many thanks to both of you--it's now clear as a lightbulb!!! makes a lot of sense. as a follow-up question to your under-$600 computer quality comment, Reaper: does the following sound bad to you? (i say that with a tinge of sarcasm): 1) a 15.4" Acer Aspire (5100series) with an AMD Athlon64x2, weighing in at 6.2lbs, 1600MHz bus, 1GB RAM expandable to 4GB, and a 160GB harddrive for $530 (with a printer, router, and anti-virus software thrown in) 2) a 15.4" Compaq Presario (F572 series) also with an AMD Athlon 64x2, weighing in at 6.6 lbs (on the heavy side), 1600MHz bus, 1GB of RAM expandable to 2GB, with 80GB harddrive (small, but so's the price), @ $450? On the real, they both actually seem like decent deals to me--obviously the slightly more expensive one is superior to the Compaq bc of the HDD size and expandable RAM, even if it IS an Acer.... But would you say that Compaq's tend to be a better buy than Acers? Ive heard rumors that Acers have a high breakdown rate. (And I'll have an external harddrive for most of my s**t anyway, so I won't need to burden my [potential] Compaq with it...) Let me know what y'all think-- peace & blessin's N