Some people will print to an image file and then color it in photoshop. Some will then use one of the effects such as "watercolor" to loosen the rendering up a bit. I don't color render very often. When I do it is usually for a commercial project that is not overly detailed with landscape plants. What I do is to take my plant blocks used in the drawing and re-insert them into the drawing at a scale of one. I snap a line to the insertiom point of the block and then explode the block. Then I draw a circle around the outline of the plant on its own layer. I copy the circle twice, placing one so the center is slightly up to the left of the center of the original and one slightly down to the right. I trim the part of the upper right circle which goes outside of the one that fits the plant symbol. I also trim the part of the lower right circle that is inside of the plant circle. That gives me three areas to color with solid hatching. I do light, shade,& shadow. Then use the drawing order command to push them behind the linework of the symbol. Then I redefine the block and it changes all of them in the drawing to have the color.You can freeze the color layers if you want to print just the line work. Then I solid hatch other areas being careful to manage the drawing order to keep linework on top. (sorry about the blue linework, it is usually black, but I was in a hurry - this one is also done with the shadow to the lower left and I described it to the lower right)

You are probably right about ME but whatever the reason it was a major headache. We kept 98 on our old computer until its demise a few years ago. Our other computer was 2000 and I didn't upgrade until XP2. For a non-tech, my workday is spent on my computer. I don't have time, nor knowledge to spend getting my computer to work nice with my software and settings, nor the funds to hire a tech. It took many hours to get everything working the way I needed and wanted. When I sit down at the machine, I need it to do what I want as my day is busy. My computer is networked with my other computer they work well together. I use remote connections from home and can work from here. XP is agreeable and familiar. It is so much more than 98 was. I remember all the 'restarts' and love the stability of XP. I think if I had gone from 98 straight to Vista I probably would enjoy Vista, although what I have seen and read about Vista doesn't inspire me enough to change. I hate MS Office 07. It was forced on me when I purchased this machine a year ago. Why they made the changes they did make no sense. It is non-intuitive and confusing to use. I have decided to stop using it and do all my work on my machine at work which still has 03. I can't express how angry I get each time I need to type a letter on 07. Hate it! At my age, I find computers frustrating enough, and don't want to add to it. I'll wait a few years, Jane

For those looking for a "router" for sharing data over cell services, there are additional alternatives to using a USB dongle with a portable router: - A "mobile hotspot", a combined cellular "modem" and router in one small package. Offered by the major carriers. Cost- wise, it's like having another phone, you pay to buy the device and have a (usually 2 year)contract with monthly access and data usage charges. - Most smart phones can operate as a mobile hotspot. Also called "tethering". The advantage with this is that there's nothing additional to buy and (at least with some carriers) no contract is necessary. You can turn it off and on as you wish, and apply usage to the phone plan you already have. The disadvantage is if you're not plugged in, the steady stream of cell data and wifi usage will eat through your battery life. I don't know if a tethered connection can be encrypted. It's convenient for occasional use, with my carrier, it's $ 20 per month prorated for the days it's turned on, so it's like 70 cents per day.

Clinresga, you have a weird idea about the purpose of advertising. Advertising is a way for providers of goods and services to inform the public about what they offer, thereby encouraging them to become customers. Some products (e.g. Spanx) require no advertising. For the rest, getting the word out to the people who are most likely to become customers is really important. The best ads are appealing and interesting and have elements that draw attention to themselves, while providing information about what they're selling. Poor ads are obtrusive rather than interesting, or leave the potential customer unaware of what was being offered. The worst ads annoy the customer enough that while the message--what is being offered and/or by whom--may be clear, they so annoying that those who see them actively avoid doing business with the advertiser. It is these worst ads that we complain about, and install ad-blockers to eliminate. They make the site unusable. For me, it was the full screen dancing baby. I don't even know what that was selling, but would certainly avoid it if I did. It is ridiculous for the webmasters to design new advertising products that are so annoying that they drive away the very eyeballs that they're supposed to be selling. NBC/iVillage/Gardenweb has known for many years that people are installing ad blockers to avoid seeing the annoying ads. They allow threads where we help each other to do so. They're not hurting from it. While it's true that we're not looking at their ads, it's also true that we probably don't pay attention to the regular ads anyway. They're probably using us as an experiment lab to see just how annoying their new advertising products are and testing how many complaints are generated. One thing you've left out of your business side thoughts is that we are providing free content for NBC/iVillage/Gardenweb. Kitchens Forum, especially, is very highly ranked in the search engines nowadays, and GW in general is, as well. There are a LOT of lurkers and click throughs who are the real targets of the advertising. Without the free content created by the members of the forums, there would be no eyeballs for the Powers That Be to sell. It's just a shame for all of the smaller sites that are trying to stay afloat with a little third party advertising, that we can't see their ads once we've blocked the really egregious ones. Instead of complaining to us that blocking ads is bad for your business, you should be complaining to NBC/iVillage/Gardenweb, and the other big sites full of obtrusively annoying ads, that they are the ones who are hurting your ability to support your site through advertising. With Ad-Block, there isn't even a link to accidentally click on with which to pay you.