gedge

I'm a thinkpad fan too! I've had two, both been good buys. Not sure whether Lenovo will turn out laptops of the same quality now they've bought IBM's business.

Fenton Beasley

I'd suggest a new PC. Maybe from Dell

PC's are realistically upgradeable. Laptops are not.

I wouldn't get a Mac. There's nothing a Mac can do that a PC can't. PC's are stable. I've had a Windows XP PC for over 4 years now and I've never had to reformat it and it has never crashed. There is a snobbish value held by Mac owners. They think that their Mac is rock-solid and impervious to virus attacks. There are hardly any viruses written for Mac's that's why. With decent, free anti virus and firewall software, you'll be fine with a PC.

Wol

<BEGIN:
Thread Hijack
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
(Sorry) >

I have a problem that one of you computer experts might be able to solve. I am trying to use a program (DVD Authoring as it happens) but it always aborts saying that it doesn't have access to the folder it tries to save to.

That folder's attributes show it has a greyed-out tick in the "Read only" box. (Meaning *some* of the contents are locked, no?).

If I untick the box and apply, the folder and contents are presumably unlocked - yet if I look at it again the grey tick has re-appeared! That happens whether or not I have the program running, or whether I've rebooted.

It's my own home W-XP and I boot up as administrator: what is going on??

< END HIJACK>

Wol

You *have* been a lucky bunny, haven't you?

My PC with XP Home has crashed possibly 30 times since I got it 15 months ago, and frozen more times than I can count. The Blue Screen of.. has appeared half a dozen times.

Fenton Beasley

I'm sorry to hear about that Wol. That sounds unusually bad for a new PC.

There is good and bad in everything. For every story like yours, there must be hundreds like mine. People never 'complain' when their PC is running fine.

Freezing, crashing and B.S.D are usually signs of hardware faults/incompatibility. Places like Dell, benchtest their computers before shipping. Where did you buy yours? Did it always crash and freeze straight from the box?

Regular maintenance can go along way to prolong a computer's and Windows' life. You wouldn't buy a car and just run it into the ground. Regular virus checks, spyware checks, defragmentation and clearing out old programs can help things tick over more smoothly.

DrWho

Had a Vaio for 2 years, couldn't be more pleased. Am taking it to Oz when we fly in 10 days. I believe you can upgarde the warranty to a global solution; wherever you are they'll fix or replace it...

Teliko21

They must have forgotten to do this with mine and many others laptops then because they were shipped with hardware that was incompatible with the version of windows it shipped with meaning crashing all the time (no kidding!!)

I would never buy a Dell again, the customer service was the worst I have ever had to deal with, they refused to rectify it leaving me with a brand new laptop that didn't work. I could understand it if it was just me but there were many in this situation with me.

Needless to say I will never touch a Dell product again and I am very happy with my Toshiba

Fenton Beasley

That's terrible! I'm glad your Toshiba is running well. I believe Toshiba make a good reliable laptop. Now I've said that, someone will tell me theirs is sh*te.

Teliko21

LOL well that is usually the way. It is actually the second Toshiba laptop I have owned and I have never had a problem *touch wood*. I'm sure as with everything occasionally they make a bad un though

Hutch

Right-click on the CD/DVD icon in 'My Computer', select properties and click on the Recording tab. Deselect 'Enable CD Recording on this Drive'. Click OK. Reboot.

And, as previously mentioned - something's up with your PC. No way it should be crashing that often. I have five PCs here and I think I've had one blue-screen in the last two years - a result of an ATi graphics card blowing up.

BadgeIsBack

About a ZX81?

I'd go for a laptop and wireless connection- can browse the net and surf from the comfort of an armchair.

My IBM Thinkpad - I would buy another one - has lasted me almost 3 years.
In use every day by my wife if not me. Has a 3 year international warranty:
mine had a loose powerpack connection - overuse - was picked up by courier, flown to Sydney for repair and returned by courier in 36 hours.

Wol

>>Regular maintenance can go along way to prolong a computer's and Windows' life. You wouldn't buy a car and just run it into the ground. Regular virus checks, spyware checks, defragmentation and clearing out old programs can help things tick over more smoothly.<<

I defrag every so often although I have 80% free, AVG runs in the background and scans every night - as do anti-spyware programs and AdAware and I never open any attachments. I believe the word is "Paranoid"?

I just think Mr Gates's Windows bloatware is too big and unwieldy to be maintainable, let alone knowable!

silversurfer

I think you really get what you pay for.
For example, in my company, we had approx 5000 dell machines in our area we had to support.
We had a nightmare with these machines. The power supply units and motherboards were failing within a week of purchase, as well as stupidly designed usb ports at the front of the machine at a ridiculous angle were causing users to either break their fobs or eventually stress the usb port at the front causing it to eventually fail.
Plus, No one ever seemed to mention that these looked so nasty and cheap, with their cheaply made plastic covers. Although, later when Dell lost the contract, the looks were bought up too, that they looked hideous on the telly.
As a result of this, Dell lost the contract and compaq took over for 2006.

Burgers at Macdonalds are not the best burgers in the world, they're on a mass production line, designed to cater for the masses. Cheap and tasteless.
As a result of this, I ended up wanting to vomit, everytime I saw a Dell advert
On the other end of the scale though, when I saw someone with a Dell XPS laptop, I was drawn to it, beautiful and sexy. However, big bucks, the other end of the scale.

You really get what you pay for.

Wol

Hutch: the "Enable" box *is* deselected (Why should it be?) but I'm talking about folders on the HD anyway, not the DVD.

I've always been able to enable and disable writes to files until now and I cannot see what has changed!

Hutch

That function utilises the built-in XP burning facility, which is, for the most part, completely shite. Where is the folder located that you can't write to? Give me the path c:/program files/dvd ... or whatever.