Message-ID: <8014345.1075857101680.JavaMail.evans@thyme> Date: Sun, 10 Dec 2000 12:58:00 -0800 (PST) From: newsletter@chron-news.com To: alewis@ect.enron.com Subject: HoustonChronicle.com News 5.50 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ANSI_X3.4-1968 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-From: newsletter X-To: "alewis@ect.enron.com" X-cc: X-bcc: X-Folder: \Andrew_Lewis_Dec2000\Notes Folders\Discussion threads X-Origin: Lewis-A X-FileName: alewis.nsf Having problems reading this message? To change your account to receive the traditional text newsletter in the future, go to http://www.chron.com/mail/nph-unity.mpl?id=-1642951136&html=no. Home Page ??New feature! Go to ??for your ?? personal start page News Local Sports Business Columnists Editorials Features Entertainment Comics Horoscope Weather Archives [IMAGE] Subscribe to the print Houston Chronicle SubscribersADVANTAGE To contact us: E-mail: ? hci@chron.com Office phone: ? 713-220-2700 Address: ? 801 Texas Ave. ? Houston, Texas ? 77002 Dec. 11, 2000 Volume 5.50 Letter from the editor We're always tinkering with one area of the site or another trying to make it better. This week, we've made some rather significant changes to the Deaths page on the site. And we're working on several more. For starters, we've combined the pages with the news articles and the local death notices from the Classifieds section into a single page. This way, you get to all of the daily information we have all at once. In addition to the obituaries and death notices, we've added links to additional resources both for genealogical purposes and for those needing to make plans for a funeral. We'll add more links in this area as they become available. For instance, there's a link for an online search of birth and death records for Harris County now -- but not for the City of Houston or for the State of Texas. Those latter two governmental units don't provide online searches of their records yet. When they do, we'll add the links. And, yes, we are working to include Mic Barnette's Saturday column on genealogy from the newspaper. The page still has a search box for the local death notices (and other funerary categories) from the Classifieds section, but we don't think you will need it very often. We are listing all of the local notices being published each day on the page now, and we've included links on the left side navigation of the page for notices from the entire week just passed. There's still a lot of hand work and construction going on here; so please be patient with us. We don't have a real search engine in this area yet; so we are going to try to rearrange the file by hand each morning so the notices are listed in alphabetical order. (Occasionally, other tasks will push this work back and it will not happen as early as either of us would like, which is why we also are working on a routine to make the computers do this job.) Another ongoing programming task for this page is to develop a true archives database and search for the local notices we have saved by hand online going back to October of 1997. However, until this task is completed, you can search for past notices through a two-step precess. We have a surname index for all of the death notices in the Chronicle's archives system; so you can use the archives gateway to determine whether or not a notice was published for a particular individual and when. Once knowing the date the notice was published, you can see if we saved it online by using a special URL -- http://www.HoustonChronicle.com/content/chronicle/deaths/YY/MM/DD/deaths.html where "YY" is a two-digit year (like 97, 99, 00, etc.), "MM" is a two-digit month (like 01, 07, 11, etc.) and "DD" is a two-digit date (like 01, 09, 18, 23, etc.). We know this is cumbersome, which is why we are working on a better way of doing it, but this will work to get to the past notices we do have until then. Thanks for visiting, and please party carefully so we don't find your name on the new Deaths page this season. Mike Read Editor "Pro-Tem," HoustonChronicle.com News mike@chron.com What's New at HoustonChronicle.com Shopping Online It only seems that shopping is the reason for the season at this time of year. We try to a measure of balance on both our Holidays and Religion pages, but this is the major shopping period of every year. But we would be remiss if we didn't try to do our part to help keep the economy moving along; so we would like to take this opportunity to point out the Chronicle e-shops area of the site in case you haven't looked it over before. Chronicle e-shops is a partnership with Point & Shop on Houston Chronicle.com. It's an online shopping area offering merchandise from businesses throughout the country, quickly and reliably available for delivery before Christmas right from the convenience of your Web browser. Election Without End Yes, another week is gone and the Florida vote that will determine who the next president will be still is up in the air. Right now, we're all waiting on a U.S. Supreme Court hearing scheduled for Monday on whether or not to allow a recount ordered by the Florida Supreme Court. So far the George W. Bush organization has been successful in fighting off vote recounts that might show that Al Gore won the Florida vote, and time may now be the Bush campaign's strongest argument. With each passing day, the time required for a manual recount gets squeezed tighter and tighter. Also, the Florida Legislature will be meeting this week to consider naming its own slate of delegates, which inevitably would be pledged to Bush since the Florida Legislature is overwhelmingly controlled by Republicans. If Bush gets the Florida electors, he will win the presidency by two votes -- 271-269 -- in the Electoral College. We're as confused as anybody, but we'll keep posting the latest developments on the Election & Politics page. High School Football And you thought the election was endless... Katy will be playing in the 5A Division II semifinals next Saturday in College Station as the only Houston-area team still working on a state title. But both Bay City and LaGrange have some Houston following, along with teams from West Orange-Stark and even Corpus Christi and San Antonio. And we'll keep following along on the High School Sports page in the Sports section of the site until the very last down is played. More news summaries Get the daily news delivered right to your e-mail box -- free! Already, you've been able to get daily summaries of the Houston Chronicle Page One and Metrpolitan stories. Now we've expanded these offerings to include Business and Sports. To sign up, go to http://www.chron.com/mail/manage.html or click on the "E-mail products" link on the left-side navigation of the HoustonChronicle.com home page. Provide your e-mail address, then check the appropriate boxes to receive the reports you wish to have delivered to your inbox. You can also sign up by going to Sports or Business. Classifieds Cars Homes Jobs Weddings Deaths Directory Center Maps, Directions, Find a person Check out the possibilities at Chronicle e-shops! It's the perfect place to find easy, online buys and shopping opportunities. To cancel your subscription to the newsletter: HoustonChronicle.com News is never sent unsolicited, but you can use the following link to be automatically removed from the newsletter mailing list if you desire. Readers can also manage their mailing list subscriptions here. Community notices: Nonprofit and volunteer organizations may e-mail public service announcements to Gwen Lewis. 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