on that? u must be joking

This is the club I remember most from school: The Tufty Club Andy

First thing is to decide what you want your laptop for. This is important because if you want it instead of your pc then you probably want a big beasty one that's not easily portable, whereas if you want one as well as a pc then you can afford to lower the spec you get in exchange for one that you can take pretty much anywhere, and which will have much better battery life away from the mains connection. I personally prefer the ultra portable type, but to do it properly you'd probably need to go secondhand. Andy I'll probably post some more in a bit

Don't know if this has been posted before but there is a new website that reckons it can get us a discount of between 5 and 10 pence a litre on petrol. It's been on BBC radio and stuff. Andy

you only have to put the 10 on if you want the free stuff, you still get to use it as a pay as you go if you want. Andy

I've just got one of these as an upgrade on vodafone: Motorola SLVR and i'm having issues. One of the soft keys (the ones which change their function depending on the current screen) has been locked to vodafone live when the screen shows the desktop. I can change the functions of most of the other keys in the settings, but not this one. Would unlocking the phone be likely to allow me to change the function of this so that i can stop accidentally connecting? Cheers, Andy

Up until going to uni I was all for the laser eye surgery thing. Then one of my lecturers, who let's face it is a bit of a cock and completely up his own arse, but nevertheless a highly intelligent bloke, mentioned that he'd been involved in a lot of research into measuring the effect of laser surgery on the eye. Basically the point he made was that the eye does not have the capability to heal itself like a bone would do, and so the area in front of where the incision is made becomes starved of nutrients and stuff. It's a long time ago, and i wasn't really listening that well, but he has put me right off laser surgery. I'm pretty sure Fuse was in the same lecture, so if he would care to elaborate that's fine by me. Andy

I presume you're intending getting top of the range cards to sli, because last time I looked at it, it was better to get one decent high end card for the price you'd pay for two cards in sli. It could have changed since then, but it's worth bearing in mind. Andy

for nvidia overclocking just use the 'coolbits' feature - google for how to do it. Andy

I actually think these higher course fees are an astoundingly good idea - it should eventually put people off doing shit degrees like david beckham studies - if you do a worthwhile degree like engineering then you'll easily pay off your loan in a few years from the job you get. If you can't, then you clearly did a pointless degree. Andy

The 3com cards with xjack antenna store internally in the pcmcia slot, you just have to pop the antenna out to use it. 3com card Andy

Well i got to day 44 no problem - make sure you've got plenty of craftsmen - but then failed because i accidentally refreshed the browser. Andy edit: oops, posted the thumbnail, not the image

Am i missing something, or is there a reason why they all seem to be from Hull? Andy

"If you wish to amend any of the values used click here" Andy

It's probably 'Wuthering Heights', 'Babooshka' or 'December will be magic again'

I agree with most of the above posts. I had pretty much the same problem as you: I breezed through GCSE's with no problem at all, and assumed A-levels would be the same. Then I started getting n's and u's in some of my subjects. Lucky for me we could retake each module as many times as we wanted so I was able to come out with decent grades, but the only thing that made me put effort in was knowing that I was doing courses which would be helpful to me in later life (maths, physics, design technology and economics) as I wanted to be an engineer. From a-level onwards it's been a bit of a slog, but now i'm pretty much done with education and should have no problem getting my ideal job. There's no point in doing something just to please your parents as you will resent them for it for the rest of your life. My advice would be to assess whether you are actually doing the right courses for you or not, and if not then think about taking a different route. You clearly have the intellectual capacity to do pretty much whatever you want, you just need the motivation. Finally, stop being a lazy b*****d. There is no excuse for this and it is not acceptable as a reson for not putting in the required effort. Talk to anyone and they will tell you that they do not like work and can't be arsed with it. Andy.

Have a good think about exactly what you want from your laptop, cos they vary from desktop replacements that weigh a shedload and are big, but quite fast, to ultra portables which may only have something like a 1.6ghz processor and smallish hard drive, but are about the same size and weight as an a4 writing pad. If you get one when you really were after the other then i'm pretty sure you'll be disappointed and fed up with it after a few weeks. Good luck with finding the right lappy, Andy nice example of an ultra portable a desktop replacement for the record I got myself an ultraportable a couple of years ago, and it's been a hell of a lot of use, though I already have a desktop pc.

something like 'ruff in the jungle' or 'climbatize' by the Prodigy might be the sort of thing you're after. Andy

America.... f**k YEAH.

You absolute daddy. I used to have a 1.4 340. I got up to pretty much everything in it, including crashing into stuff at speed and rallying it and grounding it. I absolutely loved it. It put up with 3 years of this treatment before giving up the ghost (15 years after we bought it for my mum) and I wish we still had it. I honestly don't think it's worth insuring yourself in the first year because you will not realistically recoup the extra monetary outlay to insure yourself in your own name by achieving full no claims a year earlier. Also, you are most likely to crash in your first year so it is useful to be fully comp under your parents insurance. Andy

Replace the little button battery on your motherboard and try again.

So does anyone know how it works then?

"Your system is among the top 6% of all systems scanned by the Game Advisor" Not bad for a year old pc :) "Processor AMD Athlon 64 2000MHz Display Card NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT Memory 1024MB Operating System Microsoft Windows XP Free Disk Space 35.35GB Display Card Memory 256MB Display Driver Version 7.7.7.2 DirectX Version 9.0c Optical Drive CD/DVD Sound Card Sound Blaster Live! 24-bit " Andy (Sufficiently Chuffed)

Assuming a lack of sarcasm in the above post: ATI are the company who develop and sell the radeon chip. It is unlikely that your graphics board was made by ATI.

I saw it a long time ago, then just caught the end of it on telly the other day. What was the significance of people putting pens on the table when the Nobel guy was there - it was a bit of a Dead Poets Society standing on table saying "Oh Captain, My Captain" moment from the feel of it, but was lost on me. Andy

I'm trying to remember if it was you who pointed me in the direction of Expertool in the first place Tomm, but it was quite a good short term fix for the noise of the graphics cooler.