Fat Ass

A passenger waits for a delayed flight at Heathrow airport's terminal four in London August 12, 2006. Dieters may find some welcome assistance from a new nasal spray that could help resist the appetizing aromas of cinnamon bun stands, pizza parlors or tempting bakeries. REUTERS/Toby Melville

The Man in the City

The Atlantic Unveils 100 Most Influential Americans List

Tuesday November 21, 8:26 am ET
- List Spans Founders of Our Country to Living Americans and Includes Politicians, Inventors, Religious Leaders, Musicians, Sports Figures, and Captains of Industry -
- The Atlantic Invites Americans to Nominate Their Own Choices for Most Influential and to Join the Debate on The Atlantic's Website -

WASHINGTON, Nov. 21 /PRNewswire/ -- Which 100 Americans have had the most influence on our country? That is the question recently tackled by The Atlantic within its December issue. Beginning today, The Atlantic's 100 Most Influential Americans List is available on its website, http://www.theatlantic.com/. In its 150th year of publishing, the country's oldest continuously published magazine challenged 10 award winning historians and authors to determine who have been the 100 most influential figures in American history. Following the publication of The Atlantic's 100 Most Influential Americans List, readers can submit their own lists of Influentials at http://www.theatlantic.com/, and can cast their votes for figures who were left off the List but should not have been. Results will be published in the January-February issue of The Atlantic.

Written and compiled by associate editor Ross Douthat, The Atlantic's 100 Most Influential Americans List engaged 10 panelists to consider influence based on a person's impact, for good or ill, both on his or her own era and on the way we live now. The balloting was averaged and weighted to emphasize consensus -- and candidates received extra points if they appeared on multiple ballots.

"Our goal in compiling the Atlantic's 100 Most Influential Americans List wasn't to end a debate about historical influence, but to start one," says James Bennet, editor of The Atlantic. "We're not planning to engrave this list on a marble wall somewhere. Instead, we hope it will provoke discussion and even some serious disagreement about who made America and how. Why is Walt Disney ranked ahead of Elizabeth Cady Stanton? How did Woodrow Wilson make the top 10 but not Ronald Reagan? How can Bill Gates be ahead of Elvis Presley, or Presley ahead of Lewis and Clark, or Lewis and Clark ahead of Ralph Nader, or Nader ahead of Richard Nixon? The debates over the rankings in our offices have been fascinating and, at times, feisty. We hope other people have as much fun debating them as we have. But the point of the exercise is a serious one: to help us understand the influences that have shaped modern America, and made us who we are today."

Presidents, Religious Leaders, Inventors and Writers Ruled the List

The Atlantic's 100 Most Influential Americans List begins in ranking order with Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Alexander Hamilton, Benjamin Franklin, and John Marshall. Every panelist cast a vote for these seven figures, proving that a political career was the surest way to a historical legacy.
While we are still a country of immigrants, the native-born comprise the bulk of the list; just seven of the final 100 were born outside the continental United States. Also, the East Coast had a head start; 63 of the 100 were born in the original 13 colonies; and 26 in New England alone. The Atlantic's List of inventors included Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Bill and Eli Whitney. Founding and leading a religion landed many on the List including Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, and Christian Science founder Mary Baker Eddy. And finally, more than 30 of the figures on the List are writers.

Panelists did vote for many 20th century figures -- as well as many athletes, musicians, artists, and entertainers. For every vote for a 'mutton- chopped' Victorian, at least one vote went to a more contemporary cultural figure, such as Marilyn Monroe, Bob Dylan, or Tiger Woods. But the consensus favored Gilded Age industrialists and our Founding Fathers.

One of the panelists, historian and Pulitzer Prize winner Doris Kearns Goodwin, looked "for public figures who changed the daily lives of people, both at the time and afterward. In particular, I looked for great public figures who made it possible for people to lead expanded lives -- materially, psychologically, culturally and spiritually."

To see a complete listing of The Atlantic's 100 Most Influential Americans List and to cast your own vote for the most influential Americans visit http://www.theatlantic.com.

"The Atlantic, founded in 1857, and based in Washington, D.C., is the oldest continuously published magazine in the United States. The Atlantic covers politics, society, foreign affairs, science, literature, history, and more. Its readers are highly educated, with a deep interest and involvement in public affairs. For more information about The Atlantic visit http://www.theatlantic.com/."

Editor's Note: Addendum of The Atlantic's 100 Most Influential Americans List below:

THE ATLANTIC'S 100 MOST INFLUENTIAL LIST
1 Abraham Lincoln
2 George Washington
3 Thomas Jefferson
4 Franklin D. Roosevelt
5 Alexander Hamilton
6 Benjamin Franklin
7 John Marshall
8 Martin Luther King Jr.
9 Thomas Edison
10 Woodrow Wilson
11 John D. Rockefeller
12 Ulysses Grant
13 James Madison
14 Henry Ford
15 Theodore Roosevelt
16 Mark Twain
17 Ronald Reagan
18 Andrew Jackson
19 Thomas Paine
20 Andrew Carnegie
21 Harry Truman
22 Walt Whitman
23 Wright Brothers
24 Alexander Graham Bell
25 John Adams
26 Walt Disney
27 Eli Whitney
28 Dwight D. Eisenhower
29 Earl Warren
30 Elizabeth Cady Stanton
31 Henry Clay
32 Albert Einstein
33 Ralph Waldo Emerson
34 Jonas Salk
35 Jackie Robinson
36 William Jennings Bryan
37 J.P. Morgan
38 Susan B. Anthony
39 Rachel Carson
40 John Dewey
41 Harriet Beecher Stowe
42 Eleanor Roosevelt
43 W.E.B. DuBois
44 Lyndon Baines Johnson
45 Samuel F.B. Morse
46 William Lloyd Garrison
47 Frederick Douglass
48 Robert Oppenheimer
49 Frederick Law Olmsted
50 James K. Polk
51 Margaret Sanger
52 Joseph Smith
53 Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
54 Bill Gates
55 John Quincy Adams
56 Horace Mann
57 Robert E. Lee
58 John C. Calhoun
59 Louis Sullivan
60 William Faulkner
61 Samuel Gompers
62 William James
63 George Marshall
64 Jane Addams
65 Henry David Thoreau
66 Elvis Presley
67 P.T. Barnum
68 James D. Watson
69 James Gordon Bennett
70 Lewis and Clark
71 Noah Webster
72 Sam Walton
73 Cyrus McCormick
74 Brigham Young
75 George Herman "Babe" Ruth
76 Frank Lloyd Wright
77 Betty Friedan
78 John Brown
79 Louis Armstrong
80 William Randolph Hearst
81 Margaret Mead
82 George Gallup
83 James Fenimore Cooper
84 Thurgood Marshall
85 Ernest Hemingway
86 Mary Baker Eddy
87 Benjamin Spock
88 Enrico Fermi
89 Walter Lippmann
90 Jonathan Edwards
91 Lyman Beecher
92 John Steinbeck
93 Nat Turner
94 George Eastman
95 Sam Goldwyn
96 Ralph Nader
97 Stephen Foster
98 Booker T. Washington
99 Richard Nixon
100 Herman Melville

Power to the People

O.J. Simpson book, TV special canceled --Associated Press
By HILLEL ITALIE, AP National Writer

The O.J. Simpson book saga took another twist Tuesday when his former sister-in-law, Denise Brown, accused the media company behind the project of trying to buy her family's silence for "millions of dollars."
Simpson's book, "If I did it," was a sequel few had dared conceive, with Simpson — acquitted of murdering his ex-wife and her friend but found liable for their deaths in civil court — describing how he would have killed them.
A spokesman for News Corp., owner of Fox Broadcasting and publisher HarperCollins, confirmed that the company had conversations with representatives of Nicole Brown Simpson's and Ron Goldman's families over the past week and that the families were offered profits from the planned Simpson book and television show, but he denied that it was hush money.
"There were no strings attached," News Corp. spokesman Andrew Butcher said.
Denise Brown told NBC's "Today" show Tuesday that her family saw it as hush money.
"They wanted to offer us millions of dollars. Millions of dollars for, like, 'Oh, I'm sorry' money. But they were still going to air the show," Brown said. "That's what the ironic thing is ... they were going to do the show."

Happy Birthday to Me!

Tom and Katy are gettting married today.

Owen Wilson, Linda Evans, Mickey Mouse and I share our birthdays.

Today is National Adoption Day.

It's all good.

What one person can do

I will not purchase the new OJ Simpson Book coming out next week. And I also encourage you not to purchase it as well.

It's a twisted scenario written by a twisted soul who needs money and the spotlight. The humanity of it. Weird and double weird.

"If I Did It" will sell millions of books but I am not wasting my money and I hope that you too will also pass on a desperate book with desperate motives.

Peace,
Stee Vee Bee

KFC advertisement from space

A satellite photograph shows the image of Colonel Sanders, the mascot of U.S. fried-chicken restaurant chain KFC, in the desert in Nevada in this undated handout photo released November 14, 2006. Covering 87,500 sq ft, the image is claimed as the first brand visible from space. NO SALES NO ARCHIVES EDITORIAL USE ONLY REUTERS/Weber Shandwick/Handout (UNITED STATES)

Ulysses

God Be Praised!! After almost six months I have finally have finished Ulysses.

The world is seperated into two types of people: 1) the people who have not read Ulysses and 2) the people who have read Ulysses. I am now a member of the latter.

Scratch Scratch My Back

An undated handout photograph released on September 27, 2006 shows Lee Redmond of the U.S. who has won entry into the latest edition of Guinness World Records September 28, 2006 with the world's longest fingernails. EDITORIAL USE ONLY NO ARCHIVES NO SALES REUTERS/Drew Gardner/GWR/Handout (BRITAIN)

$20

AFP - Mon Sep 11, 10:17 AM ET
A Palestinian shows how a folded twenty dollar bill appears to show the World Trade Center buildings on fire. Osama bin Laden's deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri has warned that the Gulf and Israel would be the next targets of Al-Qaeda, in a video message coinciding with the fifth anniversary of the September 11 attacks on the United States.(AFP/Hazem Bader)

"We Have Not Forgotten, Mr. President."

"We Have Not Forgotten, Mr. President."

The NationMon Sep 11, 9:49 PM ET

The Nation -- Keith Olbermann is without a doubt the best news anchor on television today. Two weeks ago, echoing the spirit of the legendary Edward R. Murrow, Olbermann took Donald Rumsfeld to task for comparing critics of the Iraq war to Nazi appeasers. Tonight, broadcasting live from above a desolate and still demolished Ground Zero, Olbermann delivered a stirring eight minute commentary indicting the Bush Administration's shameful and tragic response to 9/11. The entire speech is worth watching and reading, so I'm posting the full text below.
Half a lifetime ago, I worked in this now-empty space. And for 40 days after the attacks, I worked here again, trying to make sense of what happened, and was yet to happen, as a reporter.
All the time, I knew that the very air I breathed contained the remains of thousands of people, including four of my friends, two in the planes and -- as I discovered from those "missing posters" seared still into my soul -- two more in the Towers.
And I knew too, that this was the pyre for hundreds of New York policemen and firemen, of whom my family can claim half a dozen or more, as our ancestors.
I belabor this to emphasize that, for me this was, and is, and always shall be, personal.
And anyone who claims that I and others like me are "soft,"or have "forgotten" the lessons of what happened here is at best a grasping, opportunistic, dilettante and at worst, an idiot whether he is a commentator, or a Vice President, or a President.
However, of all the things those of us who were here five years ago could have forecast -- of all the nightmares that unfolded before our eyes, and the others that unfolded only in our minds -- none of us could have predicted this.
Five years later this space is still empty.
Five years later there is no memorial to the dead.
Five years later there is no building rising to show with proud defiance that we would not have our America wrung from us, by cowards and criminals.
Five years later this country's wound is still open.
Five years later this country's mass grave is still unmarked.
Five years later this is still just a background for a photo-op.
It is beyond shameful.
At the dedication of the Gettysburg Memorial -- barely four months after the last soldier staggered from another Pennsylvania field -- Mr. Lincoln said, "we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract."
Lincoln used those words to immortalize their sacrifice.
Today our leaders could use those same words to rationalize their reprehensible inaction. "We cannot dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can not hallow this ground." So we won't.
Instead they bicker and buck pass. They thwart private efforts, and jostle to claim credit for initiatives that go nowhere. They spend the money on irrelevant wars, and elaborate self-congratulations, and buying off columnists to write how good a job they're doing instead of doing any job at all.
Five years later, Mr. Bush, we are still fighting the terrorists on these streets. And look carefully, sir, on these 16 empty acres. The terrorists are clearly, still winning.
And, in a crime against every victim here and every patriotic sentiment you mouthed but did not enact, you have done nothing about it.
And there is something worse still than this vast gaping hole in this city, and in the fabric of our nation. There is its symbolism of the promise unfulfilled, the urgent oath, reduced to lazy execution.
The only positive on 9/11 and the days and weeks that so slowly and painfully followed it was the unanimous humanity, here, and throughout the country. The government, the President in particular, was given every possible measure of support.
Those who did not belong to his party -- tabled that.
Those who doubted the mechanics of his election -- ignored that.
Those who wondered of his qualifications -- forgot that.
History teaches us that nearly unanimous support of a government cannot be taken away from that government by its critics. It can only be squandered by those who use it not to heal a nation's wounds, but to take political advantage.
Terrorists did not come and steal our newly-regained sense of being American first, and political, fiftieth. Nor did the Democrats. Nor did the media. Nor did the people.
The President -- and those around him -- did that.
They promised bi-partisanship, and then showed that to them, "bi-partisanship" meant that their party would rule and the rest would have to follow, or be branded, with ever-escalating hysteria, as morally or intellectually confused, as appeasers, as those who, in the Vice President's words yesterday, "validate the strategy of the terrorists."
They promised protection, and then showed that to them "protection" meant going to war against a despot whose hand they had once shaken, a despot who we now learn from our own Senate Intelligence Committee, hated al-Qaida as much as we did.
The polite phrase for how so many of us were duped into supporting a war, on the false premise that it had 'something to do' with 9/11 is "lying by implication."
The impolite phrase is "impeachable offense."
Not once in now five years has this President ever offered to assume responsibility for the failures that led to this empty space, and to this, the current, curdled, version of our beloved country.
Still, there is a last snapping flame from a final candle of respect and fairness: even his most virulent critics have never suggested he alone bears the full brunt of the blame for 9/11.
Half the time, in fact, this President has been so gently treated, that he has seemed not even to be the man most responsible for anything in his own administration.
Yet what is happening this very night?
A mini-series, created, influenced -- possibly financed by -- the most radical and cold of domestic political Machiavellis, continues to be televised into our homes.
The documented truths of the last fifteen years are replaced by bald-faced lies; the talking points of the current regime parroted; the whole sorry story blurred, by spin, to make the party out of office seem vacillating and impotent, and the party in office, seem like the only option.
How dare you, Mr. President, after taking cynical advantage of the unanimity and love, and transmuting it into fraudulent war and needless death, after monstrously transforming it into fear and suspicion and turning that fear into the campaign slogan of three elections? How dare you -- or those around you -- ever "spin" 9/11?
Just as the terrorists have succeeded -- are still succeeding -- as long as there is no memorial and no construction here at Ground Zero.
So, too, have they succeeded, and are still succeeding as long as this government uses 9/11 as a wedge to pit Americans against Americans.
This is an odd point to cite a television program, especially one from March of 1960. But as Disney's continuing sell-out of the truth (and this country) suggests, even television programs can be powerful things.
And long ago, a series called "The Twilight Zone" broadcast a riveting episode entitled "The Monsters Are Due On Maple Street."
In brief: a meteor sparks rumors of an invasion by extra-terrestrials disguised as humans. The electricity goes out. A neighbor pleads for calm. Suddenly his car -- and only his car -- starts. Someone suggests he must be the alien. Then another man's lights go on. As charges and suspicion and panic overtake the street, guns are inevitably produced. An "alien" is shot -- but he turns out to be just another neighbor, returning from going for help. The camera pulls back to a near-by hill, where two extra-terrestrials are seen manipulating a small device that can jam electricity. The veteran tells his novice that there's no need to actually attack, that you just turn off a few of the human machines and then, "they pick the most dangerous enemy they can find, and it's themselves."
And then, in perhaps his finest piece of writing, Rod Serling sums it up with words of remarkable prescience, given where we find ourselves tonight: "The tools of conquest do not necessarily come with bombs and explosions and fallout. There are weapons that are simply thoughts, attitudes, prejudices, to be found only in the minds of men.
"For the record, prejudices can kill and suspicion can destroy, and a thoughtless, frightened search for a scapegoat has a fallout all its own -- for the children, and the children yet unborn."
When those who dissent are told time and time again -- as we will be, if not tonight by the President, then tomorrow by his portable public chorus -- that he is preserving our freedom, but that if we use any of it, we are somehow un-American...When we are scolded, that if we merely question, we have "forgotten the lessons of 9/11"... look into this empty space behind me and the bi-partisanship upon which this administration also did not build, and tell me:
Who has left this hole in the ground?
We have not forgotten, Mr. President.
You have.
May this country forgive you.

Family of Champions

50 Coolest Websites by Time Magazine

How do we select our finalists? We evaluate hundreds of candidates—some suggested by readers, colleagues and friends, others discovered during countless hours of surfing. Many of this year's choices are shining examples of Web 2.0: next-generation sites offering dynamic new ways to inform and entertain, sites with cutting-edge tools to create, consume, share or discuss all manners of media, from blog posts to video clips. Think we missed one? Send us your thoughts and we'll post a selection of your comments online. There's always next year. By MARYANNE MURRAY BUECHNER

ENTERTAINMENT, ARTS & MEDIA
A variety of amusements, from classic rock to famous photography, collage art to custom radio, plus our favorite video web logs
Drawn!
Jumpcut
Sundance Splinks
Wolfgang's Vault
Photo Muse
Podcast Pickle
Pandora
The 9
YouTube

SHOPPING, LIFESTYLES & HOBBIES
Yummy food, Hollywood fashion and helping hands for those do-it-yourself projects
Phone Scoop
Delicious Days
Not Martha
Shop Intuition
Kids-In-Mind
Mighty Goods
Zunafish

NEWS & INFORMATION
The Web's best war correspondent, a snarky sports blog, the pioneers of "social news" more
The Morning News
Kevin Sites in the Hot Zone
Charity Navigator
Footnoted
Tailrank
Deadspin
Digg
The Human Clock

STAYING CONNECTED
A humming social network, community sing-along, instant-messaging hub, mobile-launched pub-crawls and numbers-crunching by committee
MySpace
Google Spreadsheets
SingShot
Meebo
Dodgeball

TIME WASTERS
Juicy celebrity gossip, mindless computer games and other guilty pleasures
TMZ
Shockwave
Yu-Gi-Oh Groove
Cute Overload
Jackson Pollock by Miltos Manetas
Number Logic

TRAVEL & REAL ESTATE
An airfare predictor and subway guide, restaurant reviews and car sharing
Zipcar
Farecast
Kayak
Zillow
HopStop
CentralPark
Yelp

WEB SEARCH & SERVICES
Ordering take-out, finding phone numbers and a slew of alternative search engines
Accoona
Kosmix
Snap
Pixsy
Argali White & Yellow
Blurb
Seamless Web
McAfee SiteAdvisor
BACK TO TOP PRINT-->E-MAIL

25 Sites We Can't Live Without

25 Sites We Can't Live Without
Here we honor some '50 Coolest' finalists from years past, sites that continue to impress us with new content and features and deserve a spot on anyone's must-click listBy MARYANNE MURRAY BUECHNER

Posted Thursday, Aug. 03, 2006

1. Amazon.comIt rules e-tail, with 34 different product categories (including groceries; new and used cars could be next) yet stays true to its bookstore roots, with nifty features like Search Inside the Book, and the new AmazonConnect, which links you to blog posts from your favorite authors from the home page
2. Apple Movie TrailersComing attractions for movie buffs and reason enough to finally get that broadband connection
3. BloggerThe place to go to create your own blog; tools are powerful and easy to use, and it's free
4. CraigslistThis wildly popular portal of classified ads serving more than 300 cities in the U.S. and across the globe recently expanded its real estate listings, and helps power HousingMaps a mash-up that locates properties for sale using Google Maps. (Craigslist charges fees to real estate brokers in New York and for job ads in New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles, but is otherwise free.)
5. Drudge ReportMatt Drudge, newsbreaker, got more than 3.5 billion hits in the past year
6. EbayThe auction powerhouse keeps expanding its repertoire, allowing users to write blogs and create wikis (collaborative info-banks), and to "Skype" each other about individual items up for bid (i.e. use the Internet telephony service to place voice calls)
7. ESPNBest all-around sports site, with sports news, sports videos, sports columns and sports data galore. Honorable mention goes to MLB.com, which lets you watch baseball games that aren't broadcast in your local TV market. The service's success inspired CBS Sports to team up with NCAA to offer March Madness on Demand which drew 5 million viewers earlier this year
8. Factcheck.orgPicks apart speeches, press releases, TV ads and other public statements by politicians of all stripes to set the record straight
9. FlickrThis public showroom for personal pics is one of the fastest-growing social networks on the Web, and now it has a blog
10. GoogleWhat started as the Web's best search engine has become a jack-of-all-trades, offering all sorts of free applications, from Spreadsheets and Calendar to Picasa (for digital photos) and Gmail. There's Google Scholar, which lets you search for academic papers on any topic, and Google Finance (nice charts!); Google Maps has inspired countless "mash-ups" including weatherbonk.com. Register for a free account and you can personalize your home page too. Click here, for a menu of features and services that have officially launched; go to Google Labs for the new stuff that's still in beta (such as Spreadsheets). The unaffiliated (but lovingly devoted) Googletutor.com has helpful tips and advice for making the most of all things Google. Read more about some of Google's latest-greatest features in the TIME archives.
11. HowStuffWorksEasy-breezy explanations of how things work, from money laundering to hybrid cars, game consoles to the human kidneys
12. The Internet Movie DatabaseEncyclopedia of entertainment that covers some 800,000 films, television shows and video game titles. Users help keep the Internet Movie Database current, submitting 16 million data bits in 2005 alone
13. LifehackerComputer-tech tips and tricks to help you save time, and keep you sane; sister-blog Gizmodo gives up all the latest gadget news. Too mainstream for you? Best to head over to our favorite geek-convention,Slashdot.org
14. The Museum of Modern ArtNow available: MoMA Audio, a selection of museum tours as downloadable podcasts. Wear your own earbuds as you walk through the special exhibitions or the permanent collection; separate audio tours are available for kids and for the visually impaired.
15. NetflixMore than 60,000 DVD titles available to rent, from classics to art-house flicks to major studio releases. Digital delivery is scheduled to start early next year, but don't expect those red mailers to be phased out anytime soon
16. National Public RadioNot to miss: NPR podcasts, NPR music, NPR This I Believe, NPR Stories
17. The OnionLong before The Daily Show, long before Stephen Colbert, there was The Onion, and it's still hilarious, and now you don't need a subscription to read the fake news archives. Podcasts are also now available
18. Rotten TomatoesGathers movie reviews from far and wide, and reports box office and other stats; flicks receive a critical average on the 100-point "tomatometer." Movies.com also gets a nod for streaming episodes of "Statler & Waldorf: From the Balcony," an Ebert & Roeper spoof starring those lovable muppet-curmudgeons
19. ShopzillaNew comparison shopping sites keep popping up (Become.com isn't bad) but nothing beats Shopzilla's search tools and merchant ratings
20. TechnoratiBlog finder that keeps getting better while the blogosphere gets bigger. Searches are faster and more accurate, and now you can personalize the home page; a new Discover section provides a round-up of top posts by topic. Newcomer Sphere is also worth a look.
21. Television Without PityBitingly funny TV show recaps
22. The Smoking GunContinues to document interesting news (sample headline: "Six Skulls Found in Strippers Home") and get the occasional big scoop, like outing writer James Frey
23. WikipediaA real Web wonder: this massive, collaborative online encyclopedia is written, edited, and maintained primarily by volunteers; some 1.3 million articles in English, and millions more in 228 other languages
24. Yahoo!Arguably Google's toughest competition for top Web property. Check out the new My Web 2.0 service, which incorporates the social bookmarking activities of the recently-acquired del.icio.us (you get to see where other people are surfing, and share your own favorite links). Maps.yahoo.com/traffic offers a visual guide to gridlock situations on major roads in 20 metropolitan areas; Yahoo Photos offers new ways to share images (more advanced search features, tagging and other tools); and the new Yahoo Tech page cherry-picks from CNET's playbook. Earlier this summer, Yahoo partner site fifaworldcup.yahoo.com scored with video highlights and a live MatchCast
25. Zappos.comSimply the best place to shop for shoes online, with stellar customer service and free shipping all the time

Blue Stephen

Naked Fountain

AFP/DDP - Sun Aug 6, 4:42 PM ET Hundreds of naked volunteers pose nude for an installation of US photographer Spencer Tunick, at the Ehrenhof museum complex in Duesseldorf, western Germany, on the building's roof is seen the sculpture "Aurora" by German artist Arno Breker. Tunick is known for his photographs that feature large numbers of nude people posed in artistic formations, often situated in urban locations.(AFP/DDP/Volker Hartmann)

2006 Best Cities to Live

Rank City Population
1 Fort Collins, CO 128,000
2 Naperville, IL 141,600
3 Sugar Land, TX 75,800
4 Columbia/Ellicott City, MD 159,200
5 Cary, NC 106,400
6 Overland Park, KS 164,800
7 Scottsdale, AZ 226,000
8 Boise, ID 193,200
9 Fairfield, CT 57,800
10 Eden Prairie, MN 60,600
11 Plano, TX 250,100
12 Eagan, MN 63,700
13 Olathe, KS 112,100
14 West Bloomfield , MI 65,000
15 Richardson, TX 99,200
16 Gilbert, AZ 178,100
17 Parsippany-Troy Hills, NJ 51,600
18 Santa Clarita, CA 172,500
19 Carrollton, TX 124,700
20 Henderson, NV 232,100
21 Bellevue, WA 117,100
22 Newton, MA 83,200
23 Sandy, UT 89,700
24 Westminster, CO 105,100
25 Ann Arbor, MI 113,300

Bush Face

Reuters - Thu Jul 13, 3:51 PM ET
U.S. President George W. Bush hands back a crying baby that was handed to him from the crowd as he arrives for an outdoor dinner with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Trinwillershagen, Germany, July 13, 2006.

Headless Photo

AFP - Thu Jul 20, 8:21 PM ET Momentarily headless : The gymnist Katherine Coronel of Venezuela performs her routine during the rhythmic gymnastics competition at the 20th Juegos Deportivos Centroamericanos y del Caribe in Cartagena, Colombia. (AFP/Martin Bernetti)

Top 10 Windows XP Tips Of All Time

Top 10 Windows XP Tips Of All Time George Jones
Fri Apr 21, 4:51 PM ET



Despite all the hoopla about the introduction of Windows Vista, the truth of the matter is that the new OS isn't due for at least another seven to nine months — and it will probably be even longer before most of us start adopting it. Meanwhile, we've still got to deal with Win XP.

In order to make the waiting easier, we've decided to assemble the greatest tips in the history of Windows XP. Here you'll find the tips that give you the most bang for your buck; that are most useful in terms of security, functionality, and PC performance; and that are just plain cool.


One final thought: As you parse our Top 10, consider the following: With any luck, this time next year we'll all be reading Windows Vista tips stories.

And now let's start the countdown.


Tip 10: Halt background services to improve performance.

This tip is one of our favorites because it always works. Running in the background of Windows are scores of services, small processes used by Windows and many Windows applications. The thing is, you don't need all these services — especially for applications you never use — and many of them actually slow your PC down.

Win XP power users have long known that you can easily eke a little extra performance out of your PC by disabling services that are completely unnecessary or that don't need to be running all the time. Here's how it works.

1. Click Start > Run, type services.msc and click OK. This will bring up the Services management console. Click on the Extended tab at the bottom of this window; each background service running on your PC is listed here. Windows includes a fairly detailed description of each service; simply drag the Description column wider to read more of each description, or click on a service to see its full description in the left pane.

2. Double-click a service to bring up a window with several options. In the Startup Type area, you can set the service to run automatically in the background at all times so it's ready whenever it's needed, or you can tell it to run manually, which means you'll have to go into this Services management console and re-enable it if an application needs it.

You can also completely disable the service. In general, you want to disable services tied to applications and/or features you don't use or rarely use. You can find a great list of appropriate services to disable at the Elder Geek's Services Guide For Windows XP.

If you're logged onto the computer as the administrator, you can also pause the service (click the Pause button in the Service Status area just below the Startup Type area), then see how the computer behaves. Danger signs include crashes or other erratic behaviors in your applications, such as running slowly or getting stuck on a query prompt. Click Resume to start up the service again.


Tip 9: Increase available disk space by scaling back System Restore.

It's not perfect, but Windows System Restore is a useful first step in recovering your PC or drive from a major system error. However, it can consume more than 10 percent of your total hard drive space.

If you find yourself desperate for an extra few gigabytes — particularly on secondary storage drives — there's an easy way to reclaim data space by simply limiting the number of System Restore points Windows XP establishes. This one's a snap and there's no tangible increase of risk, which is why we love it.

1. Right-click on My Computer and select Properties > System Restore.

2. If you have just one hard drive, skip to step 3. Otherwise, select the drive on which you want to gain storage space and click the Settings button.

3. Adjust the slider to the left to use less disk space, and Win XP will reduce the number of System Restore points by the appropriate amount.


Tip 8: Scrub your hard drive clean.

Windows Support Tools, provided free by Microsoft, are a suite of some 20+ separate applications that are extremely handy for a number of uses. Ordinary PC users probably won't use many of these apps — they're mostly used by IT pros to troubleshoot and analyze Windows XP. But even if you're not an expert, don't be afraid of using the Windows Installer Clean Up Utility, which will help you remove all leftover files from a failed uninstall of a Windows Installer application.

Download Windows Support Tools from Microsoft's Download Center. (If you're curious about the other apps in the suite, check out the help file included in the Windows Support Tools Program group.)

To run the Windows Installer Clean Up Utility, go to the command prompt (select Start > Run) and type msicuu.exe. You'll see a list of all applications with uninstall data. Select the ones you want to get rid of and click the Remove button. Obviously, you want to use caution here — don't clear the install data for an application unless you're absolutely sure you won't ever need it.


Tip 7: Run two displays on the same PC.

This tip is for the worker bee. Adding a second display to your PC won't quite double your productivity, but it will make your computing life easier. Walk around a cube farm these days, and you'll likely see at least a few power users doubling up.

Thankfully, Windows XP makes it extremely easy.

1. Plug the second display into your computer. (Many video cards today have a second Video Out port; if not, you'll have to install a second video card.)

2. Right-click on your desktop and click Properties to bring up the Display Properties window. Click on the Settings tab.

3. See the grayed-out box to the right of the black box? That's your second monitor. Click on it and then click the check box next to "Extend my Windows desktop onto this monitor" to enable it. From here you can adjust the resolution of the secondary display. The goal here is to have a desktop that spans both of your displays, so if your second screen is physically located to the left of your primary one, drag and drop the #2 monitor to the left of the #1 display.


Tip 6: Force unresponsive applications to close at shutdown.

When it comes to balky PCs, few things annoy us more than the moment when we try to shut down Windows and it tells us it can't because some crashed application isn't responding, and that we have to do it ourselves by clicking the End Now button.

This registry hack changes that. Here's how it works.

1. Launch RegEdit (select Start > Run, type regedit and click OK) and browse to HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Control Panel\Desktop

2. Find the string called AutoEndTasks. Right-click it, select Modify from the pop-up menu, and change the data value from 0 to 1. (If you can't find this string, create it by selecting Edit > New > String Value and set the data value to 1.)

3. Close RegEdit and reboot.


Tip 5: Automatically optimize your hard drive.

One of the keys to system performance is an optimized hard drive. Typically, you optimize your hard drive using Windows' Defrag utility. But there's a great registry hack that will force Win XP to automatically optimize the location of files when your PC is idle. Here's how it works.

1. Open RegEdit and browse to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersionOptimalLayout

2. Find the string called EnableAutoLayout, and change its data value to 1. (If this string doesn't exist, create it and set the value to 1.)

3. Exit RegEdit and reboot your PC. Done!


Tip 4: Set a custom resolution.

Notice a trend in the second half of this story? If you answered, "They're all registry hacks," you are correct. Windows XP's registry loads an amazing amount of flexibility and customization in a fairly low-risk package.

Tip number 4 on our list is another one of our favorite registry hacks. Windows XP allows you to specify a large number of set screen resolutions based on what types of images your display can accept. However, in a few rare instances, you may want to specify a non-standard resolution for a clearer or more accurate picture. This tip allows you to do just that. It's one of those tips that doesn't seem all that handy — until you desperately need it. Plus, it's just plain cool. If you have a wonky projector or TV screen you want to use with a laptop or PC, you might want to give this a try.


Here's how it works:

1. Open RegEdit and browse to HKEY_CURRENT_CONFIG\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\VIDEO{the address of your primary video card...it often begins with "23A77BF7"}\0000\

2. The Default Settings.XResolution data value is the horizontal resolution, and the Default Settings.YResolution data value is the vertical. Double-click the Default Settings.XResolution data entry, select the Decimal radio button, and in the Value Data field, enter your desired horizontal resolution. Then do the same with Default Settings.YResolution to change the vertical resolution.

3. Exit RegEdit and reboot your PC.

If you're scared of tweaking your registry on this one, a handy app called PowerStrip ($29.95, available for a free try-before-you-buy download), allows you similar resolution-changing functionality.


Tip 3: Stay on top of registry changes.

Given the power and flexibility of Windows XP's registry (and the large number of registry hacks in this Top 10), it's no surprise that the number 3 XP tip involves keeping track of any and all changes made to your registry.

But given the prevalence of spyware, rootkits, and other malware these days, knowing what you've done to your registry is a secondary concern to knowing what other applications are doing to it.

For peace of mind — and occasionally, for curiosity's sake — we consider SysInternal's Regmon an essential piece of our OS. It's a freeware application that allows you to browse through all the keys in the registry, filtering in a variety of ways to pinpoint specific registry changes.

For example, you can quickly filter for certain applications. If you're having trouble with Windows Media Player, you click on the Options menu, then Filter. At the menu, type wmplayer into the Include field. When you see the resulting list, you can double-click any entry to open up its registry value.

Because you can search and filter, Regmon is also an excellent method for tracking down hard-to-find registry items.


Tip 2: Recover lost data.

Everyone has accidentally deleted files from their hard drive, and very few feelings are as low as the moment right after you nuke 300 irreplaceable photographs of your kids/dogs/life. Actually, one feeling is worse than that: accidentally quick-formatting your entire drive.

Even if you regularly back up your drives, mistakes happen. That's why this tip is paramount. It's also really simple. There's an excellent downloadable data recovery app for XP called Zero Assumption Recovery that can help. Don't waste another minute — download and install it now.

When you run into trouble, here's what to do:

1. The moment you delete your data, stop using your hard drive. Don't save or install any new applications — they'll be written over your recently departed data.

2. Run Zero Assumption Recovery. You already had it installed, right?

3. Select the hard drive you want to scan. Wait for the scan to finish. (This can take between one and two hours -- part of Zero Assumption Recovery's effectiveness is its thoroughness.)

4. With any luck, you'll see a list of your missing folders and files. The freeware version of Zero Assumption Recovery allows you to recover up to four folders per scan. If you pay $100 for the full version, you get full recovery.

Note: You can also use Zero Assumption Recovery to recover deleted photos from your camera's memory card.


Tip 1: Automatically log when and why shutdowns have occurred.

Love it or hate it, Windows XP is undeniably more stable than its predecessors. But it still crashes, and it still has occasional trouble shutting down. This registry hack logs all shutdown errors, telling you when, where, and why strange and annoying things have happened.

Some folks have the luxury of packing their buggy PC off to a help desk. But if you like to get your hands dirty, consider this essential tweakage.

Here's how to set up logging for unexpected system shutdowns:

1. Open RegEdit and browse to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersionReliability

2. Set the ShutDownReasonUI data value to 1. (If this string doesn't exist, create it and set the value to 1.)

3. Exit RegEdit and reboot your PC.

To examine the log you've created, open up the Event Viewer, which you'll find by selecting Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Event Viewer. Click on the System subheading and you'll see a massive list of system events. Errors will be marked with a red X or a yellow exclamation mark. Double-click on the error and you'll see details that may help you unravel the mystery.

Leggy Lamb

AFP/BELGA - Sun Mar 19, 6:42 PM ET Leggy lamb : Belgian grower Maurice Peeters holds a six-leg lamb a day after its birth. The lamb cannot walk and has to be specially fed. A veterinary surgeon who examined it was reported as saying he would consider amputating the two superfluous legs if it managed to survive beyond a week. (AFP/BELGA/Yorick Jansens)