I miss useful usenet...

Yes, the signal to noise ratios sucked, but in its prime, it was much easier to get an answer to a picky question about software, hardware, or even just a TV set when there was *one* place everybody went to for questions and answers.

Now, a simple problem I'm having with my TV set and its impossible to get the right keywords into Google just to find sites that *might* have the answer, and how many of THEM are just repeats of the same question that nobody's answered.

The community doesn't exist because people don't stay at the same sites they went to to ask questions in order to answer others' questions. Usenet had that because it was the only place at the time. No longer...

well, we appear to have survived...

...the upgrade to XP service pack 2.

my biggest annoyance is that there was no way to know all the changes involved, as just fixing for "security" led to other things, like the wireless networks icon changing and stuff like that.

the firewall is on, but we'll see how long *that* thing lasts, as our wireless setup already has its own that *nobody* it getting in on.