Meulensteen relishing new United coaching role

Rene Meulensteen believes his appointment as Manchester United's first-team coach on a permanent basis will help provide the 'stability and continuity' required to continue the club's quest for trophies.

Carlos Queiroz left his role as the Red Devils assistant manager in the summer to take up the Portugal national team job vacated by Luiz Felipe Scolari.

Sir Alex Ferguson promoted Mike Phelan as his number two with Meulensteen taking Phelan's former position as first-team coach.

And Meulensteen admitted Ferguson's decision to appoint the pair full-time will benefit the club.

'Part of the success at Manchester United over the years is related to the stability and continuity at the club which the manager brings himself,' he told MUTV.

'I think Sir Alex had a good look to see how the partnership with myself would work and whether it would be a good idea.

'When things start to kick in with the league with games etc, I think he saw enough to decide not to bring anyone else in.

'We must realise the good things that Carlos has put in place here. We need to carry that on but maybe put our own identity on to things to ensure we keep progressing as a club.'

source: soccernet

Vela ready to make step up with Arsenal

Mexican striker Carlos Vela is ready to repay the faith of manager Arsene Wenger by proving a big hit for Arsenal.

The 19-year-old - who joined the Gunners from Celta Vigo in January 2007 - was granted a work permit this season after loan spells at Salamanca and Osasuna.

Vela impressed during the build-up to the new campaign and made his Barclays Premier League debut coming off the bench for the final half-hour of Saturday's 3-0 win over Newcastle at the Emirates Stadium.

With Croatia striker Eduardo continuing his rehabilitation from a broken leg, the young Mexico international could be in line for more first-team experience - and it is an opportunity he does not intend to waste.

'Arsene knows what he wants and knows how to get the best out of you - that is why he gets such an impressive response from his players,' said Vela.

He told FourFourTwo magazine: 'Arsenal's style of play is so smooth and easy and I hope I can adapt to their style quickly.

'I am motivated and relish the pressure. I am ready to give 100% for Arsenal.'

Wenger, meanwhile, feels the youngster - who can play wide or as a central striker - has a bright career ahead of him.

'He looks like another one for the future,' said the Gunners boss.

'Carlos is 19 and when you look at these players and what they can do at that age, I think it is very positive for the future of the club.'

Wenger has several of his first-team squad away during the international break,

Former Manchester United defender Mikael Silvestre is expected to be in contention for his belated debut later this month, delayed because of a thigh problem, after the break from Premier League action.

However, the veteran Frenchman was the only signing Wenger was able to add ahead of the transfer deadline after a late move for Spain midfielder Xabi Alonso from rivals Liverpool failed to materialise.

Arsenal face a tough travel schedule when the players return from international duty.

First up is a trip to Ewood Park next Saturday, and then Arsenal have a Champions League tie against Dynamo Kiev in the Ukraine to safely negotiate before returning to domestic action at Bolton on September 20.

source: soccernet

CHROME - 1 day 1%browser market in under 24 hours

Google Inc.'s new Chrome browser grabbed 1% of the browser market in its first day out in public, Web metrics providers said today.

Both U.S.-based tracking company Net Applications Inc. and Irish vendor StatCounter put Chrome's total market share at around 1%, less than 24 hours after the browser's launch, passing rivals such as Opera and Netscape in the process.

"This is a phenomenal performance," said CEO Aodhan Cullen, in a post to StatCounter's blog today. StatCounter, which provides free visitor statistics tools to Web developers, monitors traffic on the sites run by its 1.5 million members.

Net Applications also tracked Chrome's debut and echoed StatCounter's numbers. "We saw them peak at 1.48% last night, and they're hovering around 1% currently," said Vince Vizzaccaro, executive vice president of marketing at Net Applications, in an e-mail this morning.

According to Net Applications, which istracking Chrome's hourly numbers, Google's browser jumped from zero to 0.4% during the hour it was released yesterday. Nine hours later, at midnight EDT, Chrome accounted for 1% of the browsers used to visit the 40,000 or so sites that the company monitors for clients.

As Vizzaccaro noted, Chrome peaked at 1.48% early today -- at 4 a.m. EDT, 1 a.m. PDT -- and as of 11 a.m. EDT held a 0.98% market share.

"I'm certain usage will increase at night and on weekends, as companies won't want people testing Chrome at work," Vizzaccaro said.

Net Applications typically sees the same cyclic behavior from Mozilla Corp.'s Firefox, which jumps in share on weekends and during off-work hours.

Vizzaccaro wouldn't speculate on which browsers Google Chrome's users may be leaving. "We won't know that for a couple of weeks, as most people will test it alongside of their normal browser for a while," he said.

With 1% of the market, Chrome immediately overtakes Opera Software ASA's Opera, which Net Applications pegged with a 0.74% share at the end of August, as well as the moribund Netscape, which the company said accounted for 0.72% of all browsers used last month.

AOL LLC, Netscape's owner, killed it last February when it issued the venerable browser's last update and urged users to switch to Firefox or Flock.

Microsoft Corp.'s Internet Explorer held 72.2% of the browser market last month, said Net Applications earlier this week, while Mozilla Corp.'s Firefox and Apple Inc.'s Safari owned 19.2% and 6.4%, respectively.

Google launched Chrome Tuesday at around 3 p.m. EDT. Currently, a version for Windows XP and Vista is the only one available for download. Chrome, which is built on the WebKit rendering engine -- the same open-source code used by Apple Inc.'s Safari -- features a privacy mode, and a combination address-and-search bar, and runs each tab as a separate process to prevent a single site from crashing the entire browser.

source: Gregg Keizer

Oklahoma City’s NBA team to be called Thunder

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP)—Thunder can be heard from miles away, an early warning that a storm is about to arrive. So, perhaps it’s only fitting that the name of Oklahoma City’s NBA team didn’t sneak up on anyone.

Six weeks after the name first surfaced, team officials officially announced Wednesday that the team formerly known as the Seattle SuperSonics would be known as the Oklahoma City Thunder.

“It’s hard to keep a secret,” team chairman Clay Bennett said after stepping to a podium on the ground floor of the downtown office building where the team is headquartered.

The announcement had long been anticipated, but everyone knew what was coming.

The local ABC affiliate reported in mid-July that Thunder had been chosen as the nickname. Then the NBA Web site listed NBA.com/thunder as a link to the Oklahoma City team’s page. Then the Orlando Magic’s site listed games against the Oklahoma City Thunder.

Even the logo and colors leaked out over the weekend. Then, prior to the 5 p.m. announcement, Thunder merchandise started showing up on the NBA’s online store.“I thought it was great fun. Maybe I have a warped sense of things,” Bennett said. “I thought it was a lot of fun. I was disappointed in the image being released.”

That left Bennett somewhat surprised that hundreds of people still showed up in the atrium of Leadership Square, watched from their office windows or leaned over a second-floor walkway to hear it for sure.

“My family talked about wanting to come down, and I said, `Well, I don’t think it’s that big a deal. Everybody seems to know the name already,”’ Bennett said.

To unveil the logo, six children joined players Desmond Mason and Damien Wilkinsto pull down a curtain as the AC/DC song “Thunderstruck” blared over the loudspeaker. What was revealed was a large blue banner with the logo in the middle, and splashes of yellow at the top and reddish-orange at the bottom.

Bennett said the light blue color coincides with the state flag to represent the inclusion of all Oklahomans, the yellow refers to the sun and the reddish-orange color to the sunset. With the University of Oklahoma featuring crimson as its primary color, and Oklahoma State using orange, Bennett said it was “not too red and not too orange.”

Thunder is a fitting moniker for the Oklahoma City franchise, not only as a reference to powerful storms in the area known as Tornado Alley. The Oklahoma City-based 45th Infantry Division carries Thunderbirds as its nickname, and that’s a reference to the state’s American Indian heritage. Even one of Oklahoma native Garth Brooks’ biggest hits was “The Thunder Rolls.”

“There’s just all kinds of good thunder images and thoughts, and the in-game experience of Thunder,” Bennett said. “Just here was a good sense of how that evokes emotion. It’s very powerful.”

The team name had been the most evident—and talked about—element missing after Bennett announced July 2 that the SuperSonics would be moving to Oklahoma City through an agreement that will have him pay the city of Seattle up to $75 million to settle a lawsuit.

Bennett said the uniforms and mascot won’t be unveiled for another few weeks, but T-shirts, basketballs and other Thunder merchandise went on sale immediately after the announcement.

“The guys in the jerseys, if they play, the jerseys are going to look real good,” coach P.J. Carlesimo said.

Damien Wilkins, left, applauds… 
AP - Sep 3, 6:43 pm EDT

While the team applied for trademarks to six names—the others were Wind, Barons, Marshalls, Energy and Bison—Bennett said the decision on the name had been made “quite some time” ago. He said the names on the trademark applications weren’t finalists, and he wouldn’t reveal what other names got serious consideration.

General manager Sam Presti told the crowd designing a logo “takes an immense amount of work, and it does take some time.

“Not that anyone was really paying attention to the amount of time it was taking,” he quipped.

Team officials said they hope they can make the qualities of character, perseverance, selflessness, community and winning synonymous with Thunder.

“It’s very unique,” said Mason, a former Oklahoma State forward who the Thunder acquired in an offseason trade with Milwaukee. “It’s going to take some time getting used to, just like Utah Jazz or Orlando Magic, but I think it’s a great thing for the state and a great thing for the city.”

source: JEFF LATZKE, AP Sports Writer 

Mike Phelan as assistant manager at Manchester United

Manchester United have appointed Mike Phelan as assistant manager, replacing Carlos Queiroz who left Old Trafford to become Portugal coach in July.

Phelan, a former United player who has worked his way up through the ranks of the backroom staff, has been working as a first team coach since 2001 when Steve McClaren left for Middlesbrough.

Dutchman Rene Meulensteen has also been promoted from technical skills development officer to take on Phelan's former role.

United boss Sir Alex Ferguson welcomed the two new appointments.

'I am delighted Mick and Rene have agreed to fill these important positions,' he said.

'Mick knows Manchester United inside out, having been associated with the club for the best part of 20 years.

'He is a very talented and professional coach, whose ability and contribution to the club's success has often been understated.'

Ferguson added: 'Rene brings different ideas and experience to the role of first team coach.

'I believe the two will provide an excellent team to continue the club's willingness to try new ideas and constantly drive for success in an increasingly competitive game.'

First of the Batch - Premier League Reports

Alan Curbishley has beaten Kevin Keegan to be the Premier League's first managerial casualty of the season by walking out of West Ham United, blaming a 'breach of trust and confidence' for his sudden departure.

PhilCole/GettyImages

Curbishley felt his position was untenable

Curbishley had been under intense pressure for months and was the bookies' favourite to be first out.

And now the former Charlton boss, who took charge at Upton Park in December 2006, when he succeeded Alan Pardew, has jumped before he was pushed after guiding the club to their best start to a Premier League season for nine years.

A club statement said: 'We can confirm that we have accepted Alan Curbishley's resignation as we feel it is in the best interests of both parties.

'We wish Alan all the success in the future. A shortlist of candidates is being drawn up and an announcement will be made in due course about the new West Ham United manager.'

Curbishley's position had been the subject of speculation towards the end of last season when Croatia coach Slaven Bilic, a former West Ham player, was linked with the job. He is sure to be a target again just days before their World Cup qualifiers begin with England visiting Zagreb on Wednesday.

First team coach Kevin Keen has been appointed caretaker manager as the Hammers hunt for a permanent replacement for Curbishley.

The 50-year-old became disillusioned with the club's transfer policy after Anton Ferdinand was sold to Sunderland for £8million. The manager claimed it was a board decision aimed at protecting his value, despite the fact there remained two years on his deal.

Curbishley then stated it was the end of the player sales at the club and that seemed to ring true when Manchester City failed in a bid to take Craig Bellamy.

But on transfer deadline day George McCartney, an ever-present last season and one of Curbishley's favoured players, was sold from underneath him, also to Sunderland, for £4.5million.

Curbishley was said to have felt embarrassed by the whole affair and that he no longer had the authority to manage the football club.

In a statement released via the League Managers' Association he said: 'I started my West Ham United career when I left school in 1974 and have remained a lifelong fan. I have been incredibly proud to manage such a great club and my decision to resign has been very tough.

'The selection of players is critical to the job of the manager and I had an agreement with the club that I alone would determine the composition of the squad.

'However, the club continued to make significant player decisions without involving me. In the end such a breach of trust and confidence meant that I had no option but to leave. Nevertheless, I wish the club and the players every success in the future.'

The LMA went on to cite 'the club's unilateral actions around player transfers, without reference to their manager [which] have created irreparable damage to Alan's working relationship with the directors.'

Richard Bevan, LMA chief executive, said: 'The LMA has been working with Alan Curbishley over the past few days in an attempt to resolve his grievances with his employers. Sadly for West Ham United and Alan, reconciliation was not possible in the circumstances.'

Earlier today the club posted a statement on their website justifying their position with regards to their transfer policy over the last couple of weeks.

'West Ham United are looking to a bright future after a summer of consolidation and a positive start to the new season at the Boleyn Ground,' said the statement.

'The club is fully committed to a high-quality first-team squad based on solid financial foundations that will challenge at the top end of the Premier League and in the cup competitions.

'As stated before and during the close season, our intention was always to hone the size of the playing staff with several key performers returning to fitness and the emergence of homegrown talent.

'This has now been achieved with seven players sold or released and four recruited. Along with the importance of adding quality new signings with bright futures, a key aim has been to secure important players on long-term contracts.

'Such investment has ensured the club can keep together its strong spine of England internationals Robert Green, Matthew Upson, Scott Parker, Kieron Dyer and Dean Ashton along with players with proven international pedigree like Lucas Neill, Valon Behrami, Julien Faubert and Craig Bellamy.

'Unsurprisingly this summer we received a number of significant bids for leading players - in itself emphasising the high number of quality internationals at Alan Curbishley's disposal - and all were rejected.

'However, in particular, the transfers of Anton Ferdinand and George McCartney along with the release of Freddie Ljungberg were right for the club and decisions had to be taken based on our best long-term interests.

'In the past week, agreement could not be reached with Ferdinand on a new contract to replace his original deal that had just two years left to run while McCartney handed in a formal written transfer request after failing to resolve his personal reasons for wanting a move away.'

West Ham chairman and owner Bjorgolfur Gudmundsson added: 'In my first full season as chairman I can assure supporters we are working hard to bring sustained success to West Ham United.

'We have a long-term strategy that takes into account all aspects of West Ham United's past, present and future and we will not be deterred.'

source: Dale Johnson soccernet

Linux similar to OSX Mac

Here’s an interesting compilation of Linux distribution which resemble Apple’s Mac OS 10. They might not be identical, but you guys who like Apple’s design might appreciate the fact yu can get something like it, with the nice-on-the-inside GNU/Linux kernel, out-of-the-box. For free.

These are only short descriptions, with screen grabs. You will find a lot more info and full screenshots on the official web pages of each distro.

Dream Linux

A Brazilian distribution, full of multimedia tools, oriented at people who like tocreate. The XFCE Desktop with Rocket Dock makes a nice desktop environment with Mac-like traits. The installer is pretty sleek, because you only have one configuration page. Another good point of Dreamlinux is the Debian base, which is a bit lighter than Ubuntu.

gOS

gOS’ user base sky-rocketed because of Walmart’s  phenomenally well-accepted gPC. Although it doesn’t have the ’smart blue’ look (the developers went for a greenish look), gOS still feels pretty sleek (apart from the boot time). I’m not sure  the new gOS Gadgets uses Rocket Dock or AWN, but with LXDE, gOS may become a good choice for net-books. Software-wise, the distro relies heavily on Google Apps.

Elive

Enlightenment’s official distro is based on Debian Linux. Even though its mission is showcasing the latest E17 Desktop Environment modules, this OS X-like distro has a lot of regular users (at least according to Distrowatch). You can find some coolEnlightenment DR17 goodies, including the ibar dock.

MacPup

Puppy Linux is an awesome distro for old computers. A person from the community decided the default desktop isn’t sleek enough and created this genius OS X mod. This modified Puppy gives you speed, simplicity and a tasty Apple, with those cool little Puppy Apps.

More: If you have time and wish to change your own Linux distro’s theme to something more Mac OS X-like, you can maybe take a look at my list of Linux Docks.

Source: Greg

Chrome already making headlines

Google's Chrome browser is outperforming the latest "stable" builds of both Firefox 3 and Internet Explorer 7 in the popular Acid3 test. The Acid test, for those who do not know, tests how well a browser complies with a given set of Web standards. While all three browsers pass the Acid2 test, Chrome currently clocks in at 78 out of 100 on Acid3, while Firefox and IE7 stand at 71 and 14 respectively. The only release quality build to beat Chrome is Opera, which scores an 83.

Even though Google has the stable builds edged out, we have to remember that Chrome is still in development, where it is topped by a number of other "unstable," development builds, including Firefox 3.1 Beta 1 (85), Opera (91), and Safari 4 (100). It is interesting that the Safari 4 Developer Preview performs so much better than Chrome, given that they are both built on Apple's WebKit framework.

Whenever a new browser or an update to a browser is released, one of the first things that techies tend to look at is how it fares on the Acid test. The latest iteration of the test, Acid3, is the hardest yet and no "stable" browser builds have achieved a 100 out of 100 on the test, although the Safari 4 Developer Preview has.

Passing the Acid3 test is an important goal for browser developers and it's great to see that Chrome is performing so well on its first attempt.

source: Harrison Hoffman

Manchester City to bid £135m pounds for Cristiano Ronaldo

Al-Fahim has revealed that his Abu Dhabi United Group (ADUG) company, who are set to take full control of City in the coming weeks, are serious about bringing the best players in the world to the City of Manchester Stadium.

And that includes Ronaldo, despite the fact he plays for City’s rivals United and seems destined for a future move to Spanish giants Real Madrid.

Al-Fahim is up to ten times richer than Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich and according to some reports and is targeting a list of 18 players as potential transfer targets. It is reported that in a day of drama yesterday, City had offers totalling €300 million in bids for players around the world.

Speaking to The Guardian today, Al-Fahim revealed that he is serious about helping City to become the biggest football club in the world and plans to prove it with a bid for Ronaldo in January.

"Ronaldo has said he wants to play for the biggest club in the world, so we will see in January if he is serious," he stated.

"Real Madrid were estimating his value at $160 million (roughly £90m) but for a player like that, to actually get him, will cost a lot more; I would think $240 million (£135m). But why not? We are going to be the biggest club in the world, bigger than both Real Madrid and Manchester United."

Sky Sports News reported earlier today that Liverpool’s Fernando Torres and Arsenal’s Cesc Fabregas were also bold targets of Al-Fahim, although it remains to be seen if City yet have the draw to attract such players.

In an incredible day yesterday, ADUG’s proposed takeover of the club was announced this morning and following a frantic day of negotiations, which also saw offers tabled for Valencia’s David Villa and new United signing Dimitar Berbatov, their British record £32.5 million capture of Robinho was announced two minutes before the midnight transfer deadline.

source: Chris Myson, Goal.com

Ronaldo, Berbatov, Robinho: The End of Summer Signings

Cristiano Ronaldo, Robinho, and Dimitar Berbatov tallied up so many column inches this summer they would have made even the most extroverted of WAGs blush. Since not only the opening of the window, but when the 2007/08 season was drawing to a close, speculation was rife linking Ronaldo with Real Madrid; Robinho with Chelsea; and Dimitar Berbatov with Manchester United. 

Ronaldo was to end up staying at Old Trafford but the lion-share of twists and turns seemed to be reserved for deadline day, as an Arab consortium took over Manchester City and bid for Berbatov meaning United had to up their fee for the sulky striker. 

While Mark Hughes took the afternoon off playing a round of golf, deal brokers were at large tabling £32.5million for Real's samba star Robinho and, for the first time in Chelsea's history under a Russian financier, Roman Abramovich was outbid.

What do these three transfer deals have in common? For starters they are all centred around the same English city but, more significantly, it can be argued that player power is more prevalent in the modern game than it ever was before...

Manchester - The Attraction

Whether he was misunderstood, misquoted, or it was a general misnomer, Nemanja Vidic was recently reported to have summarised Manchester in a slight mal à propos: "The climate here is something special... You get only a brief glimpse of sunlight before it's all cloudy again. The winters are mild, but in summer the temperatures seldom go higher than 20C."

He added: "Manchester's main attraction is considered to be the timetable at the railway station, where trains leave for other, less rainy cities."

To think that Vidic would insult the city that houses the fans that pay to see his club is a tad absurd, and the Serbian stopper was quick to claim the comments were unfounded and should never have been attributed to him. Though a question just before the close of the window was asked: 'why would foreigners move to Manchester?' Or, more specifically, 'why choose Spain over England?' 

Perhaps a rhetoric, perhaps not. But if you were Cristiano Ronaldo would you rather take a brisk walk around Sol in Madrid in the late evening enjoying temperatures not often seen in even an English summer, or people-watch in Fallowfields in Manchester as inebriated students stumble out of Robinski's while preparing their stomachs for a kofte kebab? 

Maybe that is an unfair analogy. Of course, Manchester has it's pulling power. Only three weeks ago did Stretford (just a few miles from Old Trafford) witness some strange lights in the night-sky that had the world of ufology buzzing. One witness told Manchester Evening News: 

"They looked as if they were on fire, really bright orange orbs. We spotted eight or nine go over my house between 10 and 11pm." Perhaps alien visitors too had heard that the local double-winning team played football that was from another planet. 

The capital of the north is also home to the 'Madchester' scene, with bands such as the Stone Roses, the Happy Mondays, the Charlatans, going on to influence britpop bands like Oasis - all hailing from Mancunia. Then you have fine champagne-stained celebrity haunts like the infamous Living Room or 235 Casino as prime spots for a harmless bit of decadence, and this is without even mentioning the little thing of playing in front of 76,000 fans at Old Trafford for a club with a history as interesting as the annals of Mamuciam.  

The City of Manchester Stadium can entertain crowds of just under 48,000 and has a trophy cabinet not as strong as their local rivals, but they now boast an ownership supposedly 'ten times' wealthier than the sponsor at Stamford Bridge.

Cristiano Ronaldo

The story that had everyone clicking, and then complaining... was there nothing going on in the world of football apart from a tiresome saga between two of the most powerful football franchises in the history of the game? At the time it certainly appeared not. 

The brazen-faced courtship of one of football's hottest properties gained momentum when Spanish journal Marca decorated it's front cover with a Ronaldo that would be joining Los Meringues that summer - the timing of running the cover epitomised a peccant editorial genius: May 21st 2008 - the Champions League final. 

Later that month the Red Devils threatened Real with a Fifa complaint with Sir Alex Ferguson clamouring: "They think that they can ride roughshod over everyone," little did the United boss know that his club would employ the same impudent tactic later that summer.

At the beginning of June, and ahead of Portugal's Euro 2008 exploits, the in-demand wing-wizard was reported to have declared his intentions of joining the La Liga champions. Real were thought to have prepared a transfer fee that was in excess of £70million but Sir Alex Ferguson remained adamant that the boy he coached from 17 would not be leaving.

Fifa president Sepp Blatter then decided to wade into the transfer tug-of-war and yapped on about modern footballers being treated like slaves - being forced to stay at a club they no longer wished to play for.  CR7 then agreed with the notion.

After his nation crashed out of the summer's continental competition, and he returned to Old Trafford for tête-à-tête talks, the future of the now-crowned Uefa Forward of the Year eventuall resolved itself.

"I was the one who publicly expressed my desire to go to Real Madrid. I ended up being, even involuntarily, responsible for the poor relationship between the two clubs," Cristiano admitted in a Portuguese publication. 

He tried to force the transfer, but failed as United held firm, albeit only temporarily as Real will no doubt advance for the free-scoring 23-year old in precisely ten months time, when the summer transfer window re-opens.

Robinho And Dimitar Berbatov

Two footballers whom have each moved to two club’s that share a local rivalry predating their managers’ birth.  Two separate transfers, but in fairly similar scenarios as both showed acts of petulance and unprofessionalism.

The former

Robinho had long been expected to be photographed in a Chelsea shirt by now. It was even rumoured that one week ago the Chelsea shops had been printing Blues shirts with the Brazilian's name on the back. Chelsea chief Peter Kenyon had long expressed his admiration for Robinho, stating that he would bring an 'extra dimension' to the west London club's attack.

In mid-August Peter Kenyon flew to Madrid to try and flash out a deal, but Chelsea's £19.7million fee fell considerably lower than Real's valuation of the player.

The longer the deal went on for without reaching any notable conclusion, relations between the two clubs soured. Madrid condemned the very public pursuit of their Brazilian forcing Chelsea to accuse the Spanish Capital club of hypocrisy due to their flirtations over Cristiano Ronaldo and the manner in which they bought Arjen Robben the season prior. 

Real then issued a statement that read: "We deplore the way Chelsea's directors have acted despite knowing perfectly well the decision not to sell the player - making statements and even going so far as to sell shirts with the player's name on through their official website."

Madrid soon realised they would have to sell the player. Ramon Calderon recently said: "Robinho has a morale problem more extensive than we first thought... When he talked about his situation, he cried and demanded to leave Spain."

"His departure from Madrid is not only due to playing motivation, there is something else, which is beyond my reasoning. The important thing is that the squad is not seriously affected by a player who would only bring them down."

Real's vehemence in dealing with Chelsea took a fortunate twist when Manchester City entered the bidding with a last-minute deal of £32.5million due to heavy-backing from a Dr. Sulaiman Al Fahim Arab consortium. 

Calderon's decision to sell to City, as opposed to Chelsea, can be born from three ideals: to spite the player for attempting to broker his own move - not allowing him to join Chelsea; to spite the club for their open dalliance with their contracted player; or because of competitive rivalry - the Stamford Bridge side are one of their nearest Champions League adversaries whereas City are playing Uefa Cup football this year, and may not press for a top four position for a year, possibly two. 

The latter

Numerous Tottenham Hotspur players, namely Jonathan Woodgate, openly criticised Dimitar Berbatov for his poor attitude toward training, the club, and his desire to play for no-one other than Manchester United this season. 

Juande Ramos was forced to drop the player from his squad before the match against Sunderland, blaming Berbatov's frame of mind: "I have not selected him as I do not think that he was focused enough and I did not feel that he would be good for the dressing room and the team effort."

"It doesn't matter how good a player is, if he is not in the right frame of mind, then he will not perform well. The only thing I concern myself with is picking the best team to try and win the game."

Both Woodgate's admission that the Tottenham team were far from happy with Dimitar's antics, together with Ramos' decision to stop fielding the pouty grump, are testament to the Bulgarian's unprofessionalism.

Manchester United however, remained relentless in the chase for the heir to Van Nistelrooy, or perhaps more fittingly, Cantona's throne. They entered the bidding over a month ago, with an opening bid believed to be £25million, but it was rebuffed. 

The White Hart Lane outfit threatened to keep Berbatov though, and let him rot in the reserves such was their refusal to sell to United, and the transfer was left to the very last minute until eventually it was signed - much to the annoyance and red-anger of Spurs chief Daniel Levy.

Hours before, in a similar fashion to how City gazumped Chelsea's transfer of Robinho, the Citizens entered a bidding war that Tottenham had been craving for all summer. A fee expected to smash the British record was accepted by Tottenham and they sent the player up to Manchester to talk to City - Mark Hughes was off the golf course and expecting to have a chat, but they never did... instead Berbatov headed straight to Old Trafford.

United's conduct during this transfer has been called into question. They did not have the express permission of Tottenham to talk to the player, but they went ahead anyway. The loan signing of Fraizer Campbell, plus the expected £30million +, was proffered to Levy in an attempt to sweeten the deal, which was grudgingly accepted and Spurs claim they won't take the matter to the FA. 

Conclusion

If there is one sentiment to take away from the dealings this summer, it is that player power is increasing and the balance is shifting away from the club. Should Ronaldo have stayed on holiday, he may have been continually swayed by Madrid chiefs to force the issue and join Real. The meeting with Sir Alex was pivotal in his decision to stay. Despite this, by the end of next season, Cristiano will have been at United for six years and Real will be keen for another transfer assault. 

Real did not want to sell Robinho, but his lachrymatory manner led Real to believe his form for them would never be the same again. Madrid retained a degree of puissance though as they denied a move to his favoured Chelsea, and accepted the City fee. The fact that Robinho forced his exit proves the power struggle was there and had City not come in, then the shirts already sold at the Bridge would never have been sold in vein.

Dimitar Berbatov craved a move to United. He got it. Perhaps in suspicious circumstances considering Hotspur never accepted a bid from the League champions but they had from their local rivals City. Berbatov is now an official Red Devil and this shows he had the power, despite Tottenham's best efforts to maintain their grip on it, but by the time Berbatov left London and was driving up the M1 it was out of their hands.

source: Alan Dawson

Manchester City plan Next Mega buys

City created without doubt the scoop of the summer (or autumn, rather) when they landed Robinho for an English record £32.4million on deadline day.

The deal was finalised hours after the Abu Dhabi United Group (ADUG) had their £220million takeover bid for the Sky Blues accepted embattled owner Thaksin Shinawatra.

The former Prime Minister of Thailand had promised to bring in world-class talent such as Ronaldinho before his legal trouble in his homeland forced him to abandon his grand plans.

But Eastlands' new sugar daddy, Sulaiman Al Fahim, is quite confident of prising the two-time FIFA World Player of the Year away from AC Milan.

"My personal favourite player in the world at the moment is Ronaldinho, who City have tried to get," Al Fahim told The Sun.

"But believe me we will try again with (the manager's) agreement — and get him."

Rumours abound that ADUG, who are reportedly worth ten times as much as Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich, attempted a number of last-minute, high-profile transfers besides Robinho.

Dimitar Berbatov admitted he rejected City's approach before joining rivals Manchester United, while Barcelona's Samuel Eto'o and Ajax's Klaas-Jan Huntelaar were supposedly subject to late mega-money bids.

Cristiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi and Fernando Torres are also in Al Fahim's crosshairs as he attempts to lift City to unprecedented levels of success.

He said: "We did not simply want to buy a team at the very top. We wanted to create something. We saw a great challenge with Manchester City.

"This is a great club with great fans and potential and we aim to realise that and take it where we want to go."

One potential stumbling block is manager Mark Hughes, who was reportedly involved in a number of rows with Thaksin and the board over their transfer policy.

But the new owners are determined to avoid their predecessor's mistakes and insist they will do nothing in the market without Hughes' consent.

"We have a great manager with the same passion and commitment that we have," Al Fahim added.

"I will be meeting Mark to discuss the plans. Every transfer will be made with his full consultation."

Scolari's Rage

The Blues had been odds-on to land the Brazilian superstar after he declared his desire to leave Real Madrid sign on at Stamford Bridge.

Los Merengues had accepted a £28.4million bid and the deal was all but complete when Chelsea's impatience effectively scuppered the transaction.

The London giants jumped the gun to disastrous effect when they began selling shirts emblazoned with Robinho's name through their online shop last week.

That was enough to tip the Spanish champions over the edge in what was already a tense negotiation process, and the initial deal fell through.

Scolari made no secret of his admiration for Robinho and singled out the 24-year-old as the one player he hoped to sign this summer after landing Deco from Barcelona.

The former Brazil coach attempted to play it cool, insisting it made no difference if he captured the ex-Santos prodigy or not, but Chelsea sources suggest otherwise.

“He is too professional to make a fuss but this is a blow,”  an insider toldThe Sun.

Further fuelling Scolari's wrath is the fact Chelsea turned down the opportunity to land Robinho on deadline day.

Los Blancos had accepted a bid of £32.5million from newly cashed-up City and challenged the Blues to match it - but the Premier League powerhouses were not willing to stump up the extra £4million.

Hence, the Selecao star made his way to Eastlands instead in an English record transfer, while Scolari was left demanding answers from chief executive Peter Kenyon and owner Roman Abramovich.

The source added: “It’s no secret that Chelsea has paid a lot of money for players in the last few years.

“Some of those players have been successful and others not so.

“Felipe understands the budget has a limit but feels that he did not ask too much of the club.

“He bought Deco for £8million and made it clear how important Robinho was to his plans for the season. 

“So he is entitled to feel let down that the club would not increase its offer by £4m to get the player.”

The Heat signed Jamaal Magloire, who was an All-Star in 2004 but has fallen from that level of play.

With a critical shortage of experienced big men on the roster, the Miami Heat needed a center.

Hoping to revive a once-promising career that has been on a four-year tumble into obscurity, journeyman Jamaal Magloire wanted another chance to turn things around.

Both the team and the player found a match Tuesday, when Magloire officially signed a one-year contract for close to the veteran's minimum of about $1.3 million.

Magloire, 30, arrived in Miami on Monday night and met with the media Tuesday after his first workout with the Heat.

''I definitely see potential for me to help this team,'' Magloire said. ``To what capacity remains to be seen. It remains to be seen the shape I come in, how training camp goes. I wouldn't have if I didn't see a need.''

Magloire, who is 6-11, is expected to compete for the starting job at center, where nine-year veteran Mark Blount (7-0) had been the only player under contract with more than two seasons of experience. Magloire views the Sept. 27 start of training camp as a chance to revive his career after seeing his production dwindle the past three seasons.

WELL-TRAVELED

He was an All-Star in 2003-04, when he averaged 13.6 points and 10.3 rebounds with New Orleans. But Magloire has since played for four teams in three years and is coming off his worst season after averaging 1.8 points and 2.9 rebounds in 31 games with New Jersey and Dallas.

A combination of nagging injuries and inconsistent play factored into the drastic drop in production.

But Magloire insists he has come to Miami recharged. If not, it's a relatively minor gamble for the Heat.

''Whatever role, whatever capacity that's needed here, I'm looking forward to that because I want to get back to the level I was playing at four years ago,'' Magloire said. ``The fact that I didn't play last year just makes me more vicious, more hungry to go out there and get the job done. It's just all motivation.''

The Heat settled on signing Magloire after considering several other free agents, including D.J. Mbenga, Lorenzen Wright and Theo Ratliff.

`THE RIGHT PLACE'

Magloire also has a unique connection to Heat president Pat Riley. Magloire played at the University of Kentucky and wore Riley's old number.

''We feel this is definitely the right place for him to re-energize his career,'' Riley said of Magloire. ``He is an excellent rebounder with a big body. On the defensive end, he will plug up the paint and on the offensive end, he can score.''

Magloire provides the Heat more flexibility along a frontline that complements guard Dwyane Wade and features Shawn Marion, Michael Beasley and Udonis Haslem.

Alonzo Mourning, who is recovering from knee surgery, is not under contract but hopes to return by mid-season.

QUINN MIGHT RETURN

Tuesday's signing also brings the Heat's roster to 14 players under contract, one shy of the league maximum for the regular season.

The Heat is close to re-signing restricted free agent point guard Chris Quinn, who was extended a $1 million qualifying offer this summer.

''Our training camp roster is set,'' Riley said Friday during an interview on 790 The Ticket.

``We've got a lot of great [perimeter players], a lot of versatility. We're as good as we can be at this stage.''

Nagios: Preventing data center downtime

No matter the duration of the downtime, when a company loses data center functionality, it cuts a company's profit considerably. First, it loses business during the actual failure. And of course, it loses credibility -- and additional money -- through the loss of service that its clients experience.

Such consequences make monitoring data centers a business-critical role. This tip shows you how to use monitoring software Nagios to help your company protect itself from costly data center failures. You will learn how to configure the software to take best advantage of its plug-in, remote management, dependency-notification and failover capabilities.

Nagios is a system and network monitoring tool that can be used to monitor a variety of hosts and services. Nagios is free and open software under the GPLv2 and its feature overview as presented in its documentation is:

• Monitoring of network services (SMTP, POP3, HTTP, NNTP, PING, etc.)
• Monitoring of host resources (processor load, disk usage, etc.)
• Simple plugin design that allows users to easily develop their own service checks
• Parallelized service checks
• Ability to define network host hierarchy using "parent" hosts, allowing detection of anddistinction between hosts that are down and those that are unreachable
• Contact notifications when service or host problems occur and get resolved (via email, pager or user-defined method)
• Ability to define event handlers to be run during service or host events for proactive problem resolution
• Automatic log file rotation
• Support for implementing redundant monitoring hosts
• Optional Web interface for viewing current network status, notification and problem history, log file, etc.

What does all of that mean to IT management and staff? Well, let's make the assumption that the people using your computer systems expect them to have a certain level of availability (a pretty good assumption). Any unplanned downtime for some services may even directly contribute to your business losing money – not a pleasant thought. So, rather than hiring someone to stare at console screens 24/7 and be ready to fix anything that breaks, you can use a tool like Nagios to keep track of when services go down, notify you that they are down, and even restart them for you.

Nagios is very flexible and extensible. If there is not already a service check available for the service you care to monitor, a plugin to perform the service check can easily be added on. This is where Nagios' active community comes in handy. You could go it alone but chances are that what you are looking for is either included in the Nagios Plugins package, is available on the Nagios Exchange website or has been discussed on the Nagios Community site. In the event that you are the one that needs to start the ball rolling for a new type of service check, there are coding guidelines provided, and you can essentially use any programming/scripting language that you are comfortable with. You just need to keep in mind that the end product should be portable and conform to the proper Nagios plugin return values and command line options.

Nagios can also monitor local resources on remote machines. For instance, you cannot generally query the memory usage of a machine from remote. There are two add-ons for Nagios that allow it to remotely monitor local resources: NetSaint Remote Plugin Executor (NRPE) and NetSaint Service Check Acceptor (NSCA). NRPE allows the Nagios server to execute plugins (like check_memory) on remote Linux/Unix hosts. NSCA instead allows the remote server to run the check on itself periodically and send the results to the server of its own accord. This is called passive checking. Using passive checks can help to reduce the load on the Nagios server and is an important component of setting up distributed monitoring.

If you have hundreds or even thousands of hosts to monitor (plus their services), distributed monitoring and passive checks can be crucial features to use. You can set up a number of distributed servers that could perform checks on an arbitrary group of servers to be monitored (perhaps you could have one distributed server per subnet) and send the data back to the central server. The central server remains responsible for capturing all of the monitoring data, performance data (if you choose), and performing any notifications. You should also make sure that the central server is monitoring the distributed servers so that it can tell the difference between a subnet outage and one distributed server going out of commission. This brings up two more important features in an enterprise monitoring tool that Nagios provides:

1. Dependencies (host, service, or network)
2. Failover capability

Network dependencies are configured by parent relationship in Nagios. The basic idea of this is that Nagios is then able to differentiate between telling when something is DOWN (all points up to the host are fine) or just UNREACHABLE (a router between the Nagios server and the monitored host is known to be in a DOWN state). This is very useful when setting up notifications. Notifications for the UNREACHABLE state can even be disabled, thereby preventing you from receiving notification that 50 hosts on a subnet are UNREACHABLE when just getting the notification that the subnet's router is DOWN would be sufficient. Service dependencies can also help to pare down notifications to the essential as well as to map out how services relate to one another. You may have a service that you want to monitor for connectivity and for authentication. The authentication is dependent on the connectivity, so if the connectivity check fails, there is no need to check authentication.

Failover is one of the most important enterprise class features of Nagios. If you can't rely on your monitoring tool, then it is useless. With Nagios, a failover configuration is achieved in the following steps:

1. A second, or slave, Nagios server is set up with the same configuration for hosts, services, and contacts as the master.
2. The slave server will not actively perform any service checks or send any notifications, however. The master server will keep the slave server apprised of the current state of everything through passive service check notifications.
3. The slave server will actively monitor the Nagios process on the master server. In the event that this proves DOWN, the slave Nagios server will start doing active checks and notifications.
4. Once the Nagios process on the master server comes back, the slave will again cease active checks and notifications.

Nagios' great strength is its configurability and adaptability to many different monitoring scenarios. There are also plug-ins and add-ons for Nagios that can do things such as store all the monitoring data in a database, do extensive graphing with said data, and any number of other things. All of these options and configurations can also make the initial setup of Nagios a bit imposing. Proper planning, research and outlining of your deployment (things you do anyway, right?) will alleviate the pain of configuration and will ultimately reward you with a well-monitored environment.

source: Mark Keisler

LeBron James to be featured in new documentary

CLEVELAND (AP)—LeBron James has gone from the gold-medal stand to the silver screen.

The Cavaliers’ megastar, fresh off helping the U.S. basketball team win gold at the Beijing Olympics, will be at the Toronto International Film Festival this weekend for the debut of “More Than A Game,” a documentary chronicling his rise to stardom and how he and four childhood friends overcame long odds to win a national championship in high school.

Combining footage taken during James’ career at St. Vincent-St. Mary High School in nearby Akron, along with one-on-one interviews by writer/director Kris Belman, home videos, and personal family photographs, the film is about much more than basketball. At its core is a story of friendship, loyalty and love.

“We set out with a goal as kids and we wanted to accomplish that someway, somehow by using basketball as a tool, not knowing that it was going to create other opportunities for us,” James said. “We didn’t know it was going to create a brotherhood and trust. We grew from kids into young men.”

James is expected to be joined by friends and former teammates Dru Joyce III, Sian Cotton, Willie McGee and Romeo Travis for the premiere.

Like the much-acclaimed 1994 film “Hoop Dreams,” which followed two Chicago high school students chasing their dream of becoming pro basketball players, “More Than A Game” focuses on how James and his friends’ lives are shaped by basketball.

Their journey began together as 8-year-old boys, winds through years crisscrossing the country playing in AAU tournaments and finishes in their senior season at St. Vincent-St. Mary, a year when James came under scrutiny for accepting a $50,000 sports-utility vehicle as a gift from his mother and his eligibility was briefly stripped by the Ohio High School Athletic Association.

At the time, Belman was a film student at Loyola Marymount. He set out to chronicle James and his friends’ season as his final school project, a 10-minute documentary. But after gaining the trust of the players and coach Dru Joyce, Belman spent two months filming and eventually teamed with producer Harvey Mason Jr. to the full-length feature.

James hopes the film will inspire youngsters.

“We set out with a goal when we were 8 and we accomplished it when we were 18,” he said. “It’s a great story and I wanted to get it out to kids that have a dream, that they should continue to go after it, believe in it and live it if they want to accomplish something.”

source: Yahoo! sports

VMware Inc.'s executive vice president of research and development has quit the company and taken a job at Oracle Corp., VMware said Tuesday.

Richard Sarwal, a longtime Oracle veteran, did not stay at VMware long, having joined the company in December 2007. Stephen Herrod, chief technology officer at VMware, will begin overseeing research efforts effective immediately, according to the company.

VMware is the top virtualization vendor, with 76% market share in 2007, followed by IBM with around 10%, according to IDC.

Other vendors, including Microsoft, Oracle and Sun, have been pushing hard of late behind their own entries, creating an atmosphere of heightened competition despite VMware's significant lead.

Meanwhile, VMware recently fired its CEO and co-founder, Diane Greene, but Greene's husband and fellow co-founder, Mendel Rosenblum, remains there as chief scientist.

Oracle could not immediately be reached for comment Tuesday.

source: Chris Kanaracus

Flamengo hopeful of Ronaldo signature

Flamengo have reiterated their desire to sign Ronaldo following reports linking the former Brazil international with Manchester City.

Ronaldo, a free agent after being released by AC Milan at the end of last season, has been rehabilitating from a serious knee injury with Flamengo, who have made no secret of their desire to sign the Rio native once he has returned to full fitness. 'There is no future without a present,' Flamengo vice-president Kleber Leite said of Ronaldo's rehab. 'Ronaldo must get his life back, but from them onwards we'll obviously be interested in retaining him. 'The red-and-black carpet is ready for him.' Ronaldo was hurt playing for Milan against Livorno in February, and his contract with the Rossoneri expired in June. Soon after the injury, he returned to Brazil for treatment, and Flamengo have opened their doors to the three-time FIFA World Player of the Year with one eye on signing him.


Ronaldo is now working with Flamengo and Brazil team doctor Jose Luiz Runco as he begins the final stage of his rehab. 'We have already said it - our home is his home,' Leite said. 'All of the Flamengo organisation and staff are at his disposal.' It is expected to be between two and three months before the two-time World Cup winner is ready to return to action.

source: soccernet

Nasri hopes to emulate Pires for club and country

CLAIREFONTAINE, France, Sept 2 (Reuters) - Samir Nasri said he hopes to emulate fellow midfielder Robert Pires by having a successful club career at Arsenal that would also secure his international place with France.

Nasri, 21, who joined the Londoners from Olympique Marseille in July and marked his Premier League debut with a winner against West Bromwich Albion last month, is one of a new generation of players coming into France's team. Asked about his career in England, he told reporters: 'You're playing with the cream of European football. 'It will allow me to get up to international standard and play a part in the French team.' Pires, who also played at Marseille before capturing five major trophies with Arsenal, was a key figure for his country. He scored 14 goals in 79 matches, helping France win the 1998 World Cup and Euro 2000 before falling out of favour with coach Raymond Domenech.

Speaking at France's training centre, where he is preparing for the World Cup qualifier against Austria on Saturday, Nasri said Pires was both an inspiration and a difficult act to follow at Arsenal. 'They were expecting a successor to Robert Pires. It's flattering but hard to live up to,' he said. 'I would like to have the career he had at Arsenal.' Nasri said the club's strong French connection, built up under coach Arsene Wenger, had helped him. 'The integration has gone well. The team is very young and there are a lot of French there so I don't feel out of place.' On the international front, Nasri won the first of his 12 caps against Austria in March 2007, having a hand in their goal in a 1-0 friendly victory in Paris. It could be a good omen for the game in Vienna on Saturday when France will look to turn the page on their dismal group-stage exit from Euro 2008. 'Austria is a good memory, it was my first match but the context is different,' he said. '

After the disappointment we had at the Euros we can't allow ourselves to take any match too easily.' Sensing his chance, Nasri said the younger players now had an opportunity to make their mark in Domenech's side. 'With some players going I hope I can bring more than before,' he said. 'It's up to us to show what we can do.'


source: soccernet