I know it's been a long time since my last Newsletter, as you can see I've been busy. There are two new items that I think are important to address. First is Windows 7, the more I play with this the more I like it. That being said, to run Windows 7 you should still have a dual core CPU at 2.0Ghz or better and 2Gig's of ram. I've been getting a lot of calls about upgrading older machines to Windows 7 and I don't recommend this. Any Vista machine should qualify and newer XP machines should work as well. I also recommend Windows 7 Professional or Ultimate, not the home version. The main reasons for that are Window 7 Pro and Ultimate have Windows XP Mode which allows the running of older programs not able to run under Vista and Windows 7. I know that some scanners, printers, and software only run on XP. I have had to have 2 computers, one with XP and one with Vista to solve this problem. Of course I guess just one machine with XP would also work! Also Windows 7 has a complete system backup ability so you can backup your computer and save it to an external hard drive or even a large capacity thumb drive. Then if anything happens to your computer you can restore everything including all your programs. Windows 7 runs much faster than Vista and is much more secure than Windows XP.

       Next I have started to use Microsoft Security Essentials http://www.microsoft.com/Security_Essentials/ as a replacement to AVG. If AVG is prompting you to upgrade I recommend that you uninstall AVG and Download Microsoft Security Essentials. This program is free! and so far I like how it works.