Oh, You are not anal at all--LOL--I'm an electronics engineer by trade and software engineering manager in practice. That makes me really, really anal about data. Many fields in my db are drop-down or checkbox type. When I upgrade to the next version of base db software it will also handle attaching photos and export to HTML web page. Like Excel, it is very easy to add/subtract fields with this program and easy to sort on any field. Here are the fields my db has for each cultivar: 1. drop down for: want/really want/no thanks/have/ordered/auction bid/auction won 2. variety name 3. hybridizer 4. year registered 5. scape height 6. bloom size 7. foliage type 8. bloom season 9. bloom description bloom form nocturnal rebloom extended fragrant awards tet/diploid pollen fertile pod fertile 1st yr grown source property where grown (I've moved and not all plants I've grown came with me but still want to track my experience with them) landscape location (drop down that can be easily customized) additional notes (degree of info here varies by my interest/use of the plant. It might include: parentage, offspring, $ paid, when I expect order to arrive, etc) I'm trying to see if there is a way to link db's with this program so that I could use this initial data as the base for a hybridizer's tool that would link seedlings listed to the parents in the original list. It exports in a standard format so I was thinking about making my data available in exchange for DL trades sometime in the future as I get more of the data verified and/or importing data from other's Excel files to customize a db for them in exchange for DL trades if they were interested in purchasing the base program from Illium (I use the db tool for a lot more than DL too. I use it to keep all my shopping lists, recipes, inventories (books, reading lists, movies, collectibles, etc), to do lists, medical and perscription histories for my family, household/auto maintenance, special quotes, and much more- just about anything you want to organize in a list or small db format and carry with you on your pda. You can password protect any sensitive lists. So its a handy tool anyway. In fact I was already using it for all this other stuff before I decided to use it for DL & plants. LOL- adding plants was just another extension of my already over the top data obsessions...

AVG is good but hogged resources big time on my machine, slowed it to a crawl. Avira (free for Windows) is very good, much less a resource hog. For a free firewall I love Comodo (not the suite, just the firewall). Does a bang up job for a freebie. Even warns me of suspicious sites and if it's for sure not good (such as a google search result I click on) will warn me to stop and not enter the site. I use Malwarbytes for scanning for spyware, malware, etc. and SpywareBlaster for stopping the junk from ever landing on my PC via browsers. If SpywareBlaster is kept regularly updated, very little lands on my machine other than the odd tracking cookie.

For learning SketchUp there's a pretty decent series of books called "Google SketchUp for Interior Design and Space Planning" or some such. I bought them last winter when I was first learning it. The books ended up being a bit too basic for me, since I learn computer stuff quickly -- it's what I do for a living. By the time the books arrived I'd already learned most of what was in them. But for someone who's just starting out I think they'd be good. The series has 3 books. They're all pretty thin and fairly inexpensive. I bought them on Amazon. I agree that graph paper is a good place to start, though. Or go buy a cheap architects' ruler at Office Depot. I think I got one for $5 or so. Laura still annoyed that Google got rid of SketchUp

DynaSCAPE is used widely in my area and is the software taught in the CAD drafting classes at local landscape design schools.