Philippe Matthews Show Guru Advice, Author Reviews, Tech Reviews, Entertainment News

Irene may not have lived up to expectations where the cameras were, but its impact is still being felt farther inland, where the real damage was. A report from the floods. Despite numerous predictions to the contrary, Hurricane Irene didn't blow North Carolina's Outer Banks to pieces or push a deadly storm surge through the streets of Baltimore.

Firefighters are battling against wildfires in Texas and Oklahoma. Scott Pelley speaks with Jason Allen of CBS Station KTVT in Dallas-Fort Worth who is near the fire line to find out if firefighters are getting a handle on the situation.

Professionally edited new media feeds kept concerned citizens informed, without having to sift through an unfiltered global reaction. This past year, social media replaced traditional news outlets as an unrivaled source of information for at least a few era-defining stories: Twitter broke the Osama Bin Laden story and YouTube became the window into the Arab Spring .

Hacktivist collective

The “list” gets longer and longer. Ideas and goals fall to the wayside remaining incomplete or never even seeing the light of day. There’s just no time; even less energy.

The party line on piracy is that it's bad for business. But what to make of the case of "Go the Fuck to Sleep," the "children's book for adults" whose viral-pirate PDF launched the book to the number-one spot on Amazon.com a month before its release? Something remarkable happened today.

If you live in an apartment in a city, you most likely have a fire escape attached to your building.

More than 1 million acres of Texas plains and forests has gone up in smoke this month as hundreds of fires blazed through the Lone Star State. Gusting winds, statewide drought and low humidity have created tinderbox conditions that state and federal firefighters are still struggling to contain

It's a dirty business, but searching a rival's trash is generally legal—as long as it does not involve trespassing on private property or taking the bags before they hit the curb, according to Richard Horowitz, a lawyer who works with Strategic and Competitive Intelligence Professionals, an industry group. In fact, there are best practices associated with Dumpster diving, according to J.J. Gradoni, a private investigator in Houston.

When my wife and I saw the ad for a small, lemon-yellow cottage, we immediately knew we wanted that house. It was in Toronto's Beaches community. Newly married and without kids, we envisioned going for long walks on the beach and then retreating to our cottage abode

If there's something aflame in your neighborhood, you may soon call for firemen toting backpacks blasting bursts of electricity to snuff out the firey problem. You listening, Bill Murray? Remember Ghostbusters ?