Bloggers

For singles who brave the jungles of online dating, there's nothing like an experienced friend or two to offer advice. "Should I Photoshop out my Marilyn Monroe mole?" "What does it mean that her favorite movie is 'The Exorcist'?" "Do my smoldering eyes in this profile photo say, 'I'm yours' or 'I'm in pain?'" Now imagine you had a few million friends who could guide you through the thicket with their epic tales of success and failure. That's the idea behind OkTrends (blog.okcupid.com)

For the last few years, Apple has announced the next version of its mobile operating system during summers. But a report Tuesday says the tech giant could be running late on the development of its next mobile platform, iOS 7. John Gruber, who blogs about all things Apple, posted that he's heard the Cupertino company has run into delays, so much so that it transferred some of its desktop operating system developers to work on the next version of...

“What's black and white and read all over?” That is the setup for what used to be the first joke learned by most every American kid. These days, delivering the punch line would leave the kids bewildered. They might just say, “What's a newspaper?” In our new media age, that is not a question with an obvious answer. Ask the people in New Orleans who just found out their venerable Times-Picayune will no longer be available in print every day. Based in a city and state with a perennially high level of corruption and dysfunction, the Times-Picayune has been a powerful and admired community watchdog.

The sleek man at the door bears no resemblance to the chubby pink-haired troublemaker whose snarky website made him as famous as the celebrities he loved to torment with nicknames like Sluttyienna (Sienna Miller), Potato Head (Rumer Willis) or Maniston (Jennifer Aniston). Gone are the schlubby T-shirts and hoodies. A body-skimming gray sweater now conceals rock-hard abs. Gone, too, is the outlandish hair color, replaced by a slightly thinning curly brown mop. His Park LaBrea condo and its Pepto-Bismol-hued room are history.

LAS VEGAS - It is hard to imagine the Breitbart website without its namesake, Andrew Breitbart, whose pugnacious personality was unexpectedly extinguished when he died of heart failure March 1 at age 43. Indeed, in the months since he collapsed on a sidewalk near his Westwood home, Breitbart's closest colleagues have often found themselves wondering, “What would Andrew do?” “We often don't know what Andrew would have done,” said Breitbart News Editor in Chief Joel Pollak, a failed GOP congressional candidate who got into politics after a much-publicized 2009 tangle with Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.)

Re "Bloggers Are the Sizzle, Not the Steak," July 18: Alex Jones tars all bloggers with the flaws of a few. Many bloggers are tough, but neither vulgar nor hysterical -- more than can be said for the so-called journalists who inhabit the big media. Mary McLemore Autaugaville, Ala.

They are the Web's "frugalati" -- bloggers who make cheap look chic. Some have always been thrifty. Others are reformed spendthrifts. We asked them to share key insights and tips for turning it all around. Write it down Mary Hunt ( www.debtproofliving.com) said it took coming to the brink of financial ruin before she was willing to do what she now advises is a must for everyone -- write down what you're spending. Hunt said she ran up $100,000 in debt with a shopping addiction that she describes as "drinking but never quite quenching your thirst."

Regarding "Bloggers Talk About the 'Bubble,' " July 16: I wonder why no one quoted in the article happens to own a home? Sue Collins Hermosa Beach

The big buzzword in cookbook publishing for the last decade has been “platform,” referring to something that made you famous before you actually wrote a cookbook. It usually meant a television show or a famous restaurant.   Publishers Weekly's recent list of the top 10 bestselling cookbooks of 2012 bears that out in spades. The interesting thing, though, is how the notion of platform is changing. Granted, six of the top 10 books are based on television shows (though three of the top five are on a home shopping network)

The world is awash in diet and weight-loss advice disseminated on the Internet and TV and in books, magazines and Weight Watchers meetings. So Steve Cooksey's website hardly seems out of the ordinary. The food plan helped Cooksey lose 78 pounds and, he says, control his diabetes without medication. Yet the North Carolina-based blogger was flagged by a regulatory board in that state for answering readers' specific queries in a Dear Abby-style column and offering life coaching for a fee. North Carolina, like many other states, does not allow anyone to dispense nutritional advice - free or for pay - without a license.

Los Angeles blogger Barbara "Cutie" Cooper has seen a lot in her 96 years: the Prohibition era, World War II, children, grandchildren, a 73-year marriage, the death of her husband Harry in 2010 at age 98, 18 presidents, and countless technological innovations. But this week she's seeing something new: her book climbing the Amazon.com bestseller list. "Fall in Love for Life: Inspiration from a 73-Year Marriage " was published quietly by Chronicle Books on Jan. 1. Co-written with her granddaughters Kim and Chinta Cooper, "Fall in Love for Life" combines long-view wisdom and surprisingly sassy sex advice.

Perez Hilton is now a father to a baby boy! The openly gay blogger, whose real name is Mario Lavandeira Jr., took to his eponymous blog Wednesday afternoon in a post titled "A Very Important Message from Perez" to share the news "directly from me, right here. " "I am ready to announce that earlier this month I was blessed with the birth of my first child, a beautiful and healthy baby boy - with lots of hair on his tiny head. My family is overjoyed at this newest and most cherished addition," the 34-year-old wrote.

Nguyen Hoang Vi was knocked from her motorcycle in an accident she believes was no accident. The windows of a car she was riding in were smashed nine months later, gashing her arms, legs and face, she told activists . Last spring her passport was taken away, rights groups say. Then, in December, police arrested and stripped her, saying she was hiding “illegal exhibits” inside her body, she alleged . State nurses forcibly searched her...

The big buzzword in cookbook publishing for the last decade has been “platform,” referring to something that made you famous before you actually wrote a cookbook. It usually meant a television show or a famous restaurant.   Publishers Weekly's recent list of the top 10 bestselling cookbooks of 2012 bears that out in spades. The interesting thing, though, is how the notion of platform is changing. Granted, six of the top 10 books are based on television shows (though three of the top five are on a home shopping network)

As housing prices soared, Bill McBride sensed a lie. In 2005, the retired technology executive saw signs of the bubble everywhere. He chatted up a woman at his gym who had bought a home priced at 10 times her annual income. He heard "spiky-haired" young mortgage peddlers preaching that "any equity in your home is dead money. " And he read the data: How could homeownership hit record highs as household incomes stagnated? McBride founded his finance blog, Calculated Risk, to warn the world about a looming housing market collapse.

Fourteen activists were convicted of subversion Wednesday in Vietnam and sentenced to up to 13 years in prison, in an unusually large case centering on their alleged ties to a banned democracy group. Vietnamese state media reported that the dissidents had been sent abroad by the “reactionary organization” Viet Tan to draw up plans to overthrow the government, equipped with money, vehicles and training. Viet Tan, an exiled political party, slammed the case as a “sham trial” to persecute dissidents for peaceful advocacy.

Nguyen Hoang Vi was knocked from her motorcycle in an accident she believes was no accident. The windows of a car she was riding in were smashed nine months later, gashing her arms, legs and face, she told activists . Last spring her passport was taken away, rights groups say. Then, in December, police arrested and stripped her, saying she was hiding “illegal exhibits” inside her body, she alleged . State nurses forcibly searched her...

The secret to Silicon Valley's success, we've been told, is its ecosystem: Where else in the world can you find such a large, symbiotic collection of expert visionaries, engineers, marketers, financiers? How about influence peddlers? Technology news bloggers' curious habit of accepting investments from the very people they're presumed to be covering objectively blew up last week over what might be termed the Path Affair. Path, a San Francisco social networking company, got caught downloading users' address books from their iPhones without their permission.

BEIRUT — The chief of the Tehran police unit charged with investigating online crime has been fired for "negligence and insufficient supervision" of subordinates in the incendiary case of a dissident Iranian blogger who died in police custody, Iranian news media reported Saturday. Iranian news reports identified the police official as Mohammed Hassan Shokrian, who headed the capital's cyber-police branch, known by the Persian initials FATA. Iran's police chief, Brig. Gen. Ismail Ahmadi Moghaddam, dismissed the cyber-police commander in a decree issued Saturday, reported Press TV, Iran's English-language news service.

BEIRUT - The mysterious death of a dissident blogger while in Iranian police custody this month has generated a rare torrent of criticism from officials apparently embarrassed by a case that has drawn international condemnation and again shined a spotlight on the nation's poor human rights record. Iranian authorities have echoed calls from such human rights groups as Amnesty International for a thorough investigation of the death of Sattar Beheshti, 35, who died Nov. 3 under still-hazy circumstances after being arrested by Iran's cyber police, according to various accounts.