Cat5e will work fine for HDMI, and indeed, probably for anything you'd need in your house. That said, the primary expense in cabling is the labor, not the materials, so running Cat6 is generally not dramatically more expensive. I personally prefer to run Cat6 for future proofing, unless the cost is dramatically different. Cat6 is somewhat harder to work with and terminate properly than Cat5e is, so you'd want to make sure your installers are capable of doing it correctly. My multi-room TV solution is not the best you can do, but it works for us. I have coax and network run to each room with a TV, and a Tivo there. That allows me to watch live TV, and I can also watch recordings from any other Tivo in the house, as well as Netflix, Amazon Video on Demand, Hulu etc. I also have a file server that has some saved video and audio content on it. The Tivos can play that over the network from any room. And I have a blu-ray player in each room for playing discs. It's not what some would call a "whole house" solution, but it works really well for us. Yes, it would be more convenient to not have to put a disc in every time we want to watch a blu-ray. But the alternatives for that are either a pain or expensive (or both). The coolest way to go is something like Kaleidescape, which gives you a true whole-house movie library with no discs. But it's insanely expensive. You can rip your DVDs, but it's time consuming and most of the solutions for playing them back aren't that great in my opinion, especially if you have non-technical people using it (which is true for most of us, and even those of us who are technical don't necessarily want a challenge when we're kicking back to watch a movie). You could have a central disc player and distribute the video, but then that leaves you having to go there to put in the discs, and the only real benefit is that it saves you the cost of a player in each room. Blu-ray players are cheap. There are tons of things you can do, but I think a lot of it is overkill for most people. A Tivo and a disk player in each room with cable and network is a good way to go. Or even skip the disc player if you don't watch many discs.

Yes same as firefox 3----- no it will not replace IE6 you will just have an extra browser an that's good to have for trouble shooting like now. The only time IE6 is replaced is if you install another IE browser. Like IE7 OR IE8 So give it a shot nothing to loose and maybe things to gain.

Sorry, not enough information for an analysis. pw

For anything that needs to be hardwired, RUN CONDUIT. Stnadards are always changing as technology evolves, and what works now may be obsolete in 10, 15, or 20 years. Realize that wireless is better to day than a few years ago, and will likely improve in future years too. But it's best to still hardwire some things. I still prefer hardwired speakers. In my own house, when I built I ran conduit for everything and have all my speakers hardwired. Like a previous poster, I have two 400-CD jukeboxes in my main area that can pipe music anywhere...to any room, outdoors to the pool, etc. A while ago I went over to Sonos for music. It allows my teenagers to listen to what music they want in their rooms, it allows me to listen to what music I want where I am, or my wife where she is...you can pipe different music to different rooms. Easy. It also allows you to play the same source in each room, with it synched up perfectly. The "synch" aspect may not sound important, but we have a couple of friends who have Apple wireless for "whole house" and when they simulcast music to each room, the synching can be off just a tad. Even a tenth or a quarter of a second and it sounds weird. Sonos has control apps so you can run the system with complete control from either a Sonos controller, or from a iPhone or iTouch. It's pretty slick. I prefer the Sonos over my old Niles, and that's a bold statement on my part. Sonos also allows you access to pay sources like Rhapsody and Pandora, plus internet radio. Initially I wasn't interested in that, but we signed up for Rhapsody this summer. It's pretty slick, and at $12 a month it's less than what my kids were paying for iTunes downloads. Several time this summer we'd have friends over and we'd be out at the pool, the conversation would turn to music and if I didn't have that particular song/artist on CD, I'd use my itouch or Sonos controller to call up Rhapsody and play the obscure song or artist that we were talking about. I live in CT, my in-laws were visiting from Wisconsin and my mother-in-law mentioned polka. I called up internet radio and in about 20 seconds I had the radio station from Appleton WI that they listen to back home playing polka out by the pool here in CT. It's pretty cool. Fluff to a certain extent, but the capability is there to listen to what you want when you want, with ease. And without having to do it from your computer. With Sonos, you need a "box" for each area that you want to play independent music in. Figure about $400 per box. Their S5 box is an all-in-one, it looks like a small boom box. They have other stations (ZP100) that plug into an existing stereo or theater setup and you play through those speakers. They have a third type (ZP120) that has a powered amp and you can plug your own speakers into that box. There are other options available too that may suit your needs better than Sonos. I just thought I'd toss Sonos out as an...