Sometimes when I turn on my computer (Dell XPS), the BIOS doesn't kick in and I get a flashing cursor in the upper left hand corner. The system just hangs there and if I hit the power button, it immediately shuts off. Usually when I power it back on, it loads correctly. Any ideas as to why it doesn't always boot up correctly?

Pull the button battery out of your motherboard (this will reset the cmos, btw) and use a voltmeter to check its strength. If it's less than 3 volts, replace it.

SeanK, you might try this, too. Cheaper than replacing motherboards.

Thanks, Daniel.

Now, can someone tell me why, on my Mac, in Firefox, hitting the Tab key from this posting box does not highlight the Post Message button? Because I've now lost about fifty-seven posts by hitting Tab - Enter, which does not do what I expect it to do.

On the Mac, instead of highlighting the button, then activating it, it jumps to the next text box (the search thread field), and hitting enter runs the search query.

Is that something native to Macs? Is it something I can change? Because it's causing me to want to drop kick the machine.

Which would hurt my foot a lot.

Sean, I think it's a bug or something. I don't know. If I weren't so stubborn, I'd have left Firefox for the Mac ages ago. It's less stable than S3 Faith.

I suggest, umm, Opera or Safari. Though I haven't checked tab+enter on them, because I never use it anyhow.

Is it something I can change?

If someone has the answer to this, I'd love to know it -- I'm not sure if the inability to tab into non-text fields (like the Post button, and drop-down menus on other sites) is a Mac thing or a Mac/Firefox thing. (I suppose I could test it with Safari right now, but that would be too easy. Plus, I'm supposed to be on my way out the door to go grocery shopping.)

Sean, in Safari, hitting tab from the posting box *does* jump it to the Post Message button. Do you have Safari installed/are you willing to switch?

(I suppose I could test it with Safari right now, but that would be too easy. Plus, I'm supposed to be on my way out the door to go grocery shopping.)

HEE!

Okay, that's the part of my message I *didn't* post. But both are true here, too. (I should really finish getting ready so we can get the groceries before lunchtime.)

I *do* have Safari. I'd just installed Firefox because Gmail didn't like Safari (and I hadn't gotten my lazy ass around to trying to download Opera for the Mac).

Okay. I can post from Safari and read Gmail from something else. That's fine. Thanks, Steph!

Huh. I have no problem with Gmail in Safari. Unless there's some cool feature I'm missing out on.

What version of Safari do you have?