Whew. Lots of interesting things going down online, it seems. It's not surprising when net "peeps" whine, but groveling? For e-mail, no less? I know I desperately want a gmail account, but it's still in beta, and I have nothing to offer in exchange.

If you like Call for Help, you may appreciate Leo's tag line closers he's hosting on Leoville's servers.

I've finally become attached to Google's browser toolbar. I had a rocky history with this a few years ago. Not for any sort of functionality problem, but because I love my real estate when it comes to Internet Explorer. I'm known for sizing my windows perfectly so I can see an entire Penny Arcade strip in a window. (Full screen? Please - I hate that. It's "Windows" for a reason, people.) It was extending the space what's taken up by the top of the window. But I finally got rid of all the default buttons I don't use (such as 'History,' 'favorites,' and 'search,' among others) and mucked about with it. I really liked the rating bar. It references to the voting function Google offers, rating pages online, and gives it to you in the bar. But it was slowing the computer a bit during peak hours, since it had to head out to Google's servers for the information. The toolbar also offers me a button to bring up a Blogger posting window, same as LiveJournal's downloadable program. But Blogger's, unlike LiveJournal's, opens from Explorer and will include an HTML link to the page you're viewing. Easy enough to get rid of, and handy if you want to link the page.