I see a consolidation of the nursery industry, in much the same manner the 80's and 90's saw a consolidation of the banking industry (my previous profession). It is becoming increasingly difficult for small independent retailers and growers to stay afloat. Fuel costs are a huge factor (all of my vendors were applying surcharges long before Katrina did her damage), as well as basic overhead costs like labor (no one will work for minimum wage in my area, including high school kids and recent immigrants - just too many entry level jobs available), water and power. And plant costs are increasing as well, partially because of patenting and licensing restrictions but also because of the impact of higher operating expenses. And competition is fierce - even grocery stores are offering less common or new plant introductions, often at well below what it costs me to bring them in. My local, high-end grocer had phormiums for sale last week at $9.99 for 6" pots from one of my local vendors (recognized the tagging), barely above and in some cases below their cost. Yes, these are loss leaders that they make up for with other, higher priced, more profitable items and with volume, but it still is competition. Heck - I'd buy the plants from them myself at that price! All these factors, together with other, less predictable influences like weather and crop failures make it harder and harder for small independents to stay in business, much less make a profit. Several of the larger retail nurseries in my area are having financial and cash flow problems and a few smaller ones are about to close the doors - it is a tightknit community and the word travels fast. That makes them ripe for larger, financially secure operations to snatch them up. It is a tough, competitive market out there and only those who are creative and flexible in their marketing approach, like the product expansion Garrickza refers to, and willing or able to subsist on peanuts for the long haul are going to come out intact on the other end.

if you just download the version of AVG you will get linkscanner included, it has been the cause of some problems for some people causing slow downs and extra cpu usage so AVG put out a FAQ on how to install with out the linkscanner which is what many are doing and it seems to be much better. to install AVG 8.0 Free Edition without the LinkScanner component, It is always best when possible to download directly from the vendor site rather than some other site unless the vendor directs you to a mirror site for download. That way you know you are getting the latest versions provided by the vendor and less likely you are getting a compromised version. Be sure you get the superantispyware free also it will clean any spyware from your pc when you updated it and scan with it weekly. the spywareblaster all you do for it is hit update about once a week then hit the enable all protection button so the shield turns green that is it.

the other option, if you can not turn off the trend micro from it's icon in the systray down by the clock, is you can go to your start up area and set it not to start at start up, which will then allow you to go to add remove and remove it since it will not be running, I had to do that to remove McAfee. You can also get the free Revo Uninstaller which does a great job of getting stuff removed and it also has a startup manager in it so you can see just what is starting up when you boot the pc and you can change that in the manager. They have super directions with pictures for each option that is built in to Revo. Revo Uninstaller Main features of Revo Uninstaller each has a read more link which can lead you to links to the user manual for each.

I attempted to remove Trend Micro per instructions of Ravencajun. It was a most complicated process and I finally gave up on it when I "unzipped" 22 folders half a dozen times and the same unzip box reappeared. Finally, I cancelled all of this incomprehensible stuff and went to the simple "add/remove" option that is part of my Windows program. I clicked on "remove", and it indicated I had about 70mb of Trend Micro stuff, and asked was I sure I wanted to remove. Yes, of course. The green progress bar (made up of little squares) ran in its box for ahile, I was asked to reboot, and it seemed like that was the end. I rebooted and looked in my files for traces of Trend Micro, and could only find a few titles with 0kb content. I deleted these titles. The Trend Micro icons are gone. Am I rid of it? Seems like I am. How to check? RB