I'm so glad to hear that the seeds I sent out are making it to their new homes and two more cards with fantastic goodies have arrived to my home. Alana (poisondartfrog), thank you so much for the Argemone! I've really been wanting to try some of these but have been having a heck of a time finding seed. And the Pentapetes phoenicia, oh my goodness - this is the first I've heard of this species but as soon as I received the seeds I started reading everything I could find on it and this is most certainly my kind of plant. How absolutely gorgeous and I'm obsessed with the Monticello gardens and Jefferson's work as a gardener so it's so perfect. And last, but most certainly not least, the Ipomoea nil 'Sunrise Serenade' - this looks like an absolutely stunning variety. I'm doing a fence of Ipomoeas next season and this will look gorgeous there. Maria (elf7), thank you so much for the gorgeous card and the round carrots are absolutely perfect! They grow fantastically in the rocky soil here and I also love to grow them in containers and hanging pots. They're incredibly amusing. And I'm putting in a cutting garden and very much look forward to growing the dahlia zinnias there. ~Amanda

Here are the specs for the XPS ($1,088) SYSTEM COLOR Tuxedo Black PROCESSOR Intel® Core 2 Duo T5450 (2MB cache/1.66GHz/667Mhz FSB) OPERATING SYSTEM Genuine Windows Vista® Home Premium Edition LCD AND CAMERA Glossy, widescreen 15.4 inch LCD (1280x800) & 2.0 MP Camera MEMORY 2GB Shared Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 667MHz (2 Dimms) HARD DRIVE Size: 120GB 5400rpm SATA Hard Drive INTERNAL OPTICAL DRIVE Slot Load DVD+/-RW (DVD/CD read/write) VIDEO CARD 128MB NVIDIA® GeForce® 8400M GS WIRELESS CARDS Dell Wireless 1490 802.11a/g Mini Card BATTERY OPTIONS 56 WHr 6-cell Lithium Ion Primary Battery SOUND OPTIONS High Definition Audio 2.0 FINGERPRINT SCANNER Finger Print Reader XPS M1530 ANTIVIRUS SOFTWARE Trend Micro Internet Security 36-months PRODUCTIVITY SOFTWARE No Microsoft Office ADOBE Adobe Photoshop + Premiere Elements WARRANTY AND SERVICE 1Yr In-Home Service, Parts Labor,24x7 Phone Support DATASAFE ONLINE BACKUP Included 10GB DataSafe Online Backup for 1Year DIAL-UP INTERNET ACCESS No ISP requested Dell Printer Driver Windows Vista Premium Software - Adobe Adobe® Acrobat® Reader 8.1 Processor Branding Intel Core 2 Duo Processor This is the Latitude ($1.157): PROCESSOR Intel® Core 2 Duo T7250 (2.00GHz) 2M L2 Cache, 800MHz Dual Core OPERATING SYSTEM Genuine Windows Vista® Business, with media LCD PANEL 15.4 inch Wide Screen WXGA LCD Panel MEMORY 2.0GB, DDR2-667 SDRAM, 2 DIMMS HARD DRIVE 120GB Hard Drive, 9.5MM, 5400RPM OPTICAL DRIVE 8X DVD+/-RW w/Roxio and Cyberlink Power DVD VIDEO CARD 128MB NVIDIA® Quadro NVS 135M WI-FI WIRELESS CARD Dell Wireless 1395 802.11g Mini Card FINGERPRINT READER OPTION Standard Touchpad BACKUP OS DRIVERS AND SYSTEM DOCUMENTATION Resource DVD - Contains Diagnostics and Drivers for Vista BATTERY 6 Cell Primary Battery PRIMARY POWER OPTIONS 90W A/C Adapter FLOPPY DRIVE No Floppy Drive SECURITY Norton Internet Security 2008 36 Month Subscription WARRANTY & SERVICE 3 Year Limited Warranty and 3 Year Mail-in Service Ship Group US - System Documentation, Power Cord OS Labels Vista Premium Label Internal Keyboard Internal English Keyboard

Hmm, I had not read the whole MS page but basically you only need to follow the first 2 instructions. I have never had to use those other instructions myself. Remember that if you get flustered just click the Cancel button to get out of where you are. There is nothing to be afraid of when using System File Checker. You It simply goes through your computer checking all the operating system files and replaces those which are corrupt or missing. The need for the CD is so it can get the needed files to install for you. The slight downside is that it takes the computer back to when your particular CD was created which means you will be behind on security updates and possibly a service pack. No big deal there either, you simply go to the windows update site and the computer grabs whatever it needs. You are doing nothing wrong. Who knows why those files went missing. Perhaps/probably it was due to the power outage. You can of course extract and install each of those files if you wish to avoid using SFC. Follow the instructions here to do that for each file. You do not have to do them all at one time. Try one, see how it goes then do others as you feel up to the task.

Jennifer, I would have been here sooner but I had to eat my way through the M&Ms. My new system is 2 months old now and as anyone here who knows me I was dragged into the 21st centtury kicking and screaming. The old system, a HP 400mhz P2 WIN98 OE suited me for what I was doing. It was just the learning curve getting wider and wider. I spent a lot of time researching purveyors and manufacturers. I finally decided on a dual core Vista HP a6040n DVD +/- RW 2 gigs ram with a 17" flat screen monitor for around $1100.00 at Best Buy. I dumped the included trial Norton and installed AVG. The system has everything I need and more. I'm not a gamer either and I have no regrets. I was searching for a double drive system when I was advised that with the current software only one was necessary. No outward saving to the HD they told me. They were right. In actuality if you are copying a disk with Roxio 9 you 1: Insert the original in the drive, 2: Utilize the software, 3: When notified remove the original disk and replace it with a blank disk and 4: Click to finish. Nothing to it. Even I can do it. I am not certain if your version of Word will work on Vista. However, I am now using Open Office (Word compatible) without any concern. Whatever you get I am certain you will enjoy it greatly. Good Luck! Da