AVG highly recommended. Brenda m, I know it's absolutely none of my business... but I recommend you invest half an hour installing AVG at some point. It's free. If you're using Windows and you haven't got any anti-virus software installed, you've probably already got something on there. Which isn't a problem, but if you shop online it can be troublesome.

Oh, you're not wrong. I do use Spybot and AdAware and a firewall, but I'll add this as soon as my machine is running again. (Blown power cable, not already hoist on my lazy petard, FTR.)

DXM - well am I mixing it up? Might it be Foldershare and AVG? There was a crucial program that I couldn't use because of AVG.

Not sure. Antivirus programs can occasionally flag valid software as viruses, which is why a lot of programs tell you to turn off antivirus software during installation. I just haven't seen it with BT. Is it possible you had a trial version of one of AVG's pay products one that had firewall and/or spyware features? I know Grisoft makes it hard to find the free version sometimes.

Here is a link with quick reviews of three different free antivirus products, AVG, Avast, and ClamWin: [link]

I just bought a new MacBook. After a series of problems with MacBook Pro and a discontinued AppleCare (due to my computer having both liquid AND extreme accidental damage. Oops.) it stopped accepting power today. So I bit the bullet.

The new Macbook is smaller, lighter, faster, and has twice the hard disk space of my old computer. I can handle this.

t insert inevitable MacBook question from Daniel

So, whatcha doing with your old one?

t /inevitable MacBook question from Daniel

Hmm. I'm wondering about an iTunes server--what does that do to synching iPods? Do you have to connect the iPod to the server itself?

if you use a program like webdrive, it can load your server as another disk...

Well, since it's a machine on my internal network, mounting a drive should be little problem at all. I just want to be able to present the same iTunes library intelligently to my PC and my PowerBook, but now I wonder where I plug the hardware in to synchronise.

Daniel - I have a couple of old laptops - one is OOOOOOOLLLLLLLLDDDDDDDDDDD...like Compaq, portable computer old. Do you want items like that too?

So, whatcha doing with your old one?

Stripping out the hard drive and extra RAM, but I don't have much need for the other parts. I could send it along. E-mail me, profile addy's fine. There's not a whole lot usable in it, though - the DVD drive gave me big troubles the last couple of times I tried to use it, the display has a weird burn-in right in the middle of the screen, and the X key and the left control, alt, and command keys are all ded from red wine. And, as mentioned, it seems to be having sudden power issues. The fans are probably good, though, as I replaced them both within the last month.

ita - I think it whether you can revert to XP for free depends on version of Vista - Vista Ultimate or Vista Business, but not Vista Home.