Hello everyone.  so my girlfriend just bought a laptop, and although i'm SOMEWHAT computer savvy, i feel i have not kept up with the latest advances in technology SAY for the past 6 years.  can anyone point me to a useful website to help get myself back in the game.  for instance i used to enjoy checking out cyberatlas.com and other marketing stuff.  now i feel so far behind with the advent of the ipod and things such as "bogs" rss feeds??  and the likes.

so my question is this:  what types of things can we do with this machine?  it's a a fairly powerful unit.  1.8 duo processor, 100g HD, 256 mg video card.  so i'm up to hear any type of fun SUGGESTIONS or ideas about what to do, and how to have fun and fully utilize this machine.  thanks in advance for your input.

oh yeah, one more thought and question:

if we we're to buy the "microsoft streets 2006 w/ GPS" does it require an active internet connection to utilize the service on the road?

thanks again!!

jNo for GPS you Dont Gereraly need the Internet, it would kinda Suck if you did ya know ^.^

Your laptop Specs seem pretty Good, im sure it wont have a problem running anyprogram on the Market ATM, if you want Games's a 256Meg GFX card will run alot of games' at medium Settings, but to be sure it will run them Well, you need to know what type of card it is. Nvidia and ATI are the Leaders now, if its an INTEL Extreem ... your boned

As for Sites, http://slashdot.org/ is a Pretty Good Teckie Site and umm dig.ie seems to have gone missing ...thanks panboy.  the card is an ati.  so it looks good there.  but one thing seems strange.  it was supposed to come with a 100g HD, but when i got the laptop, it had two HD's on it, one being like a 23 gig? and the other like a 64gig?  It sounds like you have 100Gig hard drive. It is probably partitioned.
How many drives show up on "My Computer"?

It is probably partitioned, you may find that one Drive has windows ant the other one has recovery Tools, is it a Dell or a HP? by any chance

They like to do the Whole Recovery Partition thing , and waste allot off space while there at it. you have a bout 87 Gigs available, thats a 100 gig drive alright, just set up in such a way you seem to lose some space.

if you go into Admin Tools, Computer Management, Disk Manager , you can see how your Disk is Set up
Looking back on this thread it seems unusual to hear the question "I just got something and want to know what can I use it for?" Usually the purchase is driven by the need. Not a knock on the poster, it just seems odd......GX1_Man, you're to practical you shouldn't only get the things you need, if you did all the human RACE would do is eat sleep and have sex..... hang on a minute what was my point?