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Thank you to Sine for the earlier response.
Toshiba 490CDT laptop running Windows 98. Moving the mouse pointer to the top or to the left side of the screen causes no problem. However, moving the pointer to within one inch of either the bottom or the right hand side of the screen, causes the screen image to scroll upwards or to the left respectively.
When the screen image moves upward, the area created below is obliterated by black lines. When the screen image moves to the left, the L/H edge of the screen image, begins to appear at the right of the screen.
Has anyone seen this before please? I understand that this is probably finger trouble on my part, wrong screen setting, wrong margin setting, something I should enable or disable but I cannot fathom it out.
Any assistance would be much appreciated. Thank you.
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It is the resolution of your screen. you'll need to mess around with the settings of your display to fix it.
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To add to No FM2R's advice, if you right click on an empty area of the Desktop>Properties>Settings tab>Advanced button>Adapter tab>List All Modes button, you will see a list of the resolution/colour/refresh rates of which your onboard graphics or graphics card is capable.
You may have to experiment to find the best combination for your laptop as No FM2R suggests. Ensure that the chosen settings you try out don't require a reboot, but take effect by using the OK button.
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PS
This is to save waiting for a reboot each time you select/may select a different combination.
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Thanks to you both. Will try this as soon as I can.
Thanks again.
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All six available resolutions tried, problem persists. Any further input welcomed.
Thank you.
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Like the other posters say, this definately sounds like you have the resolution set higher than the actual display size of the laptop screen - hence the scrolling around.
The current screen resolution is set to high so you will need to reduce it. For example if it was currently 1280x1024 and the laptop screen is only 1024x768 you'd move the slider to choose the lower resolution.
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Thanks rtj70, will look at it again in light of what you say.
Much appreciated.
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Looking at a word document in office 97, which has been sent as an outlook attachment. Within the word document, there are three .pdf files embedded and another .doc .
Is it possible to open these .pdf files ? there's no option to "save" or "open with .."
There is a "outlook file attachment object" option butthat doesn't seem to help either. Can anyone help?
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Install Adobe Reader (free, downloaded from Adobe) and then double-click the .pdf icons to open the corresponding files
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...or Foxit Reader, a fraction of the download size of Adobe Reader and equally free:
www.foxitsoftware.com/pdf/rd_intro.php
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Ta, Stuart. Handy to know if ever I'm helping - as I oft seem to be with friends and neighbours! - on a system pushed for HDD capacity.
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Hard drives, as you are probably aware, are as cheap as chips these days...:-)
Only about five years ago since I paid £66 for a 60GB Western Digital Caviar (about the same price as a previous 6.4GB and then 20GB drive); today that same £66 will buy several hundred GB.....:-(
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Hard drives, as you are probably aware, are as cheap as chips these days...:-)
They are indeed, which is why I have ample capacity and then some, with a few bloatware packages such as Adobe Reader that I don't lose any sleep over. I have some affluent friends however who seem to object to opening their wallets as far as computers are concerned; some are very aged - the computers that is - and pursuading them to change or upgrade can be hard work!
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No joy - I already had Adobe, and have tried Foxit all I get is "word cannot edit the outlook.fileattach" . I'm assuming that's because it's an attachment within an attachment.
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This is ridiculous. No really, bear with me. I suggest the following form of words in an email to the person who sent this Frankendocument:
Dear whoeveryoumaybestillusingWord97whenOpenOfficeisfree
You are an idiot. I really mean it. How in the name of all that is elegant and well constructed do you expect me to be able to open a document designed in the image of your own twisted psyche? No system ever conceived is able to comprehend the bizarre complexities of your unstable mind, so it is unlikely that an attachment of this kind could ever be opened. Please separate the pdf and .doc attachments and send them to me one by one. If this is too difficult print them out and send them by post.
I await your prompt response.
Your humble servant etc.
That will do the trick I think.
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um this was my office 97 that I 'found' at work. At least it's better that MSWorks.
I now have an outlook message with 2 pdfs that are OK and a 1.25 meg .dat file and therein lies the problem. I suspect the original sender will have to resend - it's for a job interview ( not mine ) so maybe it's an initiative test :-)
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This is ridiculous. No really, bear with me. I suggest the following form of words in an email to the person who sent this Frankendocument: Dear whoeveryoumaybestillusingWord97whenOpenOfficeisfree You are an idiot. .......That will do the trick I think.
That is all very well Baskerville though it is the OP that is using 97, lord knows what the sender is using, Open Office probably ;-)
Office 97 is fine but for the fact that it does not run on Vista and Publisher has compatibility probs with later versions, Office 2000 is actually excellent by current standards.
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Computer 1 has MS Office (2000), Computer 2 has Open Office
Word documents created on computer 1 will open with Open Office on computer 2 with no problems.
However, I created a text (odt) document with Open Office on computer 2, moved it to computer 1, and tried to open in with Word, and got a load of gibberish. What did I do wrong?
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Word can't read odt! If you want to open documents created on computer 2 on computer 1, you'll have to save the document in .doc format from Open Office.
The odt is actually a gzipped xml file, so if you are really stuck, you can access the text of the document via gzip and notepad.
Number_Cruncher
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Thanks NC. As you can see, I'm very new to this Open Office business. I am indebted to you.
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I am useless with computers and am thinking I have taken on a task I can't do. I am trying to install wireless Broadband to save me having to run an extension cable from downstairs to upstairs. I have bought a eTEC ADSL2/2+ Wireless Modem and an ASUS WLAN adaptor on the recommendation of the shop I went to. I have managed to get the bits and pieces out of the box OK without breaking anything so far...
Having installed the WLAN adaptor OK, I am having problems with the wireless modem. It tells me to launch my browser and enter the modem's IP address and then hit 'Enter'. I should get a Username and Password box pop up, but I get nothing. The instructions then say that sometimes this can happen and I need to disable my firewall or anti-virus software. Now I am lost. I know I have something called AVG but how do I disable it? And how do I get it enabled again?
Thanks for any help.
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X
I don't know AVG though I know it's popular amongst people on this forum so I'm sure you'll get an expert along in a minute. In the meantime I would guess there is an icon in your system tray (bottom right, near the clock) that represents AVG? Click that (right? left? try one, if that doesn't work, try the other) and I'm sure you'll see an option to turn it off. You might want to unplug your internet connection. It will almost certainly restart when you restart your pc. If not, go to start, programs, avg.
Good luck
JH
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to disable AVG, simply right click on the taskbar icon and click "QUIT AVG CONTROL CENTRE"
to re-open it choose avg control centre in the options under AVG in the Start-programs menu.
HTH
Billy
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Avg shouldnt be a problem
I always think it is much,much easier to set these things up for the first time with a wired connection.
however,
I would expect the wlan adapter to have some sort of config program that you can run which will allow you to choose the wireless device you want it to connect to. Once that is done you should get a connection and see the ip address that you have.
Are you sure you have the correct IP address for the router ? usually these default to 192.168.0.1.
if you open a command window (start - run - cmd ) and type ipconfig/all you should see tht ip addresses your computer has , with details listed by network interface. If you dont have an address for the wlan or you have 169.x.x.x then it isnt getting its ip address.
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xileno:
i take it you do not have a firewall, and only have the avg antivirus.
to add to adverse camber's comment. can you specify which model asus router you have. have a look at
www.trustedreviews.com/networking/review/2006/01/2...1
that one seems to default to 192.168.1.1
other modem guides which may help you to set up yours are here:
www.thinkbroadband.com/reviews.html
eg. www.thinkbroadband.com/hardware/reviews/2004/q4/be...l
www.thinkbroadband.com/hardware/reviews/2002/q2/as...l
after setting it up, your router should give good firewall protection if it is anything like
www.ciao.co.uk/ASUS_WL_530G__6465387 which apparently
......The WL-530g integrated the ACL (access control list) functions, permitting users to connect to broadband Internet through the wireless router without worries. On top of WEP (wired equivalent privacy) encoded technology, the WL-530g also included the next-generation WPA-PSK (Wi-Fi-Protected Access-Preshared Keys) and TKIP (Temporal Key Integrity Protocol) for those who demand state-of-the-art network security. Besides the NAT (network address translation) firewall, which keeps internal addresses hidden from the outside, the WL-530g also provides SPI (Stateful Packet Inspection), an even more powerful firewall system. With Children Protection function which protects against unauthorized access and filter mechanism for blocking inappropriate URLs in pre-defined key words/time interval, the WL-530g is ideal for both office and home environments for setting up a wireless network....
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You might need to connect to your wireless router with a network cable to configure it until both are secured to each other. This was necessary on a Netgrar router for NTL ans also a Sky supplied (Netgear) wireless modem - first off needs to be connected by wires !
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After the 3rd failed HD in about 12 months (all OS HD's, none of the other 3 backup drives have gone) I am now of the opinion I have a MB problem - Can't load XP onto a reformatted HD via SATA, but if I put an old 10gb drive in, it will install XP on it ,if it is on one IDE channnel, but not if it was plugged into the other one.
Also, at times it wont boot and just has no NTLR Error, if I unplug all the other 3 drives and just leave OS drive in it then finds it again!!!!
Anyone got any other ideas of what it might be or how else I can diagnose, or is it just bite the bullet and get a new MB?
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some versions of xp are very iffy with sata in my experience.
Do you have all the correct updated drivers for your motherboard and is the bios on a recent version ?
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To install XP on a SATA drive, especially if earlier XP, you need the drivers on a floppy (yes the old floppy it has just one use these days) - as XP starts to install you need to hit F6 (from memory two years ago) when asked for SCSI drivers and then wait for it to ask you for the drivers. It's a bit hit and miss and may need attempting a few times until you hit the key in time.
Assuming you have SATA, I'd recommend going for raid (i.e. two drives) and having the extra security from setting up a mirrored array - certainly saved my bacon last month.
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I haven't needed to do that on the previous 4 occasions of having to install XP, but I have read about it!!
PC hung again today, so new MB now on order, I hope it will sort the issues out.
Have thought about using a raid array as I have 3 SATA drives in it, one for normal use the other 2 are purely for backups, I use EZBackitup to do various backups through the day. The most data I should ever loose is about 4hrs worth - once bitten and all that!!! But will look again at a Raid array when new MB arrives.
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Not really a question this but a nifty Firefox addon.
It has long been an irritation with this forum that if you're typing a long post the forum times out so when you click "post" you lose your carefully considered words of wisdom. A lot of people get round this by typing in a text editor of some kind. Well there is now a Firefox addon that puts an "edit" button in every typable text box which, when you click it, opens your text editor of choice. In my case gedit, but maybe notepad or whatever. You type "save" the text is copied to the forum editor, meaning you have a local copy in case the thing times out. I typed this with it and it's excellent.
It's All Text! is here (Firefox required): addons.mozilla.org/firefox/4125/
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On some websites, one can see small (ie about 4 inches by 4 inches) video clips These videos, I believe, use "Flash".
If I try to download by right-clicking and then hitting "save target", all I get is a web page.
Is it possible to download these video clips to watch off line?
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The authorities have made this difficult because of the health implications. Imagine a widespread outbreak of self-induced blindness and you'll see their point. But if you really must, try this Firefox addon:
addons.mozilla.org/firefox/2254/
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There are two Flash plug-ins, one for IE and the other for Firefox etc. See:
www.filehippo.com/download_flashplayer_firefox/
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It will probably do about as much good as the recent road pricing petition :-( but backroomers may like to know about a petition against the high price charged by Microsoft for Vista in the U.K. at the No10 website.
petitions.pm.gov.uk/VistaOvercharge/
Steve.
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Voting against speed humps might be a better use of your time; petitions.pm.gov.uk/Nohumps/
JH
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Not sure if this has been posted already, but it is possible to do a clean install of Vista just using the upgrade disc (cheaper) than the full-on overpriced MS installation disc.
This link explains!
tinyurl.com/2r6usb
Roger. (Costa del Sol, España)
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Site to look at before leaping into the void
kadaitcha.cx/vista/dogsbreakfast/index.html
Happy Installation (with optional trouble shooting:-(( ), Phil I
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I've just discovered by accident that pressing the spacebar makes a web page scroll down. Is this a feature of IE7 or did IE6 do it as well?
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L\'escargot.
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It's also a Firefox feature.
Firefox, however, doesn't have the right click side scroll bar features available in MS programs and applications..:-(
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It has this one.
Middle click on the page (not on a link) and the space bar will scroll down, or you can just move the mouse (no further button pressing required).
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>>It has this one.>>
Are you referring to the standard Microsoft or other makes' mouse software/drivers features? If so I was aware of this point and use regularly on very long web pages.
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>>It has this one.>> Are you referring to the standard Microsoft or other makes' mouse software/drivers features?
No, just pointing out a feature in Firefox that others may not have discovered. It works in all versions of Firefox (Windows/Linux/Mac) and with every mouse I've ever used with it, so I guess it's the Fox, not the mouse or drivers.
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Is this a feature of IE7 or did IE6 do it as well?
It's done it as far back as I can remember. (at least IE4, and probably even earlier versions)
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Does anyone out there own, use or have first hand experience of the above Laptop please? Sister has just bought one.
Seeking information as to possible problems with the unit or its battery. Is there anything that it is claimed that the unit should do, which in practice it does not? Does the battery life live up to the 2.5 hours claimed? In short, anything we should know or that we will find out later?
Assistance would be much appreciated.
Thank you. Petel SG-CVT3@uwclub.net
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Using Word/XP, I can see how to assign passwords to individual files, but how do I assign a password to a folder containing a number of files?
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how do I assign a password to a folder containing a number of files?
Right click the folder then click "sharing and security", both my machines are XP Pro, Home and MCE might have less options in this regard.
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If you do what Cheddar suggests then you can change the file and folder permissions on your machine, assuming it is Windows NT, 2000 or XP. But this is only of use in a Windows domain environment. And anyone using your user could access the files. I guess you're after hiding the contents of some files from other users, such as passwords etc.
What you could do is encrypt the files and folders but be careful. If your machine crashed you might lose the files yourself. This only works on NTFS partitions. If you copy the file or email then it loses the encryption. And anyone using your user or administrator could access the files straight away. I believe the Premium and Ultimate editions of Vista are better.
What I would do is use something like Winzip and add the files into a compressed zip archive file. You can assign a password to the archived files. And not only does this password protect the files in the zip file but they are also encrypted. The inconvenience is they are in a zip file and you'd have to delete the version outside of the zip on your computer or otherwise it would be pointless adding them to the zip.
Rob
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Hi i've blown the dust of one off these that's been languisihing in a desk at work for a couple of years. The poor neglected little thing seems as good as new when I re-snchronised it with my Desktop. How feasable is it (cost wise etc) to adapt this to take a TomTom - which would be useful for my bike. It has no wireless capability and obviously no GPS either.
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Yyou will need a GPS reciever and the software (both cheap off ebay)
Connectivity wise, if your IPAQ has a cf card slot you can get a cf bluetooth adaptor, failing that an IPAQ mount or sleve that takes a hard wired serial interface GPS reciever.
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TourVanMan TM < Ex RF >
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Thanks it has a CF Slot and bluetooth - it was an expensive (and very underused bit of kit when the firm bought them). Off to trawl e-bay now. Thanks TVM - I'm going to be doing an Ewan McGregor (More Mid Wales than Mongolia though....) next week or thereafter.
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The main problem is that things are starting to get deperately slow.I've tried the clean up wizard and defragment which hasn't helped much as there is loads of space left. When booting up I notice there is a programme called ULI. I don't know what this is. I have down loaded Nokia software and digital camera software, bluetooth etc. Also annoyingly a box appears which says auto document which you have to close. I cant do anything with autodocument. If anyone has any reliable advice I'd be most grateful. Mike.
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You need a start up monitor - somthing like "start up doctor" or "start up monitor for windows"
both allow you to inspect the stuff being started up and stop it happening in future.
That nokia software is a reall hog btw
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TourVanMan TM < Ex RF >
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You need a start up monitor - something like "start up doctor" or "start up monitor for windows">>
Which is why Microsoft provides msconfig from Start>Run>type in "msconfig" without the quotes (Startup tab).
If you have CCCleaner, there's a similar feature.
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Many thanks for your help. Will try msconfig. Mike.
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On my computer Richie_green's post entitled "Car valuation" requires the use of a horizontal scroll to enable the full width to be viewed. Why? It's the only one that appears like this.
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L\'escargot.
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Blame Car junky and his very long URL
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TourVanMan TM < Ex RF >
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Blame Car junky and his very long URL
Go get him, mods!
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L\'escargot.
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Go get him, mods!
He's been tinyulr'd.
DD.
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>>He's been tinyulr'd.>>
Ouch.....
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I have an external hard drive (Maxtor make) on which I back up my main computer. it has worked well for a couple of years but there is a now a slight problem. It is not plug-and-play but has its own software which I have installed. However it does not appear as an icon in "My Compter" - another drive which I have is plug-and-play does appear.
I have successfully used Norton Ghost to back up my drive, I copied source C to drive (*) no name and I couldn't give it a name! My concern is that if I have a major disaster I have the info available for recovery but it is on a drive which I can't name, find on my computer or access.
Hardware check in sysytem tools tells me that it is working correctly. How can I allocate a name and get into the "My Computer" folder - please?
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Has it been assigned a drive letter? If not it won't show up. I'd check in "Disk Management" to see if it has a drive letter assigned.
However, as you say it's got proprietory software are you sure it is formatted in a way that Windows itself would recognise. But as you say you've used GHOST then I'd say it's just missing the drive letter.
Rob
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whats the software used to control this thing?
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TourVanMan TM < Ex RF >
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Thanks for help to date. It has proprietary software on a CD and includes Maxtor one touch and something Dantz and Retropspect. It had a drive letter before but I have been re-arranging my USB leads as I was getting screen of death crashes by having too many power hungry devices plugged into a USB 4 way hub. It is there but has no letter allocated and is not present in "My Computer"
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Ok, well it sounds like a badly behaved bit of software. You need to deinstall the programe(s) that came with it, and reinstall them again so they can find the device in its new USB home.
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TourVanMan TM < Ex RF >
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Thanks TVM - I'll do that report back! Should I load the software and then plug in the device or plug in the device and the load the software - or doens't it matter. Running Windows XP home with SP 2.
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You normally install the software before adding a USB device - the software should indicate when to make the connection.
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You normally install the software before adding a USB device -
yup normally right, otherwise windows decides it will try and find something else that fits, before the software gets to look at it,.
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TourVanMan TM < Ex RF >
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In the very near future I will need to do some video editing on our laptop. The film will be transfered onto the laptop from my Sony DV Video camera via firewire. The laptop has a large enough hard drive but only runs at 5400rpm. External hard drives are now fairly cheap(?) now and some run at 7,500 rpm also via firewire. If I buy an external hard drive at 7,500 rpm will it actually run and capture at this speed or is it all down to data transfer rates of the hard drive and in fact the 5,400rpm drive may have a faster transfer rate than the 7,500rpm drive. Or am I barking up the wrong tree?
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Well not quite but I now have a website. How do I actually upload after I've designed my first page. By the way it's not a car or work related thing.
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Normally by ftp or (better) sftp, or through a file manager application provided as part of your control panel. Your hosting provider should be able to advise which.
Incidentally, you can do quite a lot these days with tools like Wordpress. They provide free blog hosting at wordpress.com and for $10 a year you can even point your own domain at the free site. This is primarily blogging software, but it's very versatile and very easy to use. Wordpress is also available (for free) to host on your own server. The great thing about it is that there are thousands of free and easily modifiable templates. You can get something very slick-looking very easily.
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My HP printer has just died and it has been replaced with something different. If anyone has a use for an unused brand new black cartridge number 15 for £6 including postage, drop me an email. I'll even throw in the part-used old cartridges - another 15 and a tri-colour 78. First come first served!
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Terry
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You have mail! Yes please.
I have used my personal Email address - not the one listed in my profile so please delete from your adress book after use.
If you are very local, I may collect the dead printer as well if it is on offer.
peter
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pmh (was peter)
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Sold! They're yours. I've replied to your email and deleted you from the address book. If you're in or near Dorset, you can collect if you wish.
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Terry
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Is there a function that I can set on my computer that will ring or flash or otherwise alert me to the arrival to a certain point in time?
I know there is a small clock in the corner, but . . .
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>>that will ring or flash or otherwise alert me to the arrival to a certain point in time? >>
BlueFive.Pair is a respected software company that provides utilities such as PixResizer - it also includes this in its lineup:
bluefive.pair.com/alarm.htm
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Thanks, Stuartli. That's just what I wanted.
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Thanks all for the budget laptop buying advice on the previous computer thread. Have looked at quite a few using PC World as our testing area and we are now close to buying.
Any thoughts on the new type of glossy screen many have now? Seems to give a breathtaking display of images but there is the issue of reflections. The Dell website warns of this if you go for the £35 upgrade to this screen type.
I wonder what they are llike outdoors for example?
Thanks,
DW
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I bought an Acer laptop last year with a glossy screen and find it very good. People at camera club have also made positive comments about it, so it can't be bad. Reflections could be an issue I suppose if you are using it in a bright area but it's never bothered me. When I see a non glossy screen now especially for looking at photos I think they look very poor.
Good luck with your choice,
Steve.
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Steve,
Thanks. I am so tempted to go for this screen type. When we first started looking at laptops a few weeks ago we assumed those showing the amazing images were something to do with Vista Premium... but then realised it was the screen finish.
I have been a lifelong photographer and never used matt prints... glossy every time... so the glossy screen really appeals.
DW
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M.M,
Yes I've always preferred gloss finish too. As for outdoor use I've never found this laptop or my old non glossy one much good in full sunlight. It may look cool on TV etc to see people using their computer in the garden but it's never worked for me :-(
Steve.
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Any new laptop we buy will come with Vista... either Home Basic or Home Premium. I've read the blurb on the Vista website but I wondered what the difference might be in day to day use for a family/small office PC?
When buying new it may be worth the extra to get Premium built in now because it seems to need a better processor, more RAM and a better graphics card that would be uneconomic to retro-fit.
Any thoughts?
DW
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Home Basic is a marketing ploy to give a "Get Vista now from only..." price. Each version of Vista is actually the same but with certain features disabled/enabled artificially. Home Basic is the most crippled and hardly anyone will buy it, which is exactly what Microsoft intended.
Because laptop hardware is trickier (but not impossible) to upgrade later you should buy the most high spec. machine you can afford. Don't skimp to save £50 or possibly even £100 if you can afford it. The differential is there because the machine's innards are "outgoing"; it will be very old tech in 12 months.
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There is no reason on earth to buy Winodws Vista Home basic. It provides nothing over A late version windows XP SP2 package, less in fact.
The higher versions provide you with "stuff" the most noticeable one being the "aero" interface, which can be made to look very sexy and WOW indeed. It needs real CPU and Graphics card horsepower tho, and a shedload of memory.
The laptops with Vista home basic bundled, are bundled with that version because the hardware (mostly the grpahics chip) cant cut the mustard.
Visa is also brand new and subsequently will be full of "undocumented features" (thats bugs to you and me)
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TourVanMan TM < Ex RF >
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Thanks guys... makes sense to by-pass Home Basic then.
Browsing the Dell website (because it is easy to do/price your own builds) I see they have a deal on at the moment that adds Home Premium and the processor/memory/graphics chip/hard drive to support it for just £69 more than the budget laptop we were looking at a few days ago. To individually up-spec a budget model with each of these components at the time of build would be an extra £276 so it is easy to see where the value is.
Cheers,
DW
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>>Because laptop hardware is trickier (but not impossible) to upgrade later you should buy the most high spec. machine you can afford. Don't skimp to save £50 or possibly even £100 if you can afford it.>>
I diagree to a degree, if that makes sense!
Dont think "spend as much as I can afford", think spec, you can get a Core 2 Duo laptop with an Intel 945 chipset and 512 to 1024Mb memory for around 500 quid, either on Vista Home Premium, XP Media Centre or XP Pro, you will get a free Vista upgrade option on either of the XP's so they are preferable currently.
You can add a 512Mb SODIMM for under 30 quid, you probably do not want a dedicated graphics card because it effects battery performance / life and the Intel integrated graphics in the 950GM is great for all but the latest games.
Most will have a DVDR/RW drive and perhaps a 80Gb hard drive though do you want to carry more than 80Gb of personal data around with you?
All will be wifi, you need to decide if you want Bluetooth or 3G.
Comet (online) are doing an Acer Aspire 5634 for £650 with 2Gb memory which is good value, you can get a similar 5633 with less memory and no dedicated graphic card (so better battery life) for around £500 from Dabs or e-Buyer.
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Sorry,
"the Intel integrated graphics 950 in the 945GM is great for all but the latest games."
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Dont think "spend as much as I can afford", think spec,
Hang on a minute. In the section of my post you quoted I wrote:
"you should buy the most high spec. machine you can afford"
How is that not about "thinking spec."? I went on to make the point that if £50 gets you something at the next level then it's worth paying. The real budget machines (around £400 or even less) are not generally good value.
Not sure either about your point about graphics cards. My iBook has a dedicated graphics card and when new 2.5 years ago the battery lasted well over 4 hours in normal use and more like 5 hours if you turned off the wireless. The Mac laptops were class leading on battery life at that time, yet few competitors in the same price range (£600-£700) had dedicated graphics cards. Battery life is one of the main reasons I bought a Mac and not something else in fact. I conclude therefore that there is more to it than this.
Incidentally the iBook has turned out to be the most versatile, reliable, and best value computer I have ever used--I intend to buy OS X Leopard "Ultimate" (there is only one version) for it in the Autumn, for around £80--a bargain indeed.
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> Hang on a minute. >>
No real disagreement, I really wanted to qualify your points, i.e. the graphics card issue, it is true that integrated graphics cost more and use less power so only real value on a laptop if used for gaming, also no point in spend £1200 plus to get a high spec machine with Bluetooth, 3g and a 250Gb h/d if you do not need it, better to set a budget and get top spec core components, i.e. Core 2 Duo, Intel 945 chipset and XP MCE or Pro, this can be acheived for around £500 if the likes of Bluetooth, 3g and v-large h/ds are not required.
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Thanks guys... makes sense to by-pass Home Basic then.
m.m :
as tvm says, ideally you want to buy something with xp. these are now increasingly hard to find. but if you get one with xp-media-centre-2005, you will qualify for the free vista-premium upgrade that you can install once you are confident that any vista bugs have been resolved. note you have to pay microsoft p&p of about £12 or so for the upgrade dvd. also not the comment above "Vista Price Rip Off - malteser Wed 28 Feb 07 13:23 " regarding the upgrade "tweak" that gives you a full-home-premiumvista rather than oem-home-premium-vista..
although this may not be what youare looking for, i am giving link her purely to illustrate the upgrade point - see e.g. www.pcworld.co.uk/martprd/product/seo/120880
depending on your budget and requirements, and if you cannot find a non-vista installed laptop, look here for dell's current offers list: www.dmxdimension.com/.
also look at sites such as www.hotukdeals.com, where you can find highlighted deals, e.g.
www.hotukdeals.com/forums/showthread.php?p=377043
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Advice from a family friend who has just bought a new laptop from Dell with Vista installed - avoid like the plague. They have a daughter in New Zealand and they use the PC for all communications to her. To date none of the software they use to run the communications side works with Vista.
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A month ago, we bought a new Evesham Voyager C130 laptop with XP media edition. We had already decided not to go with Vista, but asked for a demonstration of Vista. A laptop was available which had Vista installed the previous day - and it promptly crashed! We were glad we had stuck with XP and, touch wood, the C130 has been very good and hellish quick.
Incidentally, in answer to an earlier laptop question, we have the new 'shiny' screen and it's very clear and a pleasure to work with. Reflections are really no greater problem than with the old style screens (IMHO).
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I intend to change my antivirus supplier. Is there likely to be a conflict if I install the new before uninstalling the old?
--
L\'escargot.
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"Is there likely to be a conflict if I install the new before uninstalling the old?"
In my opionion yes. They will fight each other. If you are offline when you uninstall the old programme & install the new one you shouldn't need the two running at the same time.
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Hi, I'm not great with computers so I may not even word my question (s) properly but here goes...
I have a 5 +yr old Packard Bell PC which over the last month or so gives an occasional 'flash' on the monitor.
The best way I can describe it is like one of those lines that runs across old TVs, but it happens only once or twice evry 4-6 hours and there is only one really fast flash as the white line seems to travel up/down the screen - for only a split second.
Is this likely to be a virus of any kind?
I have anti-spyware and a firewall but no anti-virus. I've used the Microsoft free 'safety scanner' and it doesn't detect anything.
Does it just mean my monitor has had it?
Alsoooo, ... I have only 256MB RAM (maybe this is the problem - I get a virtual memory is low warning at least twice every day)
I can't really afford a new PC - if I wanted to add another 256MB of RAM - how much would it cost? Would I have to take the computer box apart?
Is it difficult to do but would it make a big difference?
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Not likely a virus. If you have a tube monitor rather than the new style flat panel, it could be a bit of flash-over. Tubes have a very high voltage inside and the insulation can go suspect and spark across. Often you here a spark click at the same time. If you can try another monitor to see if it stops doing it, that would help sort it.
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Hi, Jemima Can!
I have a 5 +yr old Packard Bell PC which over the last month or so gives an occasional 'flash' on the monitor.
Sounds like the insides need cleaning. There is a thing called the Horizontal Output Transformer inside which, if dirty, can cause just the kind of flashing you describe.
A can of Dust Off and a camel-hair brush, gently applied, should cure it!
--
e Prof - Another Recycled Teenager
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Eek.....Unless you are really really sure what you are doing under no circumstances start poking around inside a CRT monitor . there are lethal voltages in there, even some toime after switch off.
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It is a CRT monitor - and it probably is a bit on the dusty side, - it's been through a couple of housemoves and at least one floor sanding!!!
Perhaps I didn't cover it as well as I thought!
I don't fancy opening it up though - is it ok just to live with it - or will it go pop!
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Profuse apologies for not adding the safety bits about working on a monitor!
Leave it for at least half-an-hour before working on it, or getting someone else to work on it!
- or will it go pop! - Probably. As the dust carbonises and becomes a good conducter of the electricity, of which there is a lot in a monitor, there will be a big splat and it will retire from useful service.
So do it soon or go shopping!
--
e Prof - Another Recycled Teenager
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PDA is Mitac 550 running windows mobile,
I noticed today that any appointments etc that I had on it up to beginning of Feb have disappeared. I sync this with Microsoft Outlook on my desktop and all the appts are still showing on the calendar section of Microsoft Outlook but the sync process is not picking up the differences in data for the dates but is picking up other sync itmes like emails etc.
Any idea why this info was "lost" and why it can't be recovered through the sync?
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Just solved half the problem - when I sync the PDA and click on calendar in the Sync window, it gives options as to what timescale of dates get synched, I have changed it from 2 weeks to 6 months so that has now updated all my past appointments again.
Just don't know why it disappeared in the first place?
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