I'm sure that techies are either sneering or crying with laughter at this but consider that my machine came with really excellent documentation and was easy to set up and use 'out-of-the-box'.

You haven't been reading very closely, guest DB. We've also been discussing "out of the box" computers, and they're just fine. That's what my HP is. Compaq is sneered at by techies not because they are picked up in stores, but because for many years Compaq had proprietary BIOS files that only Compaq technicians could adjust. It meant if it needed work or you wanted to add something you had to cough up the bucks to take it to the store or the tech, you COULDN'T do it yourself. I don't know if HP has since phased out those BIOS, I hope they have. I didn't consider Compaq because I had enough choices without having to go do the research on the BIOS thing. They lost some market share with that debacle.

Janie, just this morning there was an email from Outpost.com (the Fry's folks) with a Seagate 300 gig internal hard drive for $89 (limit one per customer). That's the straight price, without a rebate. Like I said, this stuff is getting less expensive all of the time.

And a note for those who pooh pooh mail order: Two years ago we bought the Dell package for the kids, the computer and the free upgrade 17" monitor. The monitor had one problem, there was one pixel that displayed red when the field was black. It was quite noticeable if you had certain backgrounds or had your browser window on it, though it was to the side on the right. We called Dell and asked if there was a way to reset the monitor to clear up this pixel. There wasn't. They replaced the monitor with a new monitor, and when the new one arrived in about six different places it said "Don't return the other monitor." So I took that "defective" one into my office and used it. From a free monitor, I could stand one bonkers pixel.

After the burglary, the insurance company paid for two stolen LCD monitors. It didn't matter what the price on them was, we had two stolen, so two were replaced.

SRS