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.

Another lesson to learn. I ordered memory from crucial for a new Acer Aspire one netbook. Only after getting the memory I decided to see how to install it. You almost have to take the thing to pieces to install extra memory, so I didnt risk it. There was a good video on Utube explaining how to do it but too risky for me.

My last order to Crucial resulted in a 100% free oversupply. This leads me to think that Dabs are 1.8 times more expensive than Crucial.

:-)

Jeff

If you check the Aspire forums, there are several well described methods. I've got the 1GB model which can only be upgraded to 1.5GB so I haven't tried it yet but I'm sure to be tempted before too long.

Anyone know of away of stopping or pausing Norton IS, as it keeps deleting a downloaded file when I know its clean

In my XP days I burnt photos to a CD with Nero.

I have Vista now and I gather there are problems with Nero - and the inbuilt 'burn' within Vista seems ridiculously slow.

What do the gurus use, please?

TP

And as TP has brought the subject up, I'm trying to burn some MP3s to CD using Windows media player. The first album I want to transfer is about 37 Mb, the second one a similar size, so on a 700 Mb CD I should get in the region of 15-20 albums, Media player tells me that after the first album there's only room for a few more tracks before I need a new CD. I'm pretty sure the fault lies somewhere in Media Player but I can't work out what it is. Anyone got any clues? The tracks are all recorded at 128 kbps.

SC

It sonds as though it is trying to convert them to normal CD format.

Try opening the CD in Windows Explorer to see what is actually being burnt.

I think the problem may lie with the fact that music on a CD album is in an uncompressed format.

The .cda files are just 1k long and are pointers to where the physical files are on the disk. On the other hand .mp3 files are stand alone files and are heavily compressed. That is why the quality of a .mp3 will be poorer than a .cda due the 'lossy' comresssed format. The .cda files on a CD are also poorer quality than that of a real old fashioned LP due to the sampling that occurs.

It may be that if you copy CD to CD with tqo drives then you will retain the quality. Otherwise the transition from CD to .mp3 and back to CD again will lose quality.

It all depends on what you want to do with the files. If you want to play them on a CD player then burning them is the right way as .mp3 files wont play that way.

A CD is actually full of .wav files which are uncompressed. That is why a CD-R will say something like 60 minutes of music. But it is in uncompressed .wav format.

If you genuinely want a CD full of .mp3 files then put your CD in the drive and in the file manager just copy them all directly to the CD as if it was to another folder. Then you will get a huge number on the CD. It will just be of use as backup and you won't be able to play them.

Ah but I want to play them in my car - I have one CD slot which plays MP3 files. I think there's something wrong with my system really because it then wouldn't copy them - tried to, then said there's something wrong with the CD - however i managed to burn some .wav files earlier (onto a different disc).

edit I decided to try to copy some files to CD using Explorer and it said "there is an error in the writing process. The disc you have attempted to write to may no longer be usable."

Sounds like there's something fundamentally wrong with my DVD RW drive

When you look at the cost of a DVD RW drive then it is hardly surprising that they go wrong.