skinny, my son's machine is pretty fast - Norton barely seems to make a dent in the performance. Besides, he's not had a single problem with malware/viruses - and he attributes that to Norton. And so....I pay for a fresh copy of Norton every year (at Tesco's, where else!).

As for the problems with Dell - bought a highish-spec Dell laptop for my daughter. Firstly, it came bundled with that crappy McAfee and when I tried to uninstall it, it screwed up internet access. Came with a tiny C partition and I kept struggling to expand it. Thirdly, the network card kept losing connection with our router. Had a very, very tough time trying to fix it. Even more fearsome was facing a cross nine-year old kid whose laptop it was! Finally, went in for one of those USB nano wireless clients and peace has reigned ever since! But I would never touch a Dell machine ever again.

Surely WINE is only a fix for what would be an unhappy marriage of Win programs you've bougt and Linux which you haven't. In time Linux programs will as good - or Better perhaps? then Linux will become an OS of mass-use, but it isn't and it's lack of good programs that is the root.
Techys don't mind, since they enjoy getting round the difficulties . . . and probably don't do much real work . . . for for most folks they just want it to work.

If these smart-phones are popular, it might have a great benefit to the Linux community, giving a platform for new programs/Apps for example... The snag is that many will be "paid-for" thereby defeating the underlying principle of Open Source.


Time will tell.

Have used AVG Free and Avast, out of the two i think Avast is better as AVG slows things down a bit at times when updating.

Thanks again - it does seem that the Dell problems mentioned on here are mainly laptop orientated - I'm still a desktop man, and have no desire to use laptops.

Skinny, I've bought a lot of Lenovo machines at work over the past 12 months, and they seem to work very well. I paid around £50 for 3 years next day on site maintenance which we used for one machine, but I think that was a power surge on an unportected machine. The machines work well, very happy with them.

As for protection, I use paid for avast at work, and free avast at home.

Lenovo are pretty good. My wife bought one from John Lewis recently. Lenovo are the company that made all the IBM Thinkpad laptops and notebooks. They then started to sell under their own name. The build quality and is similar to my son's Asus.

Has anyone here used PC Helper 360 or Ad Aware ?

Well my new Dell order hasn't started well - I ordered it on March 20th - estimated delivery was today 27th, I've just been told it will be delivered on Tuesday 1st April.

As its currently in Poland, I can only assume its coming by dog sledge!!

Well, we did warn you! Lots of other good brands about!!! (Hopefully you weren't seeking reassurance! )

Harry - yes you did!

Its ten years since I last bought a brand new pc and that, and the 2 previous new ones were all from Dell. I guess nothing stays the same.

I have bought two Stoves cookers over the last 20 years (due to moving house) and I probably wouldn't buy that brand again as quality has definitely declined. As you say, companies are constantly trying to save a bob or two at the expense of quality (sometimes). Sony TV's & Bosch washing machines the same, imo.

Get used to it skinny! When your polish Dell computer arrives the keyboard will the Polish system of orthography, including certain letters with diacritics.

Harry - Potrafię radzić sobie z tym! :-)

Skinny, April 1st ? now that rings a bell, what is it that they call that day ? Oh yes.........................

Are you calling me April ? :-)

Ooooooooo you are awful..... but I respect your gender!

I have just received the the latest computer from Dell which has a polish keyboard.

This keyboard has several shortcuts that take you direct to the following,

How to claim
Attendance Allowance
Attendance Allowance (Your Partner)
Bereavement benefits
Blue Badge Scheme
Carer's Allowance
Carer's Allowance (Your Partner)
Carer's assessment
Child Benefit
Child Tax Credit
Community care services
Community transport
Concessionary Fares
Constant Attendance Allowance
Disability Living Allowance
Legal Aid

I think its been designed for when the Bulgarians and Romainians arrive at the start of next year!

lol, greek..... very true.,.