but my machine is getting slower and slower. But I don't do any fancy graphics or gaming. I use email and surf the net, and post only on the zone. Period. But I find many of the sites I rely on for news are getting so bogged down with advertising, and seem to be taking so long loading up connections to other sites which I never use (like facebook, twitter, and so on).

The bulletin boards I post on, my email and most routine work I do seems to be not affected, but if I link to a site from within another one, the system slows to a crawl. If I link to yet another, it freezes completely. It didn't used to do that. I keep track of my system usage, memory utilization (about 30%) and with my wife's assistance, keep up with updates, maintenance and antivirus activities.

But it is getting worse, and is starting to behave more and more like my starter machine, a PeoplePC I got years ago. I had to get rid of it even though it was mechanically perfect, simply because the websites I visited seemed much more complex. My wife's machine, an expensive beast configured for graphics and gaming, is still keeping up with traffic, but my wife complains it seems to be slowing down in spite of the upgrades, updates and maintenance she lavishes on it.

I'm pretty sure its just a question of the increased complexity and capability of the online content is overwhelming our older machines. But I want to use the computer, I am not really interested in learning the technology required to stay up to date with it, especially if it keeps on evolving so I have to learn even more. In other words, I don't want to spend my time debugging my tools, and learning how to configure the machine for a changing environment. Just listening to you guys talking convinces me I don't want to know that much about this tech, especially since this knowledge seems like it has such a short shelf life.

When I get to the point where I can no longer interface with the net for recreation and entertainment, and where the research and browsing I do must be curtailed while I learn and do "maintenance and upgrades" I am seriously considering either going into the Apple universe, or giving up home computing altogether. I'm spending too much damn time in front of a screen as it is.