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		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. 
		
		
		
				
				
				
				
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