flyinghaggis

Just checked the FTP link posted previously but I didn't see the file mentioned unfortunately. Does anyone have the file or know where I can download it from as it looks like it might be the solution we've been looking for?

All our printers are still running the firmware 20081124 and are still having issues. I've been on HP's website recently and tried to download the latest firmware which it claims is the above 20090430 but when I actually download it the file itself is actually the 20081124 which we already have. Wonder if they've removed the upgraded firmware for some reason. See link(s) below ? :- HP LaserJet P2050 Printer series- HP LaserJet P2055dn/P2055x Firmware Update Utility - HP Business Support Center http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/SoftwareDescription.jsp?lang=en&cc=uk&prodTypeId=18972&prodSeriesId=3662052&prodNameId=3662058&swEnvOID=228&swLang=8&mode=2&taskId=135&swItem=lj-72585-2

We looked at them briefly but as stated above at the the time the most cost effective size of TFT/Plasman Television you could buy was 46" which just isn't large enough for a classroom IMO and is only about half the size of an interactive whiteboard. Wont really be possible to seriously consider them until they can match a 80" Smartboard which will be a while. I'll be having one in my lounge the day I can buy an 80" TFT for sane money though

Running 2 displays on an Nvidia card just now and it's fine so cant imagine a 3rd will be a problem? I'm not specifically planning using the triple displays for gaming. Just as long as I have a video card that can run games on my main monitor at 1920x1200 that'll be fine. Anyway it's too early to make a solid call on how well the next-gen Nvidia cards will compare to ATI's offerings.

Nah, Nvidia know they need to compete with ATI's 5800 series so they'll have to market a 300-series card with similar performance at that kind of price-point so more likely £250-£300. I know the feeling that at the end of the day there's always something newer and faster around the corner but I'd genuinely feel like shelling out on a top-end Nvidia card right now would be buying last-generation technology. I'm starting to feel like now's about the time to upgrade my 8800GT. I know that the new Nvidia cards will be out in a couple of months so happy to wait until then. Currently running 2 x 20" monitors but ideally would like to get a new 24" monitor to go with a new Nvidia 300-series video card and have triple display if possible. That's my current plan at the moment anyway

http://www.b3tards.com/u/e06f15dc8149e80838de/valuephone.jpg

I've always favoured Nvidia over ATI. I've personally seen too many ATI cards with hardware faults and encountered too many issues with their drivers (like leaving debug code which broke them as a no-admin account!) to ever consider buying an ATI card ...... BUT and it pains me the say it but if I HAD to buy a new video card right NOW for £200-300 it would definitely be either a Radeon 5850 or 5870. At this point in time they're :- Faster Consume less power Support DX11 Support triple screen on a single card Having said that I'm sure Nvidia will bring out an equivalent card soon so I'm gonna wait until then

If I were you I'd be tempted to wait if you can until Nvidia release more details of the forthoming 300-series card with DX11 support to see how that compares with what's out just now.

Just tried it and it does improve the frame rate slighly but not enough to make of for the effects it seems to disable such as dynamic lighting/etc. THe game looked noticeably worse with it turned off so I've turned it back on for now. Cheers for the advice though, Nothing special really, Runs with DX9. See below for details :- VISTA MINIMUM SPECSOS: Windows Vista with SP1 CPU: Intel Core 2 (or equivalent) running at 1.6Ghz or greater RAM: 1.5 GB or more VIDEO: ATI Radeon X1550 256MB or greater NVIDIA GeForce 7600 GT 256MB or greater RECOMMENDED SPECS CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad 2.4Ghz Processor or equivalent RAM: 4 GB (Vista) or 2 GB (XP) VIDEO: ATI 3850 512 MB or greater NVIDIA 8800GTS 512 MB or greater

Been playing this for about 10 hours or so now. Graphics wise it's starting to chug a bit since my party grew to 4 characters and there seems to be more enemies on screen at once now! May have to start turning off some of the grahpics features to get the frame rate back up ....or buy some PC hardware upgrades !

Looks like it's a public/state school so the money's coming out of the UK tax pot. Disgraceful that it's being squandered on something so useless IMO. If you're going to buy a £200 quid device for each pupil at least get them a laptop which would offer some flexibility and educational benefit. Buying them Ipod's is just a pathetic attempt to try any look 'trendy'

Fair Point. AVG (and Im guessing most other 'free' antivirus products) would have the same limitation though if that were the case. AVG Free Licence 1. License Grant; Related Provisions a. Grant of a Single User License AVG Technologies, subject to the terms and conditions of this Agreement, hereby grants to you a non-exclusive and non-transferable license during the Term to use the Software (i) solely in executable or object code form, on a single computer, and (ii) solely for your personal use and not for purchase, sale or delivery of any product or service to a third party or other commercial or business purpose, if not explicitly stated in the terms of using the Software otherwise.

What about installing Microsoft Security Essentials instead? http://www.microsoft.com/Security_Essentials/ In my experience it's much better than the free version of AVG. In fact it's better than any other free and most AV products you have to pay for aswell IMO.

Core2duo 6600 (2.4ghz), Nvidia Gefore 8800 GT 512Mb - Runs fine with everything set to high at 1680x1050

Bought it yesterday and it's running fine at 1680x1050 with everything set to high so looks pretty sweet. Played it for a couple of hours and it's really good fun so far. Reminds me of playing Baldur's Gate which takes me back a bit ! @ Zero : Review on gamespot.com (and another site I cant remember) said the PS3 version was better than the xbox360 graphics wise? Dragon Age: Origins Review for PC - Page 2 - GameSpot the Xbox 360 version looks positively disappointing. Textures are highly compressed and colors are washed out, though the upside is that this version maintains a smoother frame rate than on the PlayStation 3, where things might get jittery when swiveling the camera around. The PlayStation 3 version features higher-quality textures than those on the Xbox 360, better color saturation, smoother facial animations, and shorter load times. Minor visual hiccups, like corpses that disappear and reappear, are a bit more common on the PS3, however. The PC version is the superior experience, but if you're choosing between the two console releases, the PlayStation 3 has the upper hand. Scores on metacritic seem to agree with this aswell (86 on xbox vs 89 on ps3) ? Everywhere seems to agree that the PC version is way better than either console version though.

Planning on buying the above game this weekend. Looks awesome and has been getting great reviews. Only thing is I'm not sure is whether to get it for my PC or PS3 (supposedly the better of the two console versions). Being an RPG it looks like it'd be a lot more at home running on a PC with mouse control plus it'd be nice to have access to downloadable content you don't have to pay for. It comes with a development toolkit so there should be plenty of extra content on the PC version. Only thing I'm not sure of is how well it will run on my computer. I've currently got a Nvidia Geforce 8800GT in my PC and wondered if anyone knew if this would be good enough to run the game at 1680x1050 (native res of my 20" LCD) at Med/High detail? So basically will it look as good as the console version on my rig? Any input appreciated? TIA

yay, I feel like we should have a party to celebrate the demise of that horrible poor excuse for a format that was WPS! Good riddance!

Core2Duo 6600 2.4ghz 4GB RAM DDR2 667Mhz MSI Platinum Powerup 975X motherboard Nvidia Geforce 8800GT 512MB Video Card Samsung F3 1Tb HDD Scores on the Doors Processor - 5.8 Memory - 5.8 Graphics - 6.8 Gaming Graphics - 6.8 Hard Disk - 5.9 Overall - 5.8 As other's have said it's running pretty smoothly after a fresh install. Way better than Vista (or windows 7 RC1) ever did

Doesnt seem likely as I've got a dual monitor setup that I left plugged in and it worked OK. Whereabouts during the install is it failing and are you getting any errors? If it's failing right at the end I'd guess it's trying to install a hardware driver for some kind of device you have connected which is causing windows to crash. Guess the first thing I would try would be to unplug every usb device connected to your PC and any unused peripherals so you only have literally just the keyboard plugged in. Maybe also remove any PCI expansion cards, Blu-ray/Zip drives that you don't require so you only have the bare minumum connected to get windows installed? If that still fails then maybe check your motherboard(or PC manufacturers) website for BIOS updates and then google search to see if there's anyone else with the same hardware having similar issues? Don't panic. Im sure you'll get it working with one of the above!

Don't worry my trolling friend. £30 for a 3 yearly complete OS upgrade is a lot better than £25 for a yearly service pack IMO. That and I'll be along in the mac forum to laugh at you when you have to pay another £50-100 for next years service pack

Yes, our internal educational account manager never replies to our calls / emails even when we're chomping at the bit to throw money their way. Find a reseller you like and go with them would be my advice!

Anything you'd recommend as an alternative? The other gripe about the software is that it's £2000 for a site licence which strikes me a pretty expensive for a text document reader.

We're currently running Texthelp Read&Write7 in our school and have had a request from our learning support department to upgrade to the latest version 9. I've had a play with the demo and it looks OK. Seems pretty similar on the face of it to our current version so I'm not really convinced it's worth the money to upgrade. It runs direcly from a network share now which is quite nice as the fact that it required a 500mb install on every PC was our biggest gripe with the previous version. Is anyone currently using this software on their network? If so any feedback would be appreciated, TIA

It actually looks like according to the T&Cs even though it says specifically students that staff might also be covered by it :- "Promotion Eligibility: This offer is good only to eligible students and staff who attend or are employed at an educational institution geographically located in the United Kingdom, Jersey, Guernsey or the Isle of Man. This offer is non-transferable. One of either Windows 7 Home Premium Upgrade or Windows 7 Professional Upgrade may be purchased per eligible student or member of staff (but not required). " Link below :- http://www.microsoft.com/uk/education/studentoffer/

I love the new interface and the fact that it now performs even better than windows XP on similar hardware. The only thing I'm not liking is the fact that because of the way the new taskbar (which is awesome btw!) works you're sometimes not sure if an app you've minimised to the system tray is still running as it doesn't show up on the taskbar. That and I HATE the way MSN messenger now appears as 2 screens in the taskbar. One for the logged on user and one for the actual app window. IMO it would have made more sense to have somekind of customised 'right-click' or 'mouse-over' jump window to display that. In fact if it wasn't for legacy purposes they could probably have done away with the system tray altogether actually as it's noticeable that there's a lot of overlap between what it and the new task bar do.