my $.02 too first thing i always tell anybody who asks me about what to do in their yard (i'm not a pro ) is: 1. live with it until you decide how you are going to use it and start making a list of what you wnat to do. 2. live with it some more until you know how it works- where is the sun/shade,wet/dry etc. 3. draw a map of your yard/house, circle and itentify what you want to do where-- will it work in that area. examples. i live on a city lot 50x125. the house was built in the 20's, it's 25 feet from the street. the drive runs from the street to the rear of the back yard, but there is no garage. we had twin 2 year old when we moved in. #1 need was a fence to contain them. thats what we put up as we moved in. after living there for a year we knew we wanted an area to dry clothes on the line. an area for the kids to play in -- including a swing set/sandbox and fort. we wanted an area to grill in/eat out. an area to relax in that wasn't in the sun. all this we wanted to do in the back yard. in the front yard we wanted to use as an entry way that welcomed people. I was willing to spend 1-2 hrs per week doing yard work as well as a spring and fall clean-up. in reality i' only willing to spend about 1 hour perweek. This means i need to rely on perinneials and tough plants that don't need lots of care. our 3 major problems with the yard were too many trees, the back third of the back yard was low, slow draining, and never got sun (think mud for 6 months of the year or more) and heavy clay soil.` year one we cut down 42 trees from the lot -- most were over 8" in diameter. We kept an ancient hickory (58" diameter), a young hickory (14" diameter) a maple(12" diameter) and three pin oaks (all about 14" in diameter). we ran a clothes line along one side of the back yard. since the back third of the yard was in heavy shade and only mud. we topped it with 18 tons of pea gravel-- put in the swingset, fort in the maple tree and a large sandbox. also we made a sitting area and put the wading pool there. no sunburns while the kids played, no more mud, cool and shady. we use the drive as a patio. but all this took us three years to achieve-- time to observe etc. nowe that the kids are 18, i can replace the fort/swingset with a shed for storage. the sand box is used for forcing winter publs and as a temporary holding bed. the lay out of the clothes line is being changed so i can increase the area where i have flower bed and so that it isn't so obvious now that we can entertain. also i'm finally able to start putting in plants i truly want as the soil has been built up over the years with many applications of compost, mulch, topsoil, sand and peat. i'm losing my big hickory-- maybe 10-15 more years, but i started a replacement for it in a better spot that a future owner will appreciate. but what you need to do lis figure out what you will do in the yard, what you want to see from the house, what you whant to see from the road. where do you always go into the house from? where do you want guest to go when they arrrive? where do you needx a shovel in the winter. then you need to read read read about plants and ask questions. as some one said you can always move the plant-- i'm ready to rip out my front flower beds for the 5th time because i finally think i have a plan that will work right for me-- i have homes for all the plants in these beds in other areas of my yard. so cut rake compost plant annuals stick in bulbs find plants you like and learn for a year or so then satart putting in the 'bones' of your garden and then start filling in the gaps. diggerb

you can not get rid of IE it is part of the Windows operating system. If you choose not to use it just don't use it. you still have to have it in case you ever have to go to the windows update site or some of the other windows sites as they only use IE. And you still have to get all the updates for it for security reasons. Even if Ie comes up just close it and click on the Chrome icon and open it and use it to go online instead. Mark it as default. If that does not work I would try firefox and see if it works it could be something conflicting with Chrome. But you can have as many browsers as you want and you can have more than one type open at the same time so even if IE does open just ignore and open which ever one you want to use.

I am running DSL by AT&T over a phone line for $30 additional per month. Up to 10 email accounts are permitted and it is possible to run multiple devices on the gateway ( a gateway does the job of a modem and router.) The speed probably does not compare to roadrunner over a cable, but it is respectable and is many times faster than dialup. I made good use of this service since my adult son had to temporarily move in while he was between jobs. It was no problem to add an email account for him and connect his computer via USB port radio link. He made good use of it for job hunting. (He's moving out tomorrow.) We are back to my desktop and two laptops. One laptop is used only occasionally. This system has been reliable. The gateway (att provided) has run a year without a problem. The only problem I've encountered is that the system slows down between the hours of 3 pm to 6:30 pm. The service is really Yahoo! as sold through AT&T. I do not like the default home page, but have it set up for two home pages on a pair of tabs. I continue to use my old home page for roaming the net because it is less cluttered. A simple click on the ATT tab takes me home to the email service and other features. My total phone bill with internet runs $55 to $60 per month. I dropped my old dialup at $220 per year and my wife dropped her dialup at $19 per month, and I dropped the second phone line at about $30 per month.

I have an Amazon parrot, and definitely sympathize with the screaming. Zach doesn't care about being covered either, but I am VERY lucky that he rarely gets set off. A couple of suggestions: Even squirting water at him is getting attention, and ANY bit of attention, good or bad, encourages the behavior. He screams, and you come into the room to cover him, tell him to shut up, yell at him, squirt him, whatever, the point is you come into the room, and it's like hitting the jackpot- he's got your attention. I'd recommend a good pair of earplugs or an iPod and totally ignoring him whenever he screams. I shut Zach's door without talking to him or making eye contact with him the few times he gets into a screaming fit. He stops within minutes. Captive birds get bored. In the wild, birds spend 75% of their waking hours searching for food. In captivity, most birds get their food placed in a bowl which stays in the same place and is basically always available. Having food available means more time for other activities such as preening (thankfully your bird isn't a feather-picker), and "chatting" with his flock. Captive foraging can help provide the bird with something closer to a natural experience. Start by hiding his favorite treats in a wadded up piece of paper or in toys designed for captive foraging. Make him work for the fun stuff. Once he starts eating the favorite treats that way, start hiding his regular food too. Even though cockatiels have been captive bred for many many years, they are still birds with certain behaviors that cannot be bred or socialized out of them. Providing adequate alternatives to natural behavior may help make your bird happier and less likely to scream. Here's a link to a great DVD on how to start captive foraging for your bird (or any other exotic animal). Here is a link that might be useful: Captive foraging DVD- Echols