Little Buddy' GPS device keeps tabs on your kid

Best Buy is selling a transmitting device that lets parents keep track of their children. Parents can place the device in a child's backpack or lunch box, for example.

The "Little Buddy Child Tracker" retails for $100 (far less than other devices that sell for $200 to $500). It combines global satellite positioning and cellular technology to signal the child's whereabouts to a computer or smartphone.

Parents can program the device to set up specific times and locations where the child is supposed to be -- in school or at home, for example -- and the device sends a text message if the child leaves the site in that time.

Rise of the Facebook Zombies!!!

Death doesn't erase the online footprints that people leave in life and Facebook won't either, though it will make some changes.

The five-year-old social network will "memorialize" profiles of the dead if their friends or family request it.

Such accounts will be different from regular Facebook profiles.

For example, the site will remove any contact information and bar people from logging in. The person's profile also won't appear in the "suggestions" section of Facebook, and only the deceased person's confirmed friends will be able to find them in a search.

The development comes as Facebook becomes an important social hub for its more than 300 million active users worldwide to keep up with friends and family.

The Great Debate: netbooks vs. notebooks

Netbooks are one of my favorite gadgets and as their popularity continues to grow a lot of people are wondering which is better: netbooks or notebooks? In reality one isn't necessarily better than the other because they have different functions. A netbook is a companion device that is great for keeping your bag nice and light while you travel but still allow most of the functionality of a regular laptop (among other things), while notebooks have more storage space and are nice for more complex tasks like gaming and creating large documents.

Intel Insider Frank Gruber's (somewhatfrank.com) recently took on the netbook vs. notebook debate. Check out the video below to hear more about what Frank thinks each device does best and his take on the netbook vs. notebook debate:

Oracle Buys Sun - Now Owns MySQL

Database giant Oracle announced Monday that it will buy Sun Microsystems for $9.50 per share—roughly $7.4 billion. The two companies reached an agreement after an unsuccessful bid by IBM fell short at $9.40 per share. Oracle has significantly expanded its reach over the past decade through a series of major acquisitions which include PeopleSoft, Hyperion, Siebel, and BEA. The addition of Sun to Oracle's roster will have far-reaching implications and a profound impact on the technology industry.

One area where the effects could be strongly felt is in the open source software community. Among Sun's most prized assets are some large-scale open source software projects that could see some major changes under their new ownership.

The acquisition raises serious questions about the future of MySQL, a popular open source database system that Sun acquired last year. It's not clear if Oracle will see any incentive to continuing development of an open source alternative to its core database offerings. There are several factors, however, that would make it difficult for Oracle to kill off MySQL—and it could be profitable to continue investing in the system's advancement.

Google tips FCC about new YouTube comment filtering system

Google has told the Federal Communications Commission that the search engine giant is working on a new filtering mechanism for YouTube. The site's engineers are developing "a number of initiatives designed to give users and families greater control to moderate their YouTube experience, including the ability to filter video comments they find inappropriate," Google wrote to the FCC on April 16.

"This new feature, which is currently being tested in the United States, gives users control to set their own comment preferences by enabling them to choose whether to see all video comments, no comments, or filtered comments," Google added.

"As a leading site for online video, YouTube has a special responsibility to protect kids," the advocacy group declared. "While these measures represent an important step in protecting children from inappropriate content online, they don’t go far enough. YouTube's new policies also need to extend to user comments, links, and InVideo advertisements. These new policies should be further augmented by formulating and adopting a thorough, accurate and transparent content rating system which would allow a parent to block a child from viewing age-inappropriate material."

Socking It to Small Business - The Obama plan is an incentive to hire fewer workers.

From the WSJ.com

Mr. Obama's tax increase would hit the bottom line of small businesses in three direct ways. First, because 85% of small business owners are taxed at the personal income tax rate, any moderately successful business with an income above as little as $165,000 a year could face a higher tax liability. That's the income level at which the 33% income tax bracket now phases in for individuals, and Mr. Obama would raise that tax rate for those businesses to 36%.

Second, the Obama plan phases out tax deductions (the so-called PEP and Pease provisions), thus raising tax rates imposed on this group by another 1.5 percentage points. Finally, Mr. Obama would require many small business owners to pay as much as a four-percentage-point payroll tax surcharge on net income above $250,000. All of this would bring the federal marginal small business tax rate up to nearly 45%, while big business would continue to pay the 35% corporate tax rate.

Joe the Plumbers Greatest Hits

I AM JOE

I hope you will join me in expressing a simple bit of solidarity with this guy, Spartacus style. I AM JOE. I am a Wal Mart schlub in flyover country who changes my own oil and unclogs drains without a license. I smoke and drink beer and toss the football in the front yard with my kid, and I figure I can fend my way without handouts from some Magic Messiah's candy bags. Most everyone in my family and most everyone I grew up with is another Joe, and if you screw with them, you screw with me.

Are you a Joe? Say it proud. Leave it on every goddamn newspaper comment section and online forum. Let these pressroom and online thugs know you won't stay silent when they try to destroy the life of a private citizen for speaking his mind -- because for every one of them, there are a million Joe Wurzelbachers. And for that we should all be thankful.

With 15 minutes of fame comes 15 hours of “gotcha” scrutiny -- especially if you’re a voter who has dared to criticize Barack Obama, the liberal media’s Chosen One for president.

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"Let Freedom Ring" is a non-profit, grassroots public-policy organization. Our mission is to promote "Constitutional Government, Economic Freedom and Traditional Values." We sometimes say that Let Freedom Ring operates "at the intersection of faith and politics."