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DEAR HARRY: Several years ago, I co-signed a loan for my son through Sallie Mae, the student-loan corporation. Shortly afterward, he stopped all contact with us and stopped paying on the loan. Naturally, they came after me for payment. Fortunately, I was able to resolve this problem by entering into a co-borrower release agreement with Sallie Mae in February 2009. Since then, I have been contacted from time to time by collection agencies claiming to represent Sallie Mae. They insist that I still owe the full remaining principal on the loan.

Whimsical time-waster or travel hero - you decide. Name: www.visastamper.com What it does: Creates a virtual representation of your passport. Back up your passport using the Visastamper website, or enter the dates and locations you've been to and Visastamper will create a passport for you. You can also stamp your current location while on the road, or use its iPhone or iPad app to help. What's hot: The graphics and stamps are cool. It really does look like a passport.

Discount diamond jeweler Ron Perlstein, in hot water for allegedly misrepresenting the weight and color of diamonds he sold to customers, says he's prepared to take a financial bath to make sure the district attorney's office doesn't sink him with his own records. Perlstein may have to hock some of his gems to pay for photocopying thousands of books and records seized by the district attorney's office in a raid on his Center City store. "That's right," said defense attorney Stanford Shmukler.

James C. Young, 52, a copy editor at The Inquirer and creator of a computer system that would give the blind increased access to newspapers, died Friday at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital. Mr. Young, a self-described independent scholar, possessed a wide-ranging knowledge, and his incisive questioning of reporters' copy kept many an error out of the newspaper. "Jim was an editor with a lot of zest for his work," said Jeff Price, assistant managing editor/copy desks. "He loved talking to reporters about their stories.

The free-lance writer who wrote the Margo Adams story for Penthouse magazine said yesterday that he had acquired a copy of baseball's confidential report on Pete Rose's gambling, but rejected a deal to sell it. "Pete Rose can rest easy. It will not be sold, and that's the end of that," said David D. Shumacher, who declined to say how he got the report, who had bid for it or how much was offered. He confirmed that there had been a $20,000 offer. "I have been advised by my attorneys not to sell the report," Shumacher said from his California home.

Faced with a full house and a brief agenda, East Pikeland supervisors were caught by surprise at their Tuesday public session as a frustrated resident, Jim Whelan, presented them with a copy of a letter dated that day from the Chester County Health Department. The letter, written by an environmental health specialist to the supervisors, addressed neighbors' complaints to the county Health Department about serious sewage malfunctions at the eastern end of the township, where septic systems are in use. Supervisor John Doyle asked about the whereabouts of the original letter.

John Goodyear is on to something in his solo painting show at the Gallery of Fine Art in Newtown, Bucks County, 35 featured works on view in several media titled "The Socrates Series. " He realizes that it is the artistic fashion to copy the past instead of learning from it, but he is determined to derail mere copying. This Lambertville artist and longtime Rutgers University art professor, you might believe, parodies everybody. No. His featured works relate to two different and seemingly unrelated paintings, their significance woven together by him in fresh ways.

James Arthur O'Connor, 86, an editor at The Inquirer for 29 years, died Thursday, Jan. 27, of complications from a stroke at Granville House, an assisted-living facility in Burlington Township. Mr. O'Connor was a copy reader at the Toronto Telegram and a book reviewer at the Vancouver Sun before joining the Detroit News in 1951. The next year he married Henrietta Case, an artist. They had been introduced by her father and two brothers, who worked with Mr. O'Connor on the copy desk. In 1960, the Detroit News changed ownerships, and the staff was fired.

Township supervisors have adopted a five-page resolution that spells out new procedures for residents to get a look at township files. Want a copy? It'll cost you. Under the resolution adopted last week by the board, Limerick will charge $1 a page for copies of public records and $15 an hour - with a $7.50 minimum - for township staff members to watch patrons read and copy files. Township manager Ed Fink said the fees reflect the cost of township employees' answering requests for documents.

After years of overcharging the public, New Jersey agencies, towns, and counties are offering great bargains this month, drastically reducing fees charged to copy documents. The price of a copy - typically as much as 75 cents a page - has plummeted to a penny or two a page in some jurisdictions. In other places, including Camden and Gloucester Counties, copies are being handed out free. The frenzy began July 1, the deadline an appeals court set for governments to begin charging "the actual costs of duplicating" a record.

Q: My husband and I got married two years ago. I thought we did everything right. We went to the courthouse and got a license. After the ceremony, the rabbi gave me the pink copy of the license. He also told me that he was going to file his copy at the courthouse in the next few days. Well, time slips away and this piece of paper did not seem important. In the process of buying a house recently, the bank asked for a copy of our marriage license. I went online to the department of vital statics to order one, and it seems there is no record of our marriage.

DEAR HARRY: Several years ago, I co-signed a loan for my son through Sallie Mae, the student-loan corporation. Shortly afterward, he stopped all contact with us and stopped paying on the loan. Naturally, they came after me for payment. Fortunately, I was able to resolve this problem by entering into a co-borrower release agreement with Sallie Mae in February 2009. Since then, I have been contacted from time to time by collection agencies claiming to represent Sallie Mae. They insist that I still owe the full remaining principal on the loan.

D EAR HARRY: I am finding myself in quite a dilemma concerning medical bills that my evidence shows have been paid. The problem seems to stem from the fact that I have two insurance plans. My primary plan normally pays the bulk of the bills, with my wife's plan picking up what is left. All of my statements from the second insurer show that the balance was paid. I have enclosed a copy. The "Explanation of Benefits" also indicates that there is no balance due from me. I have sent the statements from the second insurance company to the primary provider by mail.

Bucks County officials, faced with a budget crunch that has forced the layoff of six switchboard operators and probably additional staff, are asking why the government needs to spend $167,000 for copy paper. "That's significantly more than we've spent in past years for using paper in copy machines," Charles Martin, vice chairman of the county Board of Commissioners, said at Wednesday's public board meeting in Middletown Township. "We're using more paper. We should be using less, not more," Martin said.

One of the more difficult aspects of evolution for some people to swallow is the notion that random copying errors in DNA can add up to anything useful. In two recently published projects, however, scientists show how typos can indeed lead to improvements. In numerous species of insects, they document the DNA errors that led to changes that are not only beneficial but also brilliant. Various species of beetles, aphids, butterflies, and moths have independently acquired genetic errors that allow them to eat highly toxic plants and then use the toxins to defend themselves against predators.

By Joyce Eisenberg and Ellen Scolnic Where have all the copy boys, blacksmiths, and elevator operators gone? We could ask the same of coopers, the artisans who crafted wooden barrels back in the days before plastic bottles - when households needed churns, casks, and hogsheads to hold liquids. The word milliner might ring a bell with some hat-wearing church ladies. But, really, when was the last time you bought a custom-made, hand-fitted hat? Jobs must change with the times.

SAN JOSE, Calif. - A lawyer for Apple Inc. told a jury Tuesday that bitter rival Samsung faced two options to compete in the cellphone market after Steve Jobs introduced the iPhone to critical acclaim in 2007: innovate or copy. Samsung chose to copy, making its smartphones and computer tablets illegal knockoffs of Apple's popular products, lawyer Harold McElhinny contended. Samsung "has copied the entire design and user experience" of Apple's iPhone and iPad, McElhinny told a jury during his opening statement at the patent trial involving the world's two largest makers of cellphones.

If RCA was the Apple of its day, one could say Camden was the Cupertino. But unlike the firm and the California suburb Steve Jobs made famous, the company that made records, radios and TVs in Camden long ago ceased to be a player in the consumer electronics revolution it helped start. For people like author Frederick O. Barnum III and his audience at the Camden County Historical Society, however, RCA-Camden's star will never dim. "It's part of who we are as South Jerseyans," society board president Sandy Levins told about 20 people Sunday at the museum on Park Boulevard.

Whimsical time-waster or travel hero - you decide. Name: www.visastamper.com What it does: Creates a virtual representation of your passport. Back up your passport using the Visastamper website, or enter the dates and locations you've been to and Visastamper will create a passport for you. You can also stamp your current location while on the road, or use its iPhone or iPad app to help. What's hot: The graphics and stamps are cool. It really does look like a passport.

The family of Joe Paterno intends to sell copies of the late coach's memorial service with the proceeds going to charity. In a statement from Scott Paterno, the family said they will launch a website soon where copies can be purchased on DVD. "One thing everyone can be certain of is this: Every penny generated by the sale of the DVDs will go to charitable causes," the statement said. "It's only fitting that it be handled this way; after all, Joe Paterno left all of us with a simple mandate: Make An Impact.