Later

OK. Firefox is loaded and the McAffee virus program it came with (60-day trial) is working. Also Outlook Express is configured to work with my BellSouth account. Now I'll just let it charge a while. (It takes 3 hours for a full charge.) Then I'm supposed to unplug the battery from the wall outlet and use the computer till I get a low battery warning, then turn it off and fully recharge the battery again. It keeps a charge for 9 hours, which is the best among the netbooks Consumer Reports tested.

Radio Shack threw in a free anti-virus program (CA Internet Security Suite Plus 2009) which I'll use when the free McAffee expires. Since the Acer has no disk drive, the program came on a memory stick that plugs into a USB port (there are three on the Acer). The cover on the Acer, by the way, is a dark metallic blue. Cool.

Now I can go over to Starbucks with the Acer and surf the web there if I want to, since they have free Wifi there. The computer detects wireless networks on start-up, but there's also a button on the computer to check for them. (I tried to get on some of the wireless networks but I needed a password.) (I had thought N. Miami had Wifi but apparently it doesn't.) (I don't know where I got that idea--maybe just the library has it.)

Speaking of Starbucks, I'm going to get out of here for a while.