Bonnie, I am not the most knowledgable person about cameras but I work in a store that sells them so I know a few things. A 10 megapixel camera will give you lots of flexiblilty for enlargements and photo editing. For instance, you'll be able to crop out a portion of a picture and enlarge it and still have really good picture quality. Make sure the zoom is "optical" zoom and not "digital" zoom, most cameras now will be. Optical zoom gives you the best picture quality. I like cameras that have a viewfinder. If you do not have a viewfinder and have to depend on the screen only you may find you have glare issues outdoors and it may be hard to see the image you are actually capturing. Consider what kind of batteries it uses. You will find a lot of differences. If it is rechargable, check how it charges. I bought one for my daughter thinking the box included an AC charger and found out it charged through the computer with a USB cable. I ended up buying the AC charger separately. I use a camera that takes AA batteries and that is what I personally prefer. Make sure you get a memory card. The one that comes with the camera will only hold a few pictures. The good news is that most types of memory cards have come way down in price. This is a great time to shop for cameras because most places have them on sale now. I hesitate to recommend a particular brand, I'll leave that to someone else but I checked out one of the new Nikons the other day and was really impressed with the screen clarity. Mine is a Canon Powershot and I really like it, very user friendly. Hope this has helped a little. Mechele

You really have no need of that CD, I never use mine and I am on my 4th camera already. Most programs coming with cameras have limited stuff and loads of company bloat to contend with. Whether you download your pics to the computer using a cable to the camera or use a card reader XP handles it beautifully. A window will pop up after connecting asking if you wish to copy these photos to a folder on your computer. You do. If you are connecting to the camera it must be turned on during the download. It will then tell you how many pics are there and suggest a sub folder inside My pictures, this will have the current date for the folder name but you can change it to your liking. There is also a spot to place a tick to have the computer delete all the photos from your camera memory card once the transfer is complete. On completion you are offered the chance to view your photos in a slide show if you wish. It all works very well really with no need of the CD you have lost.

I personally would say NO. Not knowing this person well is grounds enough to simply say no. She does not know what he may be doing and it seems he is not very forthcoming with info to her as to why and what he expects to accomplish. She should just step away with out full disclosure and even with it I just would not do it. If it is connected to her apt. and her internet she will be the one it will show as the owner and heaven forbid he is involved in something like child porn or other illegal activities she would be involved big time. I see no positives in this for her in any way so why chance it.

Definetly a signal strength problem. In my area the cable co. only gives out HD boxes with a technician visit as they must measure the signal strength at your house to ensure proper service. The meter they use cost's a couple thousand dollars and gives a meausuremnt of the bandwith you are able to receive. (I know this because the installer at my house accidently forgot and left the meter in my basement, he was a nervous wreck when he came back looking for it later that day). You signal problem could be a result of too many splits or poor wiring inside the house or just plain poor signal coming into your house. Things to look for are where and how many splitters are you using? If possible you want the HD box and cable modems to get the top priority. For example in my setup the incoming signal is split three ways one goes to HD box one to cable modem and one feeds a 6 way spiltter for the rest of the house. You need a higher quality RG6 cable if you house is wired with RG59 or low quality RG6 you may not be capable of passing enough bandwith for the HD box. And finally your HD box should have a setup screen that shows the incoming signal strength, talk to a technician and see if they can guide you through checking this out over the phone might be helpful.