I had never heard of .art but then I have never had anything to do with AOL either, learn something new every day! From that article this seems to be the key cure. It can be turned off!! To turn it off, launch AOL. This can be done on-line or off-line. Click on My AOL, then choose Preferences, then choose WWW. There you will find three choices for graphics; No graphics, Compressed graphics, Uncompressed graphics. Choose the Uncompressed graphics. Now the whole problem of the .art files will be gone. If you download a GIF or a JPG image, it will be on your hard drive as the GIF or JPG image, and be readable and usable in the normal fashion. I am hooked on using imageshack, they have some great extensions and add ons which make saving pictures to my imageshack account so easy. I love the imageshack extension for firefox, it allows you to just right click on any picture and from the list there is now an option to save to imageshack, voila it goes right to my imageshack account. they also have a great tool you can add to windows, any picture on your pc you can right click on and there will be a menu item upload to Imageshack, voila the picture is sent from my pc directly to my imageshack account. It has been a great help to novice pc users since it makes it so easy to deal with pictures. http://reg.imageshack.us/content.php?page=features the FAQ has a lot of info another great site I love is www.zamzar.com you can use it to change just about any type file to some other file type.

Have you tried this? Go to the Start - Control Panel - Add Hardware and see where it takes you. The first point it makes is to use a manufacturer's CD for installing rather than Windows' Add Hardware Wizard. It is also the path to trouble-shoot hardware.

Yes, I work for a school district and the superintendent sends these files to all of us periodically. I have gotten the information second hand so far. (I suggested that he just put the news in the body of the e-mail, rather than in a separate file, but he doesn't want to.) Thanks for realizing that it could have been dangerous.

Well, I'm having to do a rethink because even though it is very 60s to serve both crab and ham in the same meal, and if I'm flaunting dietary laws why not really "go for it" (she says jokingly) I think it is a little rich and unnecessary. Oldsters don't eat that much . . . I love the idea of using the salmon mold at a party like that, gonna save that idea, but maybe not this one, kinda using this one as an excuse to clear out some stuff in the freezer . . . I cannot wait to throw more porch parties though . . . sigh. Hubs and I are right in the middle of a major backyard deck/porch landscape redo. Gonna take us most of the summer before totally done . . . sigh . . . Of course now I want to have grilled bacon, asparagus and cheese sandwiches . . . but will save that for the family, I kind of want this luncheon to be all prepared ahead . . . but I have asparagus in the fridge NOW so it may soon go on the rotation. If I didn't also have kale languishing it would be tonight . . . ! Hubs wants pizza tomorrow night, wondering how that would all fly as a pizza topping--bacon, asparagus and cheese pizza . . . I might throw some spinach into the mix. Hubs will hate it because it is not traditional. Thankfully my pizza recipe makes two crusts so I make one fun one for me and one with cheese and sausage for him . . . Meanwhile, I think I may still keep the marinated asparagus for the luncheon, or any other marinated vegetable that is in season, and ditch the crab. MTN is right, crab needs to be the star and I'm not quite into that for this particular meal. I'm thinking just marinated chopped salad featuring asparagus, maybe cherry toms, scallions, or radishes, something springy. Maybe toss in a few white beans, keeping it Frenchy. I pulled out a hunk o' ham from the freezer to experiment on, see how it fares plain in a sandwich or make a ham salad . . . but while I was in the freezer I noticed I had puff pastry cups in there. Never did use them . . . thinking I could make shrimp Orleans served in the pastry cups for the main dish and forgo the rich potato salad. I have an old recipe of my Mom's for that too, she put it in a community cookbook back in 1961, two years after she was married and I was born. I have no idea if she ever made the dish, I certainly didn't remember her making it when I was growing up but my uber picky Dad soon took all the joy out of my mother's cooking attempts so I'm not surprised. Her only consolation prize was that she and I shared a love of all the foods my picky Dad and brother turned their noses up at.