I just quickly looked at office depot.. Really lots of monitors, almost all are under 200 dollars. LED only is a slight diff for newest stuff. LED supposed to be quicker, brighter, more colorful & use something like 40% less energy than lcd... way longer life too than fluorescent back lighting on lcd's. All I looked at seem to have hdi & vga outputs. My TV was bought right before hd.. hybrid digital / analog huge thing. Analog 4x3 screen, sort of square looking.. that shows wide screen with black border above & below the video for wide screen broadcasts. Regular full screen now is mostly commercials. Odd at first.. but now its normal to me.

PolarPrincess - If you have a USB port, buy an external hard drive that connects to the USB port and copy ALL of your data (pictures and other personal files) to it. Then your data is safe and you can clean up the rest of the system. If not, burn them to CD for safety. THEN: 1 - Empty the Trash 2 - Search for files on the entire system, using this search pattern" *.bak (those are temporary files that can be deleted) 3 - Delete all of those files. 4 - Empty the trash again. 5 - Search for all *.tmp files and delete them 6 - Empty the trash again. 7 - Run the Windows XP "check disk" utility as described here: http://www.updatexp.com/windows-xp-chkdsk.html It may take quite a while ... 8 - Then try running the defragmentation program.

Apologies for the long absence. *sigh* Our desktop crashed, and I may have a bit as well. :) We're still waffling. I'm glad I didn't order anything months ago. The space is mysteriously getting more and more contemporary. Two weeks ago, DH and I wanted Option #2. This week, it's #3. The cabinets turned out so sleek! Definitely, though, I'm thinking pewter or brushed nickel or chrome to go with the appliances and faucet. I think those of you who said it'd be too much going on are right. That poor chandelier is just going to have to stand alone. I bet I'll get used to it with time. Mysterymachine, your post makes me laugh every time I read it! I should give your vote extra influence, with that amazing kitchen you turned out. (Okay, now I feel I need a disclaimer; bc everyone's kitchen is amazing!) Laurie, thanks for the vote! Flowerchild, thanks for the link. Those pulls would be great with the chandelier but a bit heavy with the other kitchen elements. Ok, a couple of OT thoughts. First, now that I'm fully recognizing my split-personality decorating style, I really get how some of you have done this several times. Second.... rats, I need more coffee. Completely forgot. Maybe something about how organic this process has been even though I thought I had a set plan long ago. Amy, np with your question. Thanks for bumping this back up, though I missed it Sunday. (I wanted to respond to the last three posters but hesitate about dragging my issues back up after so long!) We are still getting the Basalt Slate, sometime in the next couple of weeks. Templating is this Friday. Hopefully the counters won't take too long. I know most laminates are in stock, and we got really lucky with the engineered quartz. Our installer happened to have our choice in stock, available, and in the right size! Woo hoo!

Lyban- I always leave my computer on and believe it does no harm compared to turning it on and off all the time. Yes, I will occasionally reboot for one reason or another, but it's generally on 24/7. My screen does blank out after about 5 minutes, and then comes right back after I touch the mouse. I've been leaving computers running like this for over 20 years and don't think it causes problems or premature failure. My current main computer (which I will replace one of these days for a more powerful one) is 8 years old and -- except for vacations -- has been left on all that time without obvious problems. Leave it on while you are investigating this and don't worry. Does your monitor have a button to turn only the screen off? If so, you should be able to turn it on or off at will, which would further support the idea that the problem is with the computer, not the monitor. I agree with chuggerguy about reporting on what the first thing you see is if you have the screen on and boot the computer up (and how long it takes for you to see this).