I've got four Toshiba laptops of various vintages (One of them is a tablet) and they've all been nice and reliable.

The Leonovo's are what IBM Thinkpads are now called and they have an excellent reputation as well. Many businesses prefer them.

PM, your recommendations are sound, but that's kind of where my frustration is. I'm used to diving in and using my computer without needing to constantly seek help. I'm not a luddite. I shouldn't have to mess around like this.

Outlook 2007 is so bad that it is unusable when I'm not in safe mode. And I'm not using Outlook to access email (only my calendar and notes).

So the slowness bothers me with some apps. I also hate how the menus changed for Excel and Word 2007. That was a terrible mistake that I wish Microsoft could redo.

New update:

I swapped out my graphics card for the one that came with the computer, and it's working fine. That's a bummer. And I just checked the hardware profile, and the computer automatically detected that I'd switched cards, and loaded the drivers for the right card. It knows there's a GeForce2 MX 400 in there now.

And when I looked at the device manager in safe mode with the other card in, the profile showed the GeForce FX 5200.

So, the computer can tell which card is which. At this point, I think I'll try putting the 5200 back in and see what happens, but the nicer 5200, that I spent good money on, may be fried. Feh.

I bought a Toshiba Satellite Pro 620Cd at a garage sale for $9 once.

It needed a hard drive and a keyboard, but it worked the last time I fired it up.

I may cannibalize it for a video picture frame.

Help!

I just bought a tivo and spent all afternoon on the phone with the tivo folks and it's still not working and I'm frustrated and confused.

It's supposed to be a dual drive tivo but it can't "see" both the analog and the digital cable stations. The tivo people suggested that I call comcast and find out if I have a purely digital lineup. Comcast says no and I think that tivo and comcast may mean different things by "purely digital lineup." For example - I can set it up so that I get analog cable on my tv or I can get it all on digital. The tivo is set up the way they wanted me to get both but it can't "see" the analog. Any hints?

Vista question in regards to scrolling through My Pictures:

I've always hated using the picture viewer that came with my digital camera, or any digital camera for that matter, so I've always sorted through them in C:/Julieanne/My Pictures. But with Vista I don't get mini versions of the photos for the thumbnails. I only get a generic picture. Which means I have to go through the pictures one by one, in chronological order. I searched the settings to see if something was switched off. Am I missing something, or am I just screwed (having to resort to the viewer that came with the camera or stuck with the drudgery I am dealing with now)?

I'm digging through five years of trigger-happy garden pictures, and there's other crap mixed in, and it's taking waaaay too long. And it's for my prospective new boss so he can show off the best pictures to the rest of the staff and make them love me and give me lots of money so I can afford to live in NJ. My future may depend on these photos. /melodramatic

sumi, I can't help you. there are good tivo help forums over on tivo that might be helpful to you.

Julie,

open up the folder with the pictures, then right-click in an empty space. You should see View and select how you want to view the items.

I did that, and I get lots of options, but the only thumbnails, Large Icons, Small Icons, Tiled Icons, etc., are of a mountain range over a lake. No actual pictures. Maybe something is missing from the basic function of my computer? As far I can remember, when I got my new laptop the pictures have always been like this, hence why I thought perhaps it was a Vista thing. Grrr.

Julie, scroll over the pictures. I did that with the pics for the wallpaper (which were installed), and once I scrolled over them, they started to appear.