I found this solution elsewhere and wanted to share. I use Firefox and followed the instructions and YEEE, NO MORE ADS!!!! Jen Once and for all: How to stop the iVillage ad onslaught. First we need to understand how it's done: iVillage doesn't bother to try and buy ads directly from all the various companies that show up on the pages of GW. Instead they use large ad-service agencies like doubleclick, akamai and pointroll. You can visit some of these sites if you'd like to see who's behind the ads. http://www.akamai.com http://www.doubleclick.com/us http://pointroll.com This makes it easy to block out all or almost all of the ads very easily, just block the originating sites. Right now all the ads on GW come from: http://amch.questionmarket.com http://a820.g.akamai.net http://iv.doubleclick.net http://i.ivillage.com http://m.2mdn.net http://tste.ivillage.com http://img-cdn.mediaplex.com http://ads.vmirror.com http://cmhtml.ivillage.overture.com http://ads.pointroll.com The Universal Solution. This will work on Windows systems for all browsers; IE, FireFox and Netscape. The Windows operating system provides a system-level method to block specific IP addresses before they even get to the browser. To effect this solution you need to edit a Windows system file called hosts. This file is located in the directory: Windows XP: C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\DRIVERS\ETC Windows 2K: C:\WINNT\SYSTEM32\DRIVERS\ETC Windows 98: C:\WINDOWS Open the file in Notepad. Cut the following from this post and paste it to the end of the file. 127.0.0.1 amch.questionmarket.com 127.0.0.1 a820.g.akamai.net 127.0.0.1 iv.doubleclick.net 127.0.0.1 i.ivillage.com 127.0.0.1 m.2mdn.net 127.0.0.1 tste.ivillage.com 127.0.0.1 img-cdn.mediaplex.com 127.0.0.1 ads.vmirror.com 127.0.0.1 cmhtml.ivillage.overture.com 127.0.0.1 ads.pointroll.com Edit each entry so that there is a tab between the IP address 127.0.0.1 and the URLs. Save the file and you're finished. Close and re-open your browser and all the ads will be gone. Unfortunately, iVillage may in the future buy ads from a new source. In this event the new ad source will have to be added to the list. The IE solution. Most of the ads are placed using Java$cript. You can remove the more offensive ads in IE with the browser settings. You can't however remove them all. To improve GW using IE do the following: From the menu select Tools -> Internet Options -> Security and click on Custom Level. Scroll down to the end of the list and you'll see an entry for Scripting. Disable all the sub-entries. Now select the tab labeled Privacy. In the bottom of the box that appears check on the option to block pop-ups. I recommend you also click on the button Advanced and select the option to block Third-party Cookies. NOTE: By disabling Scripting you will also effect the way other websites behave. You may need to get used to switching scripting on and off as desired. That's why this is the least desirable of these various options. The FireFox solution This is an excellent choice -- it's the fastest performing of the options listed here: FireFox is superior to IE in every possible way. FireFox provides the added advantage of blocking all Spyware, an evil that IE brought into this world. * download and install Firefox 1.5 * in the FireFox address bar type about:config * scroll down the list to the entry xpinstall.enabled * right click on the entry and select toggle from the menu * toggle as needed to set the value to true * go to the Firefox website and follow links to extensions * find the extension adblock and install it * remember to toggle xpinstall.enabled back to false * in Firefox select Tools -> Adblock -> Preferences * use the New Filter field to add the following items: http://amch.questionmarket.com http://a820.g.akamai.net http://iv.doubleclick.net http://i.ivillage.com http://m.2mdn.net http://tste.ivillage.com http://img-cdn.mediaplex.com http://ads.vmirror.com http://cmhtml.ivillage.overture.com http://ads.pointroll.com * enable Adblock The trick with Adblock is to block the domain rather than the specific ad. If you click on Adblock to disable an ad. Select Tools -> Adblock -> Preferences from the menu and then edit the new entry; remove anything that follows after .com or .net. This will block everyting from that source. The Netscape solution. With Netscape you can shut down all the iVillage ads using the browser preference settings. From the menu select: Edit -> Preferences -> Privacy and Security -> Cookies Allow cookies for the originating website only Edit -> Preferences -> Privacy and Security -> Images Accept Images that come from the originating server only Edit -> Preferences -> Privacy and Security -> Images Block unrequested popup windows -- turn this on Edit -> Preferences -> Advanced Enable native object scripting -- turn this off Edit -> Preferences -> Advanced -> Scripts & Plug-ins Enable Java$cript for Navigator -- turn this off NOTE: GW will now be ad free, however disabling Java$cript will effect how other websites behave. You may have to get used to switching this setting back and forth. Therefore I suggest the Universal option above is more appropriate. NOTE: You MAC users out there: Sorry I don't have more info for you except to say that FireFox and adblock are available for the MAC. There's no sense in further complaing, iVillage IS an ad. We need to let them be who they are and stop them on our end. Take care all.

IMHO, this type of planting that the OP shows in the original post, is somewhat of a reversal to mass landscaping that was done about 40-50 years ago by builders in the "newly developed suburbs" Hubby and I bought a home 28 years ago, in a well developed, but small development whose homes where already about 25-30 years old. Houses where built in the old fashioned design of remove just enough trees to build the house and leave plenty of land for each home. Houses have 1 acre of land, lots of trees around it, most with quite large land frontage etc. It's when the landscapers came in that the disasters where created and it was with every home in the development. Nothing was appropriately planted, tress where shrubs should be and trees that would grow to be huge disasters in their planted locations where placed all over the place and at the foundation of houses. When we bought our home, my hubby thought I was crazy. the house was wonderful, the land was more than an acre to have. Beautiful frontage, very long and large driveway that holds more than 8 cars, and surrounded by beautiful woods and an already chain link fenced in back yard for the 2 year old to play in and added to all that, it was a dead end road and we where the next to last house on the street. It was the landscaping that was the total disaster. I kept telling hubby, don't worry about that part. It will take several years to repair the disaster, but I could do it, I grew up on a summer flower farm. It's been a daunting task over the past 38 years but this is what was and has been done. The front of the house was covered with arbovite trees, all leaning on the front of both sides of the front stairs. One side completely covered the picture window so that no light could come in. 4 weeks after moving in, we cut the trees down to the ground. In the fall we dug out all the crappy soil, filled with fresh loam, peat, etc. In the spring I got to work on that first bed. Luckily the 2 blue hydrangeas from the market where hardy to this area and they have come back every year, huge and more beautiful every year. Added to the planting with my potted herb garden and the old plastic birdbath that won't hold water but works beautifully as a container planter. and of course other containers end up arriving there every year Opposite the picture window, smack in the middle of the front yard, 2 beautiful Colorado Blue Spruce where planted. They looked beautiful and where as healthy as could be. On the other hand, I knew what the future held for them and it wasn't something I wanted in the front yard, especailly when they where already approaching 7 feet tall. So at Christmas time, we cut those down and gave them as gifts to 2 very close friends for Xmas trees. The following spring, this bed was dug out, leaving the very low remains of the spruce stumps on either end of the bed It gets filled with lots of annuals and has perennials in it as well. lupine under the hanging poles on either side dianthus firewitch on either side of the birdbath in the center under the arbor The trench with bark mulch that you can see in the pics of the flower bed in the center of the front yard, had a 3-4 foot hedge in it. No idea why, but that was all cut down to the ground and I fill the area with pots of plants. To the left of the center bed, way in the front on the left side, you can barely see what was left of a rhodie. It was 8 feet tall when we moved in. I had hubby cut it way down to about 2 feet. You should have seen his face as he kept saying he was killing it. Of course we all know better than that, rhodies do quite well with even severe cutting. Finally, last year I had my fill of it being in the way. It was cut to the ground and I'm keeping it from growing back. The opposite side of the front stairs at the foundation had the same arbovite trees growing that where huge as well. We cut those down the first few weeks that we lived here, but I never got to do anything with a bed there. Oh, the small stump is all that remains of another rhodie that was planted there. 10 feet tall when we moved in. Cut down to 2 feet and kept there till this new garden bed was dug. The kids took it down to the ground because it would block the view of the new bed. I had no complaints as the beat me to the punch in cutting it down to the ground. I guess, what I'm showing and trying to say is what is shown in the OP first pic is, what I would call, a reversal of fortune. I return to some really dumb and stupid design plantings that existed 30 years ago. No thought in what is being planted, no idea of size that trees and shrubs will grow and the bark mulch mounded is the perfect ingredient to kill what they planted. Fran Almost 8 years ago, when my mother passed away, my daughters friends came in and dug the bed for me, filled it with fresh loam and garden soil and covered it with bark mulch, while we where at my mother's funeral. They knew I would be digging out my mother's perennials from her apartment garden and they created a perfect location to put them in. All I had to do was go get them and bring them home, dig the holes and put them in. I've kept it as her memorial garden and everything that grows in it where either her perennials, annuals from seeds of hers that she had and plants that she wanted to get and still hadn't gotten. That fenced in back yard, the one with the chain link fence, no longer has young children in it. Both have long grown up, 25 and 30. So it is used to hold all my wintersown containers through the winter and until they are planted. The fence itself gets filled with at least 50 different kinds of morning glory plants.

Once and for all: How to stop the iVillage ad onslaught. First we need to understand how it's done: iVillage doesn't bother to try and buy ads directly from all the various companies that show up on the pages of GW. Instead they use large ad-service agencies like doubleclick, akamai and pointroll. You can visit some of these sites if you'd like to see who's behind the ads. http://www.akamai.com http://www.doubleclick.com/us http://pointroll.com This makes it easy to block out all or almost all of the ads very easily, just block the originating sites. Right now all the ads on GW come from: http://amch.questionmarket.com http://a820.g.akamai.net http://iv.doubleclick.net http://i.ivillage.com http://m.2mdn.net http://tste.ivillage.com http://img-cdn.mediaplex.com http://ads.vmirror.com http://cmhtml.ivillage.overture.com http://ads.pointroll.com The Universal Solution.This will work on Windows systems for all browsers; IE, FireFox and Netscape. The Windows operating system provides a system-level method to block specific IP addresses before they even get to the browser. To effect this solution you need to edit a Windows system file called hosts. This file is located in the directory: Windows XP: C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\DRIVERS\ETC Windows 2K: C:\WINNT\SYSTEM32\DRIVERS\ETC Windows 98: C:\WINDOWS Open the file in Notepad. Cut the following from this post and paste it to the end of the file. 127.0.0.1 amch.questionmarket.com 127.0.0.1 a820.g.akamai.net 127.0.0.1 iv.doubleclick.net 127.0.0.1 i.ivillage.com 127.0.0.1 m.2mdn.net 127.0.0.1 tste.ivillage.com 127.0.0.1 img-cdn.mediaplex.com 127.0.0.1 ads.vmirror.com 127.0.0.1 cmhtml.ivillage.overture.com 127.0.0.1 ads.pointroll.com Edit each entry so that there is a tab between the IP address 127.0.0.1 and the URLs. Save the file and you're finished. Close and re-open your browser and all the ads will be gone. Unfortunately, iVillage may in the future buy ads from a new source. In this event the new ad source will have to be added to the list. The IE solution.Most of the ads are placed using Java$cript. You can remove the more offensive ads in IE with the browser settings. You can't however remove them all. To improve GW using IE do the following: From the menu select Tools -> Internet Options -> Security and click on Custom Level. Scroll down to the end of the list and you'll see an entry for Scripting. Disable all the sub-entries. Now select the tab labeled Privacy. In the bottom of the box that appears check on the option to block pop-ups. I recommend you also click on the button Advanced and select the option to block Third-party Cookies. NOTE: By disabling Scripting you will also effect the way other websites behave. You may need to get used to switching scripting on and off as desired. That's why this is the least desirable of these various options. The FireFox solutionThis is an excellent choice -- it's the fastest...

I agree with Chisue. We have over-educated under skilled people applying for work. College has been dumbed down so everyone can go. It's just doing time for many. Some don't even know why they are there. It's just expected. DH is in the machine trade. His experience has been that those who hire have no experience in the field, could not tell you the first thing what a model maker, a tool and die maker or a CNC operator does but they are the ones who decide. Because they are book smart and industry dumb they hire by how much paper knowledge you can present on your resume. DS is in computer tech. He went to a technology magnet in high school. Quickly became disillusioned. I kid you not when I say the same teacher who was failing him for not turning in lab note would call him at home at night for assistance with his PC. LOL In college he found that once again the teachers had little knowledge of what they were supposed to be teaching. This is a kid who was writing code for "fun" with his friends from his teens. His friends were all a decade or so older than him. He was on the team that designed the first autonomous robot for robot wars before most people had even heard of robot wars. He went to DefCon every year and was part of one of the teams the FBI was most interested in learning from. Tried college and got bored with the same crap he encountered in high school. My point is that if you want someone who knows their stuff in technology you have to look outside the box. The best computer people are not always those with a Computer Science or Software Engineering degree. Many of them just went into it for the money they were "promised". Some don't have the skills to solve the most basic problem because thy have been book taught and lack critical thinking skills. You want the ones who do it because it's what they do because they love it. DS does plan to go back someday and get a degree. But today he is wise enough to know he should get it for himself. Last time I talked to him he said he might major in history. Steve Jobs, the Woz and their friends in the Homebrew Club didn't build that first PC in the garage because they went to Stanford or Berkeley. They did it because they were intelligent innovators who loved their "hobby".