The email might not be the best option, depending on your connection. If you reduce the file size of the picture, you reduce the quality of the image. They have really inexpensive USB drives out now. I bought a 1GB drive for $14. You just drag your pictures over until it is full, then drag them into your MyPictures folder on your new computer. It is reusable - just delete them off after you have them transfered and do it again until you are finished. A CD will hold less than a 1GB USB drive. Large USB drives are available. Hopefully you don't have thousands of pictures on your computer - I have 10's of thousands! Make sure you learn how to use your burner and back up your photos soon - hard drives fail, no matter how new the machine - you are on borrowed time if you do not backup your pictures, and it only takes a few minutes.

what version of windows do you have on that pc? is it xp or vista or windows 7? knowing which will help me give the right directions. You can go ahead and try this go to your Control Panel, and open up ''Sounds and audio devices'', under the ''Volume'' tab, check the box next to where it says ''Place volume icon in the taskbar'',click ''Apply/OK'' and your volume icon should be back in the Notification area near your clock. You can also try right clicking on the Start Button and choosing "Properties". On the Taskbar Tab, check the box that says "Hide Inactive Icons", but choose "Customize." Find the volume icon and change the display settings to "Always Show" If that does not work then you likely have a corrupt Sndvol32 file and will need to replace it. Let me know how the first instructions work.

By open, I meant...open to opinions of others. By repeating the same comments, you imply that anyone who does something differently from what you do is wrong and or making a mistake. When an actual Chromebook owner spoke of having a positive experience, you responded by saying "I would never have one". I'm not sure why you find it necessary to be so contrary but that's YOU berating others. I think it's nice that you help others. I hope you continue to do so whether here or elsewhere, but that's not a license for being narrow minded with the advice you give.

The sound quality of a particular source is not something that's subjective in any way. There's nothing about a digital copy of a recording that compromises the sound source. In fact, it's the opposite, a high percentage of today's recorded music is done (at the studio level) ultimately in digital form. Though it may pass through analog equipment, thought to give warmth to the sound, along the way. The problem is with CDs and other formats. A CD has a limited amount of memory space. When the CD standard was set back at the dawn of time, it was decided to fix the bit and sampling rates at a point that would allow about 70 minutes of content. To get there requires "mastering" and down-sampling of that leaves more than half of the sound content behind. The bit rate standard is about 1400 bits per second, that's what's needed to fit within the capacity of the memory to reach 70 minutes. MP3s and MP4s (the Apple equivalent) take that already compromised sample and reduce it further with compression and further down-sampling - the top MP3 or equiv rate is about 320bps. Streaming music is usually at 128bps or less. Less than 25% of the original source content, if made from a CD, which itself is already a compromised source. . Analog sources have more capacity and so more of the master is present in a vinyl record. There a comparison with digital photography. A commercial photographer, or indeed even a photographer hired to take pictures at a wedding or other social function, will use one of several RAW formats for images. A typical image might be 50 million bits - 50 Mbs for each picture, or larger. For a family event, some of the RAWs I got approached 100Mb. Someone standing next to the photographer taking the same scene with a point and shoot camera or smartphone is going to have a file of 5-10Mbs, max. How could that be? Because the common jpg or gif formats sample, compress and downsize the image to produce a smaller file. Does it matter? Sure. You can produce large images/large print sizes with a RAW file. Any image from a RAW within a relevant range will be quite clear and sharp. With a jpg or gif, as images get much above a compact size, the image will become blurry because of the missing "data" from the image.