OK, Zep. You've got the banana care nailed! A couple of ornamental (you don't want to eat the fruit, because it's full of seeds) varieties can survive in cold areas, like here in NY, with that kind of care. Edible varieies, around here, have to come inside for the winter. Now to the subject at hand: I got nowhere with the Creative link. I just got an error, HTTP 404 Not Found. When I clicked on, "Publisher: Creative", I got to a place where there were so many of these things that I didn't know which one was the right one. At the Gateway link, they asked for the serial number. (0016653113) When I gave them that, and clicked on a few other things that they told me to do, I got this instruction: "Insert System Restoration Kit Drivers CD in the System Restoration Kit Window." I found the System Restoration CD, and I guess there's really only one place I can insert it. On the disc itself, it says to reinstall some old Windows operating systems, start the PC with the disc inserted, and to install system software and drivers, insert the disc while the PC is on. So, I guess I start up the PC, and put the disc in. If I remember correctly, from the few times I have used any restorations, long ago, you restore to a certain date. A date, when I still had sound, was before I took the 'puter in for service. If I restore to a date like that, while restoring my sound, am I not also restoring the problems that prompted me to take the machine in for service, in the first place?

Ummm I'm a contractor too. The "perfect center" that people think they get out the Franklin is no better than the "center" that you get when looking for the screws. And contrary to popular belief, you don't need to screw your cabinets or whatever into the dead center of the stud. You've got 1.5" of width to work with. Unless your screw is threaded 1/2 in and 1/2 out into the stud, you've got plenty of strength. As long as the screw screws in tight then you're in the stud and the screw is just as strong as if it was in the exact center. I have been doing this a long time and have never had anything fall off the wall because I was off of the "perfect" center that you think you get with these supposed "edge" detectors.

Grant, Such an adapter does exist, it's called an Amplifier. Chris is quite right. You can, however, buy powered/amplified speakers, but since you already have speakers, it wouldn't help you much. Your DVD player has what's called line output, from a little preamplifier. To drive speakers, you need a POWER amplifier. What sort of speakers are they? How many are there? Unless they're really special, you might be better off getting a surround sound setup, it'll take the output from your dvd player - ideally the digital output, which'll have the surround sound info, which the surround amp can distribute around the speakers..... Even cheap surround outfits can sound quite good when it comes to movies, more speakers CAN be better.

Depending on the manufacturer, some say you can go to 100% of rated load and some say keep it 5-10% under. I don't know if you are overloading your transformer, but it is possible if your bulbs are 20 watts. If you are loading on too many watts, you can simply replace some of them with lower wattage bulbs as long as they have the same base. I am also presuming that you don't have any low voltage light fixtures where you are using a bulb with a higher wattage than the fixture specifies (for example, a 20-watt bulb in an 8-watt max fixture). Also, is this a single line with all the lights connected sequentially, one after the other? Or loop circuits? Or...? And are any of the lights closer than a wire run of 5-10 feet from the transformer? Sometimes having the first light(s) closer to the transformer than this can cause problems.