Websites

Most of us are curious about our family lineage. For Vanessa Williams, who recently took part in the show "Who Do You Think You Are" and explored her family's history, the task was both surprising and informative. Here, she talks about what she learned and how she plans to use that information. How did you become interested in finding out about your lineage? I've always been interested, but I was introduced to Ancestry.com [one of the websites that help people research their family backgrounds]

Can a value-hunting traveler truly be loyal to loyalty programs? Name : CooBoutique.com What it does: Rewards you with cash back for booking luxury hotels through its website and rewards points for sharing with your social network. What's hot: Cash is hot. I liked seeing how much cash other users were getting for their bookings as I was searching for hotels in the U.S. And when I looked up the member page (free), I saw that I could earn as much as 4% on my bookings.

WASHINGTON - How hot is hot when it comes to housing markets across the country right now? Crazy hot: Some houses sell within days, sometimes within hours, of listing. Then there are the growing numbers that sell even before they formally hit the market - sold through a controversial technique known as "pocket listing. " What's a pocket listing? Essentially it's a private, "off-market" listing, often of short duration. Instead of putting the house on the local Multiple Listing Service, which exposes it to a vast number of shoppers and agents via real estate websites, agents restrict access to information about the house to their own buyer clients or colleagues in the same brokerage, hoping for a quick, full-price sale.

On-time performance of airlines at the nation's biggest airports dropped 9 percentage points Monday after hundreds of air traffic controllers were furloughed by budget cuts. East Coast airports felt most of the pain, the Federal Aviation Administration said. Staff shortages at air traffic towers were expected to cause more delays Tuesday in Los Angeles, Dallas and Las Vegas. "Travelers can expect to see a wide range of delays that will change throughout the day depending on staffing and weather-related issues," the agency said in a statement.

Asthma sufferers have long relied on inhalers for relief from wheezing or coughing attacks. But as of Dec. 31, Primatene Mist -- the only available over-the-counter asthma inhaler -- was taken off shelves because of its adverse effect on the environment. Other inhalers are available, but these require a doctor's prescription. Some people with asthma aren't happy about the change, but lung doctors and asthma specialists agree that Primatene Mist wasn't the best option for patients anyway.

If you're gearing up to roast coffee at home, here are some of the growing number of websites that sell home roasting equipment and green coffee beans: Seven Bridges , a Santa Cruz cooperative, sells home beer brewing equipment but also offers a selection of organic green coffee beans from Central America, South America, Africa and Asia, as well as roasting equipment. http://www.breworganic.com Burman Coffee Traders sells green coffee beans in 1-, 2-, 5- and some in 50-pound quantities, along with a variety of home roasting equipment.

Don't accuse Google of not knowing how to inject some fun into Web browsing. The Mountain View, Calif., company's latest experiment unveiled Thursday transforms websites into a 3-D landscape maze that users then can tilt to move a marble. More amazingly, users tilt the maze by moving around their smartphones like a game controller. "World Wide Maze," as the mini-game is called, can be accessed at chrome.com/maze when using the Chrome browser. Once there, users can launch the Chrome app on their phones and sync the two together.

Want to get people to do all you desire? Try these resources: "Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion," by Robert B. Cialdini (HarperCollins, 2006). "Yes! 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to Be Persuasive," by Noah J. Goldstein, Steve J. Martin and Robert B. Cialdini (Free Press, 2008). workingpsychology.com, website of Kelton Rhoads of USC's Center on Public Diplomacy. http://www.influenceatwork.com , website of consulting company founded by Cialdini. - Chris Woolston 'Weapons of persuasion' from Robert Cialdini Oprah Winfrey, Bill Clinton are persuasive people -- but why?

U.S. officials on Wednesday announced a major crackdown on movie piracy that involved seizing several websites that were offering downloads of pirated movies just hours after they appeared in theaters. Officials also seized assets from 15 bank, investment and advertising accounts, and executed residential search warrants in North Carolina, New Jersey, New York and Washington. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials worked with the Department of Homeland Security and the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York.

Here are some of Neil "Bigmista" Strawder's favorite websites: • http://www.bbq-brethren.com "The BBQ Brethren are my online family. This is the greatest repository of BBQ knowledge on the Internet." • http://www.divaqbbq.com "DivaQBBQ is the blog of the top BBQ'er in Canada. She's my BBQ homie." • soulfusionkitchen.blogspot.com Soul fusion kitchen is home for Sylvie Curry, my favorite home cook. • http://www.

If readers of my Saturday column about Yelp were to write a review of the crowd-sourced website, it might read something like this: Yelp is a complete and utter fraud. The reviews are too self-centered, not trustworthy and half the time really don't make sense. It's a wonderful populist device … But there's a nagging feeling that Yelp isn't as accurate and honest as I want to believe. Those are real comments from real readers, unfiltered by algorithms or ad contracts.

Eric Garcetti said Wednesday that a website dubbing him the “Prince of Hollywood” was a personal attack by mayoral rival Wendy Greuel and a sign that she was losing. “The people of Los Angeles deserve better than that,” Garcetti, a city councilman, told reporters outside 99th Street Elementary School. “Personal attacks I always take as a compliment because it's a sign of a losing campaign.” The “Garcetti Fail” website was discovered by the Daily News of Los Angeles on Tuesday but was password-protected once reporters inquired about it with the Greuel campaign.

Funny or Die says iSteve, its first full-length feature film, was written in three days, mostly based on Wikipedia articles, and shot in five days. No wonder the website isn't expecting any film awards.  The Steve Jobs biopic roughly--and we may be understating it--traces the life of the late Apple co-founder, who is portrayed by the company's former spokesman Justin Long. Considering its extensive research, the comedic movie takes literary license to new levels. For instance, Jobs and fellow Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, who is portrayed by Jorge Garcia from the show "Lost," meet and a little later on the same day build their first computer, the Apple I. PHOTOS: The top smartphones of 2013 The 78-minute long movie can be found online and watched for free.

This post has been updated. See below for details. Following at least two explosions during the Boston Marathon, many websites in the area have gone offline and the Associated Press is reporting that the city is shutting down cellphone service to prevent use of the device to trigger a bomb. Verizon said it has not been asked by government officials to shut off cellphone service . Meanwhile, Sprint said it did not turn off its cell phone service either, but it recommends people use text messages instead of phone calls as they have more of a chance of getting through.

Officials at Riverside County Animal Services had a hunch the story of Banjo the dog would get some attention. But this? So many people turned to the department's website looking for information on the fluffy poodle-terrier mix rescued from train tracks that the site went down Wednesday afternoon -- and still isn't up and running. "Banjo's causing some serious technical issues," spokesman John Welsh said. Interest in the dog exploded after the department revealed Tuesday he was rescued this month when a 78-year-old man apparently tied him to some train tracks in the Mecca area.

Ice cream lovers around the world just let out a scream, one so loud it brought down a company's website. Ben & Jerry's is dishing out free scoops at participating locations worldwide Tuesday as the Vermont firm celebrates its 34 th annual "Free Cone Day. "  But its website wasn't working Tuesday morning as ice cream fans flooded the site, likely searching for the nearest location to enjoy a free scoop of Chunky Monkey at one of its more than...

From finding cheaper flights to scoring last-minute lift tickets, here are some websites that will help ease you on down the road (or slopes). http://www.dohop.com This airfare, hotel and rental-car search engine, based in Reykjavik, Iceland, was inspired by chief executive Frosti Sigurjonsson's struggles to find connecting flights between Nice, France, and Iceland. Pros Flight search focuses on price and connections. Hotel search includes more than 300,000 properties and has an easy-to-use sliding price bar filter.

WASHINGTON -- The National Weather Service's websites for the Eastern part of the U.S. were operating in backup mode Tuesday, offering limited updated information on the remnants of Hurricane Sandy after suffering a systems failure earlier in the day. Disruptions in the websites serving the Eastern region were caused by a cut fiber-optic line, said Sean Potter, a weather service spokesman.  "As this issue is being resolved, we are now...

A British man has pleaded guilty to his involvement in cyberattacks launched by LulzSec, an Internet hacker group that in 2011 targeted the websites of Sony, the FBI, CIA, PBS and others. Ryan Ackroyd, 26, otherwise known as "Kayla" among hackers, admitted Tuesday to one count of carrying out an unauthorized act to impair the operation of a computer, according to the Associated Press. Ackroyd joins Mustafa Al-Bassam, 18, Jake Davis, 20, and Ryan Cleary, 21, who as members of the group pleaded guilty to the 2011 cyberattacks.

WASHINGTON - Organizing for Action, President Obama's nonprofit advocacy organization, has sought to be nimble as it ramps up a national effort to back his agenda on gun control measures and immigration reform. But it appears the group didn't move swiftly enough to protect its presence online. An arbitrator has denied the organization's effort to obtain the domain name organizingforaction.net, registered by a quick-moving computer technician in Castle Rock, Colo., on Jan. 18, when the news broke that Obama's former advisors were launching the group.