Hi Allen:

You said:

"I was wondering if you know if your hard drive and DVD are SATA or not? I am guessing it probably isnt. SATA makes programs, picture editing, video editing, and DVD burning a bit more snappy than what you would be used to, and if you add a core 2 duo processor it will be quite a bit faster than what you have. Especially if your computer speed has been slowed by a virus, or just plain old clutter in the registery"

lol lol I'm hysterical. I wouldn't know a SATA FROM A SOTA!! How can I find out if my hard drive has this SATA?? I don't do picture editing, or video editing. I just make my videos and upload them on youtube. I do sprouting and my sprouting friends seem to like viewing my latest sprout videos. And I've never burned any DVD's but I do have the lightscribe writer thingee so I gather I could if I wanted to. I STILL USE VCR's by the way. lol

I would guess this media center that I have can do ALL THOSE FANCY EDITING stuff, but that's not my thing. I have no idea why I even got the media center edition of XP.

If I go the Vista Route, is there any particular kind I shoudl get?

Oh, one more thing. I can replug my modem into the back of the tower right (I mean if I upgrade), and even if I get a brand new computer, all I have to do is plug the modem in the back of the tower right?

I can't find my modem software and I remember when I got Verizon dsl, the cd didn't even work right and the lady at Verizon had to walk me through the whole installation.

Do I have to DO THIS ALL OVER AGAIN? or is the software already on the modem.

See, I have lots of questions and very few answers. And you're going to LOVE what happened earlier today.

I am SUPPOSEDLY the COMPUTER GURU in my neighborhood!!! ME!!!! Can you believe that?? All of my neighbors are well into their 70's and some are over 100. Very few have computers and if they do, it belongs to one of their kids or grandkids.

Well, earlier today my doorbell rings and it's the lady who lives on another block. I know her but not well. She said "I heard you are a computer expert". I responded "I am????" I laughed and said "What's wrong?"

She said "You have to come home with me, something is wrong with my computer". I just looked at her because believe me, she wouldn't know how to use a computer or go online if her life depended on it." I then said "you use the computer?" She said 'yes, for my music".

So I'm thinking "this lady has music files and she knows computers??"

So we go down into her basement and there's this BEAUTIFUL DELL WITH A WIDE SCREEN MONITOR AND WINDOWS VISTA and all neat stuff and she can't do anything with her mouse.

I saw a pop up on her monitor that said "you are unprotected, go and check your McAfee".

so I said "oh, you have no virus protection right now". Well, she had no clue what I was talking about and she's running around the house yelling "I have no virus protection, I have no virus protection, oh my goodness"

I said "take it easy", let's just reboot" and I did.

Everything came back up perfect;. I then said "how do you listen to your music". And she said "Put me online". I saw the AOL icon and clicked on it, and her name came up and she put her password in and BINGO, some radio thing came on and she was running around the house calling me a genius, clapping her hands, and asking me if I wanted a drink".

I never laughed so hard in all my life. I gather her son programmed the computer that all she had to go was click on AOL and the home page was some radio thing. That's all she did. Then she could go about her housework and listen to the music.

So I am the neighborhood computer geek, and I'm on this message board asking about modems and computers.

You gotta love this.

Melody