Hope this helps ..... (you need to be able to burn a CD or get a friend to do one)
I guess if you have loads of design software on your computer that you are into design - so
You cannot afford upgrade -
So next option is to get the most out of your pc.
Try out one of the Linux Live CDs and see if you like it - have a look at my link
http://adventuresuk.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!9B2E76C5F75DF8EC!2538.entry
for some reason the above is not showing as a clickable link so use this and scroll down to Kanotix
http://adventuresuk.spaces.live.com/
see if you can get a copy of kanotix (or knoppix) - these I find will detect most things you have attached to your pc
Automatic and once you have the live CD - just put it in your drive and as long as you have your pc set to boot
from CD - Check out how to set your BIOS settings - to do this, or ask someone to do it for you.
Just reboot the PC and it should go straight into LINUX - do not panic - Windows is still there.
Just take the disk out once you have finished and your computer is exactly the same as it was before you used the disk.
Slax is a good system too - check this link
http://linux.softpedia.com/get/Syst...istributions/SLAX-KillBill-Edition-1957.shtml
some good design programs once up and running are BLENDER, WINGS3D, QCAD all free LINUX software.
Ok hope this helps but have gone off topic - the USB graphics card will basically give you output onto another monitor
thats about all - sorry if this does not help you - but have an excellent Xmas anyway.
23dornot23d.