Once again, thanks everybody for input. However, and a BIT off topic, I have something else to bring up that you may want to input on. As a near-geezer I remember when I was young I PROMISED myself I would NEVER become like my parents, or old people in general = rejecting everything/anything that was new ; thinking that the only good music was the music they listened to when they were young ; TOTALLY rejecting long hairs, hippies and ESPECIALLY THEIR music ; recreational drug use while they consumed MASS quantities of "mother's little helper and alcohol ; yadayada. The reason I mention this is that I think I've kept up my promise to myself.....until lately. LOVE (mostly) what the "yoots" are up to (social media, occupy, etc.). My problem is with the ways in which computering and the net has become so.......dare I say it.....unecessarily COMPLICATED. This "red x" problem is one example I think. As I have been trolling the multitude of forums for the past 4 months or so, there are literally hundreds of thousands of people who have this problem in one form or another,with some of the threads dating from 2004!. The suggested fixes number in the hundreds. Why? Well, that's part of the problem .....a few decades ago there was a time that the larger corporations in the hardware/software game decided that they weren't going to share info/programming/patents ; and this complexity I complain about is a DIRECT outcome from that decision by the corps. We are (literally) paying for the fact that these corps decided to try to say to the "consumer" that "my" system/software is better than theirs so buy mine and NO one elses ; and to hell with the consequences. But also, the net (although WONDERFUL in MANY ways) seems to have become mostly consumer-oriented. Pages taking FOREVER to load ; servers getting gunged up with all kinds of crap ; the MOST IRRITATING flash ads imaginable ; neat programming being unnecessarily updated over time where it becomes useless ; and when you do find something that works well, or feeds your inner needs/desires, you can bet dollars to donuts that it will get f*cked up soon enough. For example, it's drivin' me crazy watchin' Google simply becoming the new version of Big Blue IBM. Many of their latest missives are ALL about serving the major corporations in the world (i.e., "How can we reimagine old major corporations advertising campaigns so that they get a better response from internet users?") So, am I becoming like my parents were? It seems like many of you folks have been around awhile......is anybody else getting a little weary of the schmaltz? I have seriously contemplating chuckin' it all and heading for Maui. If I need to check emails, or see what the Onion is up to, or check out Funny Or Die's latest, I'll head for the local library's computers (which hopefully will be hooked-up to a mainframe network) where at least the pages will load quickly. And spend the majority of my time enjoying the sun and the sand. Sure, even that could get a bit boring, but at least I wouldn't have to put up with ANOTHER Netcensoreds pop-up.(And getting to the point where one could actually be bored with the sun and sand would HAVE to be an enjoyable process, eh?) And honestly, I'm NOT ranting here.....just tryin' to figure out if this is the first vestiges of FULL BLOWN geezerhood, or are things just getting to be kinda crappy? And PS : I have another computer ( a pretty cool hotrod IBM original) so it's NOT the 2003 HP that I'm "forced" to use at the non-profit org that's bringin' me down. And maybe it's just past my bedtime :+))) It's just you folks seem to be fairly hip, so just wonderin' about your thoughts. And, YES, you can call me over the hill, or a flamin' idiot, or anything you'd like. I can handle it. Keep on chooglin'! (And unfortunately, remember that I'm workin' 3 jobs right now so my replies will most likely be once a day in the early eve EST......so no "real" back and forth realtime dialogue.....sorry.) Thanks.