Went in to Comet today as I need a new monitor for my P.C.
Can anyone please explain simply what the difference is in the connections?
I was offered VGA, DUG, DMI & HDVI, sometimes combinations of two.
Sadly the sales staff didn't seem to know & the selection of monitors was poor, but it's a bit dangerous buying on the internet if I don't know what to ask for.

most PC's will use SVGA - that's a 9-pin D-connector usually with tiny screws for retention, but with 15pins inside. It provides more than enough quality for normal PC use.
HDVI is a connector for video-player/tv use ( and TV-cards on a PC, even fancy graphics cards will have the option)...these allow fast video data and I suspect correct interlacing for large widescreen TV, HD and so on. It's nice to have, but not essential...unless you need it.
Generally you should look at the screen using the type of application you use most. If it's text, then create some text on a USB memory-stick and try viewing it on the monitor. But beware that the one you buy might be subtally different.

Far better to go to a computer fair, where several vendors will have monitors working and you can try before you buy. Look at British Computer Fairs - they are all over the country, but mainly in the SE, as far as Bracknell....one sunday /saturday per month...but some are fortnightly.
You might even find they'll sell you a better video-card if you want to play games, with fast action. Upgrading can be addictive!
Beware that most monitors have speakers - these are rubbish, so don't pay too much. "exctra" since a cheapo speaker-kit will be far better. Also, some have additional USB-ports, which might be useful, but hardly worth paying extra for. It is the screen quality, evenness of light and maybe a Review or two....before you part with dosh.
Cheaper makes can be just as good as big-brands...check out Computer Shopper, whose reviews are usually comprehensive...IMHO.
+These fairs are the place to buy ink and printer-paper, blank CD's etc. but beware software may be pirated and next month they may not be there!
If you need extension leads - there will be plenty.
Good luck.

If you need cables etc have a look at, good prices and service:

www.cableuniverse.co.uk

Just a word of warning on Drive Caddies friends.

I took my two PC's to my supplier to have caddies fitted in each. It took about an hour and a quarter to fit the two.

Both PC's then displayed software problems. One booted with StartUp errors. The other would not boot at all. After several attempts to get the non-booter to run in Safe Mode we decided to dis-install the caddies and re-mount the hard drives in their original fittings.

Machine one booted perfectly without the StartUp errors. Machine two would not boot at all and it turned out that the boot disk was now corrupt.

Luckily both machines had been backed up with Acronis 11 on to separate USB hard drives. Unluckily those back up drives were 100 miles away (at home).

We decided to mount a clean unused disk in the machine that would not boot in the hope that Acronis would restore. I also left with another hard drive that had Vista installed as a second recovery situation as (in addition to the Acronis) I had a copy of my drive C made by Karen's Replicator on yet another USB hard drive.

The good news is that the Acronis restore worked perfectly - but it did take 11 hours to restore around 175 gig of software and data. Forget this 'get you running again in a couple of hours' chat. But leaving the machine to restore itself overnight is a jolly site better alternative than spending an 11 hour day re-installing software and data!

Moral to be learnt. Firstly take several backups of any hard drive you are planning to mount into a caddy as 'Caddies are a Health Risk'.

The brand was Plexus and they were bought in by my PC supplier. The people who supplied the caddies now wonders whether they were not designed for the new faster SATA drives - but take it from me they are lethal when they can corrupt a boot disk!

TP

TP

I'm sorry to hear about your problems with the drive caddies, as you know I'm a big fan of them. The ones that I have have been totally reliable although I'm using SATA2 disks on a SATA1 controller, I can even hot swap them which should not be possible with SATA1.

Can you post the link to the model of the ones that you used?

Opt,

Link. No, sorry. As you know the PC's came from Computer Doctors who are considerably disappointed and most apologetic. I left them to source whatever they felt confident in fitting.

I must say that they looked pretty cheap and nasty to my un PC eye. Retailed for a tenner. My comment during yesterday that I'd far rather have paid double or more as the real cost is in installing them.

Anyway I have now seen hard drives come in and out of PC's so many times over the last 24 hours that I'd have no fears in fitting one. The main reason for wanting the caddies was to be able to test Acronis - and that need has now been overtaking by events!!

TP

My stockwatch screen is not showing the same prices as the intraday charts ?

give AAL,NWr as examples. Chart showing lower prices.

Any ideas?

CH
Put it on the BUGS thread
mac

In 2003, Prime Minister Tony Blair's top communications aide, Alistair Campbell, released a Word document with hidden information that proved that the British government had used plagiarised documents as a way to justify its involvement in the Iraq war.

Did you know that what's hidden in your Microsoft Office documents could harm you?

There's a lot more information than you may imagine, lurking in your Office documents, and anyone who receives and views them can see everything.

Documents hold hidden text, names of authors, revision history and markup, hidden cells, hidden spreadsheets, the total number and time of revisions, and other details.

So?

Here's a free program, which will make sure that nothing similar happens to you.

Point it at any document, and it analyzes the file, showing you all the private information lurking within. The program will then clean up the document so that the information drops out of sight.

It's called Metadata Analyzer and is just one of 15 downloads available to improve Microsoft Office. Not all of them are Free, however.

There's another similar type of download utility to Metadata Analyzer. It's called SendShield. When you send a Microsoft Office document in Outlook, the utility examines the document for private information. It then shows you the results and lets you delete that information. The program deletes information only from the copy you send; the original file stays intact. This utility is on trial, the price hasn't yet been set.

15 downloads to improve Microsoft Office

Well worth a quick look, I think.

I have a problem with my Dell laptyop running vista. I have only one user set up and it uses a password to logon. When I try to logon tghis morning I get a message "The User Profile Service failed the logon. User Profile can not be loaded"

I know the password is ok because I have never changed it and it is easy to remember. Also I was logged on to the laptop a couple of hours ago with no problems.

Any ideas?

Just for Jeffie

Hils, you are a star. It worked a treat.

XX

Here's a link to the latest 'PDF' newsletter, full of hints and tips to keep your PC healthy, from my mates, The Computer Doctors.

http://www.computerdoctors.uk.net/newsletter/NL0810.pdf

Inside this issue:

* People still getting ripped off with XP Anti-Virus 2008.

* Organize your Outlook mail Folders.

* Bargain HP Colour printer offer.

* The basics—More on file systems. Move and copy your documents.

* We test various file backup methods to find the best.

* Can't remember all those hundreds of passwords—we check out password managers.

* Windows 7, yet another version of Microsoft Win-dows to confuse us all.

* Google is riding high with it’s latest product, an Apple iPhone clone.

Help please.

My Java doesn't want to work.

All for one and all that.

reload it

Don't have the permissions. Was working fine yesterday.

Try rebooting.

Have just changed my old 15" CRT monitor for a Fujitsu 22" TFT screen & now find that the video clips which worked smoothly, now play in spasms.
I have upgraded the driver for my NVIDIA RIVA graphics card, though it is not being upgraded any more (Since 2003) by NVIDIA, but no difference.
Any thoughts welcome. Am not keen to buy a new graphics card as system only Pent III and 384 Mb RAM with XP PRO. Would extra memory cure the problem?

Harrycat

I suspect the problem is that the computer is struggling to process the all of the extra screen size. You could check this by temporarily reducing the screen resolution to that of your old monitor and see if it makes any difference.

I think that 384MB RAM is a bit small for a modern XP system. It used to be enough but all the service packs and fixes that have been added mean that this is no longer the case. SP3 may help slightly but your best bet would be to upgrade the RAM to 1GB or more, you will ntice the difference. It may also be worth lookig out for a faster CPU. The last of the P3's can still sometimes be found and are normally cheap.