jd_sheff

Can't say for sure a new card would fix the problems you are having with present card, but the card you have does sound dodgy. I have a feeling something maybe in the brick wall though like wiring that is blocking the signal. Wireless networks at times can be very finicky and need professional hands investigation. A wireless g type card though would offer higher speeds ibetween computers if your router supports g type wireless (sorry haven't looked up the spec). For Internet use though a 54Mb over an 11Mb connection won't see speed ups on the Internet as I imagine the fastest your connection will be is 8Mb. If you are thinking about getting a new PCMCIA card as it may fix your problems and will offer faster speeds then can't say I'm an expert on them as my laptop has decent wireless built in, but you should be able to find a decent card on Ebay for a reasonable price. Anyway hope you manage to sort thing out, if you are unsure it maybe best to get in a professional to see what's happening at your end.

I wouldn't use the Wireless Networking Wizard as it often makes a pigs ear of things. All you need to do is get the wireless adaptor working and get it to find a wireless signal. If you are using a hidden station ID you can enter the details needed in prefered networks.

Yes you could, the thing to check out 1st is whether the inbuilt wireless in the laptop can support WPA encrpytion which is far more secure than WEP encrption. If it doesn't then I'd recommend thinking perhaps about getting a PCMCIA card for it which do support WPA as I know many people who can crack WEP encryption. The next thing to think about is getting WPA support on the desktops, USB dongles generally don't support WPA. You can get some nice USB adaptors from Linksys though and if you don't want to install a PCI card then this would be a good course of action. There are cheaper brands than Linksys, but I haven't looked that much the main thing is to make sure of WPA support. My setup is that my laptop supports WPA and I use a Telesync PCI wireless card in my desktop which I got off Ebay for around £10. As regards a router I'd recommend a Linksys WAG354G, as I have this one and it is better than all the other routers I've come across and provides a good signal range.

The best FTP program in my experience is WS_FTP but their doesn't seem a good free version available. SmartFTP looks good http://www.download.com/SmartFTP-Client/3000-2160_4-10536995.html?tag=lst-4-3. I have to admit I haven't used FTP clients for a while though as I nowadays use the ftp client built into Dreamweaver.

For all those recently noticing slowdowns with Plusnet/Force9 this seems to be caused by an unannounced policy of discriminating against or putting on a back burner users who maintain a 24/7 connection. Around the new year (can't remember exactly when it was) Plusnet/Force9 introduced a policy of idle disconnect for users who have been idle for 30 mins. I have a router and hence disabled this and also my router maintained a 24/7 connection anyway as it would reconnect itself if it found the connection had gone down. Anyway to cut a long story short I'd noticed the latency was going up on my connection and the connection was getting slower. So on a hunch recently I wondered if Plusnet/Force9 were discriminating against 24/7 connected users and re-enabled idle disconnect and also set my router to idle disconnect after 20 mins. Since then I have had a much better internet connection even after been online upto 10 hours at a time it's like I'm on a different network pipe at the ISP as it is always fast. As long as I idle disconnect next time I log on I'll again have a fast connection. Anyway it seems Plusnet/Force9 have configured their system to put 24/7 users on congested or high contention sections of their network and reward users who don't stay permanently connected.

It would have been that the BIOS battery was flat and needed replacing. Think of it as like the battery backup in your Alarm Clock.

Linksys make great wireless ADSL modem routers. I have a WAG354G and am very pleased with it, so I'd lean towards recommending the same model. Anyway have a shop around to see if you can get a good deal on that model and what the specification differences are between models. Most important thing is that the wireless supports WPA as WEP is easy to hack for those that are determined.

WOW this Ebay ad is so dodgy it's unbelieveable. Have you noticed that the feedback was over a period of 1 hour and fell within a period of 9 mins in total. I've been a happy shopper myself on Ebay and most of the sellers I deal with are very professional and take customer satisfaction very highly which quite often I've found very surprising.

Thanks for the offer but it's a bit confidential. I know the program that can do the job unfortunately it's not freeware .

I am still looking for good options. I will look into OCR software and see what happens. Thanks for the help.

I asked for the original doc file, but got emailed the pdf again . Anyway I have found a program called PDF editor which does a fairly good job, but unless you pay $79 you have Demo version plastered right in the middle of the edited PDF pages. A friend has sent me a copy of version 2.2 but that takes ages to edit pages as unlike version 2.4 you can't select areas to delete. Anyway it's been a learning experience, going to have a rest now as it's been hard work .

Thanks for the info, tried it but afraid to say the results were poor

Hi, I have a form in PDF format and want to edit it or convert it to Word DOC format for editing. Anyone know a program hopefully freeware or on a trial basis that can do this. I have tried a few programs and they haven't given good results.

Another Anti-Spyware program I'd recommend to use as well as Ad-Aware and Spybot Search and Destroy is SpywareBlaster. It doesn't run scans but it blocks dodgy websites and ActiveX software. You can get a better description and download it from here

I'm on Force9 and am happy with my connection which costs £14.49/month (£14.99+£1 for domain - £1.50 referrals) for a 2MB connection with no download cap. The only problem lately is that P2P has been restricted during peak times, but I can live with that as I can live my computer on over night and get it to switch itself off when it's finished downloading.

Oh btw you can use wireless with AOL, you just might need a router that supports AOL. Personally I'd avoid AOL as they aren't a proper Internet Service Provider.

BT aren't very good to be honest. Someone who wants access to my wireless connection is on BT and they don't get a good service. If you don't want to do much P2P stuff during peak times, the Sheffield company PlusNet are good.

That is a load of rubbish, AOL don't know what they are talking about. The only thing I know of with AOL is you need a router that supports AOL, as a friend of mine had to get one that supported AOL. Don't know the technical details why myself, but that is what she was told. Trust AOL to need some weird setup

If you haven't got a router yet I'd recommend getting a Linksys WAG354G, it's a very good router supports WPA encryption that is a lot more secure than WEP. It also has an exceptional range and I provide wireless access to several other people living near by upto 100m away. I got mine from Amazon for £50 and have been very pleased with it. As regards a wireless adaptor, the problem with USB adaptors is that they generally only support WEP encryption. I got a nice WPA enabaled PCI adaptor off Ebay for £16 inc p&p.