ZoneAlarm 5.062.011 considered harmful

If you use ZoneAlarm, sometime around about now, it's going to tell you there's an upgrade available and that you should download and install version 5.062.011.

If you use a wireless network, don't do it.  I did, and after "upgrading", I couldn't keep a wireless connection up for five minutes.  The very FIRST thing it did was to decide that my local network was untrusted.  I eventually gave up and totally uninstalled ZoneAlarm -- and, guess what ......  my wireless networking is stable again.

I think it's time to look for a new personal firewall for my Windows laptop.  I'm getting awful tired of this kind of crap from ZoneAlarm.  Seems as soon as ZoneLabs got bought, the quality and reliability of ZoneAlarm started to slide.  This is the second "upgrade" since then I've had to back out.

Interesting economics

So, I've been researching parts for rebuilding whitestar, the machine UPS smashed.  It seems the price differential between rebuilding with an Athlon XP and an Athlon 64 is pretty minimal - $60 or so.  More interestingly, the lowest-priced decent socket-939 PCI Express motherboard (without SLI) is only about $40 more than the lowest-priced decent socket-939 PCI/AGP motherboard.

Here's where things really get interesting.  I've been advised to avoid the nVidia 5700LE and FX5700 graphics chipsets.  256MB GeForce6800 boards start around $350.  GeForce6600 boards start around $135 .... but as far as I can see, all GeForce6600 boards are PCI Express.  This leads to the odd conclusion that I can apparently get close to GeForce6800 performance while rebuilding the machine for $160 less overall by going the PCI Express route.

Intriguing....