I say build your own system. I sat down the other day to see just how much of a difference there was between one I could put together and one of the standard systems that come with the office suites and stuff at school.
The system I put together (not for real this time, but I checked all the prices) had the same speed processor as the 'stock' system, but 20 megs more memory (for some bizarre reason, the system I compared had 12 megs of ram). It was also on the newest intel motherboard. It had an 8x ide cdrom instead of a 6x, and all the other stuff - sound card, speakers, monitor, video card (2meg hokkins, 55 bucks and about 20-30% faster than the 129 dollar diamond card, tested in vga mode with no acceleration) 1.6 gig hard drive, floppy. The price I came up with was 400 bucks cheaper than the 'sale' price at school, and had a better baseboard and hardware. I'm very happy putting my own systems together and have seen the nightmares that others call computer systems. I recommend taking the time, even if it takes you six months, to learn how to put your own together and doing it that way. I also never shop through mail, try starting at 'A' under computer dealers in the yellow pages and asking prices, you'd be surprised sometimes. This advice is exactly what I have done myself, and I stand behind it. Just treat your hardware with respect and you won't have any problems. -- TO UNSUBSCRIBE FROM THIS MAILING LIST: e-mail the word "unsubscribe" to [EMAIL PROTECTED] . Trouble? e-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]