I called in an IT techie today for a PC problem - he fixed it in minutes and told me it was a users 'id ten t' problem...

Only grasped what was meant when I wrote it in capitals... ID10T ... litle smart arse :(

Thanks for the help guys. I actually managed to fix the problem. Used my good ol' trustworthy Spinrite (hard disk maintenance and repair utility). It's never let me down. Phew!

Time to fire off that long overdue backup! :-)

Struggling with my new PDA phone. I have an O2 Orbit and have run Active synch 4.2 with this phone. I now have an Orbit 2 and am wanting to transfer the contacts to the new phone. To do this I had to install Active Synch 4.5 on the same machine. When I try to synch the contacts, the contacts option on the Orbit 2 is greyed out. I can't understand - running Outlook 2007 on the PC.

I did install the trial version of Pocket Informant on the old Orbit, but not the new one - but I would have thought that wouldn't matter - the information should transfer easily shouldn't it?

Edit, done a reboot of the PC and all seems to be sorted now. Bloomin' Microsoft - they don't make it easy!

Double edit - have got the contacts from Outlook but none of the phone nos from my old phone. Struggling here - I can't find any reference in the software to transferring this sort of info.

Where is all this fing Spy Ware coming from, I just keep having to clean my PC every few hours now and more and more Spyware pops up, I am using ZoneAlarm Internet Suite and Norton Internet Secruity,

I use Adaware Pro for cleaning spyware but it can take 12 hours sometime and this is on smart scan

I use both virus checkers and again this takes hours and hours to check PC recently had AVG Free and AVAST running in the background

Need fast and relaible spyware killer and firewall virus etc any suggestion???

Richgit

You could try Microsoft Windows Defender.

I've recently added some indicators to my charting software which seem to be quite memory hungry. As a result, the software now seems to take a fair bit longer to load and, shortly after loading, I get a yellow warning triangle to say that my Virtual Memory is too low and that Windows is increasing it.

I guess I need to buy some more RAM to whizz things up again, but is there anything that I should do to my settings in the meantime or should I just sit with it and leave it to Windows to sort out?

One of my favourite AntiSpyware programs is SuperAntiSpyware Free Edition.

In fact it's the one I mostly use and I find I now rarely bother with Spybot Search & Destroy or Ad-Aware because when I do, having used SASpyFE, they don't find a single thing.

Before I use SASpyFE for a sweep, I always use CCleaner to clean out all the crap. With CCleaner it takes just seconds to analyse and find the crap and then seconds again to delete it.

If you want to find out exactly what is actually running on our machine and whether it is SAFE or UNSAFE to have on our computer then there is a link from the control panel on SuperAntiSpyware to File Research Center.com to enable you to do a sweep. The subsequent report can also be printed out and referred to so that if you do find anything by way of some hazardous program or weird facility, it can be deleted.

Hilary

Although Windows insists that you use some virtual memory, you should make sure that you have enough RAM so that you don't need to use it. Easiest supplier that I have found is Crucial.

In the meantime, you can improve the way that VM works.

Go into the virtual memory settings, and set the maximum VM to zero or the smallest that it will allow.

Reboot the computer and defragment the disk.

Set the VM min and max settings to the same figure which should be approx 3 times your installed RAM.

These steps will ensure that you have a permanent fixed size VM swap file that is hopefully in a continuous piece of disk. Therefore Windows will not have to waste time changing the size and access should be quicker.

You could also try to reduce the amount of memory that you are using be closing some of the processes in your system tray.

ok and excel question. If a cell drops below a certain value say 4 then post a piece of text in another cell saying "Warning below 4"

Thanks in anticipation

M

Control Panel
System
Advanced
Performance
Settings
Advanced

should help you find where to do it.

Martini

The formula you need is =IF(A1<4,"Warning below 4","")

A nicer way is to use conditional formatting that would just highlight the cell or another cell in a different colour.

That's great, Opti and Doc. Many thanks. I'll give it a go a bit later on.

Optimist

Thanks

Yes high light the cell would be better how does that work?

Regards
M

Hil:

I second Optimist's recommendation of Crucial.

25 got me the 2 Gigglebytes of RAM that's running in my current ThinkPad. Doubling the memory makes quite a difference. In general, adding RAM is the cheapest and easiest way of improving performance. Failing that, we've found that a brace of quad-core Intel Xeons perks things up a bit :)

Martini

For conditional formatting, in Excel 2007 there is a button on the Home ribbon. For earlier versions, I think I remember there being a format menu, otherwise, type "conditional format" into help.

It's well worth experimenting with.

thanks
M

I third the crucial recommendation. I use them personally (and have done for years), and my company has just started using them to saying a fortune on Apple's own RAM prices.

I've been buying Crucial camera cards since I went digital. No problems that were left unresolved.

However, I understand they are now a subsidiary of Lexar.

Probably makes little difference, but I felt it worth mentioning.

TP

A while ago someone listed some software that you could run to check that all your internet bookmarks were still valid. anyone know what it was and if it works on firefox.

AM-DeadLink 3.2 - Free Software

Editor's review of AM-DeadLink
Sweep out the dead
This freeware program helps tame your list of bookmarked sites with a nice set of tools to manage links.

AM-DeadLink's interface is packed with options, but tool tips and a logical layout make it easy to follow. The length of the verification process depends on the size of your Favorites list, but the wait wasn't bad in our tests. You can sort results by any of the columns, which include name, status, URL, and folder categories. You also can delete entries one at a time or by the group.

The Backup option is a welcome safeguard that allows you to easily restore your original list in case you get too delete-happy. You can open links in a new browser window if you want to verify results or investigate those with error codes, but AM-Deadlink also has a handy Internal Preview option that allows you to open the link without leaving the program. You can dress up your bookmarks with the option to download FavIcons, making it easier to distinguish one link from another.

The program supports Internet Explorer, Firefox, Mozilla, and Opera. AM-Deadlink is a solid choice for any user looking for a comprehensive (and no-cost) way to manage bookmarks.