Guest Frank Wilkinson Posted March 4, 2007 Share Posted March 4, 2007 I treated myself to a new PC a few weeks ago and went straight for Vista and it's been superb.If there's one complaint it's that it can be a little bit nannying in that it has lots of features to stop inexperienced users from doing something silly.For example, it has something called 'User Account Control' which asks for permission before doing anything out of the ordinary. I ran a registry cleaner that I use as part of my regular maintenance and it came up with about 300 obsolete registry key. On XP I told it to delete the lot and it did it.Vista 'User Account Control' asked me again for every single key so I had to press the 'Enter' key 300 times to confirm each deletion!Needless to say, this happened just once as I then turned off 'User Account Control' and it's been fine since.Vista has been stable and a pleasure to use. The only warning is that it's a little resource hungry and should only be used on new, well-specified machines. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GJH Posted March 4, 2007 Share Posted March 4, 2007 Frank Wilkinson - 2007-03-04 2:32 PMFor example, it has something called 'User Account Control' which asks for permission before doing anything out of the ordinary. I ran a registry cleaner that I use as part of my regular maintenance and it came up with about 300 obsolete registry key. On XP I told it to delete the lot and it did it.Vista 'User Account Control' asked me again for every single key so I had to press the 'Enter' key 300 times to confirm each deletion!Needless to say, this happened just once as I then turned off 'User Account Control' and it's been fine since.Thanks for that Frank - I'd forgotten that "feature" and that I hadn't got round to finding a way round it.Frank Wilkinson - 2007-03-04 2:32 PMThe only warning is that it's a little resource hungry and should only be used on new, well-specified machines.Very good point, always happens with new operating systems and one of the reasons I wanted 1024 Mb RAM rather than 512 Mb.Graham Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mel B Posted March 4, 2007 Share Posted March 4, 2007 Dave I think the Woolies laptop at £399 (supposedly half price!) is a 1.4ghz, so pretty basic but probably okay for most people's needs. Mel Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave Newell Posted March 4, 2007 Share Posted March 4, 2007 Yes Mel, I think it should suffice for most people's requirements. My Tosh is a 1.5 GHz Celeron and it does everything I need it to, including TV (digital and analogue) via a PCMCIA card and the facility to record programmes from the EPG. Unless you need a powerful processor for specific tasks such as high def picture or video editing then all its doing is using more power than necessary. www.ebuyer.com also have some good deals on laptops, especially if you search for windows XP, I found one with 1024MB ram, dual layer DVD writer 80GB HD, 15" screen for £420 with XP pro. D. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mel B Posted March 4, 2007 Share Posted March 4, 2007 You may recall I said our laptop was up the creek? Sent it away to be looked at - motherboard has a fault ... d*mn-it! Some on posting on here have previously suggested it's not worth fixing and to go out and buy another but that's just daft and I haven't got that kind of money kicking around (not since we bought the camper!) plus it's got a really good spec and is just over 2.5 years old: Toshiba Satellite Pro A60 2.8ghz Celeron processor 256ram on board 256 additional ram 40gb h/d DVD rom/CD writer To get this spec now would cost a fair amount of money as seeing as we only paid £230 for it originally so long as the fix isn't too excessive it's definitely worth getting sorted. I take loads of photos and write holiday logs, plus we use it for the sat nav software/mapping plus other bits and pieces so having a good laptop is quite important to me. The company are trying to source a cheap motherboard for me ... fingers crossed. *-) In the meantime I'll have to make do with a my 'spare' camper PC, which is a mini tower: Hewlett Packard E-Vectra Desktop PC (really tiddly and will fit in an upper locker!) P3 800mhz 20gb h/d 256mb ram CD drive A real cutie, just a shame it's only 800mhz ... but at least I've got a backup! Keep your fingers crossed it doesn't cost the earth ..... :D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
twooks Posted March 4, 2007 Share Posted March 4, 2007 Had to get a new motherboard for the PC recently [Evesham - have now replaced - processor, CD-Rom, CD-RW, fan [power & processor], graphics card, sound card, - all but the motherboard under engineer call out warranty - thank god!]. Anyway, back to the point, got an excellent deal and an upgrade to USB2.0. In theory laptop shouldn't be that much more difficult! Can your OH handle it Mel?? B-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mel B Posted March 4, 2007 Share Posted March 4, 2007 Twooks - I assume you mean my 'other half'? My hubby is quite adept at fixing normal PCs and can sort just about anything that goes wrong with them but laptops are different beasties unless you know where all the screws ets are located as they ain't that easy to find and what to look at/for. He's managed to find some diagrams of how to strip out our laptop now so if the cost of repair comes back as too dear we'll just get the laptop sent back and get a second hand mothorboard off eBay or somewhere and he'll fit it himself as we'll have nothing to loose. Hopefully, the repairer will be able to source a cheap one so it'll save us the hassle. 8-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
twooks Posted March 4, 2007 Share Posted March 4, 2007 I once took one apart - a few years ago now - and came to the conclusion that you really needed 3 hands to do it, but I knew someone who was an absolute whiz - and he was a big guy with big hands! That's partly where the comment about Apple came in, we took an apple 'apart' - they are so much easier to maintain, except you never have to *-) B-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Frank Wilkinson Posted March 4, 2007 Share Posted March 4, 2007 Mel! You're one of the better spellers on this site and you cheer me up enormously when you don't put a totally superfluous apostrophe in CDs.Nothing to loose! Go and stand in the corner! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
twooks Posted March 4, 2007 Share Posted March 4, 2007 What CDs or even CD's or even CD,s you loose character you :-> B-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Frank Wilkinson Posted March 6, 2007 Share Posted March 6, 2007 Not much help for buying a laptop, but here's a good use for one if the occasion arises:If you are sitting next to someone who's irritating you on a plane or train....1. Quietly and calmly open up your laptop case.2. Remove your laptop.3. Boot it.4. Make sure the guy who won't leave you alone can see the screen.5. Close your eyes and tilt your head up to the sky.6. Then hit this link:http://tinyurl.com/e8efm Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave Newell Posted March 6, 2007 Share Posted March 6, 2007 Frank, that's brilliant, absolutely brilliant! Totally non PC but very funny. D. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Kirby Posted March 6, 2007 Share Posted March 6, 2007 Frank Wilkinson - 2007-03-06 4:38 PM Not much help for buying a laptop, but here's a good use for one if the occasion arises:If you are sitting next to someone who's irritating you on a plane or train.... 1. Quietly and calmly open up your laptop case. 2. Remove your laptop. 3. Boot it. 4. Make sure the guy who won't leave you alone can see the screen. 5. Close your eyes and tilt your head up to the sky. 6. Then hit this link:http://tinyurl.com/e8efm Agreed: brilliant! However, don't try this on the plane, you'll need a wifi link which I think has much the same effect as using your mobile, doesn't it! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GJH Posted March 6, 2007 Share Posted March 6, 2007 Dave Newell - 2007-03-06 5:07 PM Totally non PC but very funny. Don't matter when it's a laptop PC (lol) Graham Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave Newell Posted March 10, 2007 Share Posted March 10, 2007 Well despite not being in the market for a new laptop today I bought one! It all started when the Makro brochure came through the post and in there was a Samsung job for £299.99 +VAT. A good price for a decent spec so today I drove the 23 miles to my nearest store to discover, much to my embarrassment, that the offer starts on Wednesday. As I'd already promised to sell my old one to someone who needs one cheap I was in a bit of a cleft stick 'cos on Wednesday we'll be in Taunton and my next opportunity to get to Makro will be in a couple of weeks time. So I had a shop round today and ended up with an Advent 7113 from Currys for £430. Yes its a bit dearer than the Samsung (well £80 dearer to be exact :$ ) but its a good spec. One downside to it though, my TV tuner card is a PCMCIA type and although I checked this laptop has a slot the card won't go in. There's some sort of narrowing piece about 3/4 of the way in. If I don't figure this out I'll be buying a USB TV stick and selling the cardbus one. D. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
michele Posted March 10, 2007 Share Posted March 10, 2007 If it's a new computer it most probably won't take your card Dave you most probably have to go get a USB one now can't see em doing an adapter for it because it'll stick out side the machine and break IMHO. Good Luck Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GJH Posted March 11, 2007 Share Posted March 11, 2007 Dave Newell - 2007-03-10 10:27 PM One downside to it though, my TV tuner card is a PCMCIA type and although I checked this laptop has a slot the card won't go in. There's some sort of narrowing piece about 3/4 of the way in. If I don't figure this out I'll be buying a USB TV stick and selling the cardbus one. D. Hello Dave, The problem is that the Advent 7113 has a different type of card slot called an "Express Card" slot - see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ExpressCard - which will not accept Cardbus cards. Graham Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave Newell Posted March 11, 2007 Share Posted March 11, 2007 Yes Graham I've discovered that now. Stupid thing is its externally the same size as Cardbus so a quick glance led me to beleive it was Cardbus as I'd not encountered Express card before. Oh well I've been out spending again and now have a Hauppauge USB hybrid analogue/digital TV tuner thingy. All this so we can watch Masterchef for the two nights we're away this week! D. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GJH Posted March 11, 2007 Share Posted March 11, 2007 Dave Newell - 2007-03-11 1:03 PM Stupid thing is its externally the same size as Cardbus so a quick glance led me to beleive it was Cardbus as I'd not encountered Express card before. Same here. Seems ridiculous that the new slot is not backwards compatible. Almost makes you think the hardware companies want to make us spend more than we need to doesn't it ;-) Dave Newell - 2007-03-11 1:03 PM Oh well I've been out spending again and now have a Hauppauge USB hybrid analogue/digital TV tuner thingy. Ah, now "thingies" are different again. Proper stuff are thingies (lol) Dave Newell - 2007-03-11 1:03 PM All this so we can watch Masterchef for the two nights we're away this week! Don't tell Jill that's on or she'll want to watch it (lol) Graham Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave Newell Posted March 11, 2007 Share Posted March 11, 2007 In all the years we've been motorhoming we've never been very bothered about TV but about 18 months ago I got the Cardbus tuner for the laptop. We still don't watch much TV in the van but as we both love to watch foody progs we got into Masterchef, its so much better now than that dry old programme Lloyd Grossman used to present on a Sunday afternoon and its on five days a week at the mo. As its the final week of this series we cannot afford to miss it (well I cannot afford to let us miss it if I want to eat for the rest of the year). I must say I quite like this new Windows Vista so far and this widescreen display is so much nicer. D. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Millhey Posted March 11, 2007 Share Posted March 11, 2007 Hi Frank Sorry for the late response. The website is hilarious - gave me a huge laugh. However, and speaking as an airline pilot, please, please, please, don't even think of really using this on an aircraft. Believe me, cabin crew can have a serious sense of humour failure at times. I would hate to think of an in-flight diversion and subsequent action, just because of intended joke. Sitting here at home, it's still funny though! Cheers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
J9withdogs Posted September 2, 2007 Share Posted September 2, 2007 Dave Newell - 2007-03-11 1:03 PM Oh well I've been out spending again and now have a Hauppauge USB hybrid analogue/digital TV tuner thingy. D. Can I resurrect this thread and find out whether these TV tuners work well when parked in a field in the middle of nowhere? Do you need to have a good aerial as well? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
michele Posted September 2, 2007 Share Posted September 2, 2007 J9withdogs - 2007-09-02 4:04 PM Dave Newell - 2007-03-11 1:03 PM Oh well I've been out spending again and now have a Hauppauge USB hybrid analogue/digital TV tuner thingy. D. Can I resurrect this thread and find out whether these TV tuners work well when parked in a field in the middle of nowhere? Do you need to have a good aerial as well? You can luv :D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
davenewellhome Posted September 2, 2007 Share Posted September 2, 2007 Yes Jan a good aerial is a must whatever you use for TV. I use an external one mounted on a pole and fitted on clamps at the side of the 'van. Reception is brilliant and its cheaper than a built in one like the Status 530. D. P.S. further to my previous comment about liking Vista, that state of affairs didn't last long. it was a total pain as drivers were not avaialable for my new TV tuner thingy. After ooh whole minutes of frustration with it I junked Vista and bought a legit copy of XP which has been running sweetly ever since. Oh yes XP is a bloody sight faster than Vista on the same machine, when I checked it over half the available memory (1 GB) was being used just by Vista, even when sitting idle! Yet another case of bloatware from Mr Gates's emporium of all things digital. D. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
J9withdogs Posted September 2, 2007 Share Posted September 2, 2007 Yes, I agree that Vista is a pain. My Virgin broadband security package won't work with Vista - think Mr Branson needs to talk to Mr Gates. Was almost sold a whole new Microsoft Office Professional programme at £450, but decided to try installing my old XP version, and, guess what, it works perfectly! Unfortunately you cannot buy a new laptop with anything other than Vista >:-( Dave, there is a TV aerial on ebay - do you think it would be OK? http://tinyurl.com/22rn3l Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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