Geek-tech update: rebuilding the desktop was only a temporary AOL fix. But I did finally get a tech-support email from AOL, so maybe I'll try their suggestion (basically involves a reinstall; but there may have been a couple of parts lurking in the system that I missed the last time).

This week at work was fraught with glitches too: the Dell server stopped playing nice with the Macs and of course the IT guys (both Mac haters) were at a loss, and really not that helpful -- until MY boss suggested to them that if they didn't want to be real IT people and support all our computers, that he would just price out a Mac server and put me in charge of it. I practically giggled with glee. They hopped to it, but were still at a loss until I explained to them about resource forks and data forks (but not salad forks; I leave that to Miss Manners). After much more hand-wringing and Mac crashes they finally rebooted the whole server (which they hadn't done in a couple months) and upgraded some software. Problem solved... except some linger Mac troubles after they were crashed so many times.

Sigh.

Do I have to do everything?