Every two years I upgrade my computer. The last two times pretty much ended up being total replacements. This year I'm actually going to keep my two year old motherboard, my two year old memory, and my almost two year old video card.

I've already upgraded the processor from an E4500 2.2 Ghz Core 2 Duo to a Q9550 2.8 Ghz Core 2 Quad. I'm going to double the RAM to 8Gb, and remove my two oldest hard drives. Instead of a 250 GB, 320 GB, and 1.5 TB drive I'll go to an 80GB Intel SSD for a system drive and then keep the 1.5 TB drive. I'll do all the shifting around when my pre-ordered Windows 7 upgrade arrives since I'll be reinstalling from my Windows 7 RC version anyway. Windows XP will vanish as a boot option, though I will retain Ubuntu on a partition since there are things I need Ubuntu for.

It's exciting to actually reuse some major components. It seems like computer hardware advancements have slowed down. I'm kind of surprised that my video card from 2007, an 8800GT, still holds up really well today even though it was a mid-range card back then.

I would think Word 7 would be less crazy, but I don't know how much the new format, docx, has impacted how documents represented internally. I worked on a viewer for the .doc format and it is a weird and complicated format; I can really understand how formatting could go seriously wacky with that format.

The idea of building a Windows computer from scratch appeals to me. But I'm trying to cut down on the number of computers I own, so I'm trying to make do with running XP on a virtual machine (currently with VMware) on my MacBook Pro. It seems adequate when I run Gratuitous Space Battles, which is my XP app with the heaviest graphics demands.

It's kinda fun to build the system. It's also just getting cheaper to build a really fast system.

I bought a used trackpad from a store (laptop_motherboards) on ebay to replace the one in Andi's Powerbook, and it turned out to be from a 15 inch Powerbook, not a 17 inch one; too narrow.

I emailed the seller to the email address from which he had said it was from a 17 inch and 16 hours later I have a full refund through ebay.

It wasn't much money, but he refunded my postage, too.

What do people recommend in the land of GPS systems? My family seems to like Magellan.

My first one was a Garmin eTrex Legend , and after seven years it still works fine, but a little over a year ago I got a Garmin nüvi 260w -- much bigger display, brighter screen, colors, sound. A good size for the car, but also just right for in your hand (geocaching, anyone?) or in your pocket.

See also the lower left corner of the windshield here.

I've got an older TomTom that badly needs some updated maps. You can set it to announce the names of roads and so on, which helps at least to remind me that turns are coming up and so on.

I recommend you not let your father download the John Cleese voice for the unit because he'll play it at you all the time. Also I recommend you remind him that when he gets to the destination he should get out of the car and come inside even if the unit doesn't tell him to.

Oh, wait, that's probably not the type of recommendations you were looking for. Still, those are the kind of warnings they won't tell you on the box.

FWIW, my Mom ended up giving me back the GPS -- it was my present to her -- because she found it more confusing when there was a voice talking to her while she was trying to drive. (She was a spritely 85 then).

(In vain I pointed out that you can turn the voice off. Ah well.)