At 00:57 -0500 18/4/04, luke wrote: >On Saturday, April 17, 2004, at 02:43 PM, Jane wrote: > >>trouble is, if you take the laptop somewhere and it gets swiped, >>there goes all your work...set up, everything. > >not if you spend the extra dollars to get an external backup drive - >and USE it... Good point !! I think it is worth mentioning this issue of backup from time to time. "If you do not have a backup system, get one today........" Unless your work and time have no value, a backup is an essential part of owning and purchasing a laptop. I have 2 external disks, one at home (120GB), one at work(60 Gb) and I make an incremental backup to each at least once a day, automatically, using a script in Retrospect Express. Some list members may recall that last August my laptop was swiped (stolen) at Heathrow Airport. That was the ONLY time in my life that I had ever travelled with my backup disk with my laptop in my briefcase, and both were lost. Recovering from that was pretty difficult. You never want to have to go through that. In addition to incremental backups, I make additional backups from time to time of various partitions of my hard disk on to DVD or CD. I think the principle is - you cannot have too many backups. Everyone with a laptop needs to find their place on the spectrum between "being careful" and "paranoia" with respect to backup intensity. No-one expcts hard disk failure, fires, theft, damage, but it happens. NEVER allow the stewardess on a plane (nor someone in your home or office) to pass a drink over your keyboard. That is just asking for trouble. Phosphoric acid draining through your keyboard will kill everything..... regards, Trevor