Not to argue over the unknown, but I can say from memory support for W98SE was dropped last year, six+ years after W-Whatever, forget its name, and six years after w2K. I don't expect them to drop XP any time soon. I just looked up information on the Dell C521 we purchased in December of 2006, it was under $600 before tax, so less than the subject Gateway of this thread. This Dell had the AMD 64 and 1 GByte of memory, but a much smaller HDD than the subject Gateway. It also has the 5 slot memory card input and a 17" LCD, so that says to me the Gateway price isn't particularly low. And speaking of our Dell and Vista, the Dell came with a "free" upgrade to Vista that had to be exercised by March 31. So, to be safe, and to pay only $10 S&H, I ordered our free upgrade to Vista Premium. I will not be in any hurry to implement it, and will have to see if it comes with a activation time requirement. The only statement this makes to me about upcoming Microsoft policy for XP is they want to get people on Vista so that it will be easier to provide support and to drop XP. Given what I paid for the Dell I can safely assume Dell paid the OEM for Vista and MS give them the XP Media to use until Vista (late as usual for MS) was available. Speaking of MS making money, a neighbor told me today (I have no proof, other than it sounds like the action of those who are paid way TOO much), the number 2 an MS, I forget his name, just had the largest private yacht in the world built for him, $400 million, don't remember the length but think it is several hundred feet, a crew of 65 (suppose some of them are off while others are on duty, not all on the ship at the same time), and an operating cost of 20 Million. So, MS clearly has to worry about making money off the Vista right away otherwise the top officers will not be able to buy a fleet of yachts next year.

I'd suggest Walmart. Some pretty decent utilitarian models there to be had for about 400 dollars. I just got a 1 terabyte external storage drive on Amazon for 99 dollars. I had to return the first one as defective. A week later I noticed a 79 dollar Toshiba 1TB drive at walmart. I should have checked there first. I also got a 16gb usb drive at walmart for 9.95 that day. For computer nuts and bolts basics walmart's not bad. And the returns are so much easier than the web. The way I've been computer shopping for the last 13 years is to spend 1000 dollars every five to six years. That's the sweet spot for my needs. It's astonishing how much more you get each year for the same dollar spent. I do some CAD and quite a bit of HTPC (home theater PC) so 1000 dollars is about the ball park for me and I'm due to upgrade in a couple of years. Your description sounds like 300 to 400 would give you something more than adequate for your needs. Don't let sales people or computer "enthusiasts" talk you up in price or needs. If your needs are simple, you'll discover that todays entry level machines can do extraordinary things. One caveat to that is speed and storage capacity. Obsolescence can sneak up on you when connectivity and web content continues to get more labor intensive for the CPU. My 10 year old Toshiba was retired to the family den for light browsing and email use, and I finally upgraded the harddrive to 40gb as an absolute minimum requirement for today's browsers, utilities, and common programs. It runs like the day I bought it, but that's saying that it generally just can't keep up any more when web connected. I'd call it a "dial up" class notebook. Most laptops in your price range will be set up adequately for today's needs. But if it comes down to A vs B at similar price, look closely at the quality and speed of the central processor and the storage capacity of the drive. They're the best indicators of future proofing a computer. You also might want to ask around among people you know who own Apple computers. Asking such a question on the web is just an invitation to information overload. But odds are good that someone you know uses an Apple and they may be a good source of encouragement or discouragement. My hunch however is that if you aren't excessively into social media like facebook and others, wireless file transfers, printing, and connectivity with cell phones, automobiles, etc,etc (good lord) all the latest gadgets and utilities, etc ,etc, a PC would be the more user friendly for you as a basic computing tool.

I've never seen a surge strip without a ground. If you could find an old 2-pin plug strip, you could make one with an MOV, but why bother? That's effectively what you have anyway when you plug a 3-pin one into your current receptacle. An ungrounded surge strip provides some measure of protection from surges and lightning, but not nearly as much as a properly grounded one. As for your DSL friend working on your wiring - I recommend saying "no thanks." In most cities, it is not legal for an unlicensed person to work on your wiring, with one exception - YOU are permitted to do so, *if* you own the home, and *if* you obtain a permit from the city's building department. I was going to recommend that you install a GFI yourself - the only installation differences between "with a ground" and "without a ground" is that without a ground you simply don't connect anything to the ground terminal, and on the GFI face you stick a label that says "no equipment ground." But then I looked again at the photo you posted. It's tough to be sure, but the junction box your recept is in doesn't look very generous in size. It might be OK, but I'm a bit concerned that you might have a tough time fitting a GFI in there. I'd hate to have you start the job and not be able to finish it. So, if you really want a GFI, you can do two things: 1) Hire an electrician to install a GFI. 2) Buy a plug-in GFI adapter from the hardware store. But I'm not so sure a GFI is what you really want. I'm getting a sense that you think having a ground is helpful for reducing radiation exposure. I don't know if that's so; it's not my area of expertise. However, note that while a GFI will provide protection from electrical shock, and that's a very good thing, it won't provide a ground. In order to get a proper and safe ground, you'll have to have a new receptacle installed, with a homerun directly back to the house's main panel (breaker or fuse box). My guess is that your friend who can "ground your outlet" is talking about either "bootlegging" a ground, or running a separate ground wire back to the main panel. The first is dangerous. The second is so much work that you might as well go ahead and do it right, installing a new cable run and a new receptacle. Unless you have the time, skills, and inclination to study up on the techniques of home wiring, that's most likely a job for a pro. FWIW, I bought my first home computer in 1984. I was living in a late-1950s home where the only grounded receptacles were in the kitchen and garage. I didn't want my $2000 system destroyed by lightning or power surges, so I did as I described above - installed a new, properly grounded receptacle for the computer with a home run back to the main panel. That's what I recommend for you.

I guess I'm a sentimental old fool (at 53, LOL). Here is my experience... I have a few picture books printed online and they are great. However, IMHO, they can't compare to actual printed (or developed) pictures. I was tasked with writing a biography of my M&D's life, and believe me, it wasn't short! To do this I used verbal accounts from my M&D; a few thousand slides from my M&D, GP's and Great A&U; hundreds of photographs; my Great Aunt's daily journals; and tape recordings we sent from overseas to my GPs'. I digitized and transcribed almost all of it. Even though the slides were decades old, the digital quality was amazing. The scanned photographs, even the old, old, B&W's, were generally good quality. I only used a few pictures that were taken with a digital camera. The best part of the whole process was the obvious telling of their life story by my parents to me. As an adult you hear stories you weren't aware of as a child or wouldn't have been privileged to. The second best was handling the old photographs. Actually feeling them in my hands, turning them over to see if there was any writing on them, thinking of all those who had looked at them before me. Right up with this feeling was the handling of letters and my Aunt's journals. It's as if I could re-touch family members deceased through the pictures, letters, and journals. The nostalgia cloaked me with love when sifting through the pictures, holding each one in my hand and remembering. The biography is now complete and published. It's an amazing story and there are pictures, journal excerpts, and even conversations from the tapes that were transcribed (like when my sister was born and my Dad got the other four kids' reactions and my Mom talked to my Grandparents right after the birth). This is a long winded way to say that I prefer, much prefer, holding and looking through actual photographs to looking at the pictures printed in a book. If they are in a photo album, you can still take them out, look at the back, handle them, scan them, kiss the faces of your loved ones, hold them next to your heart. It's just not quite the same, for me, when it's a picture printed on a page of a book.