Web Sites

Journalists like to talk about "owning" a story. But the people at RadarOnline.com have practically stamped their corporate logo on the forehead of Nadya Suleman, the "Octo-Mom" from Whittier whose shockingly prolific reproductive habits have made her a media sensation. They really, really love to talk about Octo-Mom over at RadarOnline. In fact, since the news of her octuplets first broke in late January, the website has published 56 items about her, an average rate of nearly two per day.

The mid-movie dash to the restroom can turn us into calculating Usain Bolt wannabes: Ah, this looks like a lull -- time to dash. When we return to our seats, we pray the answer to "What did I miss?" isn't "Darth Vader is really Luke's father" or "the girlfriend is really a guy." The website RunPee.com can help with such anxious guesswork. The site provides recommended opportunities to race to the restroom. It tells you when the action or romance wanes, and gives you a cue ("Baby O.J.

Just when you thought the Internet provided every possible information service, along comes Runpee.com. The website lists current movies in theaters, and suggests points in the action during which you could quickly run to the restroom without missing anything substantial. For example, let's say you're watching "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" and feeling the need.

Online travel websites have been ordered to pay Anaheim $21 million in hotel taxes that officials say they are owed, but the companies are fighting back against the increasingly common claim that they have shortchanged cities from Los Angeles to Las Vegas. The fight in Anaheim is the latest in an escalating debate between online travel companies and tourist-dependent cities.

The Web is a great place to freeload. But that could be changing. In the latest example of fees being introduced for a service that once came with no strings attached, Eastman Kodak Co. says it'll begin charging $4.99 to $19.99 annually for its previously free online photo-storage service, Kodak Gallery. If you don't pay by May 16, the company warns, all your photos could be deleted.

www.usps.com When you have a letter or a bill to mail, sometimes all you need is a U.S. Postal Service mailbox. But the familiar blue boxes are getting harder to find. The Postal Service has removed thousands of them nationwide in recent years to cut costs. The Postal Service website offers a search tool for locating mailboxes, but it's not easy to find, in part because the agency doesn't call them mailboxes. No, they're "collection boxes." From www.usps.com "> www.usps.

Google Inc. on Thursday unveiled a new Web page that allows users to better see which of their data are being stored by the Internet search giant. Its Dashboard service is Google's attempt to respond to questions about how it uses consumer data and whether users have enough access to and control of information they have on programs such as Gmail, YouTube and Google Docs, the company's word-processing and spreadsheet software. "We think of this as a great step toward giving people transparency and control over their data, and we hope this helps shape the way the industry thinks about these issues," Alma Whitten, a Google engineer who works on privacy and security, said in a statement.

If you received some, ahem, unsatisfying presents during the holidays, you may be wondering whether you can regift them. Passing on gifts you've received as presents to others is OK in certain circumstances, says Regiftable.com, a site run by the nonprofit Money Management International. Don't regift homemade or one-of-a-kind items, signed books, monogrammed or free promotional items, the site advises. Only new gifts in good condition should be regifted.

If you received a TV, DVD player or other electronic device for the holidays, you may find yourself wrestling with wires and cables trying to connect the new equipment to what you already have. Wirewize aims to help, offering connection instructions for your exact combination of electronic components. At the home page, click on "Get started."

As many as 13% of children receive sexual solicitations online, but very few are from adults over age 21, according to a report released Tuesday by a Harvard University task force. The findings led the task force to conclude that parents may worry too much about their children's exposure to adult sexual predators, and too little about how to teach kids to resist advances from other kids or the type of seductions that could lead to statutory rape.