Hi everybody,

This is a quote I find at the beginning of every sub forum I click on:

"Hello Alex2507,
Our records indicate that you have never posted to our site before! Why not make your first post today by saying hello to our community in our Introductions forum."

I looked around pretty good and decided that this must be the Introductions forum. I was just hoping that this first post would make that whole page stop appearing every time I click on anything including User CP. I'm brand new to LW and dumb as a stump about computers but am familiar with this type of forum. Later I think I will list my gear in my sig but for now I am just hoping to be able to click on a thread and not have to scroll past the The Declaration of Independence to get to what I want.

If there is an Introduction forum that I missed completely and this post gets moved, please PM me, otherwise I'll never find it again. I have downloaded LW successfully and figured out how to get my hands on 1/2 a dozen songs. I don't really understand this P2P and sharing business. My first impression is that if you don't share, you can't download. Some file sizes (5611 Kb?) are a clue that no matter what song you're after, that size file won't work. There's that nonsense at the top of every search talking about orgasms. I blocked those two hosts. I take it that T3 is better than T1. Broadband is best? I have Cox High Speed Cable. A cNET user review cautioned against downloading anything that is all in lower case letters. I am only interested in music and noticed a downloaded song breaking up during playback while the computer was busy. I take it a sound card would help me by lowering the noise floor? Lastly, what is the Gnutella/LW forum rift about? I just thought it was odd that I had to register twice.

I didn't mean to start on any of these topics before doing some reading. One last thing, most everything has 4 stars under quality. Some things have a check mark. What does that mean?

Hopefully the pleasure won't be all mine,
Alex