Greetings, editors!

I was doing some maintenance in the forums and noticed that some older posts have swear words showing. Swear words are censored in the forums, so something's a little goofy in the forum world :) Probably because of the recent issues we've had.

I'm going to do a full rebuild of the forum posts tonight. Things might be a little slow while this runs. I'll let you know when the rebuild is done, and we can do a quick check to make sure everything is OK!

A key reason we need our phrasings to be family friendly involves browser filters. Many of our users get to our site through libraries or through home machines that are running filters on them. If our site gets tagged as a "non-family-friendly" site, it could cause all of those users to get blocked from reading our content. We definitely want teens, people who can't afford computers, and other filter-users to be able to benefit from our content!

I've written the topic up here, if you have any questions!

http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art66313.asp

TAKE PHOTOS

Susan Taylor, our Orchids editor, had a GREAT suggestion for everyone about taking photos. Yes, take photos of your home office and car for tax reasons. But she suggests you go through your house and take pictures of EVERY room. She recommends this free software, to organize your household possessions -

http://www.whatyouown.org/

It's created by the Insurance Institute and helps you document your items. That way if you get hit by a flood, fire, burglary, or other disaster, you have right there a list to give to the insurance people. Just make sure you print out a report and have a parent or friend keep a copy, of course :)

This is a GREAT idea for each of us to do. With digital cameras it only takes a few minutes to go around taking pictures of everything. It can be incredibly invaluable in later proving what you had.

A friend of mine just had her house burn down to the ground. Faulty wiring, it appears. One minute she had a house, the next all her possessions were completely gone. You never know when this is going to happen. Take the five minutes now, even if it's just to take a quick snapshot of each room. Mail a set to a friend or two. That at least gets you started :)

OK, I'm off to rebuild the forums! Have a great weekend!

Lisa Shea, owner
BellaOnline.com

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