Happy new beginnings to all! We're on the brink of a new era, so let's all make the most of it! This could be your year to meet new friends, learn new skills, or explore new ideas. Yahoo! GeoCities' diverse and talented community can give you a jumpstart on your new adventures. Chances are, a Homesteader has a site filled with plenty of information to get you jazzed about starting your new project. Take a minute and get to know the Neighborhood!
BIG NEWS
NEIGHBORHOOD DIRECTORY PAGE REMODELED Yahoo! GeoCities Neighborhoods page got a brand new look and some really improved features. If you haven't already, check it out at: http://geocities.yahoo.com/cgi-bin/hood/geo. Look what we've done:
We've added a Neighborhood Affiliation Link that appears in the upper right corner of every page. Just sign in to Yahoo! GeoCities and the link to your Neighborhood is always right there. We've also made finding other members super easy with new Community Links from your Neighbhorhood home page. These are your essential links to Yahoo! Clubs or members' Help Chat.
To see if your neighbor is online, just look for the happy face icon next to their Homestead listings. If you see a yellow happy face, your neighbor is online and can receive instant messages. If you see a gray face, your neighbor is offline. So where's your happy face icon? To activate your "online presence", download Yahoo! Messenger at http://messenger.yahoo.com and get connected. If you want to disable your online presence, change it through your Yahoo! Profile at http://profiles.yahoo.com.
We also made it easier to learn more about the creator of that great site you just discovered. Simply click on the Profile link that appears next to the title of each site to go to the creator's Profile. You can read whatever the Homesteader wrote in their Yahoo! Public Profile. If you want to update your own profile, visit http://profiles.yahoo.com.
And finally, we put your Homestead page descriptions in a more prominent position. So if you want to tweak your description, visit: http://geocities.yahoo.com/members/cgi-bin/homestead/change_profile.
EXTRA EXTRA! HEADLINES ADD-ON IS BETTER THAN EVER The popular Home Page Headlines add-on got a new name and a whole lot more features. The add-on is now called Web Site Headlines. We've also changed our news sources to give you more variety. Political and business news now come from AP, Reuters, and others. And there's entertainment news from E! Online, tech news from CNET News.com, and weather reports from local source everywhere!
For Homesteaders who installed the old Home Page Headlines available through iSyndicate, those news feeds will no longer be available after February 15th. So, if you installed the add-on before January 6, 2000, you'll have to remove the code from your site and replace it with the new Web Site Headlines. To swap out the old for the new, go to: http://geocities.yahoo.com/members/tools/headlines/
If you have problems removing the code, please review our Headlines FAQ at: http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/geo/headlines/
INDESCRIBABLE UNSUBSCRIBE CONFUSION Last month, the World Report included an incorrect link to unsubscribe from the newsletter. Here is the correct link: http://www.oocities.org/cgi-bin/wru/MVjeBzM5NTQ5MjgA
PET PROJECTS If you're a pet lover, don't miss your chance to share everything from pet names to pet peeves with friends, family, and the rest of the Yahoo! Pets community. Ask questions, find collectibles, and swap stories about your four-footed and feathered friends. Take advantage of pet resources and links to learn everything you want to know about cat and dog health, adopting a pet, and much more. Plus, you'll find news, polls, trivia questions, and even a lost- and-found area with more than 1,000 listings. What a way to get ideas to add a pets web page to your site. It's all waiting for you at: http://pets.yahoo.com/
SITE SPOTLIGHT
A BOOKMARK FOR LIFE Have you ever wished you could capture the essence of great moments of your everyday life? Not the big special events, but the little things, like how it feels when you tuck your child into bed at night? Well, homesteader Harold Houghton did just that about his own life. He's written a smattering of short stories about everyday scenes from his 52 years of life, about being a dad, being in the US Air Force, and being a classic car aficionado. His homestead shares those stories with you. Houghton says this about his site, "The site was created as a result of my having written creatively for over 20 years and having amassed a large collection of rejection slips from publishers! 'Well,' I thought, 'if I can't get it to the readers who would enjoy it through traditional channels, then I'll get it to them this way.' So there you have it." Check out what the publishers are missing and take a moment to savor a bit of what's special about every day life. Put your bookmark here: http://www.oocities.org/Athens/Atlantis/4810/
GEOSTORY
A GREAT LADY AND HER FAN Each month we like to publish a story that shows how Yahoo! GeoCities affects people's offline lives. Here's our pick for this month.
Dear GeoStory,
Shortly after I bought my first computer, I started taking an interest in creating websites. In 1997, I discovered GeoCities. My first site at GeoCities is in Heartland/Ranch. It's a personal site dedicated to my family and me. One day while watching TV, I noticed a familiar face on All My Children soap opera. I could not remember the name of the actress, which was frustrating as she is a household name in South Africa. When I finally remembered her name, I added a page at my website to the actress, Esta TerBlanche (Gillian Andrassy on All MY Children), so I wouldn't forget again.
That one page became two pages and eventually, I had so many pages dedicated to Esta that I decided to move the pages to TelevisionCity/Station (where it won two awards from Television City). During April 1999, while searching for information about Esta, I found her official website (not yet launched). I wrote a short note to the email address at the site not really expecting anything, just saying I created a fan site about her. Next thing I knew, I received an email from Esta herself thanking me for creating the site! From there, things evolved so that I am now president of her fan club.
If it was not for GeoCities offering such a great service, I would have never had the opportunity to meet a "star" and have the honor of running her fan club site.
http://www.oocities.org/estagillian
Do you have a story of your own about how Yahoo! GeoCities influenced your life away from the computer? If you'd like to share it with us and other Homesteaders, send it to geostory@yahoo.com.
COMMUNITY HAPPENINGS
If you would like to submit your event to the World Report, please send it to mailto:hoodevents@yahoo.com.
ONE GREAT COMMUNITY EVENTS PAGE Wondering where to find events from everyone's Neighborhoods? You can always go to your topic club to find out what's happening in your neck of the woods, but to see what the whole Yahoo! GeoCities world is doing, just come here to get a quick update compiled by your fellow Homesteaders! You'll find all the awesome, fun events currently underway conveniently listed in one place. Drop by to enter a contest or solve a mystery--all events are posted for your enjoyment! Take a look now: http://www.oocities.org/liaisons_2000
GET REAL LIVE HELP FROM YAHOO! GEOCITIES' HELP CHAT If building your web page has you stumped, get online and "talk" to a live person in Yahoo! GeoCities' Help Chat. There's someone waiting who can talk you through the mysteries of HTML. To go there, first sign in to Yahoo!, then paste this URL into your browser to link to those live helpers! http://geo.chat.yahoo.com/?.sroom=GeoCities%20Help%20Chat&.src=gn
VIENNA ONLINE MILLENNIUM EDITION Sample some culture-clashing Austrian recipes for the new millennium, including delicious beer soup and chestnut dumplings. Check out some Vienna members' resolutions for 2000, learn about converting WAV files into RealAudio for quicker listening, visit some of the best homepages in Vienna, read about one member's plans to make Vienna better, and vote for your favorite articles from 1999. Plus new MIDI and RealAudio files, and plenty of chances to offer your feedback. All at http://www.oocities.org/Vienna/5000/ or http://www.oocities.org/viennaonline.
VIENNA IS ALL HEART Vienna invites you to a Hunt The Hearts contest to celebrate Valentine's Day in the US. Solve puzzles and riddles, find the missing hearts, see how many names of couples you can match. The contest runs all through February, starting on the 1st and ending on the 29th. Winners will be announced in a special March 4 edition of Vienna Online (http://www.oocities.org/viennaonline/). Get your heart racing at: http://www.oocities.org/Vienna/5000/contests/hearts/2000.html
PETSBURGH PARTIES AROUND THE WORLD At the Petsburgh's World Festival site, you can find out what people around the world think about how the millennium celebration went in their country or you can describe a holiday tradition of yours. From there, you can also check out Petsburgh's Protected Park, a nice safe place where you can virtually adopt one of the world's endangered creatures, or tell them about your favorite animal, bird, reptile, fish, or insect that is threatened. Connect with the world here: http://www.oocities.org/Petsburgh/Haven/1009/ http://www.oocities.org/Petsburgh/Park/6006/
STUFF YOU NEED TO KNOW
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