Seeing as everyone else has already listed most of the other ways to say not equal I will just add:
if not (1) == (1): # This will eval true then false
# (ie: 1 == 1 is true but the opposite(not) is false)
print "the world is ending" # This will only run on a if true
elif (1+1) != (2): #second if
print "the world is ending"
# This will only run if the first if is false and the second if is true
else: # this will only run if the if both if's are false
print "you are good for another day"
in this case it is simple switching the check of positive == (true) to negative and vise versa...