Technical interlude
Having finally become completely fed up with Microsoft and everything for which it stands, I'm taking up arms. I'm doing battle against the giant from Redmond, Wash.

So far I'm 1-1.

E-mail: When I downloaded the latest patch to fix yet another security flaw in Windows XP, it somehow tore my Outlook Express all asunder. When I attempt to send an e-mail, a little box comes up trying to locate some plug-in for Microsoft Picture It! 2002 (which I own but have never used). It does this through about three or four "Cancels," then finally, a dialog pops up: "The spelling check is not complete. Would you like to send anyway?" Of course, it had never executed a spellcheck.

This frustration led me through a few other e-mail clients. Can't recommend Mozilla; loads much too slowly, and the spellchecker wants to stop on everything. Can't recommend Opera; if you try to set any security at all, it clamps down and basically won't allow anything to happen.

I did find a winner: Eudora, which has been around for years and years in various forms but gets little exposure, largely because it somehow hasn't found favor as a corporate e-mail client.

Eudora 6's interface is fresh and incredibly easy-to-use -- once you get used to it. I found myself clicking around more than I needed to, thinking, "This really shouldn't be this easy." Being cheap, of course, I'm using the ad-sponsored version -- the ads are unintrusive, and they're clearly not selling well; I've only seen one ad from a company other than Qualcomm, which makes the software. I have all of the features of the paid version that I need, and I'm not dropping $49.95. A stripped-down, ad-free version is also available. If you're a Windows user, it's worth the switch.

Web browser: Back when I was a full-time Mac user, I was also a full-time Netscape user. I first started hitting the web about the time Netscape 3.x was the only game in town for graphical browsers. I upgraded to Netscape 4.0, and was a little worried, because the program didn't seem as stable as its predecessor. I then migrated to Windows, and slavishly used Internet Explorer from that point, only launching Netscape for nostalgia.

When Netscape 6 appeared, after AOL bought Netscape, I was all ready to start using Netscape again. A fully loaded, cool-looking interface wrapped around the browser of my technical youth. But alas, Netscape 6 sucked. Slow as hell, crashed a lot, didn't render some sites correctly, completely useless on secure sites.

I've been faithfully downloading each new Mozilla release; it's the open-source version of Netscape, using the same basic architecture as the AOL crew but in a more compact way. Because it's beta software, it's pretty buggy, too, but I do like it for some uses -- particularly viewing video. Its pop-up blocker is pretty solid, maybe a little too solid (it blocks solicited pop-up windows, too.)

I decided to check in on Netscape, just to see how version 7.1 looked. I had read and heard bad things about version 7, but I wanted to see for myself.

Terrible.

Installed seamlessly (including, of course, the damn AOL solicitation); crashed on launch; crashed on restart; crashed on exit; crashed while uninstalling.

So I'm back to Internet Explorer, waiting for some hacker to come in and steal my keystrokes. But at least it works. It has earned its 98 percent market share.