IBGerm

Associated Press

TULSA, Okla. — Arena football isn’t dead yet.

Officials from what will be known as Arena Football 1 said Monday that they will have at least 16 teams ready to play in 2010, including four in former Arena Football League markets: Salt Lake City, Chicago, Phoenix and Orlando, Fla. The Arizona Rattlers and Orlando Predators played in the old AFL, but the new league’s Chicago and Salt Lake City teams did not.

The league will also have teams from the AFL offshoot arenafootball2, as well as at least one team from another indoor league. It will be based in Tulsa. Commissioner Jerry Kurz said it would be a "brand-new league" not connected with the AFL or af2.

"There has been arena football before," said Kurz, a former af2 commissioner. "It’s been done well but not as good as it’s going to be done this time."

Kurz said more details of the league’s business structure — including what the players might be paid — will be announced during the coming weeks. He said the league would use a schedule similar to that used by the AFL and af2, with games starting in late March or early April and running through the summer.

Dan Newman, the owner of the Bossier-Shreveport (La.) BattleWings — who are moving from the af2 to the new league- said Arena Football 1 will use a rule book identical to those used by the AFL and af2.

"This is arena football," Newman said.

Arena Football 1 said its markets also will include Little Rock, Ark.; Fresno, Calif.; Des Moines, Iowa; Jacksonville, Fla.; Lexington, Ky.; Milwaukee; Oklahoma City; Spokane, Wash.; Huntsville, Ala.; Kennewick, Wash.; and Tulsa.

The new league said eight more teams have submitted membership applications. Newman said the league is negotiating with seven other former AFL franchises, including those in Tampa and San Jose.

Hank Stern, vice president of the San Jose SaberCats, said Monday that while that team was "looking to bring arena football back to San Jose," he wouldn’t comment about the new league "until things become clearer."

Kurz said other franchises will be considered for inclusion in the league through Oct. 9.

"We’ll grow as it fits us in a smooth economic model," he said. "Other leagues in many different sports have just grown to grow and we don’t want to do that. We want to make sure we go into markets that want us."

The old AFL canceled its 2009 season and folded in August, ending a 22-year run for the high-scoring indoor brand of football that helped launch the career of Super Bowl winner Kurt Warner. Play in af2 was never disrupted, but teams ended the season unsure of what would happen next. The AFL owned 50.1 percent of af2.

Kurz said that while previous arena football leagues were "well-intended," their business model resulted in overspending.

"The sports business has to be like every other business," he said. "You can’t spend more than you generate in revenue."

Kurz and Newman dismissed the possibility of a new version of the AFL forming. Newman noted the AFL canceled its 2009 season "because of a collective bargaining agreement that they agreed to that spiraled out of control. The financial model was broken and finally it broke the machine. It didn’t work. The AFL is not in existence, it’s in bankruptcy.

"They will not play in 2010. That precipitated the necessity to go to the drawing board and come up with a financially viable model that works to play arena football."

If the new league’s owners are patient and market the league correctly, there’s no reason it can’t succeed, even during the current recession, said Mark Nagel, a professor who teaches sports management at the University of South Carolina.

"If they can keep those expenses in control and have a good plan to attract the consumer who’s looking to do something that’s affordable, it might work in this economy," Nagel said.

Shy Anderson, the chief operating officer for the AFL’s Dallas Desperados — who won’t play in the new league — agreed with Nagel’s assessment, saying the business model for the AFL "wasn’t solid." He said the new league "will be great for the fans and the players who want to continue playing football."

"It is an entertainment sport," Anderson said. "It’s not a pure sport. It’s football played indoors with a lesser number of players. But there is a niche for it."

Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press

A news conference is planned Monday to announce the formation of a new arena football league with teams from the former AFL and af2 leagues.

Representatives of the af2 teams in Oklahoma City, Arkansas, and Spokane, Wash., all confirmed to The Associated Press on Thursday that they intend to be part of the new league that will be based in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Oklahoma City Yard Dawgz general manager Christie Cook says ownership meetings are planned this weekend in Tulsa to finalize which other cities will have teams.

The old AFL canceled its 2009 season before eventually folding in August, while af2 continued play in smaller cities across the U.S.

Games in the new league called Arena Football 1 are to start in late March or early April.

The teams involved are unknown at this time. Will they just bring those teams  back that don’t have another Pro Football team? They are also looking at the possibility if they have allot of team, they may try and do a Tier I and Tier II system. I for one like the fact the Arena Football is back.

Source: AP

You should note that the new Windows 7 taskbar allows you to dock items to the taskbar, combining the features of both the normal taskbar as well as the Quick Launch. For more on this, be sure to read through our coverage of the Windows 7 beta if you haven’t already.

The above screenshot is the Windows 7 taskbar after changing back to XP/Vista mode, and adding the quick launch bar back. Looks just like Vista doesn’t it?

Adding the Quick Launch Bar Back to Windows 7

To add the toolbar back, you’ll want to right-click on an open area of the taskbar, and choose Toolbars \ New Toolbar from the menu. You should probably also unlock the taskbar at this point.

Now’s the slightly tricky part… you’ll want to paste the following path into the location bar:

%appdata%\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch

Make sure that the location bar shows the full path, like the next screenshot, before you choose the “Select Folder” button.

You’ll immediately notice the Quick Launch toolbar on the taskbar, but it’s all the way over on the right, so you’ll want to click on the dotted lines and then drag the toolbar all the way to the left (which is slightly tricky sometimes). Note that you’ll need to right-click and unlock the taskbar before you can move the toolbar.

There we go, it’s over on the left… but now you’ll want to adjust the regular taskbar toolbar to be closer to the left, so use the dotted lines to drag it over as well.

The normal Quick Launch that we’re used to doesn’t have text, so right-click on the dotted lines and uncheck “Show Text” as well as “Show Title” from the menu.

Once you’re sure it’s the way you want it, you should check the “Lock the taskbar” again.

And there you are, the quick launch bar has returned and there’s virtually no way anybody would know this is Windows 7.

Microsoft detailed the minimum system requirements for Windows 7. According to PC World, the requirements are:

• 1GHz processor (32- or 64-bit) 
• 1GB of main memory 
• 16GB of available disk space
• Support for DX9 graphics with 128MB of memory (for the Aero interface)
• A DVD-R/W drive

It is funny, these are basically the same specs for Vista.

Partition Your Hard Drive

Before you go installing Windows 7, the first thing you need to do is create a new partition on your hard drive to hold the new installation of Windows. Partitioning your hard drive will vary depending on whether you’re running XP or Vista—namely because Vista has a partition tool baked in, XP does not.

Partition Your Hard Drive in XP

To partition your hard drive in Windows XP, you’ll need to download some sort of third-party partitioning software. There are a lot of options available, but I prefer to stick with the previously mentioned GParted live CD, a free, open source boot CD that can handle all kinds of partitioning duties.

To use it, just download the GParted Live CD, burn it to a CD, then reboot your computer (booting from the disc). You’ll boot right into the partitioning tool. HowtoForge’s previous guide to modifying partitions with GParted is a great place to start, but it’s a fairly basic procedure:

1. Resize your current OS drive to free up enough space for a Windows 7 partition (the minimum system requirements ask for 16GB).
2. Create a new partition from the newly freed space.
3. Apply your changes.

Partition Your Hard Drive in Vista

The folks at Redmond were kind enough to include a disk partitioning tool in Vista if you know where to look. So go to Control Panel -> System and Maintenance (skip this one if you’re in Classic view) -> Administrative Tools -> Computer Management. Once you launch the Computer Management tool, click on Disk Management under the Storage heading in the sidebar. It’s partitioning time.

In a nutshell, you’ll need to shrink your current OS partition to free up at least 16GB of disk space (per the Windows 7 minimum system requirements), then create a "New Simple Volume" from the free space.

 

 Install Windows 7

Insert your Windows 7 disc and reboot your computer (you’ll need to have enabled booting from your DVD drive in your system BIOS, but most PCs will have this enabled by default).

Once the DVD boots up it’s a simple matter of following along with the fairly simple installation wizard. When you’re choosing installation type, be sure to select Custom (advanced) and choose the partition you set up above. (Be careful here. Choosing the wrong partition could mean wiping your other Windows installation altogether, so make sure you pick the new partition you just created.)

After you select the partition, go grab yourself a drink and let the installer do its work. Windows will run through some installation bits, restart a few times in the process. Eventually you’ll be prompted to set up your account, enter your license key, and set up Windows. Keep your eyes open for fun new Windows 7 features, like your new homegroup (and the accompanying password). When it’s finished, you’re up and rolling with your new Windows 7 installation.

DONE!!

See other post on how to change the boot loader menu.

 

Yes, you can.

Yesterday, I installed Windows 7 Pro on my 5 year old Dell M70 laptop. It currently had only Windows Xp pro. I at first had to change and create a partition on my hard drive to install Windows 7 I gave it at least 20 gigs of free space. I used a Live Linux  Cd called GParted ( I will link to that later). So now, I set up  XP/ Windows 7 dualboot. The Windows 7 installer set the  default boot choice to  Windows 7 and renamed the XP as “Previous version of Windows”, also a timeout of 30sec set.

If you try to modify the boot options the old-fashioned with boot.ini file, you get the following warnings:

    !!Warning: Boot.ini is use d on Windows XP and earlier operating systems!! 
    !!Warning: Use BCDEDIT.exe to modify Windows Vista boot options!!

If you examine, Windows 7 doesn’t have NTFS write permissions on XP system partition, even though it creates a "boot sector" inside it, cause it is the first one in line on the system disk, which is shared half on half by both systems.

So I booted into Windows 7, and run the following commands: 

• By default Vista/Windows 7 open command prompt in user mode, so we need to change the permission. To do so, just execute this command:
  Start Menu > All Programs > Accessories > (right-click & "Run as administrator") Command prompt
• bcdedit /set {legacy} Description "Windows XP Pro" (Changes the text description of the "Legacy" OS line in the boot menu. he quotation marks must be included in the command)
• bcdedit /default {legacy} ( Sets the legacy (Windows XP) OS as {default} boot item)
• Running bcdedit /? (shows all commands one is able to use)

Also, if you go into the system properties (right click my computer,properties, Advanced System Settings, Click the advanced tab, under start up and Recovery, setting,) You can change the Default as well as the time to display it.

Ok, maybe it is just me, but I find this truly stupid.

I use a well known AV software on three of my home computers. The other two run a well known free home version. I pay yearly for the well known paid AV software. Every year I get a notice to upgrade.update and pay for the next year. Mind you I have three computers and like the good techie that I am, I must have a license for each of them and not pay for one and place it on all of them. Right?? I get this notice and click the “one click update.” Sounds easy right? Well, If I do it via the web, I get a price of 39.99 for the next years service. This will only be good for one computer. Or, I can update to the next product bracket which  gives me options that I do not want nor will ever use, but I get a three user license all for 49.99. Oh course that is not what I even paid for it in the beginning. I don’t understand why I can buy a boxed copy of this from a big box store or even Amazon for a lot cheaper (a lot), then I can via this companies stupid upgrade site. Can somebody explain this to me?? So, I just got my purchased copy and re-paced in the new three person license copy on all my computers again…

"Two teenage girls (aged 10 and 12) found themselves trapped/lost in a storm water drain in Adelaide, South Australia. The interesting point of this article that makes it Blog worthy, is that although the teenage girls had mobile phones, instead of calling for help using 000 (Australia’s 911 number), they decided to notify people through Facebook. My guess is it was something along the lines of ‘Jane Doe is like totally trapped in a storm water drain, really need help, OMG!’. Luckily a young friend of the girls was online at the time and was able to call the proper authorities."

I think this is a true reflection on society today!

Points to be made-

Ages 10 and 12 are not typically teenagers but..you must be at least 13 to have a Facebook account. They have Facebook accounts. So they must be 13, and hence teenagers, even if they’re only 10 and 12.

Everyone knows that if you need to call for rescue, you use twitter.

"HELP ME! I am stuck and in real trouble and hurt real bad! I think my leg is broken, and I am losing a lot of blood. You can find me at" http://locme.

Maybe they didn’t have a signal strange enough for a call, but a text could get out (I hope this is the correct one).

Well, Funny thing about this is I fixed my hotmail and being able to access it via Outlook, but didn’t even think about Outlook Express. I use Outlook and my wife uses the Outlook Express. When she goes in and tries to pull in email , gets the error….Unable to poll for new messages on your HTTP server.  Account: ‘Hotmail’, Server: ‘http://services.msn.com/svcs/hotmail/httpmail.asp’, Protocol: HTTPMail, Server Response: ‘Forbidden’, Port: 0, Secure(SSL): No, Server Error: 998, Error Number: 0x800CCC33. Well, I found the solution to get Hotmail and Outlook Express to play nicely. I looks as if they are trying to push users to the live platform and use that as the email client, but if you still like Outlook Express, here we go..

 

Add a Hotmail POP3 account in Outlook Express

NOTE: If you are moving from DAV to POP3, there are a few important differences. With POP3, there is no synchronizing. For example, if you read an e-mail message in Outlook Express the message will be unread if you view your Hotmail account on the web. Also, only messages in your Hotmail Inbox will display in Outlook Express. Other folders, and any messages in them, will not be displayed.

1. In Outlook Express, on the Tools menu, click Accounts.

2. Click Add, and then click Mail.

3. Type your name, and then click Next.

4. Type your full Hotmail e-mail address, and then click Next.

 

5. Enter the following information, and then click Next:

· In the My incoming mail server is a list, click POP3.

· In the Incoming mail (POP3, IMAP, or HTTP) server box, type pop3.live.com

· In the Outgoing mail (SMTP) server box, type smtp.live.com

6. Type the account name and the password for your Hotmail account. Clear the Remember password check box unless you’re the only person with access to the computer. Make sure that the Log on using Secure Password Authentication (SPA) check box isn’t selected.

7. Click Next, and then click Finish.

8. In the Internet Accounts window, click the Mail tab, click the Hotmail account that you added, and then click Properties.

9. Click on the Servers tab and under ‘Outgoing Mail Servers’, please check the "My server requires authentication" box.

10. Click on the Settings button to the right of the "My server requires authentication" option.  You may need to turn on the "Use same settings as my incoming server" option unless you are using a special account setup requiring a different Account name and password.  Most people will need to use the default option of "Use same settings as my incoming server".

11. Click the Advanced tab, and under Server Port Numbers, enter the following information, and then click OK:

· In the Incoming mail (POP3) box, type 995.

· In the Outgoing mail (SMTP) box, type 25 or 587.

· Under both Outgoing mail (SMTP) and Incoming mail (POP3), select the This server requires a secure connection (SSL) check box.

· Under Delivery, select the Leave a copy of messages on server check box if you want to see your messages when you use Hotmail in a web browser, your mobile phone, or other e-mail programs. By default, Outlook Express will delete the messages from the Hotmail server when they are downloaded to your computer.

10. Click OK.

11. On the Internet Accounts window, take a look at your mail accounts by selecting the Mail tab. If you see your Hotmail account with Type ‘HTTP‘, select the account and click the Remove button (NOTE: this should apply if you are moving from the DAV protocol to the POP protocol – you’ve added an account with POP through the above instructions and now need to delete the previous account accessed through DAV).

TAMPA, Florida —  A Florida man born without arms says a Tampa bank would not let him cash a check because he couldn’t provide a thumbprint.

It was supposed to be a quick stop at the Bank of America.

"I said, ‘I’m going to run over downtown on my break, cash the check and bring the cash back.’ No big deal," Steve Valdez said. "It turned out to be a very big deal."

Valdez said he was cashing a check from his wife, who has an account at Bank of America. But the teller told Valdez she needed a thumbprint in order to cash it — it was company policy.

It’s not that Valdez didn’t want to provide it. He couldn’t provide it, and  the teller even acknowledged it.

"’It’s obvious that you can’t give us a thumbprint.’ She goes, ‘Let me go check with my supervisor,’" Valdez recalled the teller told him.

Valdez was born without arms and wears prosthetic devices. While at the bank, Valdez said he provided two photo IDs. And still that wasn’t enough. The bank supervisor offered him two options.

"One is, you can bring your wife with you. And the other one, you can open up an account with us. And I said, no, I don’t think so," Valdez added.

Valdez said he reminded bank officials the American for Disabilities Act would have a problem with their unfair treatment, but that didn’t seem to bother them.

"You do realize this is in violation of federal law and really you haven’t heard the end of it," Valdez said. "And she goes, ‘Whatever.’"

They never let Valdez cash his check, but he said days later he received a phone call from a bank regional manager with an apology.

Bank of America spokeswoman Nicole Nastacie says the bank should have "offered alternative requirements if an individual is not able to give a thumbprint."

Valdez had a message for them too:

"They need to alter their policies and procedures, or have alternate plans should something conflict with that."

 

You would think with all the money that the government gave out, they might be a little nicer.

source: Fox news