Sutton Warrior

Wow, £65 for a set of catridges on the no.5 machine by HP, and I thought £30 was a lot for my HP C5180 (almost a bargin ). I would not give up the practicality and conveience of the photo copy facility!!! Any tips or sugestions on wher to look for prices, quality and servise on the nett. SW

Its ironic Steve, I was printing a lot of 'non photo' stuff 24/18 months ago, the frustration of the Epson ink jets cloging, and I was spending a fortune on photo copies . . . then the little shop around the corner where I got said pc's closed. Nearest copy shop in town 2 miles away. So I splashed the cash, and went for the HP 'all in one' great machine. But the copying dried up, and I have not printed a single photo since I puchased it Life becam uninteresting, mainly due to personal life circustances, similar reasons why I used the compact camera so much rather than the DSLR I supose. Life is improving by the day! taking much more interest in what I'm doing, DSLR has come out of mothballs, as you are awar, RAW etc., and . . . I'v been contemplating doing a few prints of recent work? The thread was posted as a 'heads up' you could save money on all sorts at PC World. rather than "gowd blimy, look how much ink I'm using", cos I'm not. But using a printing company on line, now there is a though, not given it a thought befor now? SW

I hate it!!!! I've said it before, 'I dont like change' . . . for precisly the reasons I'm encountering, one feels like one is being riped off. If it was'nt for you guys on here, I would be at their mercy! One quickly senses the lack of compitence of assistantce . . . ? 'pay penuts you get monkeys'. The expensive computer that was being displayed with a 24" screen had not got a 1600x1050 option, higher, (1080 I think) and lower, but no 1050, which I assume is a standard resolution from what I'v see. Its just bad form, people are being palmed off with **ap! and they are unaware. I'v been lucky to be able to draw on good advise, had enough kneck to get the shop assistant to drag monitors around from isle to isle, plug and unplug for comparison, and learned in the process. Looking at customers during my 3 or 4 hours spent at PC world over the weekend, no one was questioning the sales persons pitch, just nodding politly and paying their hard earned. I canot believe my experiance is unique, or, that I am an aquard, grumpy and dificult customer? In fact the assistant today, shook my hand, thanked me, saying he had learned something, and that the experiance was better than the normal box selling execise? And I'm a numpty when it comes to computers??? SW

Worth making a note, if you buy your printer ink from PC World, ordering over the internet and then picking up from the store saves money. My 6 cartrige set for my HP printer costs £38, orderd on the net with store pick up reduced this to £29, thats a majour saving, and at that price its worth while. Considerasbly better in % term compared to the £10 I saved on the new monitor I have just bought. If only there was a refill servise for the HP C5180, grate all in one printer, but the cost of ink . . . phew. Still better than the Epson I used to have. I get more printes per buck, and little or know wast ink on continus head cleaning! SW

The new monitor thing has gon on a bit, making a mountin out of a mole hill . . . ? thats what I thought, untill I started looking into whats avaliable? Video games seem to have muddied the water? However, with guidance from AG, a bit of reading ans reserch, thisng became clearer . . . thats what I thought, 22" was the way to go, PC World had as good a deal as anyone and the product can be seen, felt and fiddled with. Walked onto the monitor display isle, poor quality promo video being shown. So got me an assistant, we tried the 3 short lised monitors on a dedicated computer, still poor quality, thats Saturday. You guys Saturday night, seemed to think the video chip/card were to blame, PC World assitant was trying to tell me it was the way Vista did things? Slept on it, went back this morning, diferent assistant, again, very helpfull. Found a better PC . . . more expensive, £700, running a 24" Samsung monitor, not very well I might ad. But we presed on, to no avail, I was about to walk out monitor less. I spied a budget PC at the end of the isle doing a great job, all be it on a 20" monitor. To cut to the chase, the 'expensive' PC's could not handle 1600x1050 resolution. My god, the set up to sell computers was mismatched, both the assistants Sat and Sun had not got a clue, I had to work things through in my mind, direct them to do this, do that, and you have all seen how inept I am when it comes to technical. But I got there in the end, discovering just how critical resolution match is to what you see on screen. I prefered the HP, the menu was more intuative, its £15 cheaper ordred on line and colected from store, and I prefer the colour presentation, with the ability to set the colour profile using a supplied dedicated CD/program. Plus, as I have an uptodate HP printer, One suspects 'what one sees on screen is more likly to be what is printed out', a nieve hope I supose, but that all I'v got , simple hope SW

Yes mate, you are correct, I did that, negociated a freebe! Time will tell, but from an amater no techie point ovf view, I see the final spec., as cost efective, no unessisary knobs and whistles, plenty of the RAM type memory. If this one lasts another 6 years I'll not be complaining. Final look at monitors this morning, its between the HP and the Samsung . . . Next weekend Instaling the broad band conection, not looking forward to that. Then transfering all the 'backed up' files from the external hard drive. That will be good because I can be selective, loads of dross to disgard. SW

What you say sounds about right, the Computer they hooked up to was a fairly low cost unit, probably with an OB video chip, rather than a dedicated card. SW

OK, I'v sorted the computer. Now its time to look at the monitor. I though that was going to be easy-peasy . . . especialy as Poldark has this new Samsung T220 that he is 'in love' with Orderer the Samsung T220 on line, for collection at the local PC World, but thought I'd have a look first at the 'Monitor display' isle . . . How disapointed was I, they were all displaying a poor quality promo picture, so a very kind and patient assistant called Matt dismanteled the display, took the screen to a dedicated PC, pluged in . . . agreed it was better but still not sharp??? text has an obvious ghost, looked at some pre loaded pictures, not to impressed, but have no idea of the origins or original quality. Matt seemed to think that Vist and the way it presents had something to do with the gosting, no sharp edges . . . ???? I tried another similar spec and priced 22" screen (HP w2216) by 'HP', Howlett-Packard, not the brown source . . . The HP was considerably better to my eyes than the Samsung, both sharper and more vibrant colours, but still with a hint of goasting on text. Neither were properly set up, unfortunatly Matt did not know how to use the menu . . . we eventualy had one running in chinese!!! Definatly needed the 'destruction' book. the menu text was 'pin sharp' on both monitors. Can any one throw any light on the ghosting, or the fact that Vista might be at falt and XP will be much better, says Matt. Thanks in advance, I'm hoping to get something tomorrow, the new computer is ariving on Friday. SW

Getting a new computer has been a bit of a nightmare, should be an enjoyable experiance but making desission for me 'can be' mind blowing Plus I was getting grief from the supplyer who I have used in the past, one wonders if the 'credit crunch' is crunching? However, Colin Brett came to the rescue, flaging up a supplier on eBay . . . eBay is not the most confidence boosting start, but I persued it as a non eBay sale by phone. They do all sorts of specification from the cheapest to dedicated all singing, all dancing games machines. I found this one in their catalogue, plus I negociated a free card reader and instaled Windows XP, saved myself £40 and got the better spec. compared to that proposed in the week. The only down is a 250Gb HD rather than 320? and as I have a 500Gb external HD anyway, dont see that as a problem. Martin Waston at 'EPSY PC' tells me this model is designed with 'Photo manipulation' as a main fuction. http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/6000-Dual-Core-4GB-R...1742.m153.l1262 Here we have an excellent Top end PC tower. Brand New PC Dual Core PCI-Express Awesome Performance With Black Easypc case 450W PSU Complete with AMD Athlon 64 X2 6000+ Dual Core Processor with 2 x 3ghz can up-grade to quadcore 4GB of RAM DDR2, Corsair XMS2 800Mhz 250GB SATA II Hard Drive Quality item Awesome Sony 20X DVD+-RW Dual layer Drive This will also play and record CD/CD-RW (all in the same drive) Nvidia 9400 GT 512mb DDR2 dedicated graphics card with VGA S-Video (HDTV) DVI Outputs This is the latest model with Direct X 10 support and HDCP and HDTV With Nvidia Pure Video Technology With VGA DVI + TV out and HDTV support plus dual monitor and resolution upto 2560x1600 Network Socket and USB (USB front and 4 Back) Plus gigabyte LAN (Internet ready) System is built around a quality Asrock ALIVE NF6P-VSTA motherboard. System has 1-year return to base Warranty Pay over the phone with your Visa, Maestro, Electron, solo or MasterCard on 01283 220 600 Price Includes VAT and full VAT receipt will be given Delivery Friday. Now all I have to do is trundle down to PC World for a Samsung 22" T220 Monitor, take a few pictures in RAW and away we go Thanks 'all' for your help, we now move on to the 'how do I install this . . . etc.' part of the operation . . . SW

Mmm looks good, but . . . does not seem to come with an OS? therefore a + cost, obviously I ??? GT's and I cant stand the games machine type 'Flashing lights'. I know thats Negative, I wonder what they would do with price for a machine spec'ed similar to the one im looking at??? However I have sent him an email re a no lights spec mc ??? SW

This is realy good feed back chaps, looks like I'm geting there, you are right Newt, no hungry gaming! Simple still photos 'RAW' of course Pleas clarify Newt, still a bit puzelled about the 20" T200 v the 22" T220, I looked at the spec on PC world site seemed the same??? is it me, or maybe PC world, see some real bloomers on there spec sheets. SW

Hi Poledark, More powerfull 'Vid card', why would you think that? I dont know, just looking to understand you reasoning for my edification On the Samsung display, I thought the spec., was the same on the 20" screen only the extra couple of inches in it. Thinking 20", as I dont sit to far away from my screen, and, its £30 less . . . tight old git aint I My Guru has just sent me another email revising his spec., and sugested an alternative CPU, 'INTEL CORE 2 DUO E7300 1066FSB SKT775'. Saying, its spec as near as 'dam it' is as good as the AMD quad chip, which are not that cheap anyway, keeps the machine in the 'Intell loop' and save me £60 in the process. So as I say, save £30 + £60; ninty quid in my book is a lot of 'hard earned'. The new maching will be lightning fast (compared with the present old faithfull) I wont be doing any video work, no one or nothing to video . . . . SW

OK folks, all this chat about, crashing computers, RAW files etc. My tame computer Guru has proposed the following as a cost efective way to go, replacing my 'venerable, creeky' 6 year old computer. The emphasis being on picture quality with photography as number one usage. As a 'stands alone', its around £435 inc., however a considerable saving can be made by using an AMD equivelent chip, also means the Mother Board will be less? Looking to get a figure in of under £400?? I might look seriously at a new screen, not in my original thinking, but Hazel has sugested, "go the whole hog and be done with it"! screen, keyboard and mouse. Not being one to argue or wishing to upset the apple cart . . . any views on a decent 20" in screen, thought the PC World price on a Samsung 'Rose Black' T200 of £146.79 looked nice? Descriptions: 1 off, INTEL CORE 2 QUAD Q6600 1066FSB SKT775 RET 1 off, ADATA 2GB DDR2 800 CL5.0 16 CHIP 1 off, ASUS DVD?RW 20x S-ATA DRW-20B1ST BLACK 1 off, MAXTOR HD SERIAL 320GB UDMA 300 7200RPM 8MB 1 off, ASUS SKT-775 P5KPL-AM S/V/L M-ATX 1333FSB 1 off, PEAK INT 3.5‘ ALL IN ONE CARD READER/WRITER BLACK RET 1 off, MS WINDOWS XP HOME SP3 1 PACK 1 off, PALIT 256MB/1GB RADEON HD 2400 PRO SONIC HDMI PCI-E 2.0 RET 1 off, OCTIGEN MIDI CASE PRO 337 400W BLK/SIL 1 off, Free technical support 1 off, 12 Months parts and labour warranty Any thoughts on any of the above would be apreciated. SW getting excited now, did not fancy it origional, but I'm bitting the bullet . . . SW

I'm stealing my self for the parting of precious 'hard earned' As you say Colin, peace of mind, waiting for a quote to be emailed to me with a price on the spec., I want. Every one has been kind and patient, I know I go round and round in circles, untill the head hurts , indecision is my middle name these days I may go the whole hog and get a new monitor, the present one appears to be lacking luster, despite re calibration. You know how it is, over 6 years, one does not notice change. This became aparent when I posted a few pics the other day on another photo site, the members are a bit more 'Geeky' than our down to earth lot They started to mention things I could not see in the pictures? recalibrate, better but still lacking. Now we are on the roundabout re monitors, do I, dont I . . . Ho-hum, SW

OK Newt, backed everything up on the new Ex HD (beginig to apeciate it was money well invested, with its 'one button back up') then did the above, when I came in from work this evening. Rebooted, no dramas, it looked at 'C' drive for all of 20 seconds and pronounced it 'clean', then went back into normal Windows Welcome mode, a few clicks and flicks, they may have been the HD when I repluged it in? Back to normal. Re ran Belarc Advisor, still showing '1 MS update missing' The 'crashes', to day (this morning, see what hapens through this evening) are more, gental bumps reverting back from the internet to my desktop, no system re boot. I have switch 'MS updates' to Auto, so that the suituation wont? get any worse, and see how it goes. I might be able to live with the od 'minor problem notice' as this seems to be a function of Windows in one form or another for as long as I have been using it; 'performed an illegal act' is another one I remember? What do you think mate? Is there any spacific way of tracking that one missing update down, or would an entire system re install do it . . . does it infact need it I'm thinking? Thats got to be cheaper than a new computer, even if I get my friendly computer shop to do it? I might be gambaling with £100 or less?? for another couple of years operation, thats about as long as the last time she went in for a full clean up at the same shop, I do trust them. SW

OK Newt, sonds like a final ditch plan, worth a try at the weekend when I have some time. I have the whole system backed up on my Maxtor external HD, would you advise unpluging this 'Ex HD', to take it out of the loop? There is a restor option on the Matrox that I could use, infact I'm planing on using this to selectivly restore the 'new' machine to the way the old one is . . . 'with out the problem I hope'? Switched on this morning . . . 'Windows has encounterd a problem' message came up twice in the first 15 minuits, but did not crash, simply closed the progam and went back to my 'desk top'? SW

I dont know about putting the old computer out to grass. I'v slept on the problems, had to have an extra day of work with personal presures that needed urgent attention this morning. So I sat down once again, verious bits of advise ringing in the head. First find the 7 'missing critical MS drivers' that 'Belarc System Analyser' said I was missing, found all but one. Ran a full scan, all 2 hours worth, in between dealing with the personal urgent matters. Fiddled, tweeked all day untill 2pm, then 'crash'!!! Jumped streight in the car, headed to my tame, honest computer guru. His coments were reasuring, yes we can rebuild your computer but the cost will be close to half or two thirds of a new one . . . and thats using the original 'Pentium 4' if the mother boards are still avaliable??? But essentialy its still going to have a 6 year old feel about its operation, and there are no gaurentees on the future practical life??? So, we seem to have turned the clock back a few weeks to when the message on the screen was, 'the computer has encountered a problem and needs to shut down, sorry for the inconvenience', this hapens not too often and I'v heard of other with similar notes displayed? I'm waiting for Steve to email me a quote and spec., for an agreed performace, home/office type use with a strong ephasis on Photographic manipulation, and a dedicated quality graphics card. The realistic budget was set and we agreed the 2 Gb of RAM I bought there a couple or three weeks ago could be re stocked at a consoderation. Put the old 512Mb of RAM in and I have a spare computer. Been at the key board since 3.30pm no sign of a glitch, in fact the patient is doing very well indeed. Awaiting the email, by the way its still going to be an 'XP' machine, SW

Thanks for that analysis Newt, I can, after all the consideration see the most practical answer is a new broom! I will have a word with my very helpfull computer shop in the week, but I see a big hole opening down which I am going to pour some of the money that will help to finance a new, up to date machine, with no garentees when the pouring will stop. Even then I suspect we are only talking short term, months, perhaps 12? befor we are back to square one. XP v Vista, I'm stick in the mud enough to want to stay with XP, some of the programs I have wont run on Vista. I see no need to exacipate the financial drain as Im happy with the way this side of my computer operates and I understand it, accept the 'clipboard' function, or is that 'copy/past' The Christmas Holiday has been an interesting few days, I feel I have learned a lot, thank you all for your help and patience. Regards, SW (Cliff)

Entry No. 4 by SW 'Little and large' Camera Model: NIKON D80 Date/Time: 2009:01:03 09:00:59 Resolution: 800 x 416 Focal Length: 75.0mm (35mm equivalent: 112m... Exposure Time: 0.0016 s (1/640) Aperture: f/6.3 ISO Equiv.: 200 Exposure Bias: -0.67 Whitebalance: Manual Metering Mode: matrix

Entry No. 3 by SW "Attennnnn . . . shunn!!!!" Camera Model: NIKON D80 Date/Time: 2009:01:03 15:42:53 Resolution: 624 x 720 Focal Length: 135.0mm (35mm equivalent: 202... Exposure Time: 0.033 s (1/30) Aperture: f/5.6 ISO Equiv.: 200 Exposure Bias: -0.67 Whitebalance: Manual Metering Mode: matrix

Entry No. 2 by SW 'Bird Roost' Camera Model: NIKON D80 Date/Time: 2009:01:03 15:52:05 Resolution: 800 x 575 Flash Used: No Focal Length: 200.0mm (35mm equivalent: 300... Exposure Time: 0.0016 s (1/640) Aperture: f/5.6 ISO Equiv.: 400 Whitebalance: Manual Metering Mode: matrix

Entry No 1 By SW 'Oh what a beautifull morning' Camera Model: NIKON D80 Date/Time: 2009:01:03 07:21:26 Resolution: 800 x 430 Focal Length: 60.0mm (35mm equivalent: 90mm... Exposure Time: 0.067 s (1/15) Aperture: f/5.0 ISO Equiv.: 1600 Whitebalance: Manual Metering Mode: matrix

Hi mate, Mmm, two independant 'techi' views, says a lot to me . . . no smoke without fire ??? thanks. SW

Copied from the Photo forum; 'Pension the Old Girl off . . . ' as I think it is relevent to the above; Frusrtation . . . . Steves sugestion of the Explorer RAW/JPEG reader works with my D80, sorted I thought . . . not on your life, tried a new ScanDisk Extreme III 4Gb HC SD card, the camera can cope, but the computer simply crashed 'big time', went into check 'C' drive mode! I think I'v lost setting. Even tried a new reader that came with the card. Its time . . . . Pention the old girl off, she is tryig but in truth, going round in circles, cure one problem, on a knifedge . . . bang! I'm also looking at what Steve said re Vista, its picture viewer opens RAW/JPG on modern cameras? With the idea I might upgrade the camera at some time, have a hankering for the D90, essentialy a D300 with a plastic body, thats a Nikon plastic body of course! Or I can stay with XP on the new 'pooter' and down load Steves 'RAW/JPG reader for XP', after all the money I might have spent on a D90 is going to have to go on the new computer Anyone got a view on XP v Vista, they say Vista has many of its problems sorted, but thats not the same as 'all of its problems'? . . . Even heard the other day, MS will dump Vista and are looking at a new operating system for 2010/11 ??? SW

Frusrtation . . . . Steves sugestion of the Explorer RAW/JPEG reader works with my D80, sorted I thought . . . not on your life, tried a new ScanDisk Extreme III 4Gb HC SD card, the camera can cope, but the computer simply crashed 'big time', went into check 'C' drive mode! I think I'v lost setting. Even tried a new reader that came with the card. Its time . . . . Pention the old girl off, she is tryig but in truth, going round in circles, cure one problem, on a knifedge . . . bang! I'm also looking at what Steve said re Vista, its picture viewer opens RAW/JPG on modern cameras? With the idea I might upgrade the camera at some time, have a hankering for the D90, essentialy a D300 with a plastic body, thats a Nikon plastic body of course! Or I can stay with XP on the new 'pooter' and down load Steves 'RAW/JPG reader for XP', after all the money I might have spent on a D90 is going to have to go on the new computer Anyone got a view on XP v Vista, they say Vista has many of its problems sorted, but thats not the same as 'all of its problems'? . . . Even heard the other day, MS will dump Vista and are looking at a new operating system for 2010/11 ??? SW