I got my soil test results back from the university this afternoon and to be quite honest, it's looking way++ better than I thought it would, but I have this one question/doubt about my plan of attack... -------------------------------------- Water pH - 6.1 Phosphorus - 120+ ppm (very high) Potassium - 320+ ppm (very high) Calcium - 1280+ ppm (sufficient) Magnesium - 64+ ppm (sufficient) Organic M. - 2.9% Lawn, Cool Season ESTABLISHMENT: Apply 4.4 lbs. of 34-0-0 or 5.0 lbs. of 30-3-4 or 5.4 lbs. of 28-3-3 or 29-3-4 per 1000 sq. ft. A slow release formulation of nitrogen may give the best results. Select an appropriate maintenance schedule (see section B below) and begin following that schedule the very next spring or fall season after lawn establishment.... It goes on to say in the maintenance schedule how I need to choose fertilizers that contain very low amounts of P & K at the along normal KGB fertilization schedule. -------------------------------------- Here's where I'm concerned. The original plan was to lay down an application of Scott's Starter Fertilizer (20-27-5) on top of the freshly sown seedbed of my Galaxy Plus KBG but looking at the recommendations and how high my current potassium and phosphorus values are I figure that's out however I'm unsure if putting something that is so very high in nitrogen onto the newly sown seedbed is safe...? If so, can anyone recommend a product along those lines ( 34-0-0 ) that i could use on what will be my freshly sown seedbed?

Thanks everyone. A mixed bag of feedback, but mostly stick with XP and keep programs updated and run antispyware and antivirus programs. I do those already. I browse on Firefox and Chrome - never IE. Thanks Pipsy for your perspective. I hear it - and will keep it in mind. But given those that feel caution is sufficient for now, and my real constriction to switch systems this spring, I will probably continue with all cautions. Here are some follow up questions from everybody's posts: 1 - Unplugging external drive when not in use. I have a problem because my Synology NAS is always in use - as is one of my two external hard drives. First, I have lots of video stored on both that the family accesses to transfer to our Tivo's to watch on the television. That needs to be plugged in. I also have my desktop and my daughter's Mac esktop set to back up to the NAS weekly. Owbist - can you (or others) tell me what kind of vulnerability I'm exposing myself too? 2 - Can somebody provide a link and explanation of the ESET online scan? That's one new to me. 3 - I tried NoScript on my firefox and disabled it. Azinoh and the XP security article I mention below, both recommended it. But when I tried it, it was really interfering with a lot of things I was doing. That's been awhile so I dont' remember specifics, but it was just a big pain. Can somebody tell me more about the protection it offers - and are there settings to address how often it popped up and interfered with things? 4 - I do keep flash and java updated. I know many disable java, unfortunately one of the streaming stock programs I run depends on it. 5 - For my work laptop running Windows 7, I had a BSOD from conflicts with Avast. It was a known issue and was recommended to use MSE instead. If MSE isn't that good, should I risk trying Avast again? if there was a conflict in August/September, is it likely fixed since then? anybody know about this? 6 - In another post on this topic, somebody recommended this site/information: http://windowssecrets.com/top-story/securing-xp-pcs-after-microsoft-drops-support/ This site is certainily suggesting to stop with XP - but offers some safety measures if you continue. One was setting up IE so that it can't connect to the internet (but will connect to the homenetwork). "Disable Web browsing: After support ends next April, consider reconfiguring Windows XP to block its access to the Internet. (Remember: You’ll no longer need IE or Windows Update for system updates from Microsoft.) To do so, open IE, go to Tools/Internet Options, and then click on Connections. Click the LAN settings button (see Figure 1) and then check the “Use a proxy server …” box (see Figure 2). Next, enter 127.0.0.1 into the Address box. Finally, check the “Bypass proxy server for local addresses” box." Until this week, I had not encountered proxy servers. I stumbled on it bc. in updating my husband's Windows 7 computer, somehow both chrome and FF got reset to use a proxy server and they weren't connecting to the internet. Using Chrome's troubleshooting info, I was able to disable using proxy server. But now that I've seen the setting, I could set up proxy server for just IE. My question is, will this prevent me from accessing the internet using FF and Chrome (I don't think so but want to be sure)? Is there any reason to do this if I'm the only one in the family with an XP computer and I don't go on IE? Lastly, why do I need to keep IE if I'm not getting Windows updates? is it also for other microsoft updates that I could use (like Word)? Thank you. Lynn.

Urlee, I found instructions at Firetrust.com for MailWasher Pro. Don't know if they will work with the free version or not. Here's what they say: GMail: Click Settings > Forwarding and POP > POP Download > Check Enable POP only for mail that arrives from now on. Go to: "When messages are accessed with POP" and choose Delete Gmails copy. Click Save changes. MailWasher Pro: Click Tools > Email Accounts > Add > select POP3 > click OK. Enter a name reference for your account in the Account name. Enter pop.gmail.com in the POP3 server address field. Enter your full GMail email address in the User Name field. Enter your GMail password in the Password field. Click Advanced Account Options. Check the box next to This server requires a secure connection (SSL) under Incoming Mail (POP3). The port will change to 995. Click OK. Click OK HTH. Terry

you will need to know which version of AVG you have if it is the new version 8 AVG and if it is the free or paid version. If this is a new built pc you should probably let the builder troubleshoot it. Here is a link to the forums at AVG where you could ask them this question, however you will need to provide the version info and give them your pc info also. There is a dedicated email scanner which in version 8 you can turn off to see if that would change how your mail is acting. That way you might be able to determine if it is working ok with out the AVG email scanner then you know what might possibly be conflicting. Here is a link that might be useful: AVG forum