That sucks, Jess. The only reason I even cared about getting my all-in-one to work wirelessly from S's laptop was because she needs to not ever have to worry about error messages or unplugging and replugging cables. For just me, I don't care. For S, if Brother didn't have working drivers for Leopard, I think I would have been looking for a new printer (though we can't afford on right now).

Now I'm all confused again, and will probably not actually buy anything until the summer!

Jesse, more memory is more important to you than pretty much anything else, especially since you won't be using the machine for much. It's better to either spend a little more money to get 2GB of RAM vs. 1GB of RAM, or to buy memory and upgrade it yourself.

Tiny differences in processor speed will probably not affect you. I don't know how important the hard drive space is.

Hard drive space is not that important. It's just, I started looking at other brands and other stores and got overwhelmed with the options. The stupidest reason to be overwhelmed? If I do get that one from Circuit City, I could apparently get a free printer, but then I have to remember to do the rebate form and figure out where to put the printer and how to arrange the cables and and and.

Even though I've spent hours and hours configuring it so far, and that I will lose certain pre-installed apps, I'm tempted to go back to XP just so I can have my software back again. I can't find Vista-ready versions of all of it, stuff I've already paid good money for.

Do some research before you downgrade. I recently bought an Acer Extensa 5220 laptop b/c it was so cheap (after a "cashback" deal it's only $547). It came with Vista Home Basic pre-installed but it was a bad joke. The laptop hardware was woefully inadequate, and that was after I'd added an extra 512mb of RAM. Fortunately, the Acer site also had XP versions of most of the drivers but to get XP to install, I had to create an new installation disc that slipstreamed the SATA controller drivers using nLite. I was having no luck finding that driver, until I realised I could get it via a discussion thread found when I clicked a link in the "help" of the Driver Integration section of nLite.

An iTunish thing is only necessary for playback on the linux box, or for syncing

So you have to sync from the server, then? That makes the whole thing remarkably less attractive. I want the server to be headless, never mind plugging and unplugging peripherals into it.

Now I'm sad.

I just upgraded to Windows Media Player 11 against my better judgment. Is there any way to A) change the file type icon back to what it used to be and not this ugly, generic piece of shit or B) make it go to the "Now Playing" tab by default rather than "Library" (and even better, have the last thing I played loaded in the window like WMP 10 did)?? God, what an "improvement."

I used to store my iTunes files on a remote drive with no problems. The iTunes XML file was stored locally but all the media files were on a remote drive. You can even do the XML file remotely using an aliased iTunes directory.

I used to store my iTunes files on a remote drive with no problems. The iTunes XML file was stored locally but all the media files were on a remote drive. You can even do the XML file remotely using an aliased iTunes directory.

It's a bit of a cheat, but I could do that. Use my PC's iTunes to sync, but have that library be on the Linux box, and the Firefly server pointing at those MP3s.

Cool. Thanks for the ideas.

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

I'm mostly trying to update my knowledgebase, and get some hands on tinkering. Basically laptops of this century with a particular interest in dead Powerbooks and MacBooks of the last several years. Not ruling out windows machines, though.

I used to tinker with full sized computers, now it's time to face the portable present.

That and they're easier to hide when company comes.