I can't answer some of the Parallels questions, but I have Parallels 4 and I like it a lot better than 3.

The only Mac software I have is Photoshop Elements.

The big monitor has definitely spoiled me. My new spoiling technology is the combination of 8Gbs of RAM and an SSD drive. Most applications don't load, they are just there. I click on my 250 page Word document and Word is started and ready to edit the document in about a second. I've also taken to turning off my computer most of the time because it boots in less than a minute (from pressing the power button, not after posting)

Have you tried using virtual machines?

I have used them but much of the software I use doesn't play well with virtual machines since it involves communicating with audio hardware. Many of the drivers just crash and burn trying to communicate with a professional audio interface through the driver layers involved in a virtual machine. I also find that virtual machines can add an unpredictable amount of latency which is also a deal breaker for me.

Oh, that all makes sense.

My photography teacher back in the '80s took out a small business loan to get her Hasselblad.

Last night, My main PC crashed hard. It wouldn't boot into Windows (I'd get the starting Windows screen, but then it would reboot itself), and when I tried to use diagnostic software by booting off a CD, it wouldn't recognize ANY of my three physical hard drives (one for system/program files and two for data). I was terrified that I'd lost everything, because, of course, the last time I backed up was over a year ago. After a poor night's sleep, I mounted the two data drives in another PC and, to my great relief, they seem to be OK. I'm backing them up as I write this. I'm a bit a-sceered to check the system drive. I had actually tried to image it earlier this week, but Ghost kept having problems doing it. I suppose that should have been a tip-off right there.

Moral: Back up regularly!

Jon, have you checked the motherboard battery?

That would never even have occurred to me, Daniel. The computer seems to work OK when I boot off a CD. Would that happen if the battery was weak?

Various things can happen with a weak motherboard battery. Often it's video or drive related in my experience.

It really all depends on the motherboard manufacturer, I have had problems from Asus to Apple.

If yous uses a standard nickle-sized button battery, it might be worth it to try a new one.

So I shouldn't get any motherboards from the beginning of the alphabet. I'll start with Biostar.