Chuck, A word about daughters and computers. Partway through my daughter's college career, we got her an iBook. Being typical of her generation, she stuffed the thing to the gills with videos, awful music and various pointless utilities. After a couple of years, the thing began crashing frequently. I applied all of my diagnostics, spending hours with the thing, and eventually came to believe that it had a cracked motherboard. I local service shop came to the same conclusion. I 'bought' the computer from her (gee, didn't I buy it FOR her) for a few hundred bucks and she bought another computer. It seemed pretty obvious that she'd slammed the thing around going between classes and wherever. After the computer became 'mine' I said, what the hey, let's try and get some use out of it. I wiped the drive (again) and installed just a few things I would use on a laptop. I didn't re-install any of her software. Two years later, the thing still works. Hasn't crashed a single time. I guess the point is that young folks (and perhaps a few old ones) are awfully trusting of just about any piece of junk software recommended by a friend. Aside from the obvious viral risks, there's just plain poorly written crap that extends the system and makes in unstable in many ways. The only solution is extremely drastic surgery. If you eventually give this thing to your daughter, just make sure that the rest of your home network is firewall protected--not just from the outside world, but from her. The underground lead-lined room is an option you might consider. Michael On May 13, 2007, at 8:19 PM, Chuck Hards wrote:
Ann, I'm almost positive that it's some setting on my computer since it doesn't happen on my (much better) office machine. I share this computer with my teenage daughter and am sure we're exposed to all kinds of junk from Websites she visits. She's also filled up incredibe amounts of memory with songs and photos- so much so that I'm about to just give her this computer and get a new one for myself.