Thanks for the responses ! For some reason the problem is not present today. Or I should say "problems." The two issues (the clicking sound when depressing a key and the inability to press the same key twice without pausing for a couple seconds) both resolved themselves (proving at least that they must have been related). grandms, It's an HP laptop, so the keyboard is integrated. It was not listed as a separate device in the Printers and Other Hardware section. And the Device Manager (which I also checked) didn't have anything of import either. :-( genes, Yes, she already has that, as well as Avira AV and SAS. I will be running those scans for her soon. I only asked my question before doing so in case anyone might have known of this issue and knew it to have some other obvious cause. Well, for now it's a mystery. But if my scans find anything I'll post an update, just for information's sake. Thanks again !

NO I do not really care at this point in time at all if you agree or disagree this is not a forum for conversations it is a help forum and needs to stay on TOPIC! If you care so much to pontificate your points of view then please do it on the other side if you have not noticed there is another little link button up there for the conversation side. Doing what you have done over and over again causes the topic to go off course and it makes it exponentially more difficult to keep track of what we have tried and done to help the person that came here needing help. If you want to have that type of conversation and discussion then please for the sake of everyone start a NEW thread of your own for that and do not do it on someone elses thread that is in need of help. On most of the other professional help forums I am on causing a post to go off topic is cause for banning and doing it repeatedly is just absolutely rude. My time is just as valuable as anyone else including the person that started the post asking for help! Most of us that are volunteers on help forums are on many many other help forums all over the internet not just one! Keeping threads on track for the actual problem is essential. As I said feel free to start your own threads to discuss what ever you feel the need to discuss but please don't do it in the middle of a post of someone else. Thank you grandms for stating exactly the point.

Glad to hear your girls like fairy tale characters. The book was rather difficult with a jillion characters to keep track of but maybe someday they will tackle that also. As far as a pic of the room, it doesn't exist except in my mind. Right now it is filled to the ceiling almost with stuff moved out of our kitchen which has been demolished and any furniture now in the room such as a loveseat and coffee table,etc. will be given/donated away. I'm even not absolutely sure of the arrangement in my diagram but so far I'm tending in that direction. May have to close the wall a bit between living room and dining room because I think a little less openness there might add some coziness and also give me room to put a corner cabinet in the dining room that will kind of be hidden but still useful for storage which is what this house has least of. Obviously, I don't have this all together but I do best one step at a time so if I could make up my mind about the bookcases, I think it would help me move on to the next step of deciding the rest of the furniture/room. Even the fireplace is unfinished and covered with cement backer board ready for marble (which we haven't picked out yet) but I think the bookcases because they will be first thing one sees when they enter the room should be decided first. Thoughts? The house though small is quite nice even if I do say so myself - especially once we get the kitchen remodel finished. (Though we also have a big job ahead of us doing the hardwood floors plus other tasks by contractors - this is not diy). The house is 75 years old but as I continue on this journey of remodeling, it seems my tastes have definitely moved from vintage/eclectic to modern/eclectic. Hence the reason for my indecision. I think the builtin bookcases will definitely bring me back from my modern direction. And I've heard it mentioned here that some think builtin bookcases give a room character. We are very fortunate that our house has so much character that it is not a major concern to add more. Though guess it never hurts. (sorry I'm rambling, it is late , will stop here...)

A $1,000 will buy a pretty nice Windows laptop but certainly you can spend more (or less). At that point you can kind of go in two directions, the ultra portable machines or a less portable "workstation" with plenty of power. Both directions can add considerably to the price. I've used a Mac and never had a problem browsing the web or having a site take my money. I'm wondering if you're problems aren't related to Safari, which isn't the greatest browser. Fortunately Chrome and Firefox are both available for a O/S X. I don't collaborate with enough people to have had problems with compatibility between versions of Microsoft Office. Some years back I did work with a colleague on a Power Point presentation. He had a Mac and I was using Windows. There was an effect, maybe slide transition, that was natively available on the Mac but not in Windows. What was interesting is that once he had added it, I could then edit it, say for speed, in Windows. Given your budget: Intel Core i7 8 gigabytes of RAM, with 12 or 16 being better Full HD screen 256 gigabyte PCIe solid state drive. If you really need the storage space bigger solid state drives are available as are traditional hard drives but you'll take a hit with performance with a traditional drive Discrete video card, doesn't need to be a "gaming" machine but a discrete card takes some of the load off the processor and has it's own memory which boosts performance Enough ports for your current peripherals.