My god i actually agree with you on something Parasyte. Realplayer is a horrible program that tries to be an all-in-one app (browser, media player, CD Burneretc) but just winds up feeling horribly bloated. All i want in a media player is for it to play media, anything else is unnecessary. THanks for the info on the TabBrowser Extension Glenn, I was wondering how to do that.

Promised i wouldn't reply again in this thread but hey, it would be rude not to under the circumstances. I am not experiencing the same problem but some cursory googling suggests that the solution may be to disable DDE for the registered filetype (which i believe is (NONE) URL:HyperText Transfer Protocol). THis is done as follows: ***USE AT YOUR OWN RISK*** To disable DDE, open My Computer and select Tools > Folder Options > File Types. Select the registered file type that shows (NONE) URL:HyperText Transfer Protocol. Highlight it and select Advanced. In the advanced config, highlight Open and select Edit. Remove the checkmark next to Use DDE. Again i stress that i don't have this problem so i'm not sure it will solve your problem. I did however do the above fix anyway and my computer didn't crap itself NOTE: You will probs have to do the same for URL:HyperText Transfer Protocol with Privacy id you are linking straight to secure sites.

Yeah i have upped my assistant coaches to 9 + a keeper coach. I have 1 physio. I am reluctant to hire any more as i am already losing money on a week by week basis (unless i sell a player) so i don't need any more regular expenses. My team is pretty good though and i have trimmed my squad to 18 (9 First team + 5 trainees (two oh whom are also first team wingers) + 4 backup players (2 of which are listed)).

ahahahahah. Latest YP: Brian Kauser (36134798) 18 years, passable form, healthy A pleasant guy who is calm and honest. Has disastrous experience and poor leadership abilities. Nationality: Oceania Total Skill Index (TSI): 20 (4 000 AU$) Wage: 1 000 AU$/week Owner: Supine Rovers Warnings: 0 Stamina: weak Goaltending: disastrous Playmaking: weak Passing: wretched Winger: poor Defending: wretched Scoring: disastrous Set Pieces: wretched Career Goals: 0 Career Hattricks: 0 League goals this season: 0 Cup goals this season: 0 The sad thing is that young Brian here is pretty much indicative of all my Youth Pulls to date. I wish that i could promote someone halfway decent just once so at least i would know i'm not wasting my money. $40000 a week is a lot to pull that rubbish. (btw sorry for all the posts today but i'm bored at work)

PG i have a question that you may be able to answer. I have a couple of wingbacks who, by virtue of their winger skill, are also my best wingers. hence i play a couple of them in my A team as wingers and then play the same 2 guys in my B team as wing backs (so they will get the benefits of Defence training. Will i receive any sort of penalty for doing this?

Definitely. But it is a hell of a lot to take on baord when you are just starting out. Also i got so irritated by the poor formatting and spelling that i pasted the entire thing into word and reformatted it myself for easy reading. I'll email it to people if you like...just drop me a pm. What do people say to a BRFCS cup? We can just arrange the matches here and play the games later in the season (after everyone has finished their cup games). We can play knockout or round robin...t'would be fun.

selling players is a bitch. The following is advice from the manager of Burnt Out Koalas (29073), the best and most successful team in oceania: Tips at buying & selling Buying & Selling players is something that is very important part of your game…. and I highly recommend you read some of my experiences. I have seen the prices rise early in the season and drop towards the end … and I am sure that you have also seen this yourself…. different positions have many varying demands over the years as the game engine matures. Its clear that the most popular positions today is either Keepers or Strikers with both demanding a premium for far less skills compared to Midfielders, defenders and even wingers. Also the Daytrading market tends to work heavy in the Keeper market as seen in our supporter stats (top three Dters sell more keepers than any other position). I also tend to pull Keepers late in the season and outfielders early in the season for this reason, as I like getting max value out of my youth squad. Another trend that seems to be consistent season in and out is the demand for players late in the week is a lot higher than early in the week. My theory on this is pretty simple, we tend to have ample people listing youth pulls and new level trained players either on Friday or Saturday….you should use this to your advantage IE … only buy players early in the week when others might think they can do better and list your players late in the week …IE list on Wednesday instead of Friday…what happens is the people who miss out on the bargains will pay a lot more for your player as the week closes in on games of that weekend. So when buying I would suggest you get yourself a cuppa and listen to some music then surf the entire market for the players you like in the money you have to spend, then I open each one into another screen before bookmarking them. After you have surfed the market list them in your preferred choice then either enter data into a spreadsheet or simply right them down. Work out which has the best experience and age if you like … then work yourself to top 3 players list … make sure all are selling early in the week. Now as long as you have your max in your mind, don’t bid till about 5 mins to closing time. I tend to bid in larger amounts than normal bids and I prefer to reply to bids as soon as they bid, this way I am telling my opponent that I mean business and unless he bids something really stupid I am prepared to pay a good price. You will find consistently that your player bought will not only be good in skills but cheaper than something later in the week. I also tend to look at recent+Stars+form…it’s a much better indication of the players skill … another tip is value+age… this will give you a much better idea of if recently turned or nearly going another level. I also find that Nasty and Controversial players will save you lots and lots of $$$ if you can afford the TS hit … to me I think its great value. Of course selling late in the week will make your life harder to find a player … but if you can afford to sell and play that weekend you will save a lot more money in the long run…. also selling while your player is playing (PIC) could be another way around getting a TS hit…without too much damage. I like players selling on Friday or Saturday, as this is the time of the week where most people are online looking at training updates. Good luck this weekend.

Yikes! don't change your formation because of me. I doubt i've been playing longer than you. I was just trying to explain to a complete beginner the way that training affects the team. PG thanks for the tips. I reckon i will up the number of trainers. But I am struggling to see the value, as a team just starting its first full season, in getting PR, economists, doctors and more physios. Of course i yield to your superior knowledge of the game but do you really need such a full staff room when you are starting out?

Eddie here are a couple of pieces of information that you may find helpful. I basically chose them because they are things i wish i had known when i started: -You can only train one skill each week (ie defending, scoring, playmaking etc). Each skill is learned more by one area of your team than any other (ie if you train playmaking your midfielders will increase their playmaking skills far more than your defenders). Only players that have played that week (in either a league game (saturdays) or a cup game or friendly (wednesdays)) will receive the benefits of training. This means that if you train playmaking (for example) you will want to play a 3-5-2 formation, to maximise the number of players benefitting from training, and you will want to change your entire midfield for the friendly game on wednesday. This way you will have 10 midfielders who have played that week who will receive the benefits of training. FYI the effects of training are calculated on Friday. You don't have to change other areas of your team (such as defenders or strikers, although they do receive a small amount of playmaking training) but you have to maximise the number of players receiving training. This way you can train up young players and sell them for heaps. I train defenders so i use a 5-4-1 formation and i have 10 defenders, 5 for each game per week. -When you first get your team decide on which skill you want to train. That is the area for which you want to buy inadequate or passable 17 year-olds (any better will be too expensive). The younger a player is the quicker their skills go up and 17 is as young as they get. play the best 5 in your league games on saturday (after all the goal is to get promoted) and your lesser 5 in the friendlies (or cup games) on wednesday. What you don't want to do is buy inadequate 17 yo's for an area of your team that you are not going to train. If you are training midfielders there is no reason to replace your 25 yo striker if his stats are fine. For example my best player is the following: Kihiko Sarumara TSI = 1 390 (278 000 AU$) , 27 years, passable form Has poor experience and inadequate leadership abilities Stamina: excellent Keeper: disastrous Playmaking: passable Passing: weak Winger: inadequate Defending: poor Scoring: inadequate Set Pieces: weak He's an inner midfielder and has received "best player" in 90% of the games i've played so far. Unfortunately i sold my original, awesome striker, in favour of a worse but younger striker thinking i could train him up. Of course i was training defenders so that was just impossible. Bottom line don't worry too much about age with players that aren't going to get trained. -Every team receives a couple of good players (generally worth over $200000, i had 4). most people sell them off (i did) to help finance other aspects of the club. It's up to you what you do with them. But i can say that if you get a good goalie it's probably best not to sell them. keepers are hell expensive at the moment. In fact training keepers might be a good idea. Sure you can only train 2 a week (one for each game) but they train very quickly and you will make money much sooner than if you train defenders (for example). -Invest the max in your youth squad each week, along with training youngsters its the best way to make money. Also promote a player from youth squad each week. i have yet to promote anyone decent but i'm hopeful. -I initially hired 14 staff (including 9 trainers) because of some post i read online. But that was nonsence and it sent my wage bill soaring. Now i just have 5 trainers and 1 physio. i would be interested to hear what you guys have in the way of staff. -Best decision i made so far was to train stamina in the off season. Now my entire first team has excellent stamina and that was after only 2 weeks! -Avoid players that are nasty as they negatively affect team morale. -Players tend to be cheaper earlier in the week if you are shopping. -Don't get yourself in debt. Between wages, youth squad, and temporary expenses (such as transfers) you will find your initial cash fund dwindles very quickly. Anyone else want to offer pearls of wisdom?

You will be emailed when you get a team. It took ~5 days before i got my team but Oceania is a pretty small league. My team is the Supine Rovers (417804).

Jesus Christ Parasyte! i've tried to be diplomatic about this, i really have. I gave you opportunity to pass off your moronic comments (IE is safe, IE is larger and therefore must be better) as jokes. I even responded to your defences of IE and offered you evidence as to IE's significant and numerous shortcomings. You have heard other people on this board confirm that it is indeed faster to load pages and now you want a list of ten reasons why IE is worse than other browsers in order for you to shut your face (as you put it). Well i gave you a heap of reasons in my initial posting but i shall you give you one more good reason to shut your face: Reason 1.TO STOP EMBARASSING YOURSELF!!! I'm not some Firefox salesman working on commission. My sole purpose in starting this thread was to point out that there were better options when browsing than IE. Some people have tried Firefox as a result and liked it so i like to think that my post has helped. But for some reason you're acting like i just ###### on your favourite childhood teddy bear! I cannot fathom why you responded in the first place (unless it was to make us laugh) but for gods sake just stop. Even i'm beginning to feel sorry for you. /my final post in this thread

Got up 4-1 against a bot team. Lost my second best defender to a red card though. THank god i train defenders and have a buttload of alternatives.

well maybe not 50% faster (just trying to motivate you guys) but definately tangibly faster than IE. And IE is NOT safe, it's not even close to being safe. You don't have to be looking for porn or warez to pick up the latest infuriating Coolweb variant or any other security flaws that IE has been released with over the years. Go to this page to check out the history of microsoft browser security flaws

Derby....you sure will. in fact it was that very problem, which happens to the latest variant of the Coolweb search, that forced my hand in the matter. I have yet to see a working solution to it in support forums. The address to download is here. And don't foget ctrl-t opens up a new tab. Bottom line is you will not be able to uninstall IE (windows still needs it) but if you make firefox your default browser it will work well. Unfortunately Messenger will still launch IE even if its not the default browser (is anyone suprised) but at least you can still use messenger. Tchocky....yeah opera is very cool as well. As long as people realise they don't have to put up with the annoyances of IE than this thread has been worthwhile.

*cough* inbuilt google toolbar in firefox *cough*. BTW Firefox also loads pages ~50% faster than IE. that is the single most hopeful comment i've heard since listening to Grabbi's supporters. I cannot believe that any experienced computer user would ever make such a comment. THe internet is full of bloated products (real player, ICQ anyone?) and Microsoft is a key offender (ahhh finally you can use Messenger from Outlook, now if only Outlook could download emails without crashing Oh and please note that i took it easy on you Parasyte. THat quote of yours is unbelievable. If you want i'll believe you if you say you were joking....how could you be serious?!??!?

Thats right, #### off IE! No more spyware, no more trojans, no more browser highjacks, no more security holes in urgent need of patching, no more Coolweb Searches, no more herbal viagra popups, no more 7 sessions of IE cluttering up my startbar, no more 50meg updates to show off the new go-faster stripes. Hello Mozilla Firefox. What a beautiful product. Free, technologically advanced, compact, completely free of unnecessary features, compatible with just about every site i have been to so far. And its only a 4.79meg download!!! It is no wonder that this version (which is only up to 0.9 but is already as stable 8-legged dog) has won so many awards. If even one of the previous items in my rant about IE pisses you off then give firefox a go. Firefox is Mozilla's next generation browser makes IE look like Model T Ford next to your new Falcon. And tabbed browsing is the greatest enhancemant to web browsing i have come across since i uninstalled flash!

Eddie it will take at least 5 days before you are able to login. They have to assign you a team first. You are just going to have to wait until then. BTW i cannot urge you strongly enough to read the rules. Nearly every new hattrick player makes crucial mistakes (myself included) that can be avoided by reading the rules and readiung some of the online strategy guides. Remember if you stuff up this team you do not get another one with which to start again.

www.hattrick.org Didn't your parents teach you to use google

Franz Ferdinand - (self titled) Probably my fave album of the year to date. Not a bad song on it and a couple of killer tracks (Dark of the Matinee anyone?) that make it one of the best releases of 2004. I also picked up a copy of the Flaming Lips - Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots which is a little bit experimental when compared to the album above but equally as good. This is my favourite music to chill out to since Sublime last put out an album.

Hattrick is free. And the season starts on Saturday. If you register now you will probably get a team in time for the second game. Oh and i have accepted for the friendly now American, but you will be facing my B team now that the season has started again.

woohoo....only was beaten 3-1. My pride is intact.

yo American....I've got the oceanian cup this week so it will have to wait until next week

American: I'll challenge as soon as i can. just don't accept any other challenges. PG can you answer a couple of q's for me. 1. I downloaded one of those programs that calculates the ideal size of your stadium. Is it worth making the modifications to the stadium? Problem is that it the upgrade will use up nearly all the money i have. I don't mind that if i get the money back quickly but if the change doesn't pay for itself fast then i really can't afford it. 2. My youth team is currently at inadequate at the moment (with max investment per week). I pulled some players before but they were all rubbish and i had to fire them instantly (which means a waste of money and a morale hit). At what level should i start making a weekly youth pull.

Oh and Keith Lane is my keeper (with good set plays) in case you missed that American. What is it with you and letting keepers score . Actually you did damn well to get two goals against a team using 5-4-1 tactics. That is the first time i have scored any goals from free kicks so i suspect i was very lucky to get the win. I have a cup game this week against a really good div III team. Do i have a snowflakes chance in hell of winning this game and if not, what can i do to minimise the impending thrashing.

Yikes....guess who just found out that you have to pay for plane tickets when you play away friendlies. $12000 just to go and play American! Consequentially i am going to play my A-team (not paying that much to lose) and I fully expect American Rovers will travel down under next week in return .