Recently my daughter's old Pentium III Compaq laptop completely died. This happened near Christmas so her gift list was easy. The problem was that I do not want to spend much money. The other problem was that I hated it with a computer.

I hated it because I was constantly working on it. She uses the computer for homework, instant messaging and browsing. Every few months, I found myself removing spyware and other trash from the computer.Sometimes it was easier once you build the computer to reinstall all software, including the operating system. I track their use of the internet through my router, so I know that they are not on "questionable" sites, but these things more their way into her work at the computer.