedure for a pregnant woman with a suspect lump. Michelle stuck the prescription Dr. Romoff had written in her purse without looking at it. A week later, as she handed it to the radiology receptionist, she noticed it ordered an ultrasound of her right breast -- yet she thought she remembered Dr. Romoff saying he felt something on her left. She called Marie, who conferred with the doctor. "Have them both checked," he said.

The radiologist thought he saw something in the right breast, in addition to the left. Michelle was thinking, "Okay, I have two cysts. Big deal." More than anything, she was preoccupied with getting home to James. Dr. Romoff, in whom she had total faith, could take care of the rest.

Indeed, breast cancer isn't common in women in their early 30s. Yet within the hour, Dr. Romoff received a phone call from the radiologist. Marie knew her sister had just been for her sonogram. And she knew such a quick response could not mean good news. "I ran into his office when he got off the phone, and he looked up and said, 'Marie, you have to give me a minute.' He was in shock." The radiologist had found a suspicious cluster of cells in the right breast. Dr. Romoff called Michelle, breaking the news as gently as he could. She needed a biopsy within the week.

A doctor did biopsies on both sides -- one a fine-needle aspiration, the other a core biopsy. Tissue from the right breast went immediately to the pathology lab. The needle was big and the emotional tension exhausting, but Jim and Michelle weren't alarmed. "Jim, I am not cooking dinner tonight," Michelle said, joking.

The MD came back into the exam room: They needed another biopsy. He tried to be reassuring, telling them that one to three biopsies are usually performed on suspicious tissue. Jim was starting to get concerned, and began firing questions. The answers were always the same: "We won't know until we get there." Jim left the room for a few minutes. While he was out, the doctor came back. "We have to do another one," he told Michelle.

The third set of results seemed to take an unbearable amount of time. "I couldn't be on that table any longer. I just wanted to get dressed and get out of there," Michelle recalls. The doctor came back once more. "We see malignant cells."

"The first thing I said was, 'I want my mother.' Here I am, 34 years old, pregnant. How does this happen?" With the exception of a cousin on her mother's side, no one in the family had ever been diagnosed with breast cancer. Dr. Romoff immediately got the pathologist's findings, and Michelle went straight to his office. She was finding it hard to get control of herself. She believed -- for the first time -- that she was going to die. But the sensation was surreal, detached. "It was less 'I am going to die' than like hearing someone dear to you was dying."

Dr. Romoff and Marie were waiting, and Jim was there, too, of course, but Michelle felt utterly isolated, frozen in anxiety. She heard Dr. Romoff trying to explain that there were different types of cancers, with different risk factors and treatments. But by then her mind had shut off. She remembers thinking, "I am going to die. I want to be with my son, and I don't know how to tell my parents I have cancer."

When she got home and saw James, Michelle became inconsolable. "What if I'm not here anymore for him?" When James was a toddler, Michelle took charge of his developmental therapy herself, which had only deepened their bond. James wanted a baby brother or sister, and asked for one constantly. After the home pregnancy test, Michelle and Jim had told him to pray every night and ask God if he could put a baby in Mommy's belly. Once the pregnancy had been confirmed, she and Jim told James. "He was so thrilled -- he believed God had directly answered his prayers," she says. And now what would happen?

Two days later, Michelle and Jim went for an appointment with Dr. Leslie Montgomery at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City. She reviewed Michelle's file before giving her an exam. She knew the lump was at 12 o'clock in the right breast, but she couldn't feel it. Dr. Romoff could not have felt it. No one could have. Only the sonogram -- that was necessitated by the pregnancy -- picked it up. A fluke, or a small miracle.

A Mother's Choice

In her office, Dr. Montgomery drew a diagram of the breast with an arrow pointing to it and the word lumpectomy written above it. She doled out options -- "lumpectomy then radiation," "mastectomy," "chemo." Michelle was listening to them all, but what she really heard was "cancer." Her thoughts ran from the crucial to the mundane: "I am going to die." Then, "hair is a big deal in our family" -- they all have beautiful, dark Italian hair -- "I don't want chemo. I don't want my hair to fall out!" Even after Dr. Montgomery had explained everything, Michelle could not completely grasp the magnitude of what had happened to her, or of what she needed to decide. The one thing that stuck was that there would be no grace period.

One option: termination of the pregnancy, followed by a lumpectomy, and radiation. "What have other women done when they were diagnosed with cancer while pregnant?" Michelle asked.

"Terminated," said Montgomery. Today, she adds a caveat. "Each case is unique. Each patient's risk/benefit ratio is different." In weighing the decision to keep a pregnancy, the woman needs to take into account the doctor's experience in treating similar cancers, and the doctor needs to take into account the woman's desires and hopes. Michelle knew exactly what hers were.

At a second meeting, Dr. Montgomery knew a bit more. Michelle's tumor was classified as estrogen receptor positive. Generally that's a plus, because it opens the door to a wider range of treatments. But when a woman is pregnant, this kind of tumor feeds off the increased estrogen in her bloodstream, possibly making it grow rapidly.

But there was also good news. The tumor was well differentiated. Because it was also small -- under one centimeter -- Michelle didn't need chemo. The biggest question at this point was whether any lymph nodes had been affected. That would determine Michelle's treatment -- either aggressive, or less so. But the only way to find out was to test tissue samples from her lymph nodes. There are two procedures for this; neither one was a great option for a pregnant woman. All the signs pointed in just one direction: Michelle should terminate her pregnancy.

Once they were out of Dr. Montgomery's office, though, Michelle suddenly wasn't so sure. "It doesn't make sense to me now," she said to Jim and Marie. "I can't imagine why I have to terminate when we don't know if it's in my lymph nodes. And this little baby saved my life. If I wasn't pregnant, I would not have had the breast exam. We would not have caught the cancer so early. So how can I just let go?"

At that point, Jim and Marie became nearly apoplectic. Of course she had to terminate. On the drive home, Michelle called Dr. Romoff. "Pregnant women have surgeries. What difference does it make if it's a tonsillectomy, a lumpectomy or a mastectomy? Fetuses survive surgery." She asked him point-blank, "Do you think I have to terminate?"

"Absolutely not," he answered.

Today he says, "There is no evidence that pregnancy affects the prognosis of breast cancer from stage to stage. Early breast cancer in women who are not pregnant has been shown to have the same outcome as early breast cancer in women who are pregnant." The risk was in the limitations to treatment that the pregnancy posed. If Michelle wanted to take the gamble, Dr. Romoff was willing to stand by her.

As Michelle recalls now, "Marie was having a canary, and Jim was furious." They couldn't understand her stubbornness -- why expose herself to such a risk?

For Michelle, there was a consideration beyond just the baby she was carrying. If she terminated, her oncologist recommended that she be put on tamoxifen, a standard drug for patients with estrogen-fed tumors. And most women take tamoxifen for five years; while taking it, they shouldn't get pregnant. By the time she finished her treatment, Michelle would be almost 40. Even if she did get pregnant, by the time the baby was born, James would be 11 and Jim in his 50s.

As she looked at all her options, Michelle's way became clear. Forget the lumpectomy -- she should just have her right breast removed. She wouldn't need radiation or chemo. A mastectomy meant she could nurse before starting tamoxifen. And during her mastectomy, they could examine her lymph nodes. "If it's in the lymph nodes, we'll cross that bridge when we come to it," she said. "If I terminate and my lymph nodes turn out to be clear, I will have lost my baby. Under that scenario, I could never live with myself -- what if I couldn't get pregnant again?"

Talking on the telephone with Dr. Romoff later, Michelle was adamant. "Who cares about my breast? It can be fixed. It won't be perfect, but it can be fixed. I just want the cancer out of me." Fortunately, she says today, "we were on the same page."

Says Dr. Romoff: "Michelle made it easy for me to help her because she let me know, clearly, what her priorities were. She wanted the cancer out. She was far less concerned about cosmetics. She did not want radiation. I thoroughly supported her decision -- and do to this day."

The night before the surgery, Michelle told James, "Mommy has a little cyst on her chest and she needs to have it removed." He could relate to the explanation because he'd had a little cyst on his chest removed. He did not ask many questions. At five o'clock the next morning, Jim and Michelle drove into New York City for the surgery. Whisked into a gown and the waiting room, Michelle found herself talking to a woman in her 60s.

"Is this your first time?" the woman asked. Michelle wasn't sure which "first" she meant, but she answered. "Yes. Is it yours?"

"My third. I've had two lumpectomies, and they didn't work out, so now I have to have a mastectomy."

Michelle looked up and silently whispered, "Thank you, God." She felt it was a sign that she was meant to take the aggressive option. Seconds later, the nurse called out, "Michelle DeSantis!" It was time to go.

Two hours later, Michelle was in the recovery room. Dazed, she distantly heard Marie talking to Jim. "She looks good! Her color is good. Her hair even looks good!" The recovery nurse asked Michelle if she would like to see her husband. "I was lying there, and I saw Jim charging toward me. He got to my bed, and he just grabbed my hand and dropped to his knees and started crying hysterically. 'It's all right, Jim. I feel really good,' I told him. And I did -- all that wonderful, positive energy of the pregnancy was starting to take over."

Dr. Romoff was there, too, with the fetal monitor, ready to listen for a heartbeat. He didn't hear it right away, even though Michelle was 13 weeks pregnant. Everyone was still. Then, there it was. Five days later, Michelle took a call from Dr. Montgomery.

"Your lymph nodes are clean," she said. Michelle burst into tears. The emotional relief was overwhelming. "It was a big turning point for us. We knew after that, we could really look forward to the baby."

It struck Michelle how blessed she was to have listened to her gut and taken the more radical approach. "I just kept thinking, Thank you, God. Thank you for guiding me. The real gift was being able to take the information I had at the time -- to know what was best for me." The final blessing came on November 22, when Michael was born, whole and healthy.

Nearly three years later, Michelle, Jim and their sons are living in the magic they craved so much. After breast-feeding, Michelle started tamoxifen, which made her ill and depressed. Her breast reconstruction has been long, and at times painful. She knows, though, that these will soon just be memories, mostly obscured by the everyday joys of her sons. "Yesterday, we were at a friend's house, and James and the other boy went upstairs. Michael kept saying, 'Where's my brother? Where's my James? Where's my James?' When James came back, Michael said, 'James! My brother!' and hugged him. Then he rested his head on James's shoulder." Her voice trails off.

Sitting in the sun on her patio, waiting for James's school bus, with Michael sleeping soundly just inside the door, Michelle DeSantis knows exactly what she might have missed, and exactly what she has.

Ideal Business, Career, Work

2008-05-16T01:46:00.000-07:00

Turn Your Computer Into a Cash Machine

Your hobby + a computer = extra money.

By Jack Knight

There are hundreds of stories about ambitious people who quit their jobs to start businesses in their garages, worked 80-hour weeks, sold their companies and wound up rich. This isn't one of them.

Instead, this is about the growing number of average people who are spending their leisure hours selling hobbies and services on home computers and the Internet. With full-time salaries stretched thin and the cost of necessities rising, more people are looking for low-risk ways to earn extra income.

"The Web is a great place to shop and spend money, but it's pretty great for making money too," says Joanne Pratt, a Dallas-based adviser to the Small Business Administration on at-home commerce.

More than half of all small businesses are based at home, according to the SBA. "Computers, Internet access, cell-phone technology and simplified web-page design software have all become cheaper and faster in recent years, making it easier to launch some type of at-home enterprise without sinking a lot of money into it," says Simon Yates, senior analyst at Forrester Research.

Most people who run an at-home business use a desktop computer, connect to the Internet and live in a household where the average annual income is $65,000, reports Forrester. To manage the extra cash, many entrepreneurs are using accounting software programs for small businesses, such as Intuit's QuickBooks line, which generated revenue of $654 million last year -- a jump of nearly 100 percent since 2000.

"If you're the slightest bit entrepreneurial, you can reach large numbers of consumers instantly over the Internet, while key-word searches at Google let consumers reach you just as quickly," says Pratt. "The Web is an amazing marketplace." How can you turn your PC into a cash machine? It's easier than you think:

Auction Stuff on eBay
In New York, where trend-conscious executives and socialites routinely clear out cramped apartment closets to make room for newer looks, Bonnie Levine is considered something of a personal seller. Think Carrie Bradshaw in reverse. When the Manolo Blahniks and Pradas have to go, Levine gets a call to pick them up.

At home, Levine, 41, and her partner, Mindy Calo, 34, auction off the shoes, designer clothes and accessories on eBay, taking 50 percent of all sales. "We're both moms and our husbands work full-time," says Levine. "We do this to earn extra money between family chores, not to get rich quick."

Levine and Calo devote about 20 hours a week to their e-enterprise, and each pockets about $3,000 a month. The idea for the business came to Calo in 2003 when she auctioned off some of her own clothes. Soon Calo and Levine were doing the same for families and friends nationwide, using the eBay seller name Mindycara. In fact, there are now more than 50,000 "trading assistants" registered with eBay to help people auction off their goods.

"Both of us knew high-powered women with great taste, and they told other women, who told their circle of friends," says Levine. Now the pair has 20 regular clients.

In addition to sorting through clothes, Levine and Calo snap digital images, write up descriptions, determine market values using andale.com, post the information on eBay, and ship merchandise to winning bidders.

To avoid paper clutter, they use channeladvisor.com, a virtual office that stores images, e-mails and documents they don't want to print out or can't afford to lose in a computer crash.

Levine and Calo's advice: Focus on satisfying your customers. "If you have a '500' positive feedback rating," says Calo, "you're much more likely to be viewed as reliable and trustworthy, which counts for everything on eBay."

Blog for $$$
When he's not teaching Internet and constitutional law full-time at the University of Tennessee, Glenn Reynolds, 44, can be found "blogging" on his computer.

Reynolds, creator of the conservative instapundit.com, is one of a growing number of bloggers (blog is short for web log) who post commentary, reviews, photos and more on a wide range of topics on websites throughout the day. Imagine a cyberspace soapbox, and you get the idea.

Blogging is something of a Seinfeld experience -- enabling anyone with a website to write about nothing and everything on a regular basis and receive feedback from readers. What did you do today? That's a blog. What do you think about today's headlines? That's a blog too. How's your pet chinchilla doing? Another blog. "It's like your own printing press, without having to worry about paper, ink or postage," says Reynolds.

Technorati.com, a San Francisco-based real-time search engine that tracks web logs, estimates that 12,000 new blogs are created each day. They range from engadget.com, which features consumer electronics news and reviews, to boingboing.net, with posts on everything from spring-loaded women's shoes to novelty records.

To attract and hold a large, well-defined audience that advertisers will want to reach, a blogger needs a strong point of view, an engaging writing style and a gift for smart analysis. Reynolds says his site receives up to 500,000 visits daily and earns income -- $3,000 a month -- through contributions and posted ads.

"I put a tip jar on my site in 2002 after a friend suggested it," he says. "I thought it was a dumb idea, but I earned $1,300 in the first few days."

Last year, instapundit.com generated so much daily traffic thatblogads.com, an Internet ad-sales company, convinced Reynolds to accept ads on his site. Blogads.com takes 20 percent of the fee paid by advertisers.

Reynolds devotes two to three hours a day -- between classes and at night -- writing entries and reviewing upward of 200 e-mails. "When your site generates enough buzz, you start getting great links and opinions from others that you can post," says Reynolds. "At this point, my site is almost a group blog with a strong editor."

Does Reynolds dream about giving up teaching and blogging full-time? "This is just a hobby, not my life's work," he says. "The only difference between this and my other hobbies, like scuba diving, is that blogging makes a little money." Reynolds's advice: Keep it fresh "so your audience will keep coming back."

Forecast the Future
Emily Galash's friends are so jealous. The 16-year-old Portland, Oregon, high school sophomore is paid $125 a month to take digital photos of teen culture and send them to Look-Look, a youth-culture marketing and trend-forecasting firm in Hollywood.

Galash is one of Look-Look's 35,000 teen trendspotters worldwide who feed their network inside information about the ever-shifting tastes of the lucrative youth market. The demand for hip, sharp-eyed trendspotters is growing as companies and consultancies attempt to learn more about what makes teens buy.

Some of Look-Look's corporate clients, such as Virgin Mobile, a cell-phone service provider, use the images on their websites to give pages an authentic teen feel. Which is why Galash's subjects must first agree to be photographed and then sign a release before she can upload their images to look-look.com.

Galash was offered a shot as a trendspotter last August, when her cousin gave up the job. Known at Look-Look as a "photojournalist," Galash finds her best subjects at school, in the park, at local malls and near the city's many music clubs. "It's getting more difficult to capture original styles because so many young people work hard to stand out," says Galash. "You have to be able to spot the difference between someone who's copying trends and someone who's truly inventing a new look."

Galash's advice: Develop your communication skills and intuitive feel for that next cool thing. But remember that "schoolwork comes first."

Sell Your Hobby
Stephanie Sorbel is one of only a handful of Kyle, South Dakota, residents who own a computer. She's also one of only a few members of the Oglala Lakota tribe on the Pine Ridge Reservation who sell traditional clothes and crafts on the Internet.

Word-of-mouth sales from Sorbel's site (lakotamall.com/lakotadreams) bring in an extra $1,500 a month, which along with her and her husband's full-time salaries goes to support their four children.

Sorbel taught herself to use the computer and navigate the Internet after her Marine husband bought her a PC in 1997 to e-mail him while he was stationed in California. When her mother suggested she sell her crafts on the Internet, Sorbel applied for a low-interest loan from the Lakota Fund, which helps businesses develop on the reservation. Then Sorbel was able to hire a website designer and pay a hosting service. "People don't realize how many funds there are that can help you start a website," says Sorbel, who now works as an office manager for the fund.

Sorbel made her first online dollar in 1999 when a craft shop commissioned a traditional cradleboard for $800. "They sold it right away and immediately asked me to make a doll and other items," she says.

Using traditional 18th-century techniques passed down to her by tribal members, Sorbel decorates clothes by pressing porcupine quills flat and hand-sewing them, using deer or buffalo tendon.

Time management is key. "After we eat dinner each night, I work on my projects in the same room where my children are doing their homework," she says. "When they're done, my 12-year-old daughter helps with the beadwork, while the others put hair on the beaded dolls."

Sorbel works on several projects simultaneously. The men's powwow dance leggings ($1,500) she's completing will take a couple of months, while the $700 doll of Standing Bear, one of her husband's ancestors, will require weeks. Sorbel's advice: Be sure visitors to your site don't have to hunt to find a phone number or e-mail address for you. Feature up-close images of your products. Most important, she says, "Never over-promise customers, and always be honest about what you can and can't do within their time frame."

Troubleshoot PCs
After years spent fixing their kids' computers, Donna Gaynor and Maria Luskin decided they could earn extra income doing just that for people in their San Diego neighborhood. So they took classes to become certified through the Computing Technology Industry Association (comptia.com), an international IT trade organization.

In 2002, Gaynor and Luskin formed PC Divas, a mini-business that brings in about $3,000 a month. They try to work no more than 20 hours a week -- usually from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. while their teenage children are in high school.

"We called ourselves PC Divas so we'd always remember that this is a side venture and that we have families and lives," says Gaynor, laughing. They have about 250 clients, charge $75 an hour, and limit repairs to computers within a 10-minute radius of their homes.

A growing part of their business is diagnosing problems remotely -- provided the client has Windows XP. With the client's permission, Gaynor and Luskin use software that lets them see the customer's desktop from their home computer and even control the client's mouse to resolve problems.

"We have a client in his 70s who regularly calls to say he can't find a file or that his computer is acting strange," says Luskin. "I connect to his PC while he's sitting in front of it, and I use his cursor to show him what's wrong or where a file is located. It freaks him out a little -- it's like watching a piano play by itself -- but we're on the phone together and he trusts me."

Gaynor and Luskin's advice: Review a service contract from a major computer-repair company and use it as a model. Then have a lawyer draw up a tailor-made contract that advises the customer of the risk to his data and limits your responsibility to the agreed-upon repair. It should also specify a time limit to any guarantee of your work. "We make our own schedules; we work only a few hours a day and provide good service," says Gaynor. "We're computer divas."
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