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hi. i feel strangely compelled this morning to vent my spleen over a couple of annoying Thinkpad problems, just to see whether anybody else's experience is similar. the first problem i have is really a sales problem. when i ordered the machine -- a 760EL -- i asked for a second drive to fit in the UltraBay(tm). when i got the system unpacked, i did indeed have a second drive, but i couldn't fit it in the UltraBay without an adapter device, which wasn't included and which i haven't seen any reference to in any of the IBM sales literature. i felt somewhat ripped-off, but i may have been unclear when i ordered the second disk drive that i wanted it for the Ultrabay specifically. (do any of you use this adapter, or know what it costs? i am going to have to bite the bullet and get one ...) the second problem i have is with the process of switching items in the UltraBay. this really couldn't be much more awkward. in order to install or remove the floppy, you have to insert a little plastic bracket that fills up the top half of the front access hole for the bay. to install this bit of plastic you have to remove the battery, at which point the screen weighs more than the bottom and the whole thing flopps over. the instructions say that you should open the screen 180 degrees before lifting the keyboard flap, but it only opens about 160 degrees, so even on a flat & level surface it cranes the base unit up into the air if the battery is removed. then, you have to seat the thing just right and slide-lock it in place. it is possible to lock it in place while it's in a slightly wrong position that just barely prevents you from installing the floppy, but it's the sort of thing where a grumpy person would be tempeted to grab a hammer and make it fit. why, oh why, couldn't IBM just give the floppy a full-face front panel of the same shape as the CD-ROM's? it would just plop right in. furthermore, the panel on the bottom of the system is held shut by the same latch that holds the keyboard flap closed. this is so they can be attached to the same security device, but the practical upshoot is that the moment that the Thinkpad flops backwards, the plastic memory cover falls off. plop. i don't like exposing my RAM to the elements in this way! in fact, the only thing that keeps the memory from also falling out is the friction of its pin connectors. so: i am just about ready to lay a piece of duct tape across the nice sleek bottom of my Thinkpad, and i have given up any hope of swapping between the floppy and the CD without shutting down first. too bad, because Linux supports it even if Windows 95 doesn't. i still think that the 701 model is a brilliant hardware design, but this one is really getting on my nerves. caveat: i will never, ever, complain about my nice job where they buy me these fun toys. i just am griping because i dislike bad computer designs on principle -- as a sysadmin, i am usually the one who suffers because of them. =) thanks for listening to me gripe. -mykle-