I will test Seashore. At worst, it can't be less user friendly, and it's not X11 dependent, is it? I mean, it's great that the Gimp team is putting out such a complex and free tool, but every Mac artist I've asked for help has recommended step 1: Stop using Gimp.

eta: Unfortunately I installed Pixelmator but never evaluated it before the demo expired, so I have no idea if it fits my requirements better or not.

'Suela,

I think a hard reset of the device is in order. Then see if it still has problems.

Xplus has a whole suite. DrawPlus. It has brushes and a text tool. Never looked at it so not a rec.

Thanks, le n. I have texted her that information, I guess we'll see what happens.

Pixelmator definitely has a text tool that will let you make some words bold and others italic. I just played with it. It seems like a pretty great program.

You could probably e-mail them and potentially get some extra evaluation time. The software isn't cheap (I got it in one of those big Macrumors bundles with like 15 pieces of software for one price) but it is quite nice.

According to this, though, Acorn's text tools are even nicer. I've never actually used Acorn.

[link]

Acorn looks sweet, but I'd need to work out how to get a demo copy (and actually evaluate this time), because even though it's the cheapest of the ones that site rates, cheap it's not.

Sometime ago someone suggested a router that was not expensive but really a smart router in that it would prioritized low-latency requiring traffic like games or voip. Was it Gudonov or Gris who had a specific make and model.

You're looking for a feature called QOS or Quality of Service and a lot of routers support it these days.

This is the router I have which supports it, isn't very expensive, has gigabit ethernet, and a USB port for attached storage.

[link]

Does anyone use one of the free texting apps? GroupMe, Kik, etc? I'm trying to find ways to reduce my phone bill.