Business & Technology, business and economy, science and technology, consumer issues, personal finance, business

By KATHLEEN PENDER
Wouldn't it be nice if there were some way to insure yourself against a big drop in the value of your home, the same way you can insure against losses from fire, windstorm or a guest who gets drunk and falls off your deck?

Someday, it might be as easy as adding a rider to your homeowner's policy.

By MIKE BERMAN
"Stuff" is a general term used to describe piles of items in various shapes and sizes that are crowding you out of your office.

That being the case, here's some "stuff" you may be interested in:

PCmover from Laplink ($49.95) can transfer everything (including registration numbers) from that old clunker sitting in the corner to a new machine using a parallel or USB cable or over a wireless or Ethernet network.

This means you can safely migrate everything from your old machine to a new desktop or notebook computer without having to go through stacks of CDs and digging out old registration numbers.

By BARRIE McKENNA
Real estate agent Andrea Gaus knew the market was out of whack when the price of a typical four-bedroom house near good schools in the leafy Maryland suburbs outside Washington shot past the $1million mark.

"It got to the point where appreciation was so high that it priced people out of the market," Gaus said.

But the peak has passed, and the consequences of the deflating bubble are buffeting the housing market, in Washington and across the U.S.

What sold in a weekend here last year is taking months to unload.

By BRUCE FREEMAN
Dear Professor Bruce: I am considering taking some entrepreneurial studies courses at a local university. My long-term goal is to go into business for myself, but people tell me that either you have it or you don't and that taking courses won't make you an entrepreneur.

By ELLEN LEE
So you want to be a video star?

Brooke "Brookers" Brodack did it when her quirky clips on the online video site YouTube _ from lip-synching to dancing around her house _ caught the eye of former MTV personality Carson Daly, who signed her to a deal.

On Revver, another popular video site, two young pranksters dropped Mentos in Diet Coke.

Quick tips for getting yourself on the not-so-silver screen.

1. Record your movie.

It can be as easy as taking digital photos or recording a short clip on your digital camera. You can also use a camcorder or the camera in your cell phone.

By KEAY DAVIDSON
Fish are being drafted in San Francisco's war against possible terrorist threats to its water supply.

Akin to hospital gadgets that chart a patient's heart rate and breathing, a new water-quality monitoring system automatically analyzes the behavior of eight to 12 bluegill fish in a tank at the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission's water-treatment plant in Millbrae.

If the computers sense that the fish are upset by something in the water, "the system immediately triggers water samples to be taken, and the staff are alerted by pager and e-mail," said commission spokesman Tony Winnicker.

The monitoring system, which costs $110,000 per unit, was installed in April.

By LEE BOWMAN
Tough-love human parents like to use the analogy of birds pushing offspring out of the nest as soon as they're ready to fly, but a new study suggests that at least some feathered moms and dads keep parenting their fledglings even after they leave the nest.

It's well-known that adult birds feed their young directly while they're in the nest, and some youngsters even come back to the nest for brief visits around feeding time once they're able to fly on their own.

A team led by Andrew Radford of the University of Cambridge in England documented that certain species go a step further, using special calls to summon their adolescents to spots that offer the best foraging.

Studying young birds outside the nest is normally tough because they tend to take flight whenever an observer gets close.

But by gradually getting the birds used to their presence, Amanda Ridley and other researchers from the University of Cape Town, South Africa, and members of Radford's team, were able to closely monitor the behavior of a group of African pied babblers, medium-sized birds that subsist mainly on insects in the Kalahari Desert.

Over time, the researchers were able to get within a few feet of the birds, allowing them to photograph and audio record behavior _ and even training them to hop on scales from time to time to check their weight.

By M.B. OWENS
Career experts say most job seekers do not know how to effectively seek employment. Understanding the five major ways can help you develop a search strategy.

Each of the five major ways utilizes traditional methods and today's technology.

By JAMES DERK
It has been awhile since I have had a nice rant about something that has ticked me off in the computer world.

Today we're talking rebates.

It seems everything I buy now comes with a rebate.

I am not alone in thinking this ridiculous idea is keeping retail prices high because consumers actually think they are getting a bargain.

Here are the dirty secrets of rebates:

_ Most consumers don't fill them in and mail them.