hilary,

Just a word of warning.

I bought two PC's from those Computer Doctor chappies that Exec recommends. The machines were perfect.

Two months on I convinced myself I ought to have the drives mounted in caddies.

They sourced two caddies, put them in both machines and one drive got totally thrashed by the caddie.

CD's were suitably apologetic and I had an Acronis back up of the drive so nothing was lost.

But it shows what a caddy can do..........

No reflection on Com Docs - but there is something inherantly dangerous about caddies it seems.

TP

Thanks TP. It sort of confirms my way of thinking in that these things weren't intended when they were first designed and built to connect via USB.

That's not to say that they don't or won't work - just that USB might not be the best route.

I've used a real cheapo one myself with no problem at all, USB connected. This was an external one with a shell around it.

Hilary

I think that SC was refering to an external drive caddy that you can fit the disk into and convert it to a USB drive. The problem that TP had was with a drive caddy that is mounted into the machine and allows easy removal of the disks (althogugh it did not work for TP).

The one mentioned by SC would do fine as would the adaptor that you posted but you would have to open up your PC for that. A better way would be to buy one of these adaptors that will enable you to connect any drive to the USB port.

on ebay with 6 mins to go

Thanks for that Opti. Opening the machine really isn't a problem anymore since I bought my son a set of screwdrivers for Christmas.

:o)

TheVoid

I believe you were wanting a cheap laptop? At 400-500 or thereabouts?

I found this Sony VAIO on offer at ASDA: Sony Vaio VGN-BX61MN Wireless Laptop

Product Details

Description
The Sony Vaio VG|N-BX61MN wireless laptop features a 15.4 inch WXGA screen, Intel Core 2 Duo T5270 1.4GHz processor, 1GB RAM, 120GB hard drive, DVD-RW DL drive so that you can play and record CDs and DVDs, including high capacity dual layer DVDs, Intel GMA X3100 graphics, memory card reader and Vista Business operating system.

Full Specification
Processor Intel Core 2 Duo
Operating System Windows Vista Business
RAM (MB) 1GB
Screen Size (inch) 15.4
Disc Drive DVD-RW DL
Memory Card Slot Yes
Graphics Intel GMA X3100

Price 489
Delivery 4.95 for 3-4 Days

Re Ubuntu

I put ubuntu on my laptop and an old desktop and it certainly speeded things up on both.

On the downside its a bit nerdy. I have not been able to use multiple monitors, I managed to install java on destop but laptop just wont play ball.

I also am having problems accessing Vista mail on my wifes PC and OE on my main desktop. If I run XP on the Ubuntu partitioned pcs then mail problems disappear.

The help forums seem to be populated by experts who cant communicate with mere mortals like myself. I can install AVG 7.5 but I cant get updates so security is an issue

Whilst linux was fun to play with initially I think I am gradually losing the plot and may end up throwin the baby out with the bath water!!

Hi Hils 7786


I bought a kit a while ago which allows me to use hard drives from old pcs as external hard drives. I works by providing an independent power supply and a hard drive to usb adapter. It worked fine the last time I used it and it is made by sandberg.

If you think it is any use, I can try to find out where I bought it from.

I have one other question please.

I'm sure that I'm not the only person here who is cheesed off with McAfee. The 2005 version was good, the 2006 version was OK, the 2007 version started to have a few more features and slowed a bit. The 2008 version is just an absolute nightmare imo. It is laden with totally unecessary features that just hug resources and cause the PC to almost grind to a halt.

I started to re-install everything onto my laptop at the end of last week. Windows XP was booting up nice and fast with some reasonably heavyweight packages (MS Office and Adobe Acrobat Pro) installed.

As soon as I re-installed McAfee it started taking twice as long to boot up. I've only installed the Virus Scan element and didn't bother with the rest of the junk (firewall and privacy and spam wotsit) that it comes with. I think it uses Flash Player because it has a tendency to produce an error messagge to the effect that "A script in the movie is causing ......"

My question is this:

If I revert back to the old 2005 version which seemed so much faster, will the virus definitions that it updates for the old version be the same as the virus definitions for the latest versions? Because, from where I'm sitting, the older version looks a lot more attractive and if it does the same job ........

Hi Hils

I have just found box it came in.

It is called a "USB All-In-1 Hard Disk Link. It says it will connect any hard disk to USB.

The website is www.sandberg.it

Hi Bob,

I won the 99p jobbie from Hong Kong on Friday and I'm not in any great rush to sort that last little bit of the jigsaw out (I'm pretty confident that I've got everything already backed up, and this was, in effect, just a double check).

I also quite like the look of Flossie's caddy for a fiver and I'm thinking that I might just buy one of them anyway together with another hard disk drive as this would be a nice easy way of backing up data. To be honest I would have gone that route in the first place except that I'd already bid on my adapter when Flossie pointed it out.

Bob

If you want to experiment with linux then why not download a VMWare image (be careful where you get it from) and run that under Windows. That way, you can make a copy of the entire system before atempting any major changes.

Installing Java can be an interesting exersise, but if you follow the instructions on the Sun site then it should work.

It should be possible to run dual screens for most graphics cards but it can be difficult. You need to make sure that you have the latest and correct driver installed, and then search the web for instructions and then translate them. It took me a day and a half to get dual monitor on my Aspire1 laptop, but it works.

So far as I can tell, your experience is far from uncommon which is the reason that Linux will never be more than a niche OS.

Hilary

I would not change to the earlier AV program. Even if they are able and willing to update it with the latest rules, there is bound to be some functionality that is only in the newer version and this will be required to stop the latest viruses.

It's possible that there is a problem with your installation which is slowing it down. try completely uninstalling it and downloading the latest version. If that does not work, you will have to try another package.You could look at Panda, which is 'cheap and cheerful' but possibly not quite as good as the front line ones.

OK thanks Opti. I wondered if that's what you might say, which is what prompted the question. I'm happy that it is installed OK as I've got it installed on multiple machines and it's the same on all of them. This current one is a fresh installation on a new drive.

Bob,

Thanks for that link. That looks like another tidy and easy option.

Morning Hiltops, McAffee seems to be going the way of Norton, slowing everything down.

I now use the (paid for) Avast package on my lappy which seems to work well although it may slow the machine down a bit - we use it on all our work machines without any problems though, and I use the free AVG at home. There is a free version of Avast for home use. There was a hiccup with Metatrader and AVG a while ago when doing an MT4 upgrade, but that eventually got sorted, didn't have the problem with Avast.

edit - Avast does seem to a well respected choice in terms of defence versus performance.

Obviously everyone and their uncle have their favourite a/v program so take your pick.

Opti

Thanks for post

I opted for dual partition rather than Virtual when I installed ubuntu from The computeractive ultimate guide to Linux. The main reason being that my desktop would not install SP3 on XP, my OS is completely legal but nothing in ms knowledge base helped and the forums are full of people with the same problem. So Linux was last stop before boot hill.

If it was not screwing around with my wifes Vista mail, I would be inclined to persevere. However she who must be obeyed gives me a very hard time when she cannot receive emails

I have tried several different single graphics cards no luck with dual display

My wife is going off for a week in spain soon so will give it another go then

Hilary

I paid for and am using SuperAntispyware Professional.

It's easy to understand. It updates once a day (or more if you like) and seems extremely thorough. I also found a Voucher Code on the Internet to get a bit of a discount and I also bought a lifetime subscription and the ability to use it on more than one machine.

You might like to check it out yourself. Anyhow, I do recommend it to everyone.

"SUPERAntiSpyware will remove ALL the Spyware, NOT just the easy ones!"

Bob

I haven't used Vista Mail, but IMO there are only two mail clients worth using. MS Outlook is the best and you have to pay for it, Thunderbird is close and free, and works on Linux and Windows.

In the past, I've recommended Crucial as a memory supplier because of their excelent quality and service.

Whilst I have never found anything wrong with their quality or service, Dabs.com also give an excellent service and supplied the same Crucial branded memory for 10% less. The only problem is that they are owned by BT.