Under the original deadline, Microsoft was expected to nominate its own slate of candidates next week to oust Yahoo’s 10-member board.

The extension comes as Yahoo’s deal makers have failed to craft an alternate proposal that would be acceptable to the board.

It’s not for lack of trying. Citing unnamed sources, The Wall Street Journal reported today that Yahoo has reopened discussions with Time Warner (NYSE:TWX) in pursuit of a tie-up with AOL.

This comes after Yahoo reportedly has been exploring various alliances with Google, News Corp. and various private-equity firms.

The latest negotiations would have Time Warner taking a large minority stake in Yahoo, which would integrate AOL into its operations, creating a powerful online advertising force.

Time Warner CEO Jeffrey Bewkes has already said that he plans to separate AOL’s online media division — which includes the powerful Platform A advertising properties — from the fading dial-up business.

A Yahoo connection would give Time Warner new opportunities to expand its digital media offerings.

For Yahoo, the advantage would be less in search advertising than in third-party placement, where Yahoo and AOL both maintain robust businesses.

IDC analyst Karsten Weide said that the extension of the nominating deadline is the likely result of the Time Warner talks. If Time Warner would roll AOL into Yahoo in exchange for a 20 percent to 30 percent stake in the company, it would want to put a couple of its own people on the board, he explained to InternetNews.com.

“Yahoo needs to give themselves leeway to suggest Time Warner candidates to the board,” Weide said. “The executive team at Yahoo would do almost anything not to go together with Microsoft.”

But that is very likely how it will happen, Weide said. While Yahoo’s executives might prefer swallowing a rusty fishhook over acquiescing to Microsoft’s bid, the board is legally obligated to deliver the greatest possible value to shareholders.

Weide believes that the chances of a Time Warner alliance accomplishing that are so remote that a formal offer will not ever appear before the board. However, since Time Warner would only agree to the deal if it had access to the board, Yahoo had to extend next Friday’s nominating deadline to keep the option alive.

A more likely scenario casts the Time Warner talks as a bargaining chip for Yahoo to squeeze more money out of Microsoft. IDC gives a 75 percent probability to the ultimate consummation of the merger, after Microsoft has sweetened the bid.

“What we currently see is the mating dance,” Weide said, adding that a figure of around $35 per share seems a likely compromise. Microsoft’s original offer was $31 per share, though since the value of the half-cash-half-equity bid fluctuates with Microsoft’s stock price, it is now valued at less than $29 per share. Yahoo is believed to be looking for around $40 per share.

In all of its public statements, Microsoft has stuck by its original bid.

Microsoft’s offer gave Yahoo’s stock a tremendous lift following three months of steep decline. In late October, shares of Yahoo reached $33.63; by Jan. 31, Yahoo had fallen to $19.18.

Then the next morning Microsoft announced its bid before the market opened, and the day’s trading vaulted Yahoo to close at $28.38. Last night, Yahoo closed at $28.06.

Further complicating matters is the mounting shareholder discontent: Since Feb. 1, at least seven shareholder groups have brought class-action lawsuits against Yahoo’s board, charging the directors with breaching their fiduciary duty in how they have responded to the bid.

Moving the nominating deadline forward buys Yahoo some time, but not much.

Luckily we only lost a week of posts after www.flashmx2004.com/forums was recently hacked. All the posts were gone one evening, but thank goodness we restored most of them after a day or two. And while we were at it, paid for the latest version of invision power boards (as opposed to continuing on with the freebie version).

Definitely worth it - the forums are much better now, and safer (well, as much as a forum can be). A few bugs are gone, the UI is a bit better.

So…
Back up your forum posts, update your forum software. And, the new version of invision is nice.

Anyway, on with helping people learn Flash!

3D ContentCentral, which is free to registered engineers and designers who use it, lets users share 3D models and 2D drawings with other design teams, regardless of their CAD system. Key enhancements in the 2008 release include:

– Support for more content types, including parts/assemblies for almost all CAD tools, 2D blocks and SolidWorks software macros;

– New community features such as content search, user ratings and tools for requesting content from the community;

– Personalization features allowing users to create areas of their own on the site;

– Improved uploading tools for posting content by dragging and dropping.

3D ContentCentral also offers 3D-enabled catalogs, showcasing everything from sensors to large motors. Engineers can find and configure the part they need from an online catalog and then check the precise form and fit by downloading the model directly into their designs.

The Dow Jones industrials fell more than 120 points after two reports were issued about the housing industry. The Mortgage Bankers Association reported that home foreclosures hit an all-time high in the fourth quarter, while the National Association of Realtors said pending home sales were again sluggish last month.

Credit concerns continued to plague the market after lender Thornburg Mortgage Inc. (NYSE:TMA) and investment management firm Carlyle Capital Corp. (OOTC:CARYF) both said they missed margin calls. Both companies have significant mortgage-backed securities holdings, which has collapsed since the subprime crisis began during the summer.

In midmorning trading, the Dow fell 122.28, or 1.00 percent, to 12,132.71.

Broader indexes also retreated. The Standard & Poor’s (NYSE:MHP) 500 index fell 14.83, or 1.11 percent, to 1,318.87; and the Nasdaq composite shed 12.08, or 0.53 percent, to 2,260.73.