How to stop the !New icon from appearing in SharePoint Lists

I had this weird requirement from my client to remove the !New icon when a new document or item is added to a list.I followed these steps also outlined in the Microsoft support blog:

To stop the !New tag from appearing for new entries on your Windows SharePoint Services Web site, follow these steps, as appropriate for your version of SharePoint Services.
-Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Web site
To stop the !New tag from appearing next to new entries on a Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Web site, use the Stsadm.exe tool to change the "Days to Show New Icon" property to zero.

To do this, follow these steps:
1)Click Start, point to All Programs, point to Accessories, and then click Command Prompt.
2)Type the following commands, and then press ENTER after each command:
cd /d %programfiles%\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\12\BIN
stsadm.exe -o setproperty -pn days-to-show-new-icon -pv 0 -url [Your Virtual Server's URL]

-Windows SharePoint Services Web site
To stop the !New tag from appearing next to new entries on a Windows SharePoint Services Web site, use the Stsadm.exe tool to change the "Days to Show New Icon" property to zero.

-To do this, follow these steps:
Click Start, point to All Programs, point to Accessories, and then click Command Prompt.
Type the following commands, and then press ENTER after each command:
cd /d %programfiles%\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\60\BIN
stsadm.exe -o setproperty -pn days-to-show-new-icon -pv 0 -url [Your Virtual Server's URL]

-SharePoint Team Services Web site
To stop the !New tag from appearing next to new entries on a SharePoint Team Services Web site, use the Owsadm.exe tool to change the "New Item Display Cutoff" property to zero.

To do this, follow these steps:
Click Start, point to All Programs, point to Accessories, and then click Command Prompt.
Type the following commands, and then press ENTER after each command:
cd /d %programfiles%\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\50\BIN
owsadm.exe -o setproperty -pn NewItemDisplayCutoff -pv 0 -p [Your Virtual Server's Port]

Setting up User Accounts in SharePoint 2007 :Useful Tips to share

• A few years back,I was not sure of how User Accounts in SharePoint 2007 should be set up.
  Here is an useful extract I found to guide me:
  If you are installing SharePoint properly, you'll use the 'least privilege account principle'; this basically means that each distinct service inside the SharePoint farm will have its own domain user account. These accounts should have the minimum privileges that they need to perform their jobs. There is a great document which goes into detail on each different account (8+ accounts) here, however in summary, you should have the following accounts:
• SQL Server Service Account: Account used by SQL to run all SQL services
• Server Farm Account
• SSP Service Account
• Office SharePoint Server Search Account
• Default Content Access Account
• User Profile and Properties Content Access Account
• Excel Services Unattended Account
• One account per application pool: This is typically three accounts; SSPAdministration, MySite and your main 'Portal' or 'Intranet'.

For more information refer to this
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc263445.aspx