When I have to Log in (cuz save on this computer doesn't work ^$&@*(^%), It sounds like your browser is set to delete cookies each time it closes...which is a simple fix if that is what is wrong. If you are still having problems with it taking forever to connect, you might try posting over at Computer Help to see if others are having a similar problem. This forum gets little traffic compared to CH. Do you know if your browser is set to empty cache each time it closes. I 'think' that could maybe affect log-in time somewhat. Sue

OK- I'll try to be more specific.. and 'yes', WinMediaPlayer 11 is on the add/remove. After getting the computer back from the tech, I can't 'sign-in' to a couple of sites that I go to- like here at Garden Web/Computer Help- I have to sign-in with my 'name' and password. At a couple sites, when I sign-in with my name/password, nothing happens- I don't go to a home page or anything- it just returns to the sign-in page, and now where I put my name/password is blank again. Spiralfrog says you have to accept cookies, and to put the tools/options/privacy to 'high'. Because I changed my setting from 'mediuum-high' to 'high', I was wondering if the sign-in problem has anything to do with cookies.

One weird problem I've had (that I attribute to the awfulness of the GW message board software...) is that, occasionally, if you do a search on Google, you'll hit on a thread that has http://www.thathomesite.com/forums/ as the leading part of the URL rather than the normal http://ths.gardenweb.com/forums/ that you get if you go to the GardenWeb website and navigate to this forum. For whatever reason, although you can click and see new messages just like you would if you were actually in the forum, if you try to log in it will just cycle you through a loop, with "name" appearing blank. I have no idea why these aren't seamlessly integrated or why it's possible to see the new posts with the old domain, but if you just type over it with ths.gardenweb.com it will fix the problem. Probably won't work for every instance of this, but if you're someone like me who searches in Google or other outside search engines, it's worth making sure the address bar shows the right domain if you have trouble logging in. Also, for those with Macs---if you're having problems with not being able to clear the old user name/password, you might make sure Keychain isn't set to save your user names. That info won't get reset when the browser cookies and cache are cleared.

Just finished a quite enjoyable read called "The Great Filth: The War Against Disease in Victorian England" by Stephen Halliday (2007). (The same author wrote "The Great Stink" about that hot summer in London when the Thames smelled horrible and affected the politicians at the Houses of Parliament enough to get them in gear about the city drainage system.) The topic was great and I'm always up for a delve into Victorian times, social history and medicine, and so most of this was truly fascinating. And I liked the approach that Haliday took which was more of a big-picture approach and gave appropriate kudos to engineers and architects and some reform-minded politicians who all helped to make public health safer. One ongoing thing that kept annoying me (and this is my permanently switched-on Editor self talking) was the actual format of the book. You could tell that Haliday had done his research - this is good. However, you could also tell that this book was a bunch of essays written at different times and then patched together. There was a lot of repetition and only some vague continuity between the different topics, and I think it's a bit lazy for an author to do this instead of finding new material or reworking the info differently. The thing that galled me the most was that Haliday (writing in 2007, mind you) kept referring to men and women in different ways. When males were first referenced, they had both their first name and their last name (surname) and then after that first mention, were called by their last names only. The women, on the other day, were first mentioned with first name/last name, but then referred to thereafter by their first names. This struck me (as an editor) to be infantilizing for these brave and smart women of the times in comparison to the male characters who were featured. I saw this early in the book, and then saw that it continued as a formatting choice throughout, and it started to quite irritate me. I don't know why Haliday made this choice (or perhaps his editor did). Published in 2007 means that it is recent enough for people to be aware of gender bias in writing, so I don't have an explanation for this. I know - nit-picky, but it affected my overall reading experience. Why not first name/last name as first ref and then revert to last names for everyone regardless of gender? So - content was good (apart from the repetition) and there was a nice bibliography at the back for further reading. And I learned things - but it was all a bit marred by this gender bias thing that has little excuse for existing in this day and age. Speaking of Victorian medicine, whilst we were in London, we visited the Hunterian Museum (housed by the Royal College of Surgeons) and packed with historical medicine artefacts. Fascinating. Here is a link that might be useful: Hunterian Museum (London)