Thanks for all the help, I really appreciate it
I think I have my head around most of it now.
On the wireless card front.... some cards have an antennae on the back and some don't. Is it necessary to get one with an antennae as this would stick out a bit on a laptop?
I've been looking at various laptops and fancy one with an s-video output as I could then watch video clips and dvds on my television.