Thank you both for those comments. I have a question for both of you:

Matthias - I made your changes by replacing the LOGIN and USER lines with the lines you suggested which were:
< dnn:LOGIN runat="server" id="dnnLOGIN" cssclass="LoginTokens" />
< dnn:USER runat="server" id="dnnUSER" cssclass="LoginTokens" />
This worked and got rid of the avatar and the message and notification links. However, it changed the format of the username display and the Login button -- they are positioned in the top of the box and not quite aligned properly. I can live with this issue but I was wondering if it is possible to center them a bit better by adding any code.

Cathal -- Which file can I find the ShowUnreadMessages and ShowAvatar properties in? They do not appear in the .ascx file that the above code came from and they are not in the skin.css file. I tried looking in some of the login.ascx and user.ascx files and I can't seem to come across them. I think that simply switching both of these properties off should do the trick as well.

hello,

they are optional properties of the user skin object so you can add them in the declaration e.g.

< dnn:USER runat="server" id="dnnUSER" cssclass="LoginTokens" ShowUnreadMessages="false" ShowAvatar="false" />

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Thanks Cathal and Matthias. That was exactly what the doctor ordered.

< dnn:USER runat="server" id="dnnUSER" cssclass="LoginTokens" ShowUnreadMessages="false" ShowAvatar="false" />

^ Worked beautifully

And thanks to the core team for thinking ahead and adding those attributes.

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-something clever or funny.