A Jill Of All Trades
Courtney Rosen of eHow.com shows how to just do it
One Saturday last year, Courtney Rosen frowned at her worn in-line skates and decided the wheels needed to be rotated. So she turned to the "Web to figure out how—and came up with zip. "I thought everything was on the Internet," she says, "but I couldn't find what I was looking for."
But Rosen, 32, did get a zippy idea for a business. Launched last March, her San Francisco-based eHow.com draws 1 million surfers a month to browse 10,000-plus how-to guides covering everything from picking out roses to pitching tents. Rosen, a former business consultant, enlisted her fiancé (since promoted to husband—and eHow VP), Jeff Tinker, 31, and her mother, Roberta Kramer, 61. Her mom even created the first how-to: "Courtney didn't know how to boil an egg," Kramer reports. "So I wrote it."
My Favorite Site
Queen Elizabeth II
Her Majesty, high-tech stock jockey? Now truly Queen of all she surveys, the British monarch paid about $165,000 for a 4 percent stake in Britain's Millennium Mapping Company, which plans to offer aerial photos of the United Kingdom—detailed enough for HM to snoop on subjects' backyard pools—for a fee at www.getmapping.com starting Jan. 31. Maybe next she should suggest a Web cam trained on Camilla Parker Bowles.
@ Whoopi's
Whoopi Goldberg is unloading her Connecticut farmhouse (asking price: $975,000)—and nosy Netizens can get a virtual tour on the Web (homeadvisor.msn.com/nsm/homes/vtours/). Navigating through 360-degree photos of the 1860 colonial's rooms (mostly Bare) is dizzy fun. But the instant mortgage calculator may bum out siteseers.
Modem Manners
I got an e-mail warning me about a computer virus. Should I forward it to everyone I know?
We know you mean well. But your Net-savvy pals will cringe as if you coughed on them. Most of these scares are hoaxes that waste more time than computer solitaire. If you're worried, check with your office tech-support squad or a hoax-busting Web site like kumite.com/myths. If only the flu were as easy to avoid.
Click and Get It
Crazy Critters
•One of the remote-controlled Energizer Bunnies used in TV commercials: up for bidding until Jan. 31 at LA411auctions.com
•Two mouse stunt figures used in Stuart Little: sold for $480 on Amazon.com Auctions
•The Pets.com sock puppet: up for bidding until Feb. 3 on Amazon.com Auctions
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