Agreed about the reviews. One review doesn't give you enough info' really. However, if Optimist wants to put his name to the recommendation, then that would swing it for me.

Not a very salubrious location for the CDs, is it? In fact, a bit rough to say the least. But, as you say, if you ignore this and see into the heart of it, they are very solid guys running a very reputable solid little business.

"Not a very salubrious location for the CDs, is it?"

Precisely. In fact I thought I'd got the wrong place until I saw one of their vans. But the phone calls that were coming in were dealt in a most re-assuring way and I feel confident that they are not going to let people down.

With regard to Web hosting I am just about to sign up with these guys.

They were recommended by the IT guy who works for the Club where 85% of my pictures are taken. At some stage I may want to pass on the cost of running my/that site to the Club - and it helps if they know I'm being hosted by someone the IT department have suggested.

I've done a deal for some extra space that is not fair to quantify here. The main sway, apart from the introduction, is that hardly anybody ever looks at the pictures - but they need to be there as part of the Club history.

Myhost would have been a heck of a lot cheaper but PHP are affordable -and like CD, based in the UK.

TP

Whenever I use system cleanup on my laptop running Vista I have 3/4 GB of System Queued Windows Error Reports. Anyone know how I can stop these being generated and use so much disk space

Messenger keeps saying when I send a message, you have sent to many in the last few minutes, even thou I have only sent 3 or 4, any idea why this is happening???

XP SP3 alert: There seems to be a problem with Windows XP SP3 concerning the DHCP client that prevents the default gateway being set from a router. I'm still researching this, but it has clobbered one of of our company laptops and prevented it from accessing the Internet through various networks. The same machine worked fine on the same networks prior to SP3 installation. Throwing 'SP3 default gateway' at Google throws up all sorts of stuff. The other laptops (using SP2 or MacOS) have continued to work just fine.

All I can say is, until this is resolved, I would give XP SP3 a wide berth.

Can someone remind me of that fast FTP transfer software that was recommended a few weeks ago.

It has taken me 24 hours to copy down my 2.7 gig web folders using CuteFTP!!!!

This comes out top with a Google for 'fastest'. Has anyone here tried it?

TP

Delboy,

Would your SP3 wotsit be a reason that my kid's PC's seem to frequently drop their wireless connection to the network after an hour or two's use? It takes a reboot for them to log back on.

MM / hils , my kids laptop did the same after some update last week.

Turning Zonealarm off fixed it but this may just be coincidence.

Hil: I dunno -- there speaks the computer expert :). The problem we found doesn't prevent the computer joining the local wireless network -- but it did prevent it from accessing the WAN (Internet) as it wasn't sent the default gateway address (which is normally the same as the router address).

Going to the command line C:\> and typing ipconfig /all will reveal all (about your computer's IP configuration at least).

And it's only if they're running XP SP3, when it might be yet another side-effect of this latest Microsoft screw-up. We believe that the effect is more widespread than Microsoft say. Also, their description doesn't quite make sense.

The link below is to a description and "hotfix" for the problem.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/953761/en-us

TP

An up to date free FTP client is FileZilla by the same people who write Firefox. I don't know whether the speed is down to your FTP client or a server issue. FTP is not known as a fast transfer protocol and also your ISP may have a cap on the speed of their FTP server.

You could try logging into the server using IE7 and see if that gives any difference in speed.

Hilary

Your problem is not related to the SP3 issue that MM describes. That problem would prevent any connection at all and in any case is unnlikely to be experienced by domestic users.

Instead of rebooting, try going into the network connections and dissabling and then enabling the wireless network connection. That should reset it.

The other thing to check is that you have the latest drivers for the wireless network adatpor in the computer and the latest firmware for your wireless router.

Thanks MM. I've mailed the link to my kids for them to try and sort it out. It's all Dutch to me.

Optimist: au contraire, it certainly is experienced by domestic users.

Microsoft's description would have you believe that the user has performed some obscure reconfiguration of a DHCP server.

The "SP3" problem prevents even a wired connection to a router from gatewaying to the Internet. The LAN connection is fine. We took a laptop that had previously connected (when running SP2) to my (admittedly extensive) domestic net and attempted to connect to the Internet. The "default gateway" field in the IP config remained stubbornly blank on the laptop. This happened with both a Netgear router and with a LinkSys/Voda 3G router of very recent vintages, whether the connection was wred or not. It's a DHCP problem caused by SP3 but does not affect all brands of router DHCP server (or vintages of firmware, one suspects).

The devil and Microsoft find work for idle hands . . .

Opti,

Sorry, I've only just noticed your post. Thanks for that. I'm pretty sure that they have already tried disabling and repairing the connection but to no avail.

Thanks for the correction. I assumed that as a home system does not require the Microsoft speific options then they would not be available on most routers. I should have guessed, nothing in computers is ever that simple ;)

Hilary - I still don't think that your problem is related.

Hil and Opti:

It's possible (pace Dil above) that it's a recent Microsoft "fix" that's destabilised the connection. I just had a conversation about this with our Engineering Director and he said he had a similar problem at home some time back which corrected itself. He put this down to a Microsoft update correcting the earlier problem -- but didn't investigate as he "was too busy sorting out our engineering problems without getting enbroiled with Microsoft's".

And, Opti, you're right, the SP3 problem is unrelated to Hil's kids' problem -- I expect :)

Thanks for Filezilla Opt,

It seems a jolly site quicker than my CuteFTP.

TP

As I install my software and data on to my two new Computer Doctor PC's I am inspired to set up the Acronis True Image 11 recovery system.

Am I the only person who would quite like to set Acronis running at the end of a session and leave it to turn off the PC when it had finished?

MS Updates do that frequently.

Has anyone found a way of doing it with Acronis?


EDIT But having thought about it I guess that most of you folk never turn your PC's off anyway. Maybe they are more reliable if left running.

TP

Anyone using Acronis?

I may need some help - but not until after the weekend.

Have a good one.

TP

TP

You ask: "Am I the only person who would quite like to set Acronis running at the end of a session and leave it to turn off the PC when it had finished?"

Hmmm? Sounds like a good idea if it can be done.

Sorry not to reply to you earlier on this but we are doing a spot of decorating and this is just a coffee break posting.

The Computer Doctors did load up Acronis on my machine but I have been totally negligent with it. Your post prompts me to make an effort and read up on it a. I do make back-ups, but I sorta kinda, I do it 'generically' - IYKWIM? I am also mad on machine housekeeping and I'm sure this is why I haven't had to take this machine back to the CD's for any kind of help.

I've just been to the following site:

http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/products/trueimage/

A quick read tells me I am missing out on not using Acronis more actively. Apparently, for system and also data backup "Acronis absolutely rocks!"

In the Review section of the above web site, one guy says:

John Hight: "Thanks for the reply to my e-mail. You were right. I purchased Acronis True Image 6.0 and I must say it is a great program. I backed up my Hard Drive C: with all the operating system files and programs on to Hard Drive D:(which is another partion on the physical drive). It took about 30 minutes to back up 18.5 Gb with a 3rd compression. Then just to see if it would work I put in the bootable rescue disk I had made during installation and let the computer boot to this disk. From the time I put the disk into the drive till I got my system completely back up and running was about 15 minutes. Everything was the same as when I backed it up. It deleted the old information and reinstalled the new information from my backup copy in less time than I could make a pot of coffee. This is really a terrific program. It does all you say it will. Now there is no more all day affairs trying to recover from a fatal crash."

Backup can't get much better than that!