thanks guys this was one of my first geo model and got around to asking about the windows Realy helpful!

Your friend could upgrade for a $95 fee from his older version. As for classes, search for "Certified Google SketchUp trainers" or "Authorized Google SketchUp Trainuing Center". Depending where you live, you may have luck to find one nearby. They can give you a certification with a nice badge. In many countries these classes can even be credited as college/univ courses.

can you not also select the hidden items as a selection set and either right click select Unhide, or, if the right click menu does not contain Unhide, then you would select from top menu Edit and select Unhide?

I just wish I could get my vistugh machine to display thumbnail images of the models I download at 3d warehouse like my XP machine does.