Filed under: Internet, Children, Windows, Macintosh, Linux, Mozilla, Freeware, Social Software

The internet is full of many wonderful things. However, it is also host to any number to bad influences that parents dread their kids being exposed to. Because of this, many companies produce filtering software in an effort to help protect children from profanity.

Glubble’s approach is a tiny different. Rather than make a futile attempt at blocking everything bad on the internet, it uses a whitelist of sites that are ok for kids to see. It brings together a community of parents, allowing the user to set a pre-defined white list and even use the whitelists of other users. It’s the same sort of powerful social design that make add-ons like Adblock+ so effective.

Not only is Glubble great at keeping kids’ online time rated G, but it also gives Firefox a much more appealing and user friendly look, giving each member of the family an individualized login and portal page, even for the Adults.

Glubble works on Windows, Mac, and Linux, and can be downloaded directly here.

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Filed under: World wide web, Video, Time-Wasters, Social Software, web 2.0

“Poster yourself” is the name of the game, and Glogster is where you play it - even though if you google the term you’ll be asked if you didn’t mean “gangster” instead.

Here’s the premise: you sign up for an account and are swiftly ushered to a large Flash rectangle where you can drag and drop images, videos, and sounds. You can use either preloaded images and decorations from the site or upload your own. Then, if you are so inclined, you can play freely with drop-shadows, fonts, add links, and other gadgetry.

Of course, since this is Web 2.0, there’s the mandatory social aspect where you can add other “Glogsters” to your friend network, rate other people’s glogs, and share your finds. And, if you feel really good about a glog, you can embed it in your website to display your cut-and-paste glory to the world.

Sadly enough, since the preloaded images and decorations that are available fall into cutesy-pink, emo-punk, or bland, you may have to put a tiny work into getting a glog to look just the way you want. Who knows, with a tiny elbow grease, you may even end up on the highly coveted “Top Glogs” list.

[via Craft Gossip]

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Filed under: Borrowing, Debt, Real Estate

Reverse mortgages have long been thought of a creative way for retirees to generate income: By slowly giving up equity in their homes over time, they could generate cash for their living expenses. When they no longer needed the home, it could be sold and the bank could be paid back with the proceeds. The AARP has quite a bit of information about reverse mortgages.

But according (subscription required) to the Wall Street Journal, reverse mortgages are gaining favor among those seeking to avoid foreclosure. Some home owners are trying to obtain reverse mortgages on their homes, then offering their lenders the proceeds in an attempt to stave off foreclosure.

This strategy will only work for homeowners who have substantial equity in their homes — often retirees who took out home equity loans and are having trouble making the payments.

With a complex product like a reverse mortgage, be sure to consult with a fee-only financial adviser before you do anything. Don’t listen to a salesmen — their job is to sell you a mortgage, whether you care about it or not.

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Filed under: Business, Fun, Internet, Video, Social Software

As new sites that cater to the fetishes of fanboys and girls alike continue to spawn from the depths of Dante’s Inferno, it was only a matter of time until one about shoes emerged. ShoeTube.tv is the name of this incarnation, and it’s promising to deliver nearly as many goodies about shoes as there are desserts at your local buffet.

Proclaiming itself the “most exciting thing to happen to shoes since Carrie found those coveted Manolo Blahniks in the closet at Vogue,” it should be obvious how magnificent this site is going to be. The primary draw will be its broadcast quality programming, with just a dash of user and sponsor created content. Considering that the site is produced by Powderhouse, which is behind a number of shows for the likes of Discovery Channel and TLC, the production quality of the content might be a cut above average (you can have a preview of the content at their Shoetube.tv Media Kit).

Unfortunately, the plans for user created content do seem like a bit of an afterthought. But, if people are into making videos about their shoes and themselves, this feature might work out just fine. Then again, most sites about shoes are about either about buying or some sort of how-to, so a “shoe channel” might be an interesting twist.

The site is slated to launch in February 2008, with a slew of professionally penned blogs, editorials on shoe trends, and “tons of other community features.” And since we love nothing more than community features, we can’t wait to see how ShoeTube.tv does them.

[via MediaPost Publications]

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Filed under: Banks, Debt, Home

Economists and financial analysts watch the housing market carefully for clues about how the American economy as a whole is faring. The latest headlines are about falling home prices, and the hysteria is building. Yes, it’s the 23rd month in a row that home prices either fell or didn’t increase enough to please analysts. That’s bad, right?

Well the housing market does give us some signals about our economy, and these numbers may be sign of weakness for Americans. (I don’t think it’s as serious as the media would have you think, but that’s another article on another day.)

I prefer to look for the silver lining in this cloud. What a great time for bargain hunters to get a great deal on a house! Sure, falling home prices are bad for sellers who might end up upside down on mortgages or who might not profit the way they’d hoped. But it’s a great time for those who have been saving and planning for a home buy to cash in. There are great deals to be had, and buyers have many choices in the marketplace. Happy house hunting!

Forensic accountant Tracy L. Coenen, CPA, MBA, CFE performs fraud examinations and financial investigations through her company, Sequence Inc. Forensic Accounting. The Association of Certified Fraud Examiners honored Tracy as the 2007 winner of the prestigious Hubbard Award and her first book, Essentials of Corporate Fraud, will be on bookshelves in March 2008.

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Filed under: Internet, Web services, Google, Social Software, web 2.0

A few weeks ago Google launched a new feature that makes Google Reader a bit more social. Whenever you mark an item as “Shared,” your Gmail/Google Talk contacts will be able to find that article by following a new “Friends’ shared items” link in Google Reader.

Now here’s the thing: Google Reader shared items have always been available to the public. But in order to find a shared item feed you need to enter a rather complicated string of characters in your web browser’s URL bar. The result is that you’re probably not going to find anyone’s shared items unless they give you a link. Some people have made their shared items available to the public purchase putting a link on their blog. Robert Scoble is famously nearly as proud of his “link blog,” as he is of his actual blog. But other readers assumed they’d some level of privacy and only shared items with a handful of friends.

Now that anyone you’ve ever corresponded with over Google Speak can see your shared items, you might be a bit more careful of what you share. And some people aren’t particularly pleased with that situation.

Is the new Google Reader shared items feature an invasion of privacy? We’re going to go out on a limb here and state no. If you don’t want the whole world to see your shared items, there’s an easy answer: don’t click the share button. But we have the ability to envision plenty of situations where you would want to share some stories with the whole world and other stories with just a select group of people. Or where you might want to be able to differentiate between “friends,” and family, colleagues or other people who might not find some of your shared items so amusing.

So while we don’t think Google necessarily did anything wrong by adding this feature, we don’t really understand why the feature is one size fits all. There’s no option for users to opt out of having their items shared other than to cease sharing items at all. And there’s no way to share your items with some friends, but not others.

What do you think? Is the new Google Reader friends’ shared items feature a privacy violation or just a poorly implemented attempt to make RSS reading a more social experience?

[via Scobleizer]

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Filed under: Borrowing, Cards, Debt, Entrepreneurship, Extracurriculars, Wealth

Have you racked up some serious doubt — more money than you earn in a year perhaps? Are you, like Tina Fey in Mean Girls, in a situation where the only man who calls your house is “Randy from Chase Visa”?

A piece in this weekend’s Wall Street Journal speaks about the success some people struggling to emerge from debt bondage have had with blogging about it: the accountability that comes from reporting on your ups and downs to the world and the emotional support that comes from readers.

If you’re in debt and you’re looking to blog your way out, email me at ZBissonnette@gmail.com. We’re looking for a few brave souls willing to write about their financial woes WalletPop, and what they’re doing to mend them.

Plus: We’ll pay you!

Pic from Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=2058416937&size=s

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