Like Chris McFeely said on his site, "if it's not one thing it's another". My situation is a bit different from his though. The real trouble started on May 3, but my attention had been taken up by other things even before that. Starting in early April, a friend of mine (with a Master's degree in computer science), had been helping me build a brand new desktop computer (I had been using a borrowed laptop for a while, and before that, I had been relying on public computers). We finally finished building the computer at the start of May, then proceeded to install some software. On May 3, we connected the new computer to the internet for the first time, and got a nasty surprise. A major virus had been wreaking havok on the internet all day, and we got hit by it within five minutes of connecting. Two days later, as we were using the laptop to continue our research about this virus, we got hit again.

After finding out that the virus only attacked Windows 2000 and XP, and that there were ways to protect those versions, I decided that I wanted two versions of Windows on my computer (yes this is possible, but not advisable for the faint of heart), and that the two verisons would be 98 and XP. We installed 98 first, then added XP, only to be faced with more surprises. When there is more than one version of Windows on a computer, XP likes to put itself in charge of how you switch between the two. After many headaches, we finally regained control of the process, and began installing software again. On May 28, we finally connected the new computer to the internet through Windows 98. At this point, we have a few more pieces of software to add to XP, then my brand new computer will be in full operation.