Back up
What is the cheapest backup medium - Zip drives, rewriteable CD's, tape streamers? - and from whom? Nigel Bruce
nigel@grove22.freeserve.co.uk
Jack Schofield: Ask me next year, because I'm optimistic about the progress of rewriteable DVD, or DVD-ram drives like the Panasonic LF-D103.
Today, tape streamers are great for professionals, and I like the look of the Tecmar Travan NS20, but tapes don't appeal to home users. One possibility is a "superdisk" such as the Iomega Jaz drive or the similar Orb system.
These can store 2GB per disk, but the disks are expensive. (Iomega's popular Zip disks, which hold 100MB or 250MB, are now too small for back-ups, and the disks are also too expensive.) CD writers are more attractive because they double up as CD players and let you create your own audio CDs.
They are cheap to run: blank CD-R discs cost less than £1, and rewriteable CDRW discs cost less than £2 each. The problem is that one disc does not hold enough: typically 74 minutes of audio or 650MB of data. You would need 16 discs, and a lot of spare time, to back up a 10GB hard drive.
DVD-ram drives can store 2.6GB on a single-sided disc costing about £15. When the cost of drives comes down to £200 or less, and blank disc prices are also halved, they could be almost irresistible.
Why not MD?
Is there any reason why it shouldn't be possible to back up PC files onto a recordable MiniDisc player and, if not, why doesn't this facility seem to be available? John Arran
john.arran@eds.com
JS: MiniDiscs were designed to store audio data using a "lossy" compression system that Sony calls ATRAC (Adaptive TRansform Acoustic Coding).
Unfortunately, "lossy" compression systems, which throw away data they think you can't see or hear, are no use for computer data where every bit counts.
In 1993, however, Sony announced a suitable format called MD Data, and Sony and Sharp said they would have 650MB drives ready by 1997. This is only 4.6 times the capacity of a standard MiniDisc, so I expect Sony could have done it.
But presumably they could not do it at a price competitive with CD-based systems.
Why not CD?
I back up data files to floppy disk. I understand I can use a CD-R or CD-RW (rewriteable) drive, but CD files are "Read-only", and when copied back to the hard drive cannot be edited. Have I understood correctly? George Katritzky
gkatritzky@cwcom.net
JS: You can't edit files on a CD, not even on a rewriteable CD. However, if you copy a file from a CD to a hard drive, you can easily change the "Read-only" setting in Windows.
Right-click on the file and select Properties. The Attributes section at the bottom of the sheet has a check-box to mark it Read-only. Uncheck it.
Partition it
My PC has a 27GB of hard drive, of which 25GB are unused. It was purchased with the primary objective of video editing with Pinnacle Systems' DV500, which stresses that part of the hard drive should be reserved exclusively for saving raw video footage. My problem is that I do not know how to separate part of the hard drive (15 or 20GB) or how to make it Drive E. Ronald Foxwell
antiphonfoxford@care4free.net
JS: The problem is that hard drive partitions are set up before any software is installed on a PC, and changing the drive with the DOS/Windows utilities Fdisk and Format will erase everything. The solution is a commercial program called Partition Magic 5.0 ( See www.powerquest.com/partitionmagic/). I bought a copy and it is brilliant. There are also some free programs that do the same thing, such as Mikhail Ranish's Partition Manager. This is a very powerful program, but too hard for most of us to use.
Fixing flickers
I want to change the display refresh rate on my PC (jitter on the new monitor), but in true Windows form, nowhere does it tell you how to do this. K. Lillington
karlin@indigo.ie
JS: Windows may be cagey because setting too high a refresh rate can damage the monitor. It will therefore set a conservative (too low) refresh rate if it does not know what the monitor is, and will not let you increase it.
To check, right-click on the desktop and select Properties, then go to the Settings tab and click the Advanced button in the lower right hand corner. Look at the Monitor sheet and see if Windows recognises your monitor. If not, try to find the appropriate .inf (information) file, which may be on a floppy disk supplied with your system, or may be downloaded from the supplier's website.
Now go to the Adapter sheet and see if Windows knows which graphics card you have. If everything is OK, you should see a drop-down list of available refresh rates including "Adapter default" and "Optimal".
Bear in mind that every graphics card has a finite amount of power and memory. You can only get the highest refresh rates by compromising on the screen resolution and the number of colours. So go back to the Settings page and either reduce the colour depth or screen area or both. Changing from, say, 32-bit True Colour at 1280 by 1024 pixels to 16-bit High Colour at 1024 by 768 pixels should automatically produce a higher refresh rate.
France calling
I have two ageing PCs, one in the UK and one in France. My internet service provider, Cable and Wireless, does not offer a number I can dial into from outside the UK and suggests I subscribe locally to access my email. I wonder if there are other ISPs in the UK who offer what I want. Amanda Parkyn
amanda.parkyn@cwcom.net
JS: I think your best bet is to change to an ISP that offers a "global roaming" service where you can use a local number almost anywhere in the world. In fact, any ISP can do this by joining an organisation such as GRIC or iPass. Both groups have members in the UK and France: see www.gric.com/zone/isplocator and www.ipass.com/partners/isp-partners/europe for details. America Online (AOL) also offers global roaming facilities that are very easy to use, but calls are surcharged.
BT Anytime
Having just read Jack Schofield's Weblife (August 10), I was delighted to hear that BT had finally introduced 24-hour unmetered access for £19.99 a month. I rushed to my computer to sign up, only to find no sign of such a service anywhere on BT's site. Was Jack dreaming? Is it his little joke? Eira Reed
eira.reed@lineone.net
JS: I have never been suspected of having a sense of humour, and I hope BT is equally serious about the Surftime Anytime service. It is inviting people to sign up at www2.btwebworld.com/netgeneration/surft/html/anytime.html
