***** This thread is now closed, please CLICK HERE to go to Volume 130 *****
In this thread you may ask any computer related question for which you need help, advice, suggestions or whatever.
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PLEASE NOTE:
When posting a NEW question, please "Reply to" the first message in this thread, i.e. this one. This keeps each question in it's own separate segment and stops each new question from getting mixed up in amongst existing questions. Also please remember to change the subject header.
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I have an 18 month desktop PC, it was bought mainly as a home PC though is used more for my business now, I like it and dont really want or need to change it. Rather as with a car I get on with it, I know it well and feel it is too early to change it.
However the kids have two PC's that are both getting too long in the tooth and with secondary school pending they need something more contemporary.
So rather than spending iro £750 on a new system for the kids, (and as per recent posts on the subject) I have decided to keep my system well up-to-date and spend around £1000 to £1250 on a new system for business.
The quandary .......
........ do get a 20" or 22" wide screen (which would be the same propotions as my laptop screen) or get a new 17" for the kids to use (which would fit a little better on the desk we have in mind for it) and keep my current excellent 19" flat screen for use with the new system?
I used to be undecided though now I am not so sure!
Any relevant experiences?
Thanks.
PS: any experience / knowledge of www.pcspecialsit.co.uk ?
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17in (and for a little more, 19in) TFT monitors are now from just under £100 upwards, so buying one for the youngsters would seem the ideal solution.
If they play games etc make sure that the monitor's response rate is good - some monitors are now down to around 2 or 3nms these days, although they will be a little more expensive.
By the way, although you are probably aware, a 17in TFT is equivalent to a 19in CRT monitor and pro rata.
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An example of a basic 19in TFT for £103:
tinyurl.com/ysqgrw
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By the way although you are probably aware a 17in TFT is equivalent to a 19in CRT monitor and pro rata.
Thanks Stuart, yes my current 19" flat screen is larger in are to my previous 19" CRT.
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Screens (like keybaords) are very much a "personal" thing. They all vary to some extent or other.
If you like your current screen, and it is large enough for your needs, I see no reason to change it. you dont really gain much by going to really big TFT screens as the native panel resolution means that frequently text and icons actually gets smaller.
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TourVanMan TM < Ex RF >
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Screens (like keybaords) are very much a "personal" thing. They all vary to some extent or other.
Keyboards, I bought a compact and sexy slim gloss black Logitec to use with my laptop at home/office, didnt get on with it, the key spacing is different that the desktop keyboard, might as well use the laptop keypad.
So I have recently bought a PC Line keyboard from PC World, £4.99, well weighted and damped keys, highly recomended.
If you like your current screen and it is large enough for your needs I see no reason to change it. you dont really gain much by going to really big TFT screens as the native panel resolution means that frequently text and icons actually gets smaller.
Well a 22" wide gives a screen area of approx 11.5" x 18.5" so at 1050 x 1680 offers similar resolution to a 19" std which is about 11.5" x 14.5" and normally 1024 x 1280. So the benefit is the extra 4" or so width when using multi windows etc.
Also my currrent screen is not DVi though is excellent, might be better to go DVi now.
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Mornin' all
I've got an annoying problem on the home PC, Win XP Home SP2; when I logoff as a user there's always some flippin' programme that won't shut down properly, and the logoff hangs. Via Google I've found out how to force programme exit during PC shutdown, with a registry edit, but I can't find an equivalent for logoff. I know the 'right' thing to do would be to find out what programme is causing the problem and why, but life's too short....Any ideas anyone?
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I don't know whether it applies to logoff hanging but I found that my pc's shutdown hanging problem was caused by having insufficient available RAM. Click on the Performance tab of Windows Task Manager and see how much Available there is in the Physical Memory box. Or am I trying to teach my grandmother to suck eggs?
--
L\'escargot.
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I haven't checked that Monsieur Snail, I'll take a look when I get home, cheers.
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If I remember correctly my pc's available memory was down to 22,000 (K?). I had another 256 MB RAM module fitted and the available memory now varies between 350,000 and 650,000 (K?) if it's any help to know that. Disabling unnecessary startup items improved matters before I got the additional RAM ~ All Programs > Run > type msconfig > Click OK > Click on Startup and see what might be unnecessary.
If I'm talking a load of cobblers I'll be pleased to be put straight!
--
L\'escargot.
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I am getting a message saying the System Restore is not enabled. However when I go to System and to System Restore tab and uncheck the box which disables SR and then click Apply, I get a message saying SR encountered a problem trying to enable/disable one or more drives. Restart your computer and try again - that doesn't help either. Ideas Please? Thanks
{moves question to correct place in thread, as per the PLEASE NOTE message at the top - DD}
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I'm hoping there is a very simple answer - I want to record some daily statistics in a spreadsheet
Is there a way of automatically populating a column or row with a series of consecutive dates, or do I have to type them all in ?
cheers
M
--
Go on, get out of the car...
www.mikes-walks.co.uk
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Create a consecutive list of dates
Type the first day or date in the list, for example Monday or 6/13/08, in a cell.
Select the cell and use the fill handle (fill handle: The small black square in the lower-right corner of the selection. When you point to the fill handle, the pointer changes to a black cross.) to fill a list of consecutive days.
Note If you want only weekdays in your list, click Auto Fill Options and then select Fill Weekdays only.
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TourVanMan TM < Ex RF >
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There may be a better way ...
.... however if you select a cell, say C3 and use Format>Cells to format it as a date, say XX/XX/XXX, then type the date in as say 25/05/2007 then in the cell below input a formula as =C3+1 then the result will be 26/05/2007, you can then just copy this formula as as far as you want down (or across) the sheet.
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Searched a bit but not really found a good busy one for a tech query. Balckberry site is not much use
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www.blackberryforums.com/
112,000 posts in general alone? not busy?
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TourVanMan TM < Ex RF >
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Bought SWMBO a new mp3 player, a Samsung.
Whenever I try to put songs on to it from Musicmatch Jukebox on the desktop computer, it gets so far then freezes. Sometimes the computer doesn't recognise its there.
I tried on my laptop and got a warning message that the power at the USB exceeded the USB hub, or something along those lines.
Checked the mp3 instructions and it says it is USB 2.0.
Could this be the problem? How do I know what USB my computers have?
As usual, please excuse the ignorance!
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usb2 will work on usb1.1
You may need a powered usb hub, or use a shorter / better quality usb cable. Can you power the mp3 player at the same time its plugged in to the pc?
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TourVanMan TM < Ex RF >
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TVM, thanks for your prompt reply.
I had been trying the USBs at the front of my desktop, tried it in one of the USB at the rear and i works fine?
Don't know why that would be but it seems to have solved the problem?
Still doesn't work on any of the USB on the laptop?
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>>How do I know what USB my computers have?>>
Go to Device Manager and click on USB Controllers. You should see the word Enhanced in one or more lines - this indicates USB2.
Windows XP + SP2 should install USB drivers as required but, for more help, go to:
www.usbman.com
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I cannot decide what to do re a new computer, three more questions:
Is a Core 2 Quad Q6600 worth £200 more than a Core 2 Duo E6700?
Re my monitor quandary above, if I get a new 22" widescreen I can use DVi, my current 19" is not DVi though is superb, DVi or not DVi?
If I do not get a DVi monitor am I negating the advantages of a decent graphics card such as an nVidia 7900GS? I could save £70ish with an ATi X1300 Pro.
Thanks.
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Re "what to do about a new computer", BigPockets has just sent an e-mail newsletter with these three baseline systems on offer:
www.bigpockets.co.uk/search.php?search=bigpockets+...0
The top spec model at £499.99 includes a 19in TFT monitor but is £100 less without it.
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Is a Core 2 Quad Q6600 worth £200 more than a Core 2 Duo E6700?
No, little software suport to use effectively around
If I do not get a DVi monitor am I negating the advantages of a decent graphics card such as an nVidia 7900GS? I could save £70ish with an ATi X1300 Pro.
You wont tell the difference btween DVI or Analogue.
nVideas are faster than ATis and less cpu hungry.
Why dont you specify and build your own? you can then keep it current by upgrades.
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TourVanMan TM < Ex RF >
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Why dont you specify and build your own? you can then keep it current by upgrades.
Thanks, that is why I was looking at ......
www.pcspecialist.co.uk
...... all off the shelf stuff so easy to upgrade.
Regards.
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No no - I mean *you* build your own. specify all all the bits you need, and buy them from empty case upwards and you do the building.
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TourVanMan TM < Ex RF >
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No no - I mean *you* build your own. specify all all the bits you need and buy them from empty case upwards and you do the building.
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Sorry, I know what you meant, cant be bothered though however as I say the pcspecialsit systems seem to be toatlly std off the shelf stuff so easily upgradable.
Fly in the ointment in the impending 1333Mhz fsb E6650, E6750 and E6850 which are apparently going to come in cheaper than the current 1066Mhz fsb CPU's, could be worth waiting until July for.
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Lesson no1 in the PC game. Dont believe "stuff" is coming till it hits the shelves in volume.
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TourVanMan TM < Ex RF >
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Lesson no1 in the PC game. Dont believe "stuff" is coming till it hits the shelves in volume.
>>
www.hkepc.com/bbs/itnews.php?tid=789466&starttime=...0
Quote: "Core 2 Duo 6050 family which features 1333MHz FSB releasing on July 22, has got a very impressive price advantage. The 3 models including E6550 (2.33GHz), E6750 (2.66GHz), and E6850 (3GHz) are only priced at $266, $183, and $163, around 40% cheaper than its 1066MHz version."
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Thats is NOT on the shelf. That is a release date. Let me know when you get one. Talk to you later in the year.
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TourVanMan TM < Ex RF >
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>> No no - I mean *you* build your own. specify all all the bits you >> need and buy them from empty case upwards and you do the building. >> Sorry I know what you meant cant be bothered
Once you have the bits in one place it takes an hour or so to build one at most, plus installing your OS of choice. Bottle of beer, radio, fiddling around with techy stuff. What's not to like? Then you have the "Look! Woman! I have made the computer! Bring me food for I am tired and hungry" Neanderthal moment to enjoy as well. Honestly, much better than ordering from Dell.
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Once you have the bits in one place it takes an hour or so to build one at most plus installing your OS of choice.>>
Yeah I know, been there and done it, not so much building from scratch though updating and repairing, kinda did it for a living, running a small business that relied on PC's and no one else to call on.
Nowdays I enjoy computers like I enjoy cars, I tinker a little and aspire to have a nice one, while I can only muse on the relative merits of a C55 estate or a 335i touring I can discuss the Core 2 Quad v a Core 2 Duo, the advantges of 1333Mhz FSB etc - and actually justify buying.
When it comes to building things I really dont want to build a computer any more than I want to build a car, now a motorcycle is a different matter!
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Correct. Those who dont know how easy it is, look on with awe and wonder. Cult status is yours for an hour or two. Your 15 minutes of fame.
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TourVanMan TM < Ex RF >
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I have been using a hotmail account now for over 7 years and no roblem.
I havent touched any filters or anything. Now over the past week or more my mail is not arriving, well most of it isnt arriving. I get the odd one or two from other hotmail users and a few from other users.
I've done a few test from my tiscali account and they never came through. I've tried hotmail help but where it says contact us the page comes up 'can not be found'.
Anyone got any idea what might be the problem?
Thanks for any help.
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Have you looked in the junk mail folder?
Also, there's another possibility:-
www.theregister.co.uk/2007/05/01/hotmail_friendly_.../
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Have you looked in the junk mail folder?
Thanks for the link DD. Yes looked in junk etc.
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S
you don't have a Hotmail problem, you have a Tiscal problem. see www.pcpro.co.uk/news/114310/spammers-blamed-for-ti...l
JH
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Further to my other new-PC musings, I have two XP Pro machines, another one would be turn key, there are clearly issues with Vista and I have a scanner that I know I cannot get Vista drivers for. On the otherhand I have fiddled with Vista and like some of the features, and getting up to speed would be fairly straight forward, also Vista is of course the future.
Vista Ultimate offers no advantages for me, Vista Business and XP Pro are a similar price.
Any thoughts?
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Let me turn this round on its head. I have a client who is badgering me to build a new very highy specified, very expensive PC loaded with Vista Ultimate.
Now I pride myself in building and configuring very stable, trouble free computers. I build and forget - I dont need support hastles. At this moment I am refusing the request from my client.
If you can find me someone who says they have had a completley stable, completley trouble free PC running any version of Vista with high performance with near anything thrown at it, then i will consider my clients request,
I have yet to find anyone singing its praises.
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TourVanMan TM < Ex RF >
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To a very great extent I'm with TVM.
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Thank, I have been erring towards XP Pro, can always upgrade later, I already have a Vista Business upgrade DVD for my laptop though not planning to use it for a while yet.
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I've been using XP Pro for about five years - it's the most stable, trouble free operating system from MS I've ever used and that's going back to 3.1 days.
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I've been using XP Pro for about five years >>
As I say I have two machines on XP Pro, one of which will become the kid's, looks like it will be three and Vista will have to wait.
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We've been trialling Vista on various machines, and the only positive thing I can say about it is that it's stabilised previously iffy wi-fi cards on a number of Fujitsu laptops. Other than that it's an awkward, pestering resource hog with limited driver support and an insatiable appetite for memory. When I pour money into a machine it's because I want to do interesting stuff with the software, not because the very foundations of the operating system demand higher hardware specs than most of the tools I want to run - it's like BWM insisting that you upgrade your garage to a barn and pave the floor with gold before you can park your Mini there..
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"it's like BWM insisting that you upgrade your garage to a barn and pave the floor with gold before you can park your Mini there.. "
Very true, and then BMW would ask you twice if you really want to park your Mini there before letting you proceed!
I'm coming to the conclusion that Vista is just a way of getting us to buy more memory and new graphics cards .... or better still a new PC just to do the things you used to do with XP on half the spec.
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I use Outlook to send my e-mails and, once a mail has gone it, appears in the "sent mail" folder. However on a number of occassions recently the mails havce not been received by the addressee so where have they gone, or in fact did they actually go? My ISP says that their servers are not experiencing any problems. So how can I check that 1. the mails did actually leave my machine and 2. if they did then where are they now?
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While you can't do much about what has been lost, you could include another email address on a BCC, so you can then cross-reference by checking the inbox for the BCC account.
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Tiscali have been having problems - could it be that?
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Tiscali have been having problems - could it be that?
Not forgetting to mention Hotmail's recent antispam measures (as mentioned further up this thread).
www.theregister.co.uk/2007/05/01/hotmail_friendly_.../
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Tiscali's e-mail server problems (affecting wide areas of the UK) won't be sorted out, it seems, until June 3rd according to the ISP (glad I left it 13 months ago).
However the webmail facility can, apparently, still be used.
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It seems that the Tiscali problems are also effecting other ISPs so there is a knock on effect. The joys of technology huh?
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It seems that the Tiscali problems are also effecting other ISPs so there is a knock on effect. The joys of technology huh?
i cant access my blueyonder email accounts
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The 8600GTS might seem the obvious choice though the 7900GS is 256bit against 126bit and also has a higher memory bandwidth, on the otherhand the 8600GTS supports DirectX10.0.
Any thoughts?
Thanks.
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There is very little in it in terms of performance, not enought to make a difference. 7900 comes in at about 80quid, and the 8600 about the 110quid mark.
Its basically down to "is DX10 native hardware support worth 30 quid"
I figure lack of DX10 wont be a problem for 18 months to 2 years.
your call.
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TourVanMan TM < Ex RF >
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Some review sites are questioning whether the 8600GTS is really going to be upto DirectX 10 for gaming. Especially with such low memory bandwidth. Even my old 6800GS has 256-bit memory interface.
I agree DirectX 10 not going to be important for a while and this assumes you're into gaming anyway. I think I'd go for a good DirectX9 card for now because in 6 months there will probably be a card around £100 that is fast enough for DX10.
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Thanks guys, the 8600GTS 128bit memory does not make sense to me however it is right up there on some bench marks, the other player at the price in the ATi X1950 Pro however it uses more power.
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It's possible that this question may have appeared before - in which case, I apologise - it's just that I don't know what to search for it under.
I've noticed strange folders appearing on my main (C) hard drive labelled e.g. thus 69cf55f5daca8e008ed5. I've no idea what they are - and now SWMBO tells me that no less than 94 have appeared on her laptop!
Yesterday, whilst re-arranging folders, I accidentally dropped my 2003 photo folder into one of these folders. The contents seem to have disappeared now -and I can't release the folder! Fortunately, I had the photos backed up on another drive.
Can anyone tell me what these folders are, where they come from, is it possible to delete them - and if we did delete them, would we be inviting disaster? If I can't delete them, is it possible to shift them all into one place to hide them? I suspect that they may have something to do with 'updates' - BTW we're both running Windows XP.
Many thanks, Waino.
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I suspect your machine(s) are not closing down correctly (or were just turned off at some point) and chkdsk has run on startup, and these folders contain the orphaned file fragments saved by a chkdisk
What properties do the files have? size? date? last access?
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TourVanMan TM < Ex RF >
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Not the same numbers / letters but all my home PC's running XP, plus all the work XP PC's have a similar folder under c:\ which I've always assumed is something to do with an update. Only one folder though.
The numerous blue compressed folders under c:\windows (or whatever your windows folder is called) are definitely update folders.
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.... in fact looking inside the folder reveals it's an XP update to do with update KB927978.
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In fact all the details here support.microsoft.com/kb/927978 including details about the randomly named folder.
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Thanks for the replies. Patient as ever, SWMBO has deleted the ones on her laptop - I await the result with baited breath!
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I have just purchased a macbook [2.0 GHz core2duo] and have a question about battery use. The machine will be mostly on a desk and run on the power supply. Is this a good idea and how often should I run the battery down and recharge. I have looked on the apple site but would appreciate any thoughts on this.
Thanks
culmhead
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Notebook batteries like to be worked. Once it has been calibrated (full charge and discharge and full charge again) you don't need to do a full cycle again really, but don't leave it plugged in all the time as it's not intended for that kind of usage. My bet is you won't use it on the desk as exclusively as you think anyway. The open lid/shut lid thing means these get used for quick internet queries or checking email in a spare couple of minutes.
If you're worried about longevity, my iBook, which is 2.5 years old and has had a full charge/discharge cycle (taken in chunks and topped up in between) roughly 4 or 5 times a week for the whole of that time, still manages almost 3 hours per charge.
I can recommend the book "Mac OS X: The Missing Manual," by David Pogue.
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Baskerville
Thanks for the reply. It was just that my previous laptop [a Samsung] had gone down to 30 mins battery capacity after only one year and I was anxious to avoid this again.
culmhead
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I would just use it and keep the molecules moving. Once it's calibrated you won't harm the battery by topping up from a partial discharge. There is no memory effect. Incidentally my last laptop (an HP) had worse battery life when new than the iBook does after 2.5 years of heavy use. They cost the same, three years apart.
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My wife recently bought a Honda CRV with SatNav. There is no ability to attach a multiple CD player through this. The dealer says we should put music from a computer on a Compact Flash or SD card and use an adaptor in the PC card slot, or just use an Ipod in the car. Three months later we cannot get this PC card system working. I have spent quite a bit on cards and adaptors. The Sat Nav instructions blandly tell us that some combinations of CF, SD and adaptors simply won't work. I have teenagers who can rip film DVDs to their Ipods but we cannot seem to get music out of ITunes in the correct format onto a CF or SD card and get it working in the car. Any similar experiences? Any ideas? The dealer is nice but clueless.
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What format is the music in iTunes in? If purchased from the iTunes website it will be in AAC format which most "MP3" players will not play. You'd need to convert into MP3 format - and Apple iTunes DRM makes this difficult.
If in MP3 format you also have to make sure the bit rate is not too high. Probably okay upto about 256kbit/s.
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What format is the music in iTunes in? If purchased from the iTunes website it will be in AAC format which most "MP3" players will not play. You'd need to convert into MP3 format - and Apple iTunes DRM makes this difficult.
Anything ripped from CD will not be DRM-encumbered of course. iTunes gives the option of ripping to AAC (superior) or mp3 at various bitrates. It can also convert non-DRMed AAC files to mp3 as you suggest, so anything ripped to AAC should convert easily. iTMS-bought tracks can be burned to CD by iTunes and then ripped, minus the DRM, back into iTunes.
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Try here, there are some clued up folks there
townhall-talk.edmunds.com/direct/view/.f0da887
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TourVanMan TM < Ex RF >
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What do you recommend? I have AVAST antivirus running.
Many thanks.
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ZoneAlarm's free version. If you install it (and it's extremely efficient) don't forget to Disable the Windows version.
tinyurl.com/273fy6
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don't forget to Disable the Windows version.
Er, why? Mine has been running in conjunction with zonealarm some 3½ years now with no problems.
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>>Er, why?>>
It's the standard recommendation; in addition, as has already been pointed out, it's a pretty basic firewall.
I already have a router firewall plus ZA (which I've used for at least five or six years now) and that's more than sufficient.
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>>Er why?>> It's the standard recommendation; in addition as has already been pointed out it's a pretty basic firewall.
Turns out that my XP firewall was switched off after all.
Thanks Stuartli & Dalglish for the info.
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Er, why? Mine has been running in conjunction with zonealarm some 3½ years now with no problems
in reply to d.d.
see faq 7, 8, 9 at
www.zonealarm.com/store/content/company/products/x...n
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If you wish to test your firewall's security levels, go to:
www.grc.com/intro.htm
and use ShieldsUp:
www.grc.com/x/ne.dll?bh0bkyd2
Steve Gibson, who runs and maintains the website, has been an avid support of ZA for more years than I care to remember.
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Steve Gibson who runs and maintains the website has been an avid support of ZA for more years than I care to remember.
Bill Gates who runs the Microsoft Website is an avid supporter of Vista.
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TourVanMan TM < Ex RF >
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>>Bill Gates who runs the Microsoft Website is an avid supporter of Vista.>>
But has made billions of pounds out of interests in such matters...:-)
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If your PC is always behind a firewalled router (hardware firewall) and the Windows firewall is enabled then you do not need an additional firewall.
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..and the Windows firewall is enabled then you do not need an additional firewall.
The Windows firewall is very basic and is designed to stop ingress attacks. Zonealarm allows more control over which apps can access your network connection and is far better at detecting egress attacks caused by spyware, viruses and the like. If you're running a network then having localised firewalls is even more important to stop anything unpleasant stpreading. I'd recommend Installing Zonealarm on all desktops behind the router and killing the windows firewall because you're right, having two software firewalls doesn't do much other than take up resources.
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What do you recommend? I have AVAST antivirus running
in reply to mapmaker:
it would help if you specified which operating system you are using.
iirc, you were about to buy a vista pc. in which case
1. zonelabs do not yet offer a vista compatible firewall (except in beta testing form).
2. the built in vista firewall is reputed to be quite good (note, i have no personal experience of it). that should do if you follow cheddar's advice for the time being until zonelabs get their final version out.
3. here is one vista compitble firewall (not free) :
www.jetico.com www.jetico.com/jpf2setup.exe
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Good first post as a mod PU!! {Phil's comment was with reference to the IHAQ thread which PU started, but as this is a computer related question ---> weee. kick, over you go - DD}
Just had contact with someone who wishes a copy of my Grandad's WW1 diary. Unfortunately, I did it on Microsoft Publisher and he does not have that. Diary contains lots of photos so is pretty big file and I wondered if there is a cheap (ie free!) way of converting it to a pdf file to e-mail to him.
Thanks for any advice
P.S.
Yes my scanner will scan into pdf file but diary is about 150 pages - might take a while that way!
--
Phil
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I haven't used this freeware:
www.docu-track.com/home/prod_user/pdfx_viewer/
but am assured that it is even better than Foxit Reader (my default pdf reader although I also have Adobe Reader).
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Try having a look at this review of a free piece of pdf. software that we use.
www.pcpro.co.uk/reviews/100186/primo-pdf.html
As they say it does what it says it does and its free.
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Thanks very much for those links chaps - thanks to you I managed to find
www.download.com/doPDF-free-pdf-converter/3000-207...d
Took a minute to download and about a minute later I had 2 Wars Diaries, (120 pages and 150 pages ) in pdf format which I can now e-mail easily! Never realised it would be so easy (and FREE!!!)
And thanks DD for moving my Q to right place!
Cheers all
--
Phil
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Hi folks,
Just come back after spending 4hrs cleaning ?a friend of a friends? computer, which was down on its knees. Bought new late 2005, win xp home,sp2, and has been used on the internet without any antivirus, anti-spyware, or firewall, (somebody had been meddling and turned windows own off, and when the Norton trial period ended they didn?t bother re-actvating it).
The poor thing was so sloooow that the Control panel window was taking 25secs to open after ?clicking?on it!!.
I?ve installed, updated, and run all the usual stuff recommended on here, (zonealarm, spywareblaster, ad-aware, spybot s/d and AVG 7.5) and the amount of stuff found and removed was absolutely unbelievable!!. I?ve also installed Iolo?s System Mechanic, and removed tons of junk and obsolete files, invalid reg keys, and short-cuts, and using start-up manager, I?ve disabled virtually everything that starts up that windows doesn?t need. I?m confident now that the machine is ?clean?, but?. It is still sloooow, control panel now takes 15 secs to open, a huge improvement, but still not right?
I?ve de-fragged, (no difference) and am now wondering if the slowness is purely down to the amount of memory, it only has a meagre 128mb. Maybe this was sufficient when new, but not now more things have been put on it.
Any idea?s welcomed please folks!!
Ta
Billy.
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It needs more memory. Back when XP came out first, it would struggle to run at a decent speed with only 128Mb. This probably ran slow when new but it never bothered them - but you're used to faster machines.
The absolute minimum is 256Mb but I'd go for double that. I'm surprised a machine bought in late 2005 only came with 128Mb RAM. The one I got then came with 1Gb and I doubled that.
You don't say what sort of machine it is so I cannot comment on the type of memory it needs. But you can buy 256Mb of DDR400 memory for about £10. And 512Mb DDR2 memory is only a few quid more than that. Even if this machine only has two memory slots and both used for the 128Mb, throwing out the old memory and buying 512Mb will cost less than £20 and transform the machine.
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cheers for confirming basically what i had thought!
the machine is an "E-Machines" (** worlds own brand) and was probably just a bog-standard cheapie basic model.
i was suprised myself however, when i discovered just how small an amount of memory it had. you are right that it takes DDR400, and i've told the that if they get more, i'll stick it in for them, but they didn't seem too impressed that it was going to cost more money. i haven't had chance to price any memory yet, but if it's as cheap as you suggest, i cant see them having any qualms about getting some, especially for the difference it will make.
thanks
Billy
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This is probably the cheapest DDR400 (184 pin) 512MB memory you'll find:
www.7dayshop.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=77...5
I paid £22 for Corsair Value's equivalent last week (so it would match the existing memory).
However, you do need to know exactly the type of memory specifications are involved; check on the Crucial website:
www.crucial.com/
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Sorry to be a sad old git, but on the first PC I bought, memory was £25 per Mb. I bought 16Mb for £400. Gulp.
Crucial do a belter of a tool on their site (mentioned above) that will check current memory, slot numbers, slot types, etc and tell you what your options are to increase memory and what types will be compatible. Very, very useful indeed.
V
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My first PC came with 4Mb as default and I doubled this for about £200 to 8Mb at the time! You could get a PC for that now, e.g. an Acer Aspire with Celeron 3.2GHz, 512Mb RAM, 80Gb hard disk, DVD-RW writer and Vista installed.
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My first PC was an IBM Micro Channel Architecture PC 16Mhz processor with 2Mb RAM, 60Mb Hard Disk and it cost £105 extra to buy another 2Mb RAM to get Windows 3.1 to run smoothly!
Going back to the original question, I can reload & fully patch XP in an evening, so if the critical stuff is backed up (including drivers) I guess it would be quicker to format & reinstall XP Home than clean up the old installation. I've run XP Pro quite quickly on 128Mb RAM but once you stick on the very necessary anti-virus & Windows Defender that 512Mb RAM becomes vital.
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I still have an Action catalogue for September 1995 (the month Windows 95 was released).
Pentium machines, of course, had to have SIMM upgrades done in pairs - single SIMM prices included £425 plus VAT for 16MB with parity and £399 plus VAT without parity.
Sony 15in and 17 in Trinitron colour monitors ranged from £324 to £849, again plus VAT, whilst an internal 14.4 fax/modem was £112 and a 28.8bps modem £176, also plus VAT.
I bought an Canon BJC600e printer in May 1996 at Makro for £394 including VAT, but it would do pretty much what a modern Epson, Canon or HP printer does today and used four separate ink cartridges.
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We have new neighbours and we have been helping them settle in. The previous owners have emigrated. We have encountered a problem while trying to set up a broadband connection for them. The previous owners didn't obtain a MAC code from their ISP so that the line could be released. How do we get round this problem.
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Initial reaction is to contact the previous owners' ISP and explain the situation - hopefully they will prove co-operative, especially if the account was terminated and fully paid up.
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"Initial reaction is to contact the previous owners' ISP and explain the situation"
This assumes they know the ISP. The OP says previous owners have emigrated so contacting them might be difficult too.
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Any suggestions as to how to find out who their ISP was.
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>>Any suggestions as to how to find out who their ISP was.>>
First step, I would suggest, is BT - it sets up the connection for the ISP at the exchange.
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