proudgrma.... I have my garden journals on my hard drive. I use a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet for each year. I start each year whenever my gardening season starts whether that be going through bulb catalogs and ordering for the spring, or after Christmas when I start seed trading or winter sowing. I use one column for each entry and label it with the date. If I have a project I am working on, I may start a column just for that. It is very casual but I have found it very useful. I try to be very thoughtful of how I record information in the journal, so that I can use the 'search' function. For example, whenever I make a seed order, I label it seed order, so I know that if I type in 'Seed Order' in the Find window, it will bring me to every seed order I have made. When I tried using a hand written book, I would forget to write in it all the time, or I would not remember where I put it, or when I wanted to find some information that I had written before, I would have to know the time I wrote it or look through every page of the book trying to find it. This system works SO much better. I also have a software program on my computer that stores photos. I have found myself using the easy to use area which allows for notations on photos. I take photos when I bring home plants and then list what they are in the photo info section. I take photos of first day of bloom on my plants and label them, then again, I try to take photos when they are finished blooming so I can track how long a bloom period they are giving me. There is also an extensive list of keywords you can assign to each photo so that if you want to bring up all photos of 'shade loving perennials' you can do that. So between the annual spreadsheet, labeling and organizing my garden photos and a main list of all the plants ever planted in the garden, everything I need is in these three documents/programs. If that doesn't seem to fit what you are looking for, then I could suggest a gardening website that allows you to keep a garden journal on it. GW does have a journaling function, and also allows you to keep track of your trade lists and clip postings that you want to keep for reference. Another choice is DG, I think you know what I mean? :-)

I'm in the same boat as you. Dell has a few models which they sell with XP. I think they are Dimensions E series. It's hidden on their web page. I found out by calling them. I'm hoping Office 2003 works on Vista because I have so many documents on it on my other machines. I think I am going to buy another XP machine. I need my computers to work together and I think Vista will present a problem in a network. Good luck, Jane

Thanks for the heads up. If anybody is interested, there is a free diet program called Cron-o-meter which I think is pretty cool. Here is a link that might be useful: Cron-o-meter free download

It's not that much different. I've been using QBPro for years. Let me know if I can help.