Mac,

Your advice really hits home here because this whole upgrade process was started when my wife gave me a relatively new laptop she was not using much. It is much newer and faster than what I have been using. BUT it has a VISTA OS and I have already had some problems with it with my PT application. These problems required me to spend much of yesterday on the phone with PG Music before they got it resolved by moving all my PT application to a new folder.

So my plan now is to talk to Tiger Direct, the on-line computer store, and select a new laptop with all the RAM, etc., that I need and an XP OS. I will go to the store here and get the cable you suggested to try to use the headphones output effectively. I will then buy the new 2010 BIAB/Real Tracks program and their external disk drive, as you suggested.

I note my wife and I used to live in Columbia, MD and work at the Pentagon (not all that far from where you live) until we retired and came down here to the North Carolina foothills in December 2002. We love it here. The only drawback for me is that there are very, very few places to play music here (unless you are a Bluegrass pro). The area is very poor, very rural, and lacking in places that hire people to do the kind of one-man-band, country-standards entertaining that I do.

Thank you once again. I need to spend more time on the forums to keep learning how to do all the stuff the PG Music programs make possible before I get too hold to punch the computer keys! I am hoping it will keep me a little younger for a little longer than I would be without it! Scott