INSIDE CoreComm: May 2007

Sports:
Sports

The Stanley Cup Playoffs are the NHL’s second season

It’s Playoff time! Sixteen of the thirty teams advance to the postseason, hoping the journey stretches all the way through Spring, into June.

The early favorite to win the Stanley Cup was the Buffalo Sabres. After a surprise extended playoff run last year, the Sabres were the top team in the Eastern Conference starting on day 1 of the 2006-2007 season and finished number 1 overall in the NHL. The President’s Trophy is awarded to the leagues top team in the regular season and one of the rewards is securing home ice advantage throughout the entire postseason. However the storybook season for the Sabres looks to be coming to an end as the Ottawa Senators are just 1 game away from sending the Sabres to the golf course. Ottawa has endured many years of playoff expectations, followed by playoff failure. The Senators have been the hottest team in the league since January, after a rocky start caused many fans to call for the firing of their coach Bryan Murray and trade of their long time captain Daniel Alfredsson.

The 4 teams left in the NHL playoffs are…

In the Western Conference:

Anaheim Ducks
Detroit Red Wings

In the Eastern Conference:

Buffalo Sabres
Ottawa Senators

For the most current National Hockey League news visit www.nhl.com

Many intriguing stories in this young baseball season

Batter up, the arrival of Spring is also a sign that America’s National Pastime is back in full swing. The story all over the baseball world this season is Barry Bonds’ eventual passing of Hank Aaron on baseball’s all-time home run list. Aaron hit 755 career home runs, and as long as Bonds stays healthy for a good portion of the 2007 season, he will certainly break that record and takeover the number one spot on that list. However, Bonds’ reputation is forever tainted by his involvement in ongoing investigations on players using performance enhancing drugs and supplements. Bonds’ has been directly linked to people and companies that have been accused of providing these supplements to professional athletes. Barry Bonds continuously states he has never done anything wrong or knowingly put any illegal substance in his body.

The St. Louis Cardinals will try to defend their 2006 World Series Championship over a grueling 162 game schedule that stretches from April through October. The Cardinals’ nationally televised game on Sunday April 29 was postponed due to the death of relief pitched Josh Hancock. Hancock was killed the day before in a car accident. This was the second teammate the Cardinals have lost in the last 5 years.

Another story to follow this year in Major League Baseball is the New York Yankees. Currently, the Bronx Bombers are in a horrendous slump and occupy last place in their division. They trail the first place Red Sox by over 6 games. Rumors are swirling about the firing of beloved manager Joe Torre and the resignation of President, Brian Cashman. The Yankees are the team that people love to hate because of their all-star filled lineup and their ability to “buy” players and add to their depth, but year after year their pitching rotation falls into question. The Yankees hold 26 World Series titles, but have not won since the year 2000.

Stay Tuned!

For the most current Major League Baseball news visit www.mlb.com

NASCAR is much more than a simple race

Gentlemen, start your engines! NASCAR continues to be America’s fastest growing spectator sport. Fans from all over flock to race tracks 10 months out of the year to cheer on their favorite racing team or driver. The NASCAR television ratings are second among all sports, with the National Football League consistently holding on to first place.

People follow NASCAR for many reasons. Some watch for the wrecks, some watch for the hustle of the pit crews, and some just watch for the thrill of the race and to watch their favorite driver capture the checkered flag. Once mainly popular in only the southern states, NASCAR fans are now found all over the country.

Another reason for booming popularity of NASCAR is the clean, media savvy personalities of the drivers. With the ongoing steroid scandal in the MLB, the recent Lockout in the NHL, and with seemingly a new NFL player being arrested each week, NASCAR drivers are humble and never talk about their cars without mentioning their crew and sponsors.

For the most current NASCAR news visit www.nascar.com

The NBA bounces into the postseason

The Dallas Mavericks finished the season with the league’s best record of 67-15. However, the Mavs quickly found out that the regular season doesn’t mean much as they were upset by the Golden State Warriors in 6 games. Only to have the Jazz send the Warriors packing with a 5 game triumph in the second round. The 7 teams left are:

In the Eastern Conference:

Cleveland Cavaliers
Detroit Pistons
New Jersey Nets
Chicago Bulls

In the Western Conference:

Phoenix Suns
San Antonio Spurs
Utah Jazz (moves on to the western finals)

For the most current NBA news visit www.nba.com

Food:
Food

Cooking up a great meal is now only a click away!

Summer is right around the corner! It’s time to start planning for those Memorial Day picnics, summer barbecues and 4th of July parties. Behind every great party is great food. It’s time to dust off the old cookbooks, right? Wrong! The age of technology has made using good old-fashioned cookbooks obsolete. Why spend your money on a cookbook when you can get millions of recipes for free on the web? A great site for finding quick and easy recipes is allrecipes.com. This site is unique because it allows you to type in the serving size and adjusts the ingredients for you accordingly. It also gives you the opportunity to write or read reviews on the recipe. On every page there are links to other delicious recipes for your enjoyment, as well as tips on how to make the perfect meal for every occasion.

Memorial Day is approaching fast! If you are planning to get together with friends and family for this special day and are looking for new recipes, try www.razzledazzlerecipes.com in order to plan a tasty Memorial Day barbecue. Although the site has a lot of ads, it’s perfect for finding new and fun recipes for every occasion.

Looking for healthier meals in order to shed those extra pounds? Look no further than, www.eatingwell.com. Not only can you find healthy recipes, but there are also tips on dieting and exercise. This website also keeps you informed about the latest health and nutrition news. If you have kids in your family who may not be prone to eating healthy, there is an entire section dedicated to “Cooking for Kids.” It gives you multiple links to healthy recipes that your children or grandchildren will love!

If you are looking for something specific, you can search for virtually anything on our web page, home.core.com. Kick the season off right with new summer recipes. It’s all just one mouse-click away!

Landscaping
Sports

Money Can Grow on Trees!

Spring is in the air! It’s time to get outside and start enjoying the outdoors! There are so many beautiful sights this time of year from birds chirping and summer sunshine, to beautiful flowers and trees. This is the best time of year to test that green thumb and make your yard and home beautiful.

Did you know that not only is landscaping beautiful, but it can also be functional? Well-planned landscaping can cut your summer and winter energy costs while protecting your home from winter wind and summer sun. It can also reduce the amount of pesticides, water, and fuel used for landscaping and lawn maintenance. For more information on how landscaping can make your home more energy efficient, take a look at www.pioneerthinking.com.

Landscaping can definitely be a useful tool in trying to cut energy costs and make your home more energy efficient, but it can also be a beautiful way to enhance the appearance of your home. Before you even reach for your gardening tools it is important to carefully plan and design your landscape. This will help you reap the most beauty and benefit from your yard.

There are so many different types of plants and trees available now, that you can make your vision come to life easily and with a great variety of colors and sizes. Part of planning your landscaping project should include finding out what time of year each flower blooms. You can add annuals to your garden along with the perennial bulbs, you will have a beautiful garden all season long.

Here are some online resources we’ve dug up to help with your landscaping projects this summer. These sites provide tips and advice for creative landscaping designs to help beautify your “outdoor home”.

Technology and Freeware
Technology and Freeware

HTML Resources

Last month in our Featured Freeware article we featured a program called Nvu and this month we are featuring The Gimp, both being great tools for designing webpages. This month we will discuss Webmaster resources that will help you utilize these programs and design dynamic webpages.

The first few pages are for beginners and will help you to get started on your first website. These helpful resources are:

The next resources on our list are for more advanced users who already have basic HTML knowledge but still need assistance in remembering certain tags and could use further tutorials on making thier pages more dynamic. These resources can also be very helpful to the expert user and are:

Our final resources are for expert users who are looking to add complex elements to their webpages and to learn more about the design industry. These pages are considered essential by many Webmasters and can be found below:

Though these are only a few of many great resources, we feel that these will be valuable resources to Webmasters of all skill levels. For more information on your Personal Webspace with CoreComm please visit: home.core.com

Do you own a business that has a website and are looking for a new host? Are you looking to build a website for your business or simply wish to build a website with your own Domain Name? Look no further!! CoreComm's competitive hosting packages can be found at: http://www.core.com/webphp/business/

Featured Freeware: The GIMP

In our last article we spoke about Nvu for web design. This month we would like to take this subject a step further and feature a program called “The GIMP”. GIMP, which stands for GNU Image Manipulation Program, is part of the “GNU Project” ( http://www.gnu.org/ ) and can be a powerful tool for web design. Many image editing software packages can be very pricey for those who are looking to design websites as a hobby. Such programs include Adobe Photoshop ($649.00), CorelDRAW ($179), and Corel Paint Shop Pro ($99.99), and Xara Graphics Studio ($169) to name just a few. The GIMP has many of the features offered in packages like these, but with a more sought after price tag: Free. Yet, not only is The GIMP free, but it is available for Windows, MacOS, and Linux systems. An offshoot project called Cinepaint ( http://www.cinepaint.org/ ) was even used by Los Angeles post-production studio Rhythm & Hues to create Scooby-Doo, the computer-generated dog in the Warner Brothers film of the same name. More information on Rhythm & Hues' use of Linux in Scooby-Doo can be found at:

Linux Journal

The GIMP can be used for a variety of tasks such as simple web graphic editing, advanced graphic design, and photo editing. One such task that this program is great for is red eye removal from photos. A tutorial on how to use the GIMP to remove red eye can be found at:

http://www.gimp.org/tutorials/Red_Eye_Removal/

Another tutorial showing a more complex application of The GIMP is a tutorial on how to draw a beautifully rendered image of a paintbrush and can be found at:

www.gimp.org/tutorials/Draw_A_Paint_Brush/

Still more tutorials on various applications of The GIMP can be found at:

http://www.gimp.org/tutorials/

The GIMP is available for Windows Windows 98/ME/NT4/2000/XP (Minimum 128mb RAM required) at:

http://gimp-win.sourceforge.net/stable.html

Note: You must download and install the appropriate GTK+ 2 Runtime Environment (also for download from the link above) before installing The GIMP. The GTK+ 2 Runtime Environment downloads can also be found at the above mentioned website.

The GIMP is available for MacOS X through a variety of installation methods at:

http://www.gimp.org/macintosh/

Note: The most common method of installation is the gimp.app option. Gimp.app requires Apple's X11 which is included in the "Optional Installs" package on the OS X install disk.

The GIMP is available for Linux/BSD/Solaris at:

http://www.gimp.org/unix/

while the source and binaries can be found at:

http://www.gimp.org/downloads/

Further GIMP documentation and configuration materials, such as the User Manual can be found at:

http://www.gimp.org/docs/

Please note: CoreComm does not provide technical support for Featured Freeware applications.

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