It’s been a little while since I last answered a selection of letters from my mailbag so I thought this week would be a good time to start catching up.

I follow your column in the Herald Express and was wondering if you could help me with the following problem that I am having with my Windows 98 machine.The problem is that it appears to have trouble shutting down so every second or third time I attempt this process I am forced to cut power to the machine in order to get it to turn itself off which then means the drive has … Read the rest

There are some technologies that even when working in the computing field as I do that you sometimes have limited contact with and one such technology which has up until this point eluded me is Bluetooth.Of course, like the majority of my readers I understand that it is a wireless technology which links different devices together via a universal standard but knowing how something works and actually using it are two entirely different things.

This week has changed that ignorance however with my purchase of a Bluetooth handsfree kit.I was always one of those annoying drivers who drove around whilst talking on his … Read the rest

It’s that time of the year for me to bang on once again about remanufacturing cartridges and how it will allow you to save both money and the environment.I have in the past introduced the concept of remanufacturing inkjet cartridges and how this reduces the amount of waste entering our landfills but until now I haven’t had chance to discuss toner cartridges.

For those not in the know, a toner cartridge is a piece of technology used by both laser printers and photocopiers that rather than containing liquid ink they contain electrically charged toner; a powdered ink that is fused to the paper … Read the rest

This week I’m going to introduce you to two websites that I think you may find of interest starting with the site www.kelkoo.co.uk which I’ve been using quite a lot recently.For those of you unfamiliar with this site, I have been using it to compare prices for specific products across a number of different e-commerce sites as to be sure that I’m getting the best value for money whenever I make a purchase.Kelkoo (a play on the French saying ‘quel coup’ which translates to ‘what a bargain’) was founded in 2000 and is now one of Europes largest e-commerce websites and has operations … Read the rest

It appears that my article last week on Euro 2004 was a little bit of a jinx on the England squad and although my opinion of Swiss referees and David Beckham has gone down somewhat I suppose we should take defeat gracefully and admit that the better side won at the end of the day.At least now that we’re out of Euro I can once again get back to talking about what this article is supposed to discuss; computers.

I believe that there are two types of computer user in this world; those that just use them and those that not only use … Read the rest