A couple of weeks ago I thought I’d do something uncharacteristic and try and lead the technology curve: I upgraded my Windows 98 machine to Windows ME. This was a mistake. Although Windows ME initially looked slick and faster, I soon started to notice problems: applications like Corel Xara wouldn’t load unless I started them right after a reboot; I found myself having to reboot 4 or 5 times a day; things gradually started to slow down to a crawl. Yuck. So I bought myself a CD burner, backed up everything important, and installed the IBM “wipe off everything and start from day one” CDs. My machine now works like a charm. Sigh.