gnomi and I have decided that we need to upgrade into the 21st century.

Right now, I use a graphite iBook running system 9 and Nomi has an old style G3 running system 8.6. At home, we still use dial-up to connect to the Internet.

Next week, that will all change. Since my computer's screen started going south, we decided it was time for me to get a new computer. And then we figured, why not get her one as well.

So we've ordered two Macintosh iBook 14-inch G4 computers with extra RAM, both running the latest version of System 10. But we've decided to go a step further, and get wireless cards for each one, and a router. We're going to get either DSL or a cable modem -- probably DSL -- and use the router to connect to the Internet from anywhere in the apartment.

What this means in the short term is that for most of next week, we'll be without our computers. Our computer guy has to transfer our files and applications, and that'll take a few days. Also, once we get the machines back, we'll still be using dial-up until we can get the new service ordered and the wireless hub put together.

But in the long term, this means more mobility, faster connections...and a credit card balance that'll probably take us a year to pay down.