joshwaller (baboba)

Is Scooter and Basshunter the same person?

2023-05-14T15:20:00.002+01:00

According to Wikipedia, Basshunter is Jonas Erik Altberg from Sweden. Whilst Scooter is a band from Hamburg, Germany, made up of three people, with lead vocalist H.P. Baxxter. Whilst the music style could be considered very similar, being bass driven rave / techno / happy hardcore / dance / EDM music, they are in fact different people.

Basshunter: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basshunter Scooter: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scooter_(band)

All the Charity Shops in Sheffield, UK (The Charity Shop Trail)

2021-02-14T14:11:00.003+00:00

Here's a list of (almost) all the charity shops in Sheffield, based on area. We've found 54 so far, and we will add more when we find them.

Heeley / Meersbrook (1)

- The Special Branch charity shop, 15 Chesterfield Rd, S8 0RL.

Woodseats (5)

All of these are on the same side of the road, and once you've got to the last one, you've done the Woodseats charity shops. Start at the RSPCA shop and head away from Sheffield.

RSPCA Charity Emporium, 682 Chesterfield Rd, S8 0SD
Oxfam, 688 690 Chesterfield Rd, S8 0SD
St Lukes (double-fronted shop), Chesterfield Rd, S8 0SD
Kids around the World, 708 Chesterfield Rd, S8 0SD
Not the Charity Shop (thecharityshopwoodseats.org), 744 Chesterfield Rd, Woodseats, S8 0SE

Ecclesall Road (Sharrow, 7)

Start at the first one, on the left, heading away from Sheffield centre.

Sheffield Cats Shelter, 405 Ecclesall Road, Sharrow, S11 8PG
Cancer Research
British Heart Foundation, 425-427 Ecclesall Rd, S11 8PG
Marie Curie Charity Shop, Berkeley Precinct, Ecclesall Rd, S11 8PN (next to Tesco Metro)
Age UK, 463 Ecclesall Rd, S11 8PP
St Luke's, 492 Ecclesall Rd, S11 8PY (on the other side of the road)
Oxfam, 531 Ecclesall Rd, S11 8PR

London Road Area (Highfield)

On street parking during the day, note signs, as sometimes not possible. If you're near Abbeydale Rd, you may as well hit this one up as well.

Mind, opposite the Cremorne, 187-189 London Rd, S2 4LJ

Nether Edge (3)

Good idea to start with London Rd, Abbeydale Rd, then Nether Edge. Parking is possible on side roads.

Oxfam, 1-3 Machon Bank Rd, Nether Edge, Sheffield S7 1PE - no clothes, mostly books, CDs, DVDs, records, toys, gifts, etc
GONE: St Lukes, Furniture, 6C Sheldon Rd, Nether Edge, Sheffield S7 1GW (no longer here)
St Lukes, 5 Nether Edge Rd, Nether Edge, Sheffield S7 1RU - Mostly women's clothes.

Abbeydale Rd (4)

Quite spread out, some of these. You can start with London Rd, then go here, or start here, then head to Nether Edge, and London Rd.

Barnardo's next to Tesco Express (you can park here and head towards town), 457 Abbeydale Rd - also sell electrical items and white goods.
St Vincents, 334 Abbeydale Rd, S7 1FN (easy to walk to, from Barnardo's)
Age UK, 747 Abbeydale Rd
St Lukes (furthest away, despite the number), 706 Abbeydale Rd, S7 2BL, don't try and park down Plymouth Rd if you're driving as it's always full, and impossible to turn around.

Broomhill (6, Fulwood Rd)

Start with the large Oxfam at the top and head down the hill, towards Sheffield. You can sometimes park opposite Oxfam, and get 15 minutes free parking, if you press the button on the machine for a ticket. Or pay for more if you want. Morrisons also have parking round the back.

Oxfam (Large), 281,283 Fulwoof Rd, S10 3BD
Barnardo's (past Morrisons), 224 Fulwood Rd, Broomhill, S10 3BB
PDSA charity shop, 218 Fulwood Rd, Broomhill, S10 3BB
St Luke's (round the corner past COSTA), 3 Crookes Rd, S10 5BA
RSPCA, 5 Crookes Rd, S10 5BA
Save the Children, 7 Crookes Rd, S10 5BA

Crookes (5)

Busy streets, parking available on side streets, if not available on the main road. If you start at Age UK, you can head away from Sheffield, up the hill.

Age UK, 211 Crookes, S10 1TE
Barnardos, 231 Crookes, S10 1TE
Fable, 239 Crookes, S10 1TF
St Lukes (Large, drop off centre, and shop), 252 Crookes, S10 1TH
St Lukes Furniture Store (little bit further up)

Hillsborough (11)

Lots of charity shops, quite spread out.

Banardo's, Unit 2, Bradfield Rd, parking behind in available.
Sue Ryder, 141-147 Bradfield Rd
British Heart Foundation, 151 Bradfield Rd
British Red Cross, 15 Middlewood Rd
St Lukes, 15 Middlewood Rd (next door to each other)
The Children's Society, 24 Middlewood Rd
Mind, 27A Middlewood Rd
British Heart Foundation (Large), 38-42 Middlewood Rd

Plus nr Morrissons / Hillsborough Barracks Shopping Mall you have: (if driving start or end here)

Sense, Unit 26-27
ExtraCare, Unit 28
The Sheffield Cats Shelter, Unit 4

Sheffield Town Centre (6)

It's best to get to Sheffield Town Centre on foot, using public transport, as driving in to the centre is not recommended at all. If you do want to drive, then John Lewis has a good sized car park that is quite central.

Oxfam Bookshop, 276 Glossop Rd, Broomhall, S10 2HS
Scope, Division House, Division St, S1 1HT
Samaritans, 45 Chapel Walk, S1 2PD
British Heart Foundation Furniture and Electrical, 6 Arundel Gate, S1 2PP
British Heart Foundation, 155 Pinstone St, S1 2HL
British Heart Foundation, 98 The Moor, S1 4PB

Nearby: (2)

Emmaus Charity Superstore, large, lots of furniture. Unit 5, Sipelia Works, Cadman St, Sheffield S4 7ZG
Remar UK, mostly furniture, 160 Matilda St, Sheffield City Centre, Sheffield S1 4QG

City Road (1)

St Luke's City Road, 936-940 City Road, S2 1GQ

Dore and Totley (1)

Age UK, 308 Twentywell Ln, Bradway, Sheffield S17 4QH

Darnall (1)

? RSPCA Superstore, 340 Coleford Rd, Darnall, S9 5PH - A large store, in a big warehouse. (may have shut)

Wadsley, Shirecliffe, Norwood (3)

Barnardo's Wadsley, Unit 3, Halifax Road Retail Park, Wadsley, S6 1LH
Shirecliffe Charity Shop, 10 Teynham Rd, Sheffield, S5 8TT
Fable, 417 Herries Rd, Norwood, S5 7HF

Times people ask what it means or don't. (Peep Show)

2020-09-28T18:40:00.001+01:00

Season 1 Episode 1, Mark asks Jez "What does it mean?" when confronted by Judas spelt out with meat on his bed.

Season 1 Episode 2. Mark replies: "What does that mean?? I literally have no idea what that is supposed to mean." when Jez says "yeah, well, at least I don't fancy elves and pixies."

Season 1 Episode 5, Jez thinks "Shall I ask what he means?" when Super hans says "It's a Savage Garden, my friend, a Savage Garden."

Season 3, Episode 1. Stu says: "What? What does that even mean?", after Jez pretends to shake his hand, then doesn't and says "Ah ha ha! How do you like that Stu, you Monk!" In answer to the question Jez says: "You know what it means, Stu, from the way it makes you feel, that's what it means, yeah, welcome to big school."

* earlier in this episode Jez says "What the hell do you mean by that?" when Big Suze says "Stu's my man, my hunk of monk."

Season 7, Episode 2, Mark says "What does that even mean?" when Jez says "We don't make money, money makes us." in answer Jez says "It means I'm gonna light up a fatty and crack open my brand new xbox."

Season 8, Episode 5, Jez says "What do you mean, famine?" when Mark talks about Chairman Mao and his regimes that caused widespread famine.

Season 8, Episode 6, football player says "Switch it, switch it!" Mark thinks: "what does that mean?" and says "I don't know what you mean!"

Season 9, Episode 5, Mark: That was fun! And does it mean...? April replies: I think it means something.

Season 9, Episode 6, Super Hans says "Be the Canary. Full fucking Delia". Mark says "I don't know what you mean!" Jez replies "You go, girl!"

The Worst Grey's Anatomy Episodes

2020-06-26T17:57:00.000+01:00

There are so many episodes of Grey's Anatomy, there's bound to be some stinkers. So obviously, the musical episode where they're all singing, is downright awful. But there are more. Here we go, in no particular order:

Season 10, Episode 17 - Do you know? (how terrible this episode is?) An annoying "flash forward" episode, what would happen if... but each flash forward is so long and boring you want to skip through it and literally fast forward through it. The timeline is just mixed up, mixed together, so what is / isn't real, who knows? Who even cares? What's most frustrating is the (no longer believable) relationship between Yang and Hunt, which has been done to death already. Talk about flogging a dead horse. "Same same, over and over" Yang says JUST LIKE THIS EPISODE.

Season 8, Episode 13 - If/Then - The other earlier "what if" episode that was the "opposites" episode, which I just skipped completely because it was complete *insert expletive of choice here* horse manure.

Season 7, Episode 18 - Song beneath the song. Horrible. Horrid. Terrible. PAINFUL to watch. A musical episode, where everyone can sing perfectly (or at least very well), and the whole episode is a (terrible) musical.

Season 8, Episode 24 - This is a difficult episode, if you've seen it, you'll know why. Then the following several episodes are quite painful to watch because of who else leaves the series. The way it is done in the following episodes is particularly annoying as well. You find out someone is dead, then they flashback to the run-up to them dying.

Season 10 - Multiple episodes - Of constant, annoying bickering, and pointless arguing between Dr Yang and Dr Grey.

There are bound to be more, that I'll add, as and when. There will also be the episodes that I've just completely forgotten due to sheer boredom.

Nikon Coolscan Scanner Drivers (USB and 1394 Firewire)

2019-11-12T18:10:00.002+00:00

If you're looking for Windows drivers for the following Nikon Coolscan film and slide scanners:

Nikon Coolscan IV (40)
Nikon Coolscan V (50)
Nikon Coolscan 4000 (Firewire)
Nikon Coolscan 5000
Nikon Coolscan 8000 (Firewire)
Nikon Coolscan 9000 (Firewire)

Then please use this link, which is a ZIP file, containing drivers for the USB and Firewire (1394) Nikon Coolscan scanners*:

https://drive.google.com/uc?export=download&id=1Tgr7LhL8UtzgUpor26-Z1jCiytz7HkAH

If you're looking for the Nikon Scan software, then you can find the full version available for download from Nikon's website, as well as the last update for the Nikon Scan software:

* Also includes drivers for LS-10, LS-20, 2000, III (LS-30), Nikon SCSI scanners. You shouldn't need these drivers, but are provided just in case.

Here you can watch this video on how to install the Nikon Coolscan scanner drivers and software to get it working on Windows 10 or Windows 11 (these instructions work for both):

Top 45 Best Things To Do With An Old PC *(26 + 19)

2019-10-07T20:45:00.002+01:00

If you're looking for some great things to do with an old or spare PC, then this list is for you. I used to have a website, with lots of PC / computer content on there. One article was 26 things to do with an old 486 PC. Some may still be relevant, but I've decided to list some of the new, interesting, fun, and more modern ideas first.

Remember the AMD Athlon XP?

Things to do with an old(ish) PC:

1 - Run as an old PC/Dos/Windows Gaming Machine

If you're hardcore you may be able to find a 3dfx Voodoo graphics card to play all the old school 3D games. You could use DOSBox to run a DOS emulator on your PC, or alternatively you can start from the beginning and install MS-DOS, and then Windows 95 on top.

2 - Run as an arcade machine / emulator - MAME etc

Get MAME and you can emulate an old arcade machine to play original arcade games. Remember GoldenAxe on the Amiga and Atari ST? Well, image it a whole lot better, with the original arcade version. Here's a quick (17min) video guide on how to setup MAME.

3 - Run as a games console emulator

Pick a console, any console, and you'll most likely be able to find an emulator for it. Here's some of the more popular ones, with a list of 10 emulators, on hongkiat. You could even search out some of the more obscure emulators, such as an Atari Jaguar emulator!

4 - Setup your own webserver

Got a decent broadband connection? You could setup your own webserver. It's almost free (assuming you don't mind the electricity bills), and you can have huge amounts of storage simply by adding a huge hard drive to it. Here's a good set of instructions on how to setup a Linux webserver.

5 - Setup NAS / Home file share - aka Network Attached Storage

Got a bunch of old hard drives lying around and/or want somewhere for additional storage and backup? See FreeNAS for free software, although the system requirements are quite high, so you could try something else like NAS4Free, which has a 32bit version.

Intel S775 system with re-used Tagan fan guard.

6 - Setup a game server

You could host Quake3 Arena games if you wanted. Or something much more modern.

7 - Learn the history of different Windows versions / Boot multiple Windows versions

Use EasyBCD to setup your PC so that you've got a choice of which Windows version you want to boot in to. Did you know that if you had Windows 98, you could copy the defrag tool from Windows Millenium and use it on Windows 98, and your defrag would be twice as fast.

8 - Turn your PC into a print server

Got an old, non-Wi-Fi, non-network connected printer? You could share your printer to the network by connecting it to your old PC, and connecting your PC to the network. This is simplest if your PC is running Windows as you can quick quickly and easily share your printer so the network can access it. Quick easy guide for Windows 7.

9 - Set it up as a "media centre" / living room PC

If you don't have a smart TV, but still want to watch Netflix, Amazon Prime, Now TV, iPlayer and other on-line streaming sites (like YouTube), then why not setup your old PC and use it for all sorts of media playback? You can make it silent if it's not already, by replacing noisy fans. If you're PC already runs Windows and works well enough to stream Netflix and YouTube, then you shouldn't have any problems. If your graphics card has an HDMI out port, then it should be as simple as connecting to your computer to your TV.

10 - Use it as an experimental PC

If you're trying to run some old software, or want to try and install some random software from the distant past, then you might want a blank PC, which you can experiment with. Install Windows, make a backup or clone of it (AOMEI backupper is free), and once you've finished experimenting you can reset it back to normal, and start again.

11 - Use it as a test PC - build a Test Bed

Kind of 10 and 12 mixed together, but if you're regularly dealing with old computer parts, testing, and repairing PCs, then a test bed PC, that is easy to access may be just what you need.

Method: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQjMlE7YS5E
Via: MakeUseof.

12 - Learn how to build PCs

Take apart your old PC, learn how to fix it if it's broken, and work out what does and doesn't work, and you could save some money by re-using components in a new computer build. There's a quick and easy to follow guide on Wiki-How.

13 - Use it as a remote music player

Setup your computer as a music player, set it up next to your amplifier and speakers, and you could remotely control it from your smartphone. CNET has full details on how to do this, using Winamp.

14 - Donate it to charity

There are a number of charities that would benefit from a working computer. Search your local area to see if you can find any in need of a computer or laptop.

AMD K6-2 500MHz "Super" Socket 7 System. Real Old.

15 - Build a "Hackintosh" - Run Mac OS on your PC

Want to play with a Mac, but don't fancy the price, or don't want to spend money and then decide it isn't for you? How about setting up a "Hackintosh" so that you can run Mac OS on your PC. You'll find a guide on the aptly named: hackintosh.com.

16 - Home Security System (camera monitoring).

Use your PC or laptop, and a webcam, to setup a home security system, so that you can monitor your home from anywhere. This idea via thesimpledollar, with more information available here.

17 - Setup a guest computer (assuming you have guests)

Pretty self-explanatory, but you might want to limit what's on there, limit access to installing apps, or you might want to install Linux so that you don't have to pay for a Windows licence.

18 - Setup a kitchen computer

Spend a lot of time in the kitchen? You could setup a kitchen computer. (or just take your laptop in to the kitchen)

19 - Make it faster

If you're considering getting a new computer, or getting rid of your old computer, is it really too slow? Or could you try making it faster? Perhaps with some TLC it could be useful and usable again. Here's a guide to making your computer faster.

Things to do with a really old PC:

Okay, so I had come to the point where I no-longer had any use for my Tulip 486 PC so I decided to look on the internet for "Fun things to do with a 486" web pages, but unfortunately couldn't find any! So I decided to collate a whole heap of suggestions from friends, magazines and the internet to make this page, so that in the future if I ever need to find any fun things to do with a 486 / PC, I can always look at this!

For the more difficult and interesting ideas, I will add additional pages of information, or links to other peoples pages on the internet. Here's how it's arranged...

First is the title of the thing to do. Then the Difficulty out of Ten, 1 being easy and 10 being too difficult even for me. Cost is how much it costs, say if there is anything you need to buy, and the american equivalent is worked out by using the current conversion rate (1.65 at present - lol!). Who it was suggested by is self-explanatory, and thanks to all those that have emailed me ideas! Next is the main description, and then finally, if that wasn't enough there is the Additional Info section, which will either have a link to someone else web site, or a page I have created, or a page someone has created for me. (LINKS may no longer work)

Also, if you have any suggestions that we have not covered here then please email me, or leave a comment. Any and all suggestions are welcome!

Apologies for the formatting - it's included to give a glimpse of the articles original format.

1. Thing to Do		Difficulty	Cost	Suggested By
	Give it to a Friend	2/10	£0 / $0	Phil Hackett
	To do this all you have to do is find a friend who does not already have a PC and give it to them and then they can use it to do Word Processing or whatever it is set up to do, with Windows 3.1 and some kind of Word Processor on, as the most popular thing to use it for. Advantages are that you feel all warm and good inside. Disadvantages are that you could have done thing no. 2!
	Additional Info.	None

2. Thing to Do		Difficulty	Cost	Suggested By
	Sell it for X amount of money.	2/10	£0 / $0	Phil Hackett
	To do this you can place an adds in local shops, in magazines, on the internet, or just try selling by word of mouth. Advantages of this are that you can get some dosh so you can go buy heaps of your favourite CDs from shops, or even better spend more money on your other PCs, or a new PC. Disadvantages, you feel bad if what your selling is a heap of junk!
	Additional Info.	None

3. Thing to Do		Difficulty	Cost	Suggested By
	Glue it to a pavement!	1/10	£2 / $3	Oliver Whitehead
	To do this, go buy some really strong glue, take your 486 outside and glue it to the pavement, and watch people come and try to pick it up, it might also be fun to video them! Advantages are : funny - disadvantages : dangerous and they might manage to steal it from you!
	Additional Info.	None

4. Thing to Do		Difficulty	Cost	Suggested By
	Sell it as a Network Workstation	7/10	£? / $?	Steven Hill
	Quite a tricky one this, but it could reap rewards far in excess of that from just doing No. 2. Ste says, "Find some dodgy low-level company, that uses some Dos based accounting system, slap in an old ISA network card, forget selling as a computer, call it a network workstation." I guess this wouldn't be too difficult, but would require convincing some company that it's the best thing since sliced bread, and installing some Windows based accounting package. Advantages : might work! Disadvantages : if you give them your phone number they'll ring you up everyweek saying it's stopped working! But since you sold them a 1 year technical support contract, for heaps of cash, you don't mind!
	Additional Info.	None

5. Thing to Do		Difficulty	Cost	Suggested By
	Set it up as a TV/CD Player	5/10	£? / $?	Joshua Waller
	Okay, to do this, it would definitely be easier if you had a 486 with PCI slots! But the idea is to buy a second hand TV card for it that will go in an ISA slot, and providing that works okay and doesn't mind that you've only got 4mb ram, you can put it in a spare room, with it's CD-rom that comes with it, and watch TV, and play CDs on it. You'll need to get the sound card to work though! (if it doesn't already see 6.) I think this is gonna be the future of most old PCs, especially when we've given all the other old PCs to third world countries and stuff, so that no-one wants anymore old PCs!
	Additional Info.	Try Loot / ebay for Second hand TV card

6. Thing to DoDifficultyCostSuggested By
Get sound card in it to work.5/10£10 / $13Joshua Waller
In principal, once you have identified what the soundcard is, ie. by looking at it, you can go onto the internet and download the relevant drivers for it, then put them on a disk and install on 486. Okay, that's the principal, does it work? No! Why? Because it's slightly the wrong driver because the sound card in your machine was made by some unknown company that decided to do it a bit different to make it cheaper! So how do I get my sound-card to work then? Answer : You take it out of your 486 and put it in a machine with Windows 95/98 on, and then that will get it working for you. See 7. for more details. I actually did try getting it to work in the 486, but couldn't, doh! So what you're left with, if you do want sound in your 486, is the fact that you'll have to buy another sound card!
Additional Info.UK Supplier you can buy a sound card from.

7. Thing to DoDifficultyCostSuggested By
Take bits out to put in new PC.4/10£0 / $0Joshua Waller
Things you can save from any PC, from about 386 up. The floppy drive (assuming HD version), Mouse (assuming it's not crap!!), Sound Card (assuming it's going in a Win 95/98 machine!), power cables. And the rest is totally debatable, for example, you could take out the 170mb hard drive and put it in your new machine, but next to an 8Gb hard drive, is it really worth bothering with? If you're in the situation where-by you are thinking about this because you are gonna' build your own machine, then you don't need me to explain how to do it, do you? And if you're not in a situation where you can build your own machine, then I doubt you'll be able to convince Compaq to wait for you to send them your floppy drive, before building the machine for you!!
Additional Info.None.

8. Thing to DoDifficultyCostSuggested By
Space Invaders Arcade Machine2/10£0 / $0Joshua Waller
Basically do this : Download Invaders 78, from the Additional Info section, unzip it, and put it on your 486, and then run it! It's fun. If you are serious about this idea, then you can edit the autoexec.bat and make it autoload on switch on. To do this, say you've put the program inv78.exe into C:\inv78\ yeah? Edit the autoexec.bat and add this line to it "C:\inv78\inv78.exe" and thats it! Disadvantages are that you'll probably get bored of the game after a while, but you can always press escape and quit out of it!
Additional Info.Click here to download Inv 78

9. Thing to DoDifficultyCostSuggested By
Fax Machine for your Dad5/10£30 / $49Murray Grant
Murray says : "I set a 486 up for my dad's business as a fax machine running win3.1. Its more stable than most win9x machines i know of. Usually gets rebooted about once a month." This sounds like a good idea, would require a modem, and may not even need you to get connected to the internet, as the modem might come with the right fax software. I will discuss getting connected to the internet (on a 4mb machine!!) elsewhere. Assuming that goes well then this should be no problem.
Additional Info.See no. 20 About Internet

10. Thing to DoDifficultyCostSuggested By
Run MIDI software on it...3/10£0 / $0Phil Hackett
Phil says it's "not very demanding in theory", but in this case would require us to do No. 6. But anyway, assuming you've got a working sound card in there with the correct drivers installed then all you need to do is install some software such as Cubase something, which you got free on a Cover Disc. Advantages : Lets you do midi composing on. Disadvantages : It's not an Atari ST, and not very useful if you don't want to do midi composing!
Additional Info.Wanna know about the Atari?


11. Thing to DoDifficultyCostSuggested By
Run RC5 Cracking Software...4/10£0 / $0Joshua Waller
Okay, all you need to do it explained on a page I will link to. So what I will do here, is a quite explanation to explain the background. There's a big powerful encryption been made and through all these computers working on cracking it, each taking a different bit, one day, it'll finally be cracked. There are individuals working on it, and there are individuals in teams working on it, it's like a community thing, well if you join a team. The team I have linked to below will give you details about how to set it up, and are cool. I couldn't actually manage to do this on my 486, I downloaded the program on my Internet machine and then copied the program over to my 486 and it wouldn't work properly - so good luck! If you have Windows 95/98 or a working internet connection then you'll probably find it a whole heap easier!

Update! I downloaded the DOS software for my 486 and now it's cracking the keys! What I do is get a certain number of "RC5 Blocks" (50 for the 486, 500 for my Celeron 450a, 100 for Cyrix pr300 m2) and copy them on to a disk and take them over to the machine that I want to run them on, and leave it to run for about a week, then copy back onto disk and then upload the blocks to the server (aceface.aceshardware.com port:2064). I don't do this for the Cyrix though, coz' it's connected to the internet, and just gets on with it :o).
Additional Info.RC5 Hardware Network!

12. Thing to DoDifficultyCostSuggested By
Leave it to slowly rust in the corner.0/10£0 / $0Joshua Waller
This has to be the easiest thing to do, and especially likely if you've got other, better computers. All you need to do is leave it somewhere in your house, don't touch it, in fact, don't do anything. Good if you can't be bothered trying to sell it or trying to give it away, because that involves far too much effort, and would actually mean you might have to leave the house where you might get run over. So this is probably the safest thing to do out of all of them!
Additional Info.None.

13. Thing to DoDifficultyCostSuggested By
Find out how many fps in DOOM3/10£0 / $0General Lee D. Mented
fps means, Frames Per Second. People do this so they can say hey my "such and such" must be better than your "such and such" because in "such and such a program" I am getting "such and such amount of fps" more than you! To do this you'll need to either download Doom or install it from a CD-ROM (assuming your CD-ROM drive still works). Once the program is installed, go to MS-DOS mode, run the program and set the screen size to full, then exit and type "DOOM -nosound -timedemo demo1", when you get back to DOS, there will be two numbers, gametics, and realtics. To work out the fps, use the formula (GAMETICS/REALTICS) * 35.

(My p450a/Banshee got 108.8fps, whereas my 486 got 14.9fps) (I finally found out how to do it from the FAQ, but I'm sure aceshardware's message board will have also told me too, coz' I asked there as well)
Additional Info.ID Software - You can get Doom here.

14. Thing to DoDifficultyCostSuggested By
Paint it a silly colour and...4/10£2 / $3Phil Hackett
Paint it a silly colour and tell everyone it's a new supercomputer! Okay to do this I would recommend taking the case off and then in a well ventilated area, spray with spray paint of your choice and colour, car spray paint is always quite cheap and often works well. Advantages are that you will have (or could have) a really cool colour computer. Disadvantages are that only really really not very intelligent people will believe you when you tell them, and most will not believe you, and then if they do, they will ask you what it does, or ask you to prove your claims, and unfortunately I just don't think Windows 3.1 will convince them!
Additional Info.None.

15. Thing to DoDifficultyCostSuggested By
Run SETI@HOME on it!3/10£0 / $0Bill J
Like RC5 Cracking, this is a joint thing for people to do, which involves the search for E.T.s in outer space, (e.g. Aliens), by monitoring Data from the people who collect data about space. There is much more information at this web page, in the Additional Info box... as I don't know much about it. Bill J says he has 3 486s running it, so it must be cool.
Additional Info.SETI@HOME


16. Thing to DoDifficultyCostSuggested By
Run Linux on it!4/10£0 / $0Phil Hackett
Sorry for all these "Run Software on it" ideas! But here's probably on of the best ones, but it could be quite tricky, Phil says "Run Linux on it (Linux is an efficient operating system and will probably cope quite well)".

The other day I stumbled upon a really cool web site, that had instructions on how to install a distribution of "Monkey-Linux" and it actually included the required spec! It was a 4mb 386, so I thought I'd give it a go, and installed Linux onto my 486! See the Monkey-Linux link below! (ps - it looks just like Win95, and if you try and run anything it's just as slow!!)
Additional Info.The Linux Home Page at Linux Online
Greg Roelofs : Linux
Linux -- Free For All
Monkey Linux - English!
Converting PC into X11 Terminals

17. Thing to DoDifficultyCostSuggested By
486 as host machine / Home LAN4/10£5 / $8Jack
I like this idea, this sounds like a good idea!

Jack says "One actual useful alternative would be to set it up to host additional peripherals and link it to your main machine, assuming maybe your main machine might not have enough IDE interfaces or whatever. Stuff like a CD changer, CD writer, ZIP drive, DVD, scanner, etc. My best machine has a HD, ZIP, Nakamichi changer, and DVD, thus it's IDEs are full up. I have to unplug the ZIP to connect an extra HD for Ghost, no place to put the CD writer. A link to an old 486 would do just fine for some stuff. I guess you are supposed to get an extra license for the second machine, although one might argue the postion that it was really one computer in two boxes."

One way to do this if your 486 can't run Windows 95/98, is to use Interlnk, (put "DEVICE=C:\DOS\INTERLNK.EXE" in config.sys of both machines, and to have 486 as server have "intersvr" in it's autoexec.bat, and "interlnk" in client's machine's autoexec.bat), you will need an Interlnk cable though, to use this method, but the cable can be used for Direct Cable Connection in Win95/98. Another way would be to have Network cards in there. (but I'm not gonna go into that, although, there is a web page about setting up a home network in the Additional Info. box!)
Additional Info.FS Guide to Setup a LAN
How to create a Home LAN

18. Thing to DoDifficultyCostSuggested By
Turn it into a spectrum...3/10£0 / $0Phil Hackett
All you have to do is go to the web page in the additional information and download a Spectrum emulator, run it, and then load up some Spectrum software. Phil says "The Spectrum and SAM are still better machines than even the best PCs now". Hmmmm...
Additional Info.Speccy Emulators for the PC

19. Thing to DoDifficultyCostSuggested By
Smash / Destroy / Kick to death2/10£0 / $0Phil Hackett
Okay, this is better if you have a non-working machine, or one that works sometimes, and then after you doing 2 hours work on it it suddenly crashes and you can save your work! Disadvantages are, that you feel bad if it worked and you could have given it someone. If you do do this then please take some photos and email me!! There is a web page you can go to in the additional info box.

Phil says "Get pleasure from kicking and smashing it to death - after all it's popularity is responsible for the death of many-a-great machine (all greater than itself)" Here is another link for you from PCW May 99!
Additional Info.How to destroy your computer...
The illustrated Guide to breaking your Computer!

20. Thing to DoDifficultyCostSuggested By
Get on the internet man!4/10£30 / $49The World!!
Okay dokey! If you have an internet capable machine, i.e. something like a 486 with 8mb ram and some space on your hard drive, and an operating system that everyone supports such as Win 3.1 or newer, then all you need to do is buy a modem, either a PCI or ISA depending on your 486 and what's inside. ISA are black, PCI are normally white and shorter. Plug the modem into appropriate socket and install the software that came with it.

Once you've done that you'll need some internet software from an ISP (internet service provider), if you are in the UK, then see Virgin Net page in additinal info. where you can get disks appropriate for your machine.... If you are elsewhere, then it is quite likely that you can get the software from a PC magazine cover disk. Once you have installed the software, it should explain what you need to do to get conected, which (assuming you've got your modem connected to a phone line and your modem's installed correctly) should be really easy.

I havn't done this because I can't afford a modem, and my machine only has 4mb Ram, and everybody I've talked to says you need 8mb to run internet software. If you want a good browser that I know runs in only 4mb then try Opera Software (see Additional Info.) who have a really cool browser called Opera!
Additional Info.PC Gunk Links, where you can find shop!
Virgin Net's Free Internet Disks for UK
Get Opera from Opera Software


21. Thing to DoDifficultyCostSuggested By
Turn Monitor into Cool Fish Tank7/10£? / $?A Computer Magazine
This sounds dangerous!! But say your monitor doesn't work or is so dodgey you wouldn't wish it on your worst enemy, you could try this. If you have tried this and would like to email me about it, then please do so!!! Email address is at bottom of page.
Additional Info.Dunno.

22. Thing to DoDifficultyCostSuggested By
Become Master Games Programmer8/10£? / $?Josh and Phil
Phil says you should run Delphi on it, but I don't know why, when you can run Pascal on it and learn to program really hot games on it that run in DOS. Take for example, the game Shute! (link in additional info.) that me and phil coded in Pascal! It rocks baby! There is even the pascal source code on the site so you have a start there!!
Additional Info.Shute!

23. Thing to DoDifficultyCostSuggested By
Turn the damn thing into a bookshelf!5/10£? / $?Matt Waller
Okay, actually, what I mean is as Matt puts it... "Add a CD player and record a big disk of 1000 books, and then call it a 'library shelf'. You'd need to put a very simple menu onto it too" And he suggests that after saying... "Project guthenberg is a big bunch of books that people have typed in, available from: [see additional info. box.]" So there you go! I don't know whether we are expected to put the books on the CD ourselves or whether someone has already compiled them or not, if you know, let me know, but it sounds like a good idea!

Update! Matt says " You can also access shakespear from the same address if you remove the 'guthenberg' bit of the web address... (see shakespear link...) In OBI there's tonnes of stuff. (but needs unzipping!) In Shakespeare there's his stuff, and in the other one there's bits about the constitution" so check it out - it can be a Shakespear server for your kids!
Additional Info.PROJECT GUTENBERG OFFICIAL SITE
Project Gutenberg Mirror Site
Shakespear Section

24. Thing to DoDifficultyCostSuggested By
Use as an INTERNET GATEWAY!5/10£? / $?Vipin Malik
I'll let Vipin explain...

"Well I didn't see this on your web page, but this is how I am using my old 486 (DX2-66) with 16megs of ram and the original hard drive that came with it (340meg!). I put in an old 3COM 3C509 card (ISA), put it on my lan, put in an ISA modem, installed Linux 2.2.1 (or any other will do too) on it, set up IP Masquerading on it and NOW USE IT AS AN INTERNET GATEWAY to share my single ISP account with all my other computers on my home LAN simultaneously! Whenever any one computer on the home LAN (I have 3 connected though a dymp hub) wants internet access it can (but I use telnet to manually) automatically dial to the ISP and disconnect after an idle timeout. This way I can keep tinkering with my PC (overclocking it, rebooting between Windows and Linux etc.) and my wife can surf the internet from her PC without bothering about the state of my PC. Actually you could list this as a potential use for an old 386 that someone may have lying around. Plenty of power for the job! All you need is about 50meg hard drive and 8 meg RAM with a couple of ISA slots. My 486 purchase is still paying off :)"

Thanks for the suggestion Vipin! Uffe has set his home Lan up to do the same thing using some software called Sygate, I have included a link below. I don't know how to do the idea above, but start by having a look at number 16 which will tell you a bit about how to install Linux.
Additional Info.Sygate

25. Thing to DoDifficultyCostSuggested By
Take it to school!6/10£? / $?Uffe Merrild
This one's gotta take some guts!! Uffe says...

"Take your PC to school... But you have to make them believe that you don't care about the thing... Just take your mobo and cpu... not the whole thing.... Non-neards will think you are a fanatic, and when they ask 'What is this part??' Then you can take some credit for something.... and get some attention."
Additional Info.None.


26. Thing to DoDifficultyCostSuggested By
Turn it into Jewels6/10£? / $?PCW May 99
It says... "Get a jump on the fashion victims and make a statement with eye-catching chip earrings or monogrammed cufflinks made out of keys" ...this is a good thing to do with all those heavy old Intel 386dx chips :o) you have lying around, or any other chips that have died on you! I don't think I'll bother personally though!
Additional Info.None.

3DMark Scores through time...

2019-09-13T14:50:00.002+01:00

Where possible, I've run 3DMark benchmarks on old and new graphics cards... this can be useful to see how much difference there is between your old card and new card, when upgrading a graphics card, or also when upgrading to a newer system. Scroll down and you'll find vintage graphics card scores as well.

3DMark 2006 (DX9)
Latest graphics card: GTX 1060 3GB: 23,346*
Previous graphics card: GTX 460: 22,876*

3DMark 2011 (DX11)
Latest graphics card: GTX 1060 3GB: P 11,821*
Previous graphics card: GTX 460: P 3635*

3DMark Version:	TimeSpy v1.0	FireStrike	2011	2006	2005	2003	2001SE
*Geforce GTX 1060 3GB +225%**	3,762	9,607	11,821	23,348	21,998	124,611	63,025
Geforce GTX 460 2GB* +395%	-	-	3,635	22,876	-	-	-
Geforce GTX 460 2GB** +71% ^ Windows 7 / ' Windows 10	-	-	-	4,614	14,634 11,785'	48,378 41,933'	25,940 13,709'
Radeon X1900 XT 512MB**	-	-	-	5,123	10,255	16,762	22,564
Radeon HD5450^ 1GB** ('W10)	-	-	-	2,617	4,756	7,576	-
Geforce 7300GT 256MB**	-	-	-	1,646	3,084	7,297	15,877
Radeon 9700 128MB***	-	-	-	-	1,695	4,564	14,218
Radeon X300XE 128MB**	-	-	-	-	942(x)	1,808(x)	5,501(x)
Intel G965 (Built-in to motherboard)**	-	-	-	-	884(x)	1,659(x)	4,246(x)

* System: i5 4590, 3.3-3.7GHz, 8gb DDR3, Windows 10
** System: Core2Duo E4600, 2.4GHz, 4GB DDR2, Windows 7, 'Win10
*** System: Pentium M 1.8GHz, 1GB (DDR), AGP
x = May not have been optimal drivers
^ Passive
% increase is increase in performance over system listed one place below, based on figures in bold or figures combined as an average

3DMark Versions, and the Direct X version / graphics cards they're designed to test:

3DMark 2000: DirectX7
3DMark 2001 SE: DirectX8.1
3DMark 2003: DirectX9.0a
3DMark 2005: DirectX9.0c - Last version that you could view results without the internet (v120, not v130 - v130 requires internet).
3DMark 2006: DirectX9.0c - Needs an internet connection to view results
3DMark Vantage: DirectX10
3DMark2011: DirectX11
3DMark TimeSpy 1.0: DirectX12
3DMark FireStrike: DirectX11

You can get a lot of the older 3DMark benchmarks for free from 3DMark.

"Vintage" Graphics Cards

Travelling further back in time, here are some of the results for 3DMark 2000 and 99Max, and some much older vintage graphics cards:

3DMark (or other)	2001	2000	99Max	QuakeGL (Timedemo fps)
3dfx Voodoo3 3000 16mb AGP	528	1343	2484	86.3fps () 101.1fps (3dfx)
GeForce 4 MX420 64mb AGP	..	1421	2481	71fps (VGA/16)
GeForce 2 MX/MX400 64mb AGP	..	1391	2514	70fps (VGA/16)
NVidia FX5200 128mb AGP	..	1438	2295	68.5fps (VGA/16), 23.8fps*
NVidia Vanta / Vanta LT 16mb AGP	..	1124	2547	39.9fps (VGA/16)
..	...	-	-	-fps (-)

Tested with a Windows 98SE, AMD K6-2 500MHz, 256mb SDRAM system. *CPU, non 3D accelerated Quake 640x480 resolution. ** OpenGL driver followed by 3dfx Glide driver for Quake, same 640x480 resolution.

Using the 2009 Symbian Nokia E72 Phone in 2018

2018-12-10T23:17:00.002+00:00

Many people are looking to simplify their dependence, and addiction to smartphones (from Google and iOS), or perhaps you're looking for a simpler phone for use by someone small (like a child), or you want a smaller phone in your pocket, with better battery life.

You might also want to avoid Google tracking your every move.

You might want to use certain modern apps, such as Whatsapp, or Sat-nav, if possible. So in order to find out what could be done with an old smartphone, I thought I'd look at what it's like to use an old Symbian Nokia E72 smartphone in 2018.

Many modern smartphones have large screens, and on-screen touch keyboards. "Back in the day" when phones didn't always have a large touch-screen, they'd sometimes feature a real keyboard. This is why I went for a Nokia E72, with a keyboard, rather than simply a numeric keypad, as I still wanted to be able to type or write text messages (and potentially emails).

Lets dive straight in and see what I can and can't accomplish with this smartphone... (queue HTML table...). We've included the features and information we deem to be important, and have omitted some of the features that come as standard with a smartphone, such as MP3 playback, built-in Wi-Fi, but we have included some features such as Text messaging, and Email support, as modern smartphones support emojis, and email support can be lacking in older phones, as some companies (such as Gmail and Hotmail etc) cut off support for older devices.

	Nokia E72 (2009 - 9 years old)
Screen	2.36inch non-touch, 320x240 resolution	-
Keyboard	Physical QWERTY keyboard - pretty small and can be awkward to use, but better than a numeric keypad.	1
OS	Symbian S60, 3rd edition - Discontinued, unsupported.	-
Memory	Minimal/Pitiful: 128MB RAM, 250MB internal storage + MicroSDHC support	-
Battery / life	1500mAh Removable battery, USB and power charging, 2-3 days when new.	1
Durability	Metal construction means it's still in good condition for the age	1
Headphone	3.5mm headphone socket	1
Text messages support emojis	No	-
Internet	Built-in "BrowserNG/7.2.6.2" Opera Mini and Mobile available Internet experience not great.	-
Facebook App	App available but intermittent, built-in browser works and you can use fb chat.	0.5
Twitter App	No, but access via internet works	0.5
YouTube App	No, but access via internet works	0.5
App store	No longer working.	-
SatNav	Nokia Maps included (when new), and GPS built-in. Needs to be loaded onto the MicroSD card if missing - download maps here* - Includes speed limit warnings.	1
Whatsapp	No	-
Email	Yes - but Hotmail does not work	0.5
Camera	5mp AF with LED flash (poor compared to modern smartphones)	-
Price	Easily available for less than £20 unlocked on ebay UK.	1
	If we were going to give this phone a score, out of a possible 18, it would score:	8/18

The operating system allows multi-tasking, as well as the ability to switch between apps as you would expect, however the very small amount of RAM built-in, means you can easily open too many apps, and end up with memory error messages, or crashing apps.

*Nokia offered "Free lifetime drive and walk voice assisted navigation" - and voice download worked directly from the phone.

Dumbphones, Feature phones, and Non-Android Smartphones

2018-12-09T17:35:00.000+00:00

Nokia 105, Nokia E75, Nokia Lumia 520 (roughly to scale)

Avoiding Google and other companies tracking your every move has become more and more difficult, as smartphones have become an integral part of life. We accept Google knowing everywhere we go because we find Google Maps extremely useful for getting us from point A to point B, for free.

We accept tracking of distance and speed travelled, as it informs Google of traffic issues, and can then let other people (and yourself) know that there might be a quicker way to get to where you're going.

Sure you can switch off tracking, but other apps may still be tracking you. For example, Google Play services also likes to know where you are, as does Chrome (for "helpful" location based search results). (Google's mail system GMail also likes to read your emails).

Use Facebook messenger, and Facebook read (or scan) all your messages, or flag up your message to moderators to read.

So if these are functions and features built-in to Android, then what option do you have to avoid them, or unplug from the Google ecosystem?

Well, that's where "dumbphones" or feature phones come in...

But what options are there? Are you stuck to just text messages and phone calls? No, because there are non-Android phones available that still have access to email, the internet and more. Lets have a look, starting with some of the most basic "dumbphones"

Another benefit of a dumbphone or a feature phone is that it can offer much better standby time, and battery life, thanks to not needing to be recharged every day. However, the more features you add, and the more you step towards a smartphone, the shorter the battery life is.

Basic phones: With text and phone calls - without Internet Access

These tend to offer the least features, the longest battery life, and the cheapest prices, when buying new.

Nokia 105 - £15 - Texts, Calls, Calendar, Games
Doro 7354 / 2404 - £35 - Dual SIM, VGA 0.3mp camera, FM radio, Calendar, Bluetooth, MicroSD

Doro are famous for large buttons, and being easy to use, as well as catchy (semi-meaningless) numeric names, like 6030, 6520, or the rather catchy 7354 / 2404.

You could also look at the original (second hand) versions of Nokia phones, such as the Nokia 3210, 3310, 1100, etc.

Next level feature phones - with Internet Access

Most basic Nokia phones (even the old ones) have some form of the internet, which means you'll be able to log-on to Facebook or Twitter.

Nokia 216 (2G) - £30 - Includes Opera Mini Browser
Nokia 3310 (3G) - £50 - Looks like the old one. Opera browser, Bluetooth, MicroSD, FM radio, 2mp camera, Mp3 player
Doro 6520 Flip phone - £60 - 2.8inch screen, internet, email, facebook, 2mp camera, bluetooth, FM radio

It's if you want access to better apps (such as Whatsapp*), and potentially sat-nav / maps then you'll (normally) need to look past feature phones. To the "Almost Smartphones" and smartphones... Although with reduced battery life most of the time.

KaiOS Phones (almost smartphones?)

KaiOS is a Linux based OS designed to be used on feature phones, but with features nearing a smartphone. The basic design of the smartphones, with a small(ish) screen, and numeric keypad limits the usefulness, or rather the ability of them to come across as a true smartphone.

Nokia 8110 (4G, 2018) - £60 - 2.4inch screen, 2mp camera, Email, Google Maps (GPS), Facebook, Twitter
CAT B35 (2018) £90-99 - 2.4inch screen, 2mp camera, GPS
Doro 7060 - RRP £130 (ouch) - 2.8inch screen, flip phone, outer screen as well, email, 3mp camera, GPS, web browser

Smartphones* that don't run Android

There are very few alternatives available, when looking for a smartphone that doesn't run Android (or iOS), and most of the options are dead (Symbian, Bada, Palm), dying (Blackberry OS, Windows Phone), or you wish it was dead (Tizen). Lets have a look at the options.

* and almost smartphones.

Symbian (Main, Series 60 / S60 / S^3) - Discontinued

Old Nokia phones used to be feature rich, running Symbian OS, before Microsoft killed it off in favour of Windows Phone.

There was a fairly large range of apps available for Symbian, and you could use Whatsapp* (until the end of 2017). They even pioneered Sat-nav with Nokia Maps which was free on some of the smartphones. However, getting it to work, or getting many things to work on an old Nokia running Symbian now is particularly difficult due to people no longer supporting the phones. One nice feature, is the support from Opera, with Opera Mobile or Opera Mini Browsers available, giving you an up to date web browser.

Many of the later Nokia phones (before the Microsoft purchase) were trying to compete with Android and iPhone smartphones. However, many phones often had little memory, and it would be quite easy to fill the memory by opening too many apps at the same time.

The Nokia PureView 808 launched in 2012 (Microsoft purchased Nokia late 2013) was running Symbian, and had a groundbreaking 41mp camera with Xenon flash, and was the last Symbian smartphone released. Nokia switched to "Microsoft Windows Phone" OS which struggled to compete with Android and iOS. (Cutting off their nose to spite their face springs to mind - perhaps with continued development and use of Symbian there would be a 3rd alternative to Android/iOS).

Nokia PureView 808 (2012, S^3) - 4inch touchscreen
Nokia X7-00 (2011, S^3) - 4inch touchscreen Symbian phone
Nokia E6 (2011, S^3) - 2.46inch touch-screen, keyboard
Nokia E7 (2010, S^3) - 4inch touchscreen, slide out keyboard
Nokia N8 (2010, S^3) - 3.5inch touchscreen
Nokia E72 (2009, S60) - 2.36inch, keyboard
Nokia E75 (2009, S60) - 2.4inch screen, slide-out keyboard

Cons: Lacks support, lacks a working app store, almost impossible to find a phone with maps still working for sat-nav, Whatsapp no longer supported

Symbian (Series 40) - Discontinued

Nokia, and Nokia Asha phones, using Symbian Series 40 - An OS used for "feature phones" and described by Wikipedia as "almost smartphones".

Some phones, IE the Asha 210, even included a Whatsapp logo / button, and Whatsapp is still available for these phones (until Dec 31, 2018).

The phones are generally low-end, budget phones, with low resolution cameras, small amounts of on-board memory, and low-resolution screens, but did have apps for access to the internet, Whatsapp*, Facebook, twitter, email, etc. Due to the low-end nature of the smartphones, they never featured cutting edge or premium features, such as high-end cameras.

Here are the last phones released used Series 40.

Nokia Asha 230 (2014), 2.8inch touchscreen - from £35 s/h
Nokia Asha 503 (2013, 3G), 3inch touchscreen, 5mp camera - from £25 s/h
Nokia Asha 310 (2013), 3inch touchscreen, 2mp camera (maps?)
Nokia Asha 210 (2013), 2.4inch screen, with keyboard

Not quite a fully fledged smartphone, these can offer good battery life.

Cons: Definitely budget phones, *Whatsapp will stop working 31st Dec 2018.

Blackberry OS - Discontinued

You could have a look at Blackberry phones running Blackberry OS - as Blackberry (as the original company) still exists (in some form), with support for Blackberry OS devices till Dec 2019. Blackberry has since switched over to releasing Android based smartphones. Whatsapp was supported up until December 2017 (on Blackberry OS devices). Later versions of Blackberry OS supported some Android apps, based on a Jellybean 4.3 runtime.

Some of the last Blackberry devices released using Blackberry OS (and not Android) are the following:

Blackberry Leap (2015) - 5inch touch-screen, 8mp camera, around £35 s/h
Blackberry Passport (2014) - 4.5inch touch-screen, keyboard, 13mp camera, around £80+ s/h
Blackberry Classic (2014) - 3.5inch touch-screen, keyboard, 8mp camera, around £35 s/h

Cons: Limited support (till Dec 2019), Whatsapp not available (but the Android version could work)

Bada (Samsung) - Discontinued 2013

Samsung have (had) a number of alternative OSs for smartphones and other devices, with Bada (up until 2013) with a relatively small number of devices released. However, considering the popularity of Android, what need was there for Samsung to use Bada? After Bada was discontinued, Samsung decided to make another alternative OS, designed for low-end devices: Tizen...

Tizen (Samsung)

Tizen devices have been released up to 2017. There is limited availability and lots of hate aimed at smartphones running Tizen. Models available include the Samsung Z1, Z2, Z3 and Z4 (2017)

Cons: Very limited availability

FireFox OS - Discontinued 2016

Another (discontinued) OS designed for low-end hardware, launched in 2013, discontinued in 2015. The last FirefoxOS smartphone released was released in 2015 - the alcatel Orange Klif. FirefoxOS is also used in smart TVs - but these are also finding alternative OSs for future models, as well as switching to Android.

Nb. FireFoxOS work was continued into H5OS (discontinued), and some of this code was used to create KaiOS.

Windows Phone (Microsoft) - Discontinued

Microsoft / Nokia Lumia smartphones running Windows Phone - are also available - but Microsoft left the mobile phone business in 2016/2017 (MSFT sold the Nokia name to HMD Global in 2016), with the last phone released being the Microsoft Lumia 650 (2016). As Nokia and Microsoft were pretty keen on making Windows Phone a success there was a range of phones from the low-end / budget end of the market, all the way up to the premium end of the market.

Other companies also offered Windows Phones, but preferred to sell much more popular Android phones. Whatsapp is available for Windows Phone, but for how long?

Here are the last phones released running Windows Phone:

Microsoft Lumia 650 (2016), 5inch HD touch-screen, 8mp camera - £30-35 s/h
Microsoft Lumia 950 XL (2015), 5.7inch touch-screen (high-res), 20mp OIS camera - £90 s/h
Microsoft Lumix 950 (2015), 5.2inch touch-screen (high-res), 20mp OIS camera - £70 s/h
Nokia Lumia 638 (2014), Last Nokia Lumia phone, 4.5inch screen, 8mp camera.

Cons: Limited support (till Dec 2019 - varies per phone), People don't like Microsoft

Palm OS - Discontinued 2010

Bought by HP in July 2010, for 1.2 billion dollars. Closed by HP in August 2011. The OS, Palm WebOS, and HP WebOS, looked pretty cool, and the Palm Pre Plus (2010) looked like a great smartphone with a slide out keyboard that hides from view most of the time, letting you use a 3.1inch touch-screen.

The Palm Pre Plus was launched in the UK. But the US got newer phones, and more apps in the app store. At the time of the launch, the iPhone 3GS and a range of excellent Android phones came out, and sold like hot cakes. After Palm devices were re-branded "HP" all the cool factor disappeared. Nobody wants to buy a phone from a computer brand, *cough* Dell PocketPC, we're looking at you, and *cough* Microsoft!

Due to the scarcity, they are mostly sold as "collectors items".

Palm webOS, became HP webOS, which became Open webOS, which became LG webOS - which is used in LG smart TVs, smart refrigerators and smart projectors! LG most recently released an Open version of webOS.

Sailfish OS - based on Linux Meego OS (from Nokia, Intel)

Limited number of phones available. Due to this the alternative is to load it on an Android based smartphone, replacing the Android OS, with Sailfish OS. Jolla are the main developers of the OS. The OS can run Android apps (including Whatsapp), if you buy the full version for €49.90.

Here's a list of some of the main Jolla phones available:

Jolla Smartphone (2013) - 4.5inch screen, 1/16GB, 8mp camera, 2100mAh battery - £60-80 s/h ebay
Jolla C Smartphone (2016) - Limited edition for developers, 5inch screen, 2/16GB, 8mp camera, 2500mAh battery (£80-499 / ebay)

Due to the low numbers of phones, finding these new or second hand is particularly difficult (only 3 are currently listed on ebay UK - in comparison there are around 40x Nokia N9 Meego phones listed - Meego was discontinued in 2011/2012). Other Sailfish OS phones:

INOI R7 (2017) - Russian release.
Intex Aqua Fish (2016) - 5inch screen, 2/16GB, 8mp camera, 2500mAh battery - £60 s/h

The OS sounds like a good idea, being independent from Google, but will also be a reason why there has been very little mainstream support for the OS. Why use an OS nobody has heard of, when Android is marketed by Google, and every other smartphone manufacturer out there?

You can load the OS on to Android smartphones, and there are a number of supported phones. In fact, it would be much cheaper to load the OS onto one of these phones, and you'd also have the choice of newer smartphones, most likely with more memory and storage, and a higher resolution camera.

Cons: Limited availability

If you've got any suggestions for a smartphone that is full of features, but isn't from Apple or running Android, then let me know!

* Whatsapp is currently available for Android, iOS, Windows Phone, and (until 31/12/2018) Nokia Series 40 phones.

MPG of small to midsize second hand diesel cars

2016-02-08T22:41:00.000+00:00

Here's a link google docs spreadsheet. or downloadable .CSV file

Some blog posts...

2014-12-27T12:30:00.000+00:00

Some blog posts of mine can be found here, camera and photography related highlights:

Pentax MX-1 brassed off
Sony Cyber-shot R1
RAW vs JPEG

Old lenses:
Olympus 50mm f/1.4 ZUIKO OM lens
Helios 58mm f/2 (m42) + Olympus E-1
Minolta MC ROKKOR 58mm f/1.4 + Olympus OM-D E-M5

Sheffield Grafitti...

2013-08-05T20:10:00.000+01:00

Photos from a walk around a derelict industrial area right in the centre of Sheffield. Seems graffiti is pretty big in Sheffield, with recognisable styles cropping up all over the place. These photos were taken with the rather nice Fujifilm X10, of which there is a review here.

When launched the X10 was very nice, but a tad expensive, but now that it's been out for a while, and been replaced by the X20, it's available for a much better price, and well worth looking at if you like a camera to feel like a camera. Also if you want an optical viewfinder. YOLO.

Classic (Film) Cameras

2012-11-01T14:39:00.000+00:00

Here's another site with great photos of classic cameras, and the odd test or two: http://camarasclassicas.blogspot.co.uk - if you're interested in "classic" or retro digital cameras, have a look at DigiCamReview:Retro.

52 Cameras...

2012-02-21T20:11:00.000+00:00

Great new site discovered today, called 52cameras, and is all about film cameras. Yes, film. Check it out for some major retro goodness.

Amazon Japan Bestsellers.

2012-01-23T22:37:00.001+00:00

Here, here and here. Interesting, very interesting. Also new stuff.

Spotify Playlist...

2011-12-01T18:37:00.001+00:00

This may work, this may not, hence me trying:
HTTP link to spotify playlist...
Spotify URI...

Clarks Selbourne GTX Gore-Tex Active Air (Clarks Again)

2011-09-25T20:52:00.000+01:00

Clarks Selbourne GTX Gore-Tex Active Air. (Brown) Shown above. Reduced from £95 to £65 at Clarks "Factory" Store although I didn't notice a factory anywhere in the retail park... And they don't exist on Clarks website either, they seem to like the idea of removing shoes when they've sold out. You know instead of saying "Sorry this shoe has been replaced by this new version... why not buy it instead" they just say "Sorry you're wrong..." (and "Good luck trying to figure out what the modern day version of your last shoe is...") (PITA) Whatever happened to having a really good model and you know, continuing to sell it?!? Or perhaps archiving the information on your old shoes? I'd imagine some people (me included) want to buy the same pair of shoes every 2-3 years?!

These are replacing Rustlers GTX (Black) Active Air Shoes. Shown below, they looked much better when they were new: like this. They don't seem to have lasted as long as previous Clarks either - lasting around 2 years and then I stopped wearing them.

Here are the previous Clarks shoes I've had (and life span)
Clarks Rustler GTX Jan 2009 (2yrs)
Clarks Show Low GTX Feb 2006 (3yrs)
Clarks Other Active Air 2004 ish (2yrs)

I also picked up some Karrimor Border Walking Trainers - to replace some Adidas walking trainers - that surprise surprise they don't do anymore... but they did last about 9-10 years due to me not wearing them much. It will be interesting (in a nerdy kind of way) whether any of these new shoes are capable of lasting anywhere near as long as the Adidas shoes, hopefully by alternating a few different pairs of shoes they'll all last longer. Oh, and I've still got the Stride Trainers, some 11 years later.

Voigtlander Vito B Prontor-SVS Color-Skopar 1:2.8/50

2011-09-10T16:54:00.001+01:00

Photos of the Vito B, this is apparently the more desirable version with larger optical viewfinder, and brighter f/2.8 lens, made between 1954, and 1960, it's a neat little camera, with shutter speeds from 1/300 - 60, and aperture from f/2.8 to f/22. It has a neat (APS style) cartridge escape hatch on the bottom, (for ejecting fully rewound film without having to open the whole of the back), and the pop-up rewind knob looks rather stylish (in the same style and design as the Leica X1 pop up flash). Fully working, I picked this up at a car boot sale. It even came with film :)

Great websites...

2011-07-02T22:09:00.001+01:00

Love these sites:
http://tokyocamerastyle.com
http://www.japanexposures.com/category/feature/
http://yowayowacamera.com/

Love this program:
Image Resizer for Windows 7: http://imageresizer.codeplex.com/ (essential!)
File Renamer - Rename a batch of files: http://www.fauland.com/af5.htm

Rainy summer evening....

2011-06-20T21:50:00.000+01:00

Nokia N8 Notes (for my own benefit really)

2010-10-21T15:45:00.002+01:00

OS: Symbian ^3 (v011.012)

Typing *#0000# gives me the following nerd numbers:
Release: PR1.0
Software version: 011.012
Software version date: 2010-09-18
Custom version: 011.012.250.02
Custom version date: 2010-09-21
Language set: 011.012.01.01
Product code: 059C951 (Tesco Direct / Pay as you go phone?)
Model: N8-00
Type: RM-596
Latest Update: Not updated
Browser Version: 7.2
Flash Version: 4.0
Java Version: 2.1

Switch on time:
N8 25secs
N97 Mini 49secs

Built in apps:
Default OVI Maps pre-installed: v3.04 10wk34 b03 - Can be updated to v3.06 in betalabs (10wk36 b06) which is a dramatically improved version.
Music player - very loud!

Must have apps: (download them from ovi store / beta labs)
OVI / Own Voice - lets you record your own voice for use with OVI maps.
Swype - clever quick input and BETA version adds a portrait keyboard to touchscreen phones (Not available for the N8 yet...)
Mobbler (for last.fm) or Spotify - online streaming / tracking music players
Opera Mini - for when / if you get fed up of the built in browser
Nokia Panorama - http://store.ovi.com/content/51690
Nokia Photo Browser - http://store.ovi.com/content/3612
Gravity - http://mobileways.de/products/gravity/gravity/

Games for Symbian ^3 (N8 etc)
Angry Birds Lite (Free) - http://forum.dailymobile.se/index.php?topic=30777.0
Galaxy on Fire - http://store.ovi.com/content/55746

List of improvements / New features?

Data transfer built in - to bluetooth from old Nokia to new N8
POP-UP Connection Notifications - tell you when you've connected to the network
Improved graphics on icons / smoother prettier icons but generally the same look
Nokia Ovi Suite comes on the phone as an installable program when connected in Mass Storage mode (copying the useful feature from the Sony Satio?)
Nokia Social - widget shows twitter/facebook on home screen
Nokia Social - built into contacts, can download pictures info from twitter / facebook into contacts

Interesting site stats from the top 500 sites.

2010-09-12T17:51:00.002+01:00

Here are some of the more interesting sites listed in the Top 500 websites.

1 Google (obviously)
2 Facebook.com
3 Youtube.com
4 Yahoo.com
7 Wikipedia.com
8 Blogger.com
10 Twitter.com
16 Amazon.com (.co.uk is at #155)
20 Wordpress.com
22 Ebay.com (.co.uk is at #97)
31 Myspace.com
37 Flickr.com
42 Apple.com
46 BBC.co.uk
191 Dell.com
194 TheDailyMail.co.uk !
202 HP.com
217 TheGuardian.co.uk
237 Telegraph.co.uk
284 Engadget.com
318 AVG.com Anti Virus
413 Last.fm
422 Gizmodo.com
1102 DPReview.com

Interesting to see thetimesonline.co.uk down in position #1484 - I wonder what it's position was before the "paywall" (having to pay to use the site!) was introduced, it would have definitely been in the top 500, see picture below, also note that pageviews are down 71% over the last three months!

Stats from: http://www.alexa.com/topsites

Eat a healthy well balanced diet, and you may increase your mood...

2010-07-11T23:31:00.001+01:00

This is a list of things that could^ boost your mood / and general health. It is only related to food and diet and is not medical advice. I have been following this for about a month now (mostly with regards to oats, milk, vitamins and minerals, omega 3s, and lots of cereals for breakfast) and whilst I don't necessarily feel noticeably happier due to the diet, I do feel generally healthier, and have used some of these recommendations along with increased exercise to help boost my general fitness.

Daily Diet could / should include:

2 - 4 cups of filter coffee or tea (for caffeine, less tea if you want to avoid staining your teeth)

6 brazil nuts a day (for selenium*)

Hot chillies (a couple, releases endorphins)

Dark chocolate with 60% or more cocoa (30g/day has phenylethylamine)

Garlic cloves (1 or 2 a day - horribly strong when eaten raw)

Oats (bowl/day)

Wheat germ (30g/day increases dopamine - found in wholemeal bread)

Milk (dopamine)

Zinc 10-15mg day (Zinc can increase sex drive in men and "deficiency is linked to poor memory, slow response and depression")

1 - 2 glasses of wine a day (2 - 4 units of alcohol for increased dopamine, 11units /week for men)

- nb should be moderate amounts, as too much reduces oxytocin (the love "drug") levels

Vitamins (A, C, E, B, B6, Folic Acid, Magnesium)

Increase:

Olive oil**, Oily fish, Flaxseed oil or Omega 3 supplements (Omega 3 is good, Omega 6 is bad fat)

Whole grains: rice, barley, wholemeal bread

Unprocessed foods

Vegetables including green leafy vegetables

Fruit, Nuts, Seeds, Legumes

Vigorous exercise

Reduce:

Fatty foods: Lamb, Beef, Dairy, Veg oils, Margerine, Omega 6

Processed foods (vitamins and minerals are reduced through processing)

Excessive alcohol (can increase depression, and cause long term health problems)

Some soft drinks contain phenylethylamine - although the other contents in most soft drinks probably makes it quite unappealling as they often have highly refined / overly processed sugar.

Recommendations from "How To Be Happier" by Paul Jenner / Teach Yourself.

* Selenium Sulphide is derived from Selenium and is used in some (good) anti-dandruff products such as "Selsun" and "Selsun Blue" - it would be interesting to see if an increased intake of edible selenium would reduce the effects of dandruff?

** Extra virgin olive oil also contains plant stanols / plant sterols which can reduce cholesterol. (see this pdf guide to plant stanols / plant sterols for more information on other foods that contain them, such as olive and peanute oils, fruit, veg, nuts, seeds, cereals, and legumes)

Blueberries said to increase memory details at boingboing.net.

^ "Could" being the operative word here. It could also be a load of a) bollocks b) a placebo or c) considered simply increasing your healthy intake of a health well balanced diet. (Reposted as the original post was receiving daily comment spam.) ALL Comments are moderated!

Google Android Mobile Phones in the UK

2010-06-23T12:49:00.025+01:00

They're all mobile phones. Although apparently you're supposed to call them "SmartPhones" these days. What difference does it make? Seriously, who cares, just call them all Mobile Phones and keep it simple.

Anyway - I was interested in finding out about Google / Android phones, and thought maybe the best solution was to find and collate the information myself. So here goes - a guide / timeline of Google phones and any alternative names used for the devices (nice way to add confusion to an already confusing market place guys!)

2011 Phones: Ones to watch... (Availability in UK unknown so far...)
Samsung Infuse 4G - Engadget - 4.5" Super AMOLED.
Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc - Engadget - 4.2"
LG Optimus Black - Engadget - 4"
21/02/2011 - LG Optimus 2x Dual core 1ghz CPU, 1080p video, 8mp, 4" screen.

2010 Phones: - Announcement Date / Release date, Device / AKA, Release OS etc
15/12/2010 - Google Nexus S (by Samsung), 4.0" AMOLED Curved glass, 1ghz, 5mp, OS:2.3, Reviews.
08/11/2010 - Motorola Defy Dust and Water resistant, 3.7" screen, 800mhz, 5mp, OS: 2.1, Amazon UK.
01/11/2010 - HTC Desire Z, 3.7" screen, 720p video, 800mhz, 5mp, Keyboard, OS:2.2, Amazon UK (Sim free).
05/10/2010 - HTC Desire HD, 4.3" TFT, 720p, 1ghz, 8mp, OS: 2.2, Review.
01/10/2010 - Huawei Ideos, 2.8" capacitive, low res (320x240), 528mhz, 3.2mp, OS: 2.2 (Budget)
21/09/2010 - Orange San Francisco (ZTE Blade), 3.5" OLED/TFT Screen, 600mhz, 3mp, OS:2.1 (2.2 available unofficially), £99 PAYG, Review.
29/08/2010 - Sony Xperia X8, 3" ? screen, OS: 1.6 TrustedReviews, Engadget. (Budget)
25/08/2010 - Samsung Galaxy Europa, 2.8" cap. screen low-res QVGA*, 600mhz, 2mp, OS:2.1 (Budget)
24/08/2010 - Motorola Droid 2 / Milestone 2, 3.7" screen, 1ghz, 5mp, slide keyboard, OS:2.2, leaked, Review.
19/08/2010 - LG Optimus (Prime? ;) GT540, 3" Resistive screen, OS:1.6, TrustedReviews (Budget)
01/08/2010 - Acer Stream, 3.7" Capacitive AMOLED screen, OS: 2.1 Expansys.
00/08/2010 - Acer beTouch E400, 3.2" resistive screen, OS: 2.1 TrustedReviews. (Budget)
18/06/2010 - Motorola Droid X / Milestone X? 4.3" Capacitive, OS:2.1, Slashgear.
15/06/2010 - Samsung Beam i8250, 3.7" Capacitive AMOLED, OS: 2.1
07/06/2010 - Motorola Droid / Milestone XT720, 3.7" Capacitive, 8mp, Xenon Flash, OS: 2.1, TracyandMatt.
06/06/2010 - Dell Streak, 5" screen (800 x 480 LCD), OS:1.6 (2.1 upgrade available) - Engadget, Review.

02/06/2010 - Motorola Flipout, 2.8" Capacitive, Keyboard, OS: 2.1 Expansys.
17/05/2010 - HTC Wildfire, 3.2" Capacitive screen, OS: 2.1, TechRadar.
28/04/2010 - Vodafone 845, 2.8" Capacitive, OS: 2.1, Register. (Budget)
01/04/2010 - T-Mobile Pulse Mini (by Huawei Man!) , 2.8" resisitive, 528mhz, 3.2mp, OS:2.1, Budget (£49-59, PAYG).
23/03/2010 - Samsung Galaxy S, 4.0" Capacitive AMOLED screen, 1ghz, 5mp, 720p, OS: 2.1 (2.2 available)
16/02/2010 - Sony X10 - 4.0" Capacitive screen, 1ghz, 8mp, 720p, OS: 1.6, TechRadar Review. (2.1 available)
16/02/2010 - Sony X10 Mini Pro - 2.55" capacitive screen, slide keyboard, OS: 1.6
16/02/2010 - Sony X10 Mini - 2.55" capacitive screen, OS: 1.6
16/02/2010 - HTC Desire, 3.7", 1ghz, OS: 2.1
16/02/2010 - HTC Legend, 3.2" Capacitive AMOLED screen, OS: 2.1, Engadget Review.
06/01/2010 - Motorola Backflip, 3.1" Capacitive, Keyboard, OS:1.5 Mobilefun. (US only?)
05/01/2010 - Google Nexus One (HTC), 3.7", 1ghz, OS: 2.1

2009 Phones:
01/12/2009 - Acer Liquid, 3.5" Capacititive, OS:1.6, Expansys.
11/09/2009 - Motorola Cliq (US) / Dext (UK), 3.1" Capacitive screen, slide keyboard, ThisAndroidLife.
08/09/2009 - HTC Tattoo/Ink, 2.8" QVGA Resistive Screen, TechRadar Review.
06/09/2009 - Motorola Droid (US) / Milestone (UK), 3.7" capacitive screen, slide keyboard, Engadget Review, RecentlyReviewed.
03/09/2009 - T-Mobile Pulse (by Huawei), 3.2mp, OS:
24/06/2009 - HTC Hero / G2 (T-Mobile), Release OS 1.5, 3.2-inch HVGA Screen Capacitive, RR.
17/02/2009 - HTC Magic (Vodafone), OS, Review on RR.
05/02/2009 - HTC Dream / G1 (T-Mobile)

*Terms of reference:
Resistive screen = bad (slower, less responsive),
Capacitive screen = good,
AMOLED screens are very bright, colourful, but not so great in bright sunlight.
QVGA = bad, low resolution 320x240 :(

tbc... others to add:
Samsung Galaxy 551 (keyboard),
ZTE Racer (Three), 2.8" resistive, 600mhz, 3.2mp, OS:2.1, Budget

Been a long time... (TV)

2010-06-02T17:19:00.000+01:00

It's been a surprisingly long time since I've posted anything on this site. I had a few ideas:

Annoying characters from cbeebies. This could go on for a long time...
Spud (Bob the Builder) Too sqeeky, raspy voice, annoying.
The squeky one from Basil Brush (Madison?) but she is cute.
Basil Brush from Basil Brush.
The cat from Shaun the Sheep. Right little evil monster of a cat.
The Dinosaur from Driver Dan's story time - annoying character always doing stupid thing.
The Blue bird thing from Everything's Rosie.
Chuggington - all characters, especially the humans.
Big Barn Farm - the goat's voice is somewhat annoying, and seriously a character that just eats, nothing else? Excessively 2D.
ZingZilla's - it's all just wrong. All of the characters.
DirtGirlWorld - is wrong for many reasons. Child sized people with adult faces and expressions. It's grim.

The only programs that don't seem to have annoying characters are: Charlie and Lola... and... (I'll let you know if I think of any more)

It seems like it's the BBCs sole mission to have at least 1 (or often more than 1) character in the program who's excessively annoying. And don't get me started on the "singing" on these programs. Is Everything's Rosie "Auto-tuned" (badly)?

I had other(s) but can't remember them. Plus there's all the other stuff from my old site that's not online anymore that I could put here.

But mostly I've not been using blogger since they killed FTP support - I've been using wordpress and it's like black and white the difference. It's like switching from instant coffee to any kind of real coffee - you never want to go back - and when you do you think "wow, I can't believe it's really as bad as this!"

16. Thing to Do		Difficulty	Cost	Suggested By
	Run Linux on it!	4/10	£0 / $0	Phil Hackett
	Sorry for all these "Run Software on it" ideas! But here's probably on of the best ones, but it could be quite tricky, Phil says "Run Linux on it (Linux is an efficient operating system and will probably cope quite well)". The other day I stumbled upon a really cool web site, that had instructions on how to install a distribution of "Monkey-Linux" and it actually included the required spec! It was a 4mb 386, so I thought I'd give it a go, and installed Linux onto my 486! See the Monkey-Linux link below! (ps - it looks just like Win95, and if you try and run anything it's just as slow!!)
	Additional Info.	The Linux Home Page at Linux Online
		Greg Roelofs : Linux
		Linux -- Free For All
		Monkey Linux - English!
		Converting PC into X11 Terminals

17. Thing to Do		Difficulty	Cost	Suggested By
	486 as host machine / Home LAN	4/10	£5 / $8	Jack
	I like this idea, this sounds like a good idea! Jack says "One actual useful alternative would be to set it up to host additional peripherals and link it to your main machine, assuming maybe your main machine might not have enough IDE interfaces or whatever. Stuff like a CD changer, CD writer, ZIP drive, DVD, scanner, etc. My best machine has a HD, ZIP, Nakamichi changer, and DVD, thus it's IDEs are full up. I have to unplug the ZIP to connect an extra HD for Ghost, no place to put the CD writer. A link to an old 486 would do just fine for some stuff. I guess you are supposed to get an extra license for the second machine, although one might argue the postion that it was really one computer in two boxes." One way to do this if your 486 can't run Windows 95/98, is to use Interlnk, (put "DEVICE=C:\DOS\INTERLNK.EXE" in config.sys of both machines, and to have 486 as server have "intersvr" in it's autoexec.bat, and "interlnk" in client's machine's autoexec.bat), you will need an Interlnk cable though, to use this method, but the cable can be used for Direct Cable Connection in Win95/98. Another way would be to have Network cards in there. (but I'm not gonna go into that, although, there is a web page about setting up a home network in the Additional Info. box!)
	Additional Info.	FS Guide to Setup a LAN
		How to create a Home LAN

20. Thing to Do		Difficulty	Cost	Suggested By
	Get on the internet man!	4/10	£30 / $49	The World!!
	Okay dokey! If you have an internet capable machine, i.e. something like a 486 with 8mb ram and some space on your hard drive, and an operating system that everyone supports such as Win 3.1 or newer, then all you need to do is buy a modem, either a PCI or ISA depending on your 486 and what's inside. ISA are black, PCI are normally white and shorter. Plug the modem into appropriate socket and install the software that came with it. Once you've done that you'll need some internet software from an ISP (internet service provider), if you are in the UK, then see Virgin Net page in additinal info. where you can get disks appropriate for your machine.... If you are elsewhere, then it is quite likely that you can get the software from a PC magazine cover disk. Once you have installed the software, it should explain what you need to do to get conected, which (assuming you've got your modem connected to a phone line and your modem's installed correctly) should be really easy. I havn't done this because I can't afford a modem, and my machine only has 4mb Ram, and everybody I've talked to says you need 8mb to run internet software. If you want a good browser that I know runs in only 4mb then try Opera Software (see Additional Info.) who have a really cool browser called Opera!
	Additional Info.	PC Gunk Links, where you can find shop!
		Virgin Net's Free Internet Disks for UK
		Get Opera from Opera Software

6. Thing to Do		Difficulty	Cost	Suggested By
	Get sound card in it to work.	5/10	£10 / $13	Joshua Waller
	In principal, once you have identified what the soundcard is, ie. by looking at it, you can go onto the internet and download the relevant drivers for it, then put them on a disk and install on 486. Okay, that's the principal, does it work? No! Why? Because it's slightly the wrong driver because the sound card in your machine was made by some unknown company that decided to do it a bit different to make it cheaper! So how do I get my sound-card to work then? Answer : You take it out of your 486 and put it in a machine with Windows 95/98 on, and then that will get it working for you. See 7. for more details. I actually did try getting it to work in the 486, but couldn't, doh! So what you're left with, if you do want sound in your 486, is the fact that you'll have to buy another sound card!
	Additional Info.	UK Supplier you can buy a sound card from.

7. Thing to Do		Difficulty	Cost	Suggested By
	Take bits out to put in new PC.	4/10	£0 / $0	Joshua Waller
	Things you can save from any PC, from about 386 up. The floppy drive (assuming HD version), Mouse (assuming it's not crap!!), Sound Card (assuming it's going in a Win 95/98 machine!), power cables. And the rest is totally debatable, for example, you could take out the 170mb hard drive and put it in your new machine, but next to an 8Gb hard drive, is it really worth bothering with? If you're in the situation where-by you are thinking about this because you are gonna' build your own machine, then you don't need me to explain how to do it, do you? And if you're not in a situation where you can build your own machine, then I doubt you'll be able to convince Compaq to wait for you to send them your floppy drive, before building the machine for you!!
	Additional Info.	None.

8. Thing to Do		Difficulty	Cost	Suggested By
	Space Invaders Arcade Machine	2/10	£0 / $0	Joshua Waller
	Basically do this : Download Invaders 78, from the Additional Info section, unzip it, and put it on your 486, and then run it! It's fun. If you are serious about this idea, then you can edit the autoexec.bat and make it autoload on switch on. To do this, say you've put the program inv78.exe into C:\inv78\ yeah? Edit the autoexec.bat and add this line to it "C:\inv78\inv78.exe" and thats it! Disadvantages are that you'll probably get bored of the game after a while, but you can always press escape and quit out of it!
	Additional Info.	Click here to download Inv 78

9. Thing to Do		Difficulty	Cost	Suggested By
	Fax Machine for your Dad	5/10	£30 / $49	Murray Grant
	Murray says : "I set a 486 up for my dad's business as a fax machine running win3.1. Its more stable than most win9x machines i know of. Usually gets rebooted about once a month." This sounds like a good idea, would require a modem, and may not even need you to get connected to the internet, as the modem might come with the right fax software. I will discuss getting connected to the internet (on a 4mb machine!!) elsewhere. Assuming that goes well then this should be no problem.
	Additional Info.	See no. 20 About Internet

10. Thing to Do		Difficulty	Cost	Suggested By
	Run MIDI software on it...	3/10	£0 / $0	Phil Hackett
	Phil says it's "not very demanding in theory", but in this case would require us to do No. 6. But anyway, assuming you've got a working sound card in there with the correct drivers installed then all you need to do is install some software such as Cubase something, which you got free on a Cover Disc. Advantages : Lets you do midi composing on. Disadvantages : It's not an Atari ST, and not very useful if you don't want to do midi composing!
	Additional Info.	Wanna know about the Atari?

11. Thing to Do		Difficulty	Cost	Suggested By
	Run RC5 Cracking Software...	4/10	£0 / $0	Joshua Waller
	Okay, all you need to do it explained on a page I will link to. So what I will do here, is a quite explanation to explain the background. There's a big powerful encryption been made and through all these computers working on cracking it, each taking a different bit, one day, it'll finally be cracked. There are individuals working on it, and there are individuals in teams working on it, it's like a community thing, well if you join a team. The team I have linked to below will give you details about how to set it up, and are cool. I couldn't actually manage to do this on my 486, I downloaded the program on my Internet machine and then copied the program over to my 486 and it wouldn't work properly - so good luck! If you have Windows 95/98 or a working internet connection then you'll probably find it a whole heap easier! Update! I downloaded the DOS software for my 486 and now it's cracking the keys! What I do is get a certain number of "RC5 Blocks" (50 for the 486, 500 for my Celeron 450a, 100 for Cyrix pr300 m2) and copy them on to a disk and take them over to the machine that I want to run them on, and leave it to run for about a week, then copy back onto disk and then upload the blocks to the server (aceface.aceshardware.com port:2064). I don't do this for the Cyrix though, coz' it's connected to the internet, and just gets on with it :o).
	Additional Info.	RC5 Hardware Network!

12. Thing to Do		Difficulty	Cost	Suggested By
	Leave it to slowly rust in the corner.	0/10	£0 / $0	Joshua Waller
	This has to be the easiest thing to do, and especially likely if you've got other, better computers. All you need to do is leave it somewhere in your house, don't touch it, in fact, don't do anything. Good if you can't be bothered trying to sell it or trying to give it away, because that involves far too much effort, and would actually mean you might have to leave the house where you might get run over. So this is probably the safest thing to do out of all of them!
	Additional Info.	None.

13. Thing to Do		Difficulty	Cost	Suggested By
	Find out how many fps in DOOM	3/10	£0 / $0	General Lee D. Mented
	fps means, Frames Per Second. People do this so they can say hey my "such and such" must be better than your "such and such" because in "such and such a program" I am getting "such and such amount of fps" more than you! To do this you'll need to either download Doom or install it from a CD-ROM (assuming your CD-ROM drive still works). Once the program is installed, go to MS-DOS mode, run the program and set the screen size to full, then exit and type "DOOM -nosound -timedemo demo1", when you get back to DOS, there will be two numbers, gametics, and realtics. To work out the fps, use the formula (GAMETICS/REALTICS) * 35. (My p450a/Banshee got 108.8fps, whereas my 486 got 14.9fps) (I finally found out how to do it from the FAQ, but I'm sure aceshardware's message board will have also told me too, coz' I asked there as well)
	Additional Info.	ID Software - You can get Doom here.

14. Thing to Do		Difficulty	Cost	Suggested By
	Paint it a silly colour and...	4/10	£2 / $3	Phil Hackett
	Paint it a silly colour and tell everyone it's a new supercomputer! Okay to do this I would recommend taking the case off and then in a well ventilated area, spray with spray paint of your choice and colour, car spray paint is always quite cheap and often works well. Advantages are that you will have (or could have) a really cool colour computer. Disadvantages are that only really really not very intelligent people will believe you when you tell them, and most will not believe you, and then if they do, they will ask you what it does, or ask you to prove your claims, and unfortunately I just don't think Windows 3.1 will convince them!
	Additional Info.	None.

15. Thing to Do		Difficulty	Cost	Suggested By
	Run SETI@HOME on it!	3/10	£0 / $0	Bill J
	Like RC5 Cracking, this is a joint thing for people to do, which involves the search for E.T.s in outer space, (e.g. Aliens), by monitoring Data from the people who collect data about space. There is much more information at this web page, in the Additional Info box... as I don't know much about it. Bill J says he has 3 486s running it, so it must be cool.
	Additional Info.	SETI@HOME

18. Thing to Do		Difficulty	Cost	Suggested By
	Turn it into a spectrum...	3/10	£0 / $0	Phil Hackett
	All you have to do is go to the web page in the additional information and download a Spectrum emulator, run it, and then load up some Spectrum software. Phil says "The Spectrum and SAM are still better machines than even the best PCs now". Hmmmm...
	Additional Info.	Speccy Emulators for the PC

19. Thing to Do		Difficulty	Cost	Suggested By
	Smash / Destroy / Kick to death	2/10	£0 / $0	Phil Hackett
	Okay, this is better if you have a non-working machine, or one that works sometimes, and then after you doing 2 hours work on it it suddenly crashes and you can save your work! Disadvantages are, that you feel bad if it worked and you could have given it someone. If you do do this then please take some photos and email me!! There is a web page you can go to in the additional info box. Phil says "Get pleasure from kicking and smashing it to death - after all it's popularity is responsible for the death of many-a-great machine (all greater than itself)" Here is another link for you from PCW May 99!
	Additional Info.	How to destroy your computer...
		The illustrated Guide to breaking your Computer!

21. Thing to Do		Difficulty	Cost	Suggested By
	Turn Monitor into Cool Fish Tank	7/10	£? / $?	A Computer Magazine
	This sounds dangerous!! But say your monitor doesn't work or is so dodgey you wouldn't wish it on your worst enemy, you could try this. If you have tried this and would like to email me about it, then please do so!!! Email address is at bottom of page.
	Additional Info.	Dunno.

22. Thing to Do		Difficulty	Cost	Suggested By
	Become Master Games Programmer	8/10	£? / $?	Josh and Phil
	Phil says you should run Delphi on it, but I don't know why, when you can run Pascal on it and learn to program really hot games on it that run in DOS. Take for example, the game Shute! (link in additional info.) that me and phil coded in Pascal! It rocks baby! There is even the pascal source code on the site so you have a start there!!
	Additional Info.	Shute!

23. Thing to Do		Difficulty	Cost	Suggested By
	Turn the damn thing into a bookshelf!	5/10	£? / $?	Matt Waller
	Okay, actually, what I mean is as Matt puts it... "Add a CD player and record a big disk of 1000 books, and then call it a 'library shelf'. You'd need to put a very simple menu onto it too" And he suggests that after saying... "Project guthenberg is a big bunch of books that people have typed in, available from: [see additional info. box.]" So there you go! I don't know whether we are expected to put the books on the CD ourselves or whether someone has already compiled them or not, if you know, let me know, but it sounds like a good idea! Update! Matt says " You can also access shakespear from the same address if you remove the 'guthenberg' bit of the web address... (see shakespear link...) In OBI there's tonnes of stuff. (but needs unzipping!) In Shakespeare there's his stuff, and in the other one there's bits about the constitution" so check it out - it can be a Shakespear server for your kids!
	Additional Info.	PROJECT GUTENBERG OFFICIAL SITE
		Project Gutenberg Mirror Site
		Shakespear Section

24. Thing to Do		Difficulty	Cost	Suggested By
	Use as an INTERNET GATEWAY!	5/10	£? / $?	Vipin Malik
	I'll let Vipin explain... "Well I didn't see this on your web page, but this is how I am using my old 486 (DX2-66) with 16megs of ram and the original hard drive that came with it (340meg!). I put in an old 3COM 3C509 card (ISA), put it on my lan, put in an ISA modem, installed Linux 2.2.1 (or any other will do too) on it, set up IP Masquerading on it and NOW USE IT AS AN INTERNET GATEWAY to share my single ISP account with all my other computers on my home LAN simultaneously! Whenever any one computer on the home LAN (I have 3 connected though a dymp hub) wants internet access it can (but I use telnet to manually) automatically dial to the ISP and disconnect after an idle timeout. This way I can keep tinkering with my PC (overclocking it, rebooting between Windows and Linux etc.) and my wife can surf the internet from her PC without bothering about the state of my PC. Actually you could list this as a potential use for an old 386 that someone may have lying around. Plenty of power for the job! All you need is about 50meg hard drive and 8 meg RAM with a couple of ISA slots. My 486 purchase is still paying off :)" Thanks for the suggestion Vipin! Uffe has set his home Lan up to do the same thing using some software called Sygate, I have included a link below. I don't know how to do the idea above, but start by having a look at number 16 which will tell you a bit about how to install Linux.
	Additional Info.	Sygate

25. Thing to Do		Difficulty	Cost	Suggested By
	Take it to school!	6/10	£? / $?	Uffe Merrild
	This one's gotta take some guts!! Uffe says... "Take your PC to school... But you have to make them believe that you don't care about the thing... Just take your mobo and cpu... not the whole thing.... Non-neards will think you are a fanatic, and when they ask 'What is this part??' Then you can take some credit for something.... and get some attention."
	Additional Info.	None.

26. Thing to Do		Difficulty	Cost	Suggested By
	Turn it into Jewels	6/10	£? / $?	PCW May 99
	It says... "Get a jump on the fashion victims and make a statement with eye-catching chip earrings or monogrammed cufflinks made out of keys" ...this is a good thing to do with all those heavy old Intel 386dx chips :o) you have lying around, or any other chips that have died on you! I don't think I'll bother personally though!
	Additional Info.	None.