Snidely, Me??? Think what you may as I cannot speak to it. On this thread no one has brought up the concept of work environment so that perspective was not addressed. My home system is on 24/7. It has a collage of pictures of my grandchildren as a screen saver for my pleasure. For no other reason. No type of power management is used. In the past, the consensus of members here was they only use power management in the hopes of protecting the system to make it last longer. During my entire attendance at work my system is engaged even when not attended. It is the secured database portals which time me out after inactivity unless I do it manually. I have never seen anyone leave a laptop unattended in public. My recollection is they are actively being used, directly monitored, or shut down and stored. In any of these cases power management is not necessary. Finally, there are only two schools of thought that are certain for all; death and that politicians waste taxpayer money. DA This post was edited by damccoy on Mon, Feb 11, 13 at 7:43

Thanks for the forum link, ravencajun, but things are straightened out. :-) For my aunt's XP laptop I had tried clicking the link Avira included in their update pop-up, but nothing happened. So I went to download.com (not the Avira site as I said in the first post) and got the new version. I uninstalled the old one and installed the new one and for some reason it wasn't cooperating, so I went with MSE. For my Windows 7 computer I tried the update link yesterday and started getting the issues with start-up. This morning I got the update link again (!) and clicked it. I was taken to download.com and downloaded the new version (again, so I thought) and simply installed over the old one. No problems. There's only one version shown in my program list and it's starting up at boot-up. So, everything's okay for now ! :-)

Really great inputs from all of you. Thank you for taking your time reading and responding! There are some great ideas here, but unfortunately, we will not be able to make all the changes due to various reasons. For example, we will not change the framing of the windows because that will require extra permit (I think); We will not re-do the walls and the ceiling in the wood room so we preserve its historical look (and to keep the budget down); etc. But @kaismom, you gave me some idea for re-doing the kitchen. (Love it in SketchUp since it doesn't cost anything to tear stuff down!) I moved the fridge to behind the division wall and made it tall cabinets all across. I realize that this will make the galley kitchen look even narrower, but it got the fridge out of the way, and since this is a single cook kitchen, being a little narrow is not too big a problem (I have about 39" of clearance between the counter top edge to the other cabinet wall.) I also moved the dishwasher to the left size because now I could put a 33" drawer base by its side. Now, I have two 2-basket trash pullout (for trash and recyclables). Not sure if that's an overkill. The only non-drawer cabinet is there because the code require access to the propane shutoff which is hidden behind that cabinet. (We will not use propane but the pipe is already there.) However, I still face the choices what to do with the opening at the kitchen: leave it completely open, have a one tier open counter, or have a small breakfast bar. I personally like the look of the one tier counter, but I have no good aesthetic sense; hence I appreciate your input. Currently, I'm putting this IKEA VÄRDE drawer unit for the two non-open options. Either way (one level or bar), I have a 40" opening from the short wall to the other side of the opening. I wonder if that's too narrow for the kitchen installation. But with the hallway at 39" wide, and the opening at 40", I can't foresee any problem with getting the appliances and cabinets in. Hope someone can point it out if it will be a problem. Without further ado, let me take you on a tour in our newly remodeled house. Again, click on an image for its full size. Overview. North is up. Living room, seen from the wood room. Looking into living room standing at the front door. Same exact angle, but this time, we put in a bar (open counter or tiered) at the kitchen. You probably have to bring up the full size to see the difference. View from the couch. This picture explains why we choose dark cabinets in the wood room -- so that they do blend in. Now, what if we have a bar (open counter or tiered) at the kitchen? A look at the living room from the desk area. Okay, this series is important. which option would you vote for? Open? One level counter? Tiered breakfast bar? Here is a look into the galley kitchen. Three options again. The wood room.

I use LastPass because of a recommendation from my son-in-law, a computer nerd. However, this one sounds interesting. The main thing is these save you a lot of time when logging in. But I cannot emphasize enough typing up a hard copy. I use a tables format and keep all relevant information such as those security questions you can never remember or the credit card numbers, expiration dates and that code on the back. Or their customer support number in case I lose the card. Then I do up form fills for each credit card or any site where I need to fill in information such as petitions, etc. The hard copy is saved on a flash drive and updated periodically. This copy is kept in a small notebook I use when I make online purchases, as the information is right at my fingertips. Sometimes the form fills don't always fill in the correct expiration dates on some of my cards, so the hard copy is used in these situations. The other reason is that I'm older, and I wanted my children to have availability to this information if they ever need to access my computer in an emergency situation.