The Smoky Mountain Sentinel, way out in Hayesville, North Carolina (or perhaps we're way out from it) has started a Wiki to chronicle the history of Clay County, North Carolina. It's hosted at http://smsentinel.wiki.zoho.com/HomePage.html.

A Wiki is an online way for many visitors to edit a Web site at the same time, though not all Wikis are that open. The Smoky Mountain Sentinel is inviting the residents of Clay County to help edit the new resource.

What's on the Wiki thus far? Sports records, a list of service and civic organizations, newspaper information, and a list of servicemen killed in military conflicts. You can get a full list of available Wiki pages at http://smsentinel.wiki.zoho.com/sitemap.zhtml .

This isn't all the Smoky Mountain Sentinel is doing to document the county. There's also a

Has this been here the whole time, or have I missed it? The state of North Carolina has a Web site devoted to foreclosure help in North Carolina. It's at http://www.ncforeclosurehelp.org/ .

It's a fairly brief Web site. The front page provides a basic overview on what foreclosure is, as well as links to partners for the Web site and other useful information (including a phone number to call, avoiding scams and ripoffs, and filing foreclosure-related complaints.)

The second page, research, links to a variety of data on foreclosure information relevant to North Carolina (maps, reports, and foreclosure rates per county) and links to North Carolina legislation relevant to foreclosure.

Don't miss the partner links on the left side of the page. Other North Carolina agencies and external organizations are listed there; the North Carolina Housing

Everywhere I go it seems like THE hot topic is the gas efficiency. It's not too surprising -- at $4 a gallon and no end in sight, it costs a crazy amount to fill up a tank.

And of course the Internet is reacting to this as well. There's a new Web site available called GasEdge ( http://www.gasedge.com/ ) that looks like it'll come in handy in conjunction with (relatively) Cheap Gas Tuesday and Thursday. You enter the distance to your local gas station and its distance and price, and the cheap gas station and its distance and price. Enter your car's MPG and tank capacity, and GasEdge will tell you if it's worth it to go to the cheap gas station, and if it is, how much you'll save.

Speaking of mileage, I've been hearing the term "hypermiling" a lot lately. Hypermiling is the practice of using certain driving and car maintenance techniques to get the absolutely best gas mileage possible (This is somewhat

I haven't done a roundup of local techie information for a while, and I have a few fun North Carolina-related things I want to share with you.

Google is now Officially In Lenoir, and they apparently had a heck of a grand opening party. In true Internet company fashion, it was noted at the Official Google Blog. The company even served pulled pork. Perhaps on its anniversary we can all chip in and send them a basket of Moon Pies and Pepsi.

YouTube has a reputation for being mostly about video clips and homemade offerings, but that's not all the site is about. Indeed, a growing number of companies and organizations are starting official channels on YouTube -- including Duke University! Duke's YouTube site ishttp://www.youtube.com/duke . There are video stories about student life, research, Duke employees,

Hey, you want to help get into Guinness ? No, I'm not going to ask you to hop on one leg or set up a zillion dominoes. All you have to do is download some software.

Mozilla, the company behind the Firefox Web browser, is asking people to pledge that they will download the new Firefox 3.0 software on "Download Day" (a day in June that hasn't been announced yet.) The record it's going for is the most software downloaded in 24 hours.

I can't find an existing record for software downloads in 24 hours; Mozilla may be trying to set the record and get it in Guinness rather than break and existing one.

You can visit the Download Day page and pledge to download the Firefox software in the 24 hours of Download Day (I wish the company could give a little more information on when it actually is, rather than "sometime in June".) At this writing there are over 770,000