Haven't done anything about the new PCs yet.

However, my crashing desktop has had a new HD fitted and everything re-installed by my tame PC man, and he has "optimised" the installation. It has never run so fast, boots up incredibly quickly, multitasks with ease, plays DVDs better than it ever has and just seems like it's got a new processor. Amazing what a good install can do. Took him about 5 hours, so I'm glad I didn't atttempt it.

Finally got rid of the Trojan.killav from my friends PC. Excellent help from www.CEXX.Org (shame about how it is pronounced). Used Combofix, HighJackThis, Smitfraudfix and AVG Anti-Spyware 7.5 under safe mode. All under supervision of course:-)
Phew! What a b*****d that was!
I think it would have been quicker to do a re-install with hindsight. :-))

The power supply for one of my 19inch monitors has died on me,it a 240v-12v 4amp thingy by Digimate.Does anyone have any suggestions please on this one.do PC World do replacements or can it be sourced from another supplier.

Rick..........

You may be able to get a replacement one but if you have dificulty you should be able to use a universal power supply. Try Maplins.

I thought it was time I looked at a bit of 'spring' cleaning of my programmes on my PC.
I am perplexed by some Java progs in add/remove programs.
I have a total of 6 of them. There's J2SE Runtime Enviroment 5.0 updates 6,9, 10 and 11. And also Java (tm) 6 update 3 and Java (tm) SE Runtime Enviroment 6 update 1.
All of the progs are 120Mb+ so thought they should be taken a look at.
Is Java 6 update 3 the only one I need to keep? Assuming it's the latest one.
Thx in advance.

Mega,

I needed a 24v doodaa for my scanner the other week. I got a universal one new off eBay for 10 including postage.

Bolshi

When Java updates, it does not remove the old version so you are normally safe to remove them.

The rare exception is if you use an application that requires an earlier version, but you can always reinstall.

hils,just had a look and Bingo there are loads of them,sorted i thank you very much :-)

Here's a useful 'update checker', which tests your PC to see what software needs updating. It also points you to the safest place to obtain the update too.

http://www.filehippo.com/updatechecker/

It tells me Java Runtime Environment 1.6.0.3 is the latest version and my Installed Version is: 1.6.0.2

Ah well.

Thx chaps.

I'm tweaking my friend's PC (still). Her PC doesn't automatically connect t'tinternet on start up. I thought it was just a matter of ticking the box 'Dial Whenever an Internet Connection is Not Present' under the Tools>Internet Options>Connection box. This hasn't worked and I'm just come home to compare it to my settings and I notice that the whole box under 'Chose Settings if you need to configure for a proxy server etc....' is shaded out so I cannot chose one of these boxes anyway.
Obviously I'm barking up the wrong tree, but I can't for the life of me see anything else relevant.

What sort of connection does she have? In fact dial whenever an Internet Connection is Not Present would be wrong for broadband say. Te setting would be never dial or use local network.

H. Yeh you're right She has Virgin BBand.

Edit - strange how it let me alter the settings on hers but mine (sky bband) are greyed out.

I guess that may be part of the problem!

Looking for a decent quality multipurpose inkjet printer / scanner.

The one of choice to date is the Kodak Easyshare 5300, which has ink costs of half what other printers use, but my impression is that it can only be used with special Kodak paper - does anyone know if this is true? Might have to go into PC Worrld to find out. There's a 30 cashback at the moment which brings the cost down to only 110.

Kodak Easyshare 5300

And another one:

PCW Kodak EasyShare 5300

Cost of inks is iportant which is why I find this attractive. Also looking for a cheap to run cheap one for the kids computer. Have an Epson Stylus DX3800 atm but it's broken (won't pull the paper through) so wondering what to buy.

Does anyone have any comments on the two needs?

For B&W I always print onto an HP 1020 laser which is incredibly cheap to run.

SC

All ink jet printers are built down to a price so you will never find a really good one. I have yet to be convinced that HP are not the best deal overall.

Thanks Optimist, and I agree entirely. I am an HP fan, run loads of their lasers at work, my kids get through huge amounts of ink when I'm not looking :-(

I find it so wasteful to have to replace inkjet printers when one tiny component fails, which always happens eventually, sooner usually than later..

Just have to bite the bullet I suppose :-)

Edit. Looked at the Kodak website and it will cope with plain paper as well.

I was deterred from buying a Canon WiFi link to feed pictures from my camera to my laptop - because they are out of stock in the UK.

They are not cheap jobbies and I now realise that I can get a mini computer for the same price and hard wire it to the camera.

I have decided this meets my needs.

However, the forum on Expansys has a post recommending increasing the memory to at least 2 gig. I rang Expansys to ask how this is done and they said I simply by an appropriate SD memory card.

Would this work? And should I simply go to 2 gig or buy something larger?

I never realised that you could map the memory on a card so that it was used by the operating system.

TP

TP

I'm not sure that you can map the memory from an SD card to the RAM, but I suppose you could create a swap file on it. In any case, the unit you are looking at has 400MHz DDR2 RAM which is many times faster than an SD RAM card which will therefore make little difference. The only way to do it is extend the DDR RAM if that is possible.

As nice as that unit is, I,m not sure that I understand what you want it for. If you want a portable media centre combined with a computer then you should really be looking at Vista Home Premium or Ultimate. If you want a media player, look at Archos and others. If you just want something to connect to your camera then any 400+ laptop should do.

Edit

As regards max RAM, 2GB (fast) is plenty for XP and 4GB for Vista. Above those figures, I'm told, you are into diminishing returns.

"As nice as that unit is, I,m not sure that I understand what you want it for. "

I am doing more and more photography where I work with what is best described as an art director. Showing them what we have shot with the LCD on the back of the camera does not identify those weaknesses that differentiate a good from a bad picture.

I have an Asus laptop and have been taking that to the shoots. One can tether the camera to the laptop USB and I have software that produces the image on the computer screen. However, as you know, USB cables are only reliable up to a certain length and often that length is not enough to enable one to put the Asus somewhere safe.

Canon do a WiFi link but it is the thick end of 800. A real con, but nobody has bothered to come up with a less expensive bit of kit.

I came to the conclusion that if I was shelling out 800 I might be better off spending it on a much smaller and portable laptop that could even be hung off the camera tripod. It would then double up as a travel computer and I would have a much more packable device than my Asus. I could also use it as a back-up storeage for photos on my travels.

I was avoiding Vista as I thought it was pretty processor hungry - which means more battery useage, etc.

One device I spotted this morning was this.

What appealed here was that it also worked in a form of PDA mode. What is annoying with any full fledged XP machine is the length of time it takes to boot up. Not exactly easy to have a quick look at one's mailbox before boarding a plane, etc.

I am not looking for a media centre. I'd use a PDA if the screen was a bit larger and if it would run the right software to show a photograph in enough detail to spot that something annoying was not in the frame.

TP