Some Dating Reviews:

I bought the e-book version hoping to improve my dating skills. The book is generally helpful and removes some confusions men generally have about women. The chapters are short but to the point. The main theories in the book confirms with some views I’ve read from a book written by a men. Both have some extreme views which I won’t take seriously or apply completely. What I feel missing in this book is how to pick the women that’s right for you. It answered a lot of questions on how to treat women and what women likes, but no much about how to handle certain situations, such as how to handle a women just got out of a bad relationship (there will be a lot of curve balls). It’s a good book, but if you meet a complicated women, more help is needed

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Finally, A book on dating written by a woman.So far, reading whatRomy Miller has to say regarding what women expect from men is right on target. Some chapters are short, while others are longer. She has a in your face, tell it like it is, no B.S. approach. It’s verymotavational. If you never try, how will you ever ever know if the woman you want to date will say yes or no kind of thing. It’s not how good-looking you are or how rich you may be. What you really need is confidence. Some maysay a lot of it is “common sense”, thatis not the case here. Many guys make the same mistakes over and over again.With this book, you will told what to do, what not to do, etc. I’m not quite finished reading the whole book, it’s only 160+ pages. But so far, it’s easy to understand and Romy’s info is down to earth real. The only thing she doesn’t get into is how to find the right woman. Great reading for men who need help understanding women.

Read the full dating reviews here

* Anything you type in a chat room can be seen by everyone who is using that chat room so be careful what you type. In cyberspace the walls don’t so much have ears as eyes.
* Choose an non identifiable, non gender specific screen name (and keep it clean!)
* Never give out any personal information whilst chatting online . That means your real name, telephone or cell phone number[s], mailing address, passwords, banking details etc. Ignore requests for personal information like A/S/L and be vague with responses to questions like WITW.
* Never accept files or downloads from people you don’t know or from people you do know, if you weren‘t expecting them. This includes URLs.
* Never arrange to meet someone offline that you only know through chat room conversations.
* Make sure you know how to save copies of your chat room conversations.
* Make sure you now how to report problems to the chat room moderator.
* Remember your Netiquette and be nice! Don’t send mean chat messages, get involved in chat room arguments (flaming) or incite others to do so. More…

Some people who visit chat rooms use them as a place to experience online sex, also known as cybersex or computer love. While not physically able to see their partner, cyber-ers get stimulation by reading x-rated quotes. While many in the media focus on this aspect of chat rooms as it certainly boosts their ratings, it is by no means the only thing chat rooms are used for. While many people engage in “cybersex” for many reasons, it is also true that sexual predators use cybersex conversations as a means of identifying potential victims.

Games are also often played in chat rooms. Historic examples are initgame or Hunt the Wumpus on IRC.

For additional info visit wikipedia.com

You can do this in a number of ways:

• Provide the user with information about how to keep safe while chatting/using your service. The more visible this information is to the user the better – think about putting it on the front page or in the chatroom itself.
• Provide links to other safety guides, so any user interested in finding out more about keeping safe can do so.
• Make it clear to the user the type of service being offered and the audience at which it is aimed. Explain for example if it is moderated or not, and what ages your chatroom is aimed at.
• If there are personal profiles attached to the chatroom, encourage users not to post personal information.
• Put block or ignore buttons in an accessible place for users, and make them easy to use, so users can stop seeing messages from a particular person if they want to.
• Provide an easy and accessible method for users to contact the chatroom provider or moderator to report bad stuff or bad behaviour, and provide information about what sort of things should be reported.
• Look at how the chat could be moderated, and think carefully about who the moderators are. Moderators are in a position of trust over the users.
• If there is a registration process, explain why information is gathered during registration and what it is to be used for. The information gathered should be limited.

There are some guidelines on what is good practice in chatroom provision, and these were issued by the Home Office of the UK Government in January 2003. The actual good practice model is available here:

1. Avoid large, public chat rooms where anything can (and does!) take place. Some people frequent these areas just to see what they can get away with. Instead, focus on smaller, more targeted web sites or chat rooms that match your interests or lifestyle. There are many online dating sites that cater to specific hobbies and several offer free trial memberships.

2. When you find a chat room, dating site, or forum that matches your interest, introduce yourself with only as much information as you feel comfortable giving. Don’t plaster your phone number, address or any other personal information on the site. Wait until you meet someone with whom you truly “click” and have spoken to them for awhile. Common sense and that “gut feeling” are great indicators for when something just doesn’t seem quite right.

3. Participate in the forum or chat room regularly. Keep it “low-key” until you start forming friendships with the regular members there. Be honest, and be yourself – after all, being natural is what will endear you to a particular mate.

4. Keep your correspondence limited to e-mail and chat until you get to know the person well enough to feel comfortable sharing your phone number and talking for the first time. If you need a good ice-breaker, start off the chat by talking about the forum or chat room where you met and any special interests that brought you two together.

5. If you decide to meet each other in person, choose a neutral, public place. You may even choose a town or city that’s not the same as the one where you live. Restaurants, parks, theaters and other public places where people gather often are a good place to start. Alternately, you could choose to attend a special event in your area together, perhaps a concert, festival or fair. Either way, let friends or family know where you’re going and who you’re going with, as well as what time you’ll be returning so they’ll know how and where to reach you.

6. If you’re interested in a few online “matches” that come your way, consider setting up a post office box and a free e-mail account to share information with each other. That way, if you come to find that you really don’t “click” with this person, you won’t feel as if you’ve given any personal contact information away.

If you follow these six tips, chances are you’ll have a great time with your cyber date. Remember to be honest and be yourself! If you do, chances are that you’ll find that perfect special someone who enjoys you for who you are!

ONLINE DATING – Seek out a reputable online dating service. Begin by asking friends, co-workers and other you may know who have tried online dating, and see which places they recommend. Also, head to your favorite search engine and type in “online dating services” to see which ones come up. Start a journal or notebook and log your progress. Write out the URLs or website links and do some research: list fees, rules and regulations, complete contact information of the site and any other useful information that you run across. Then begin slow. If something doesn’t feel right, trust your instincts and STOP.

COMMUNICATION – Go slow and don’t try to share every tidbit of information about yourself over night. Keep away from subjects that you don’t agree upon. When communicating via email and other electronic means (chat rooms, forums, etc.) don’t use all upper case letters (that’s called “shouting”), slang or your personal address for safety. Do use a firewall and anti-virus software to keep your computer safe, too. Key in “online safety tips” and check out online lists for updated safety tips once a month to make sure you’re up to date.

Free Firewall Download: ZoneAlarm www.zonelabs.com
Free Anti-Virus Download: AVG Anti-Virus www.grisoft.com
(no affiliations)

FRIENDSHIP – As your friendship grows, check to see if you are not only getting along pretty well together, but also handling conflicts well together. If you miss a chat time, for instance, is that it? Are you in the doghouse for a week? And gradually decide if you should meet in person. If so, make sure it’s a safe place out in public and that you are both legal adults.

LOVE GOALS – Gradually develop goals together so you’ll have a sense of direction. Write them down in a notebook just for the two of you. And over time, develop them, revise them, cross them off your list. The idea is to HAVE goals together and work towards a common good.

So before you fork out thousands of dollars looking for Mr. or Ms. Right, reach out and try to help yourself first. Go slow and steady, and use caution. Once you find your own love connection, you could set up your own matchmaker website!

Contributed by Diana B

SAN FRANCISCO — Compared with other forms of human interaction, online social networking is really not all that social.

People visit each other’s MySpace pages and Facebook profiles at various hours of the day, posting messages and sending e-mail back and forth across the digital void. It’s like an endless party where everybody shows up at a different time and slaps a yellow Post-it note on the refrigerator.

Now a new wave of Silicon Valley companies is bringing live socializing back into a medium that has, in the parlance of the technologists, grown overly asynchronous.

Vivaty, a start-up based in Menlo Park, Calif., is creating 3-D virtual chat rooms that people can add to the Web pages and social networking profiles on the sites where they spend most of their Internet time.

The company has been quietly working on its technology for three years and will begin a private test period on Facebook this week in advance of a wider introduction this summer. It is backed by the blue-chip venture capital firms Kleiner, Perkins Caufield & Byers and Mohr Davidow Ventures.

Vivaty turns a flat profile page into a three-dimensional live chat room. Users choose characters to represent themselves from a list of preternaturally handsome avatars — a requirement for any such service — and proceed to one of a dozen environments, like a gothic urban warehouse or seaside villa.

With videogame-like precision, they can then navigate that virtual space, which may feature their Facebook photos hanging from the walls and a YouTube video playing on a widescreen TV. Up to 15 others can choose avatars and enter the same room at the same time for text-based live socializing.

“We want to take all your content on the Web and move it to a more visually immersive, immediate experience,” said Keith McCurdy, chief executive at Vivaty and a former vice president at the big game maker Electronic Arts.

Similar online services like Second Life and games like World of Warcraft have existed for years. But they are not accessible through a Web browser. Instead they require users to install large and cumbersome programs and have plenty of Internet bandwidth for a satisfyingly immediate experience.

Vivaty chat rooms, on the other hand, will be scattered across the Web. A user can stick an existing Vivaty virtual environment, or create a unique one, wherever HTML code can be imbedded. The company plans to make money partly by allowing companies to start their own virtual rooms on their own Web sites, where they can control the décor and their marketing messages.

Vivaty’s technology and business plan may be unique, but its overall goal is not. The entrepreneurs and investors behind other “live Web” companies say that the intermittent socializing on most Web sites ignores the primal human instinct that once drove people to the town square and now brings them into real-world social groups to watch the Super Bowl or the latest episode of “Battlestar Galactica.”

“A lot of basic human communication needs have been lost in this age of siloed, one-to-one communications,” said Roelof Botha, a partner at the venture capital firm Sequoia Capital. “At the end of the day, we are a social species.”

Mr. Botha, one of the original backers of YouTube, is behind live Web companies like TokBox, a year-old start-up that lets people conduct face-to-face video chats on the Web, and Meebo, a two-year-old Web messaging company that introduced a new generation of networked chat rooms to the Web last year.

Chat rooms were an integral part of the online experience for users of early services like CompuServe and America Online. Characterized by names like “Single and Looking,” they often devolved into noisy chaos.

The first wave of Web technology helped drive these unruly conversations close to extinction. The Web’s static pages made it poorly suited for rapid-fire, live communication. Live chat was relegated to separate software tools like instant messenger programs.

Newer Web programming tools provide flexibility for updates inside Web pages. But now there is a new problem: Internet users are spread thinly across millions of Web sites and blogs and various social networks.

Last year, Meebo’s chief executive, Seth Sternberg — who as a teenager was a chat-room moderator for America Online — introduced Meebo Rooms, a kind of 2-D version of Vivaty’s cartoonscape.

Meebo Rooms can play host to the same crowd on more than one Web site. For instance, there are around 100 people at any given time talking in the Meebo Room for the Showtime program “Big Brother After Dark.” Half of those might enter on Showtime’s site, while the other half might join from fan’s pages on MySpace. But they all conduct one live conversation.

Mr. Sternberg asserts that the dialogue is cleaner in his new live chats than on the old AOL chats he used to patrol. “Whenever chat rooms are embedded on a site with context, and everyone is there because they are interested in the topic, the conversation is good,” he said.

Other new live services are popping up quickly. This month, Facebook said it would introduce a live chat feature. Live video streaming services, from Yahoo and start-ups like Kyte, Ustream.TV and Justin.TV, are also proliferating. Those companies include live chat features as well, so users can discuss what they are watching in real time.

Mr. McCurdy from Vivaty said he did not expect these live services to travel far across the generational divide. The younger video-game generation “has more craving for contact,” he said. “They are using their computers for emotional experiences, and a video-game experience is more emotional than looking at a blue and white Facebook page.”

If you are interested in forming a relationship with a man or woman of Latin descent, you can take advantage of the facilities offered with an online community which is dedicated to helping singles meet Latinos in a comfortable online atmosphere. This offers the chance to meet your perfect match or simply find friendship. A community such as this is an excellent place to begin relationships, whether your interest is in marriage, companionship, or lasting friendship.

Naturally, these Latin communities also provide opportunities for you to set up the perfect romantic dating experience. Initially, one that both you and your date can enjoy without strings attached.

Latin online dating sites will normally include a number of features to help clients get to know other clients fairly well. For instance, you might expect to find presented in these sites:

Online profiles and photographs of Latin singles

Online chat rooms and an instant messenger that will allow communication in real time

An online private email box that allows participants to send and receive personal messages

An online forum that allows participants to post messages and exchange information

An FAQ section which makes it easier to get started by providing answers to common questions.

Once you’ve made contact, creating romance on your dates is greatly facilitated if you enjoy taking part in one, or more, of the following activities:

DINNER: The perfect choice for Latin dating. You can make this experience as casual or romantic as you want it to be. Make sure that you listen intently to your date, as the way you act during the meal can establish – or ruin – your new relationship. You might even take his or her hand across the dinner table. Make sure there is plenty of eye contact, and be open and honest, yet tactful, when you express yourself.

However, keep in mind that the other person may prefer the relationship to develop slowly and could be wary of early sexual overtures. If you sense discomfort in your date, back off. Good taste in romance means knowing when to draw the line. If you want the relationship to develop further – to become a Latin Lover – your date needs to feel relaxed and comfortable with you.

DANCING: At the heart of all good Latin dating is music – and dancing. Not only does dancing serve to stir the passions, it is also a tremendous icebreaker. It allows you and your date to touch and respond seductively to each other without any sense of commitment. And it’s great fun!

If you’re unfortunate enough to have two left feet, before you despondently buy a dog as a possible lifelong companion, consider:

WALKING: Nature’s everlasting standby for the romantically inclined. Of course, it helps if you have magnificent settings, such as beaches, parks, waterfronts, mountains and valleys. But the real advantage is being able to just hold hands and talk on an evening stroll; perhaps admiring the sunset in silence, or gazing up at the stars. There’s something about simple, natural beauty that evokes positive feelings and a romantic atmosphere, and Latins are by no means immune!

Whatever your dating intentions, keep in mind that traditions are an important part of Latin culture. So it’s usually an advantage to be of the same ethnic background when it comes to understanding family relations – and being accepted by family members.

Nevertheless, the online Latin community is a fine place to start and allows you to explore possibilities you might otherwise not have considered. The facilities offered by these dating sites make it easy for you to set up a truly enjoyable experience, even romance.