System Restore doesn’t work in Windows XP | Ask Jack
Arthur Whitemore says System Restore will create a restore point on his PC running Windows XP, but it will only keep the latest restore point. System Restore used to work OK, but now it only creates a restore point for the current day. A new one is created the next day, but the previous day's restore point is gone. My C drive has 12.3GB of free space and system restore is set at 12% of disk space. Arthur Whitemore System Restore mainly keeps track of changes made to your PC, including the Registry, so that you can go back to an earlier state if you run into a problem. You can see if there are earlier restore points because the calendar dates show up in bold. If you can't see any, try restarting your PC in Safe Mode. This loads a sort of "bare bones" Windows, which might not include the program that is stopping System Restore from working. This could be a virus or an anti-virus program. It's not too surprising if an anti-virus program tries to prevent changes to system files. If System Restore does work correctly in Safe Mode, then your next challenge will be to find out what's stopping it. Running MBAM ( Malwarebytes Anti-Malware ) would be a good start. If it's neither a virus nor an anti-virus program, you could try eliminating start-up programs. While you can use Windows' msconfig for this, AnVir Task Manager Free is worth a go. Of course, the most common reason for System Restore to stop working is that you have run out of disk space. There is a Microsoft Support page for this: System Restore "restore points" are missing or deleted . There's also a more useful document: Troubleshooting steps for issues when you try to use the System Restore tool in Windows XP . System Restore typically takes up 200MB to 400MB on home PCs, so you should have enough space (12% of 12.3GB is roughly 1.5GB). However, you can look to see how much space it is taking up. To do this, you must be able to see hidden files and folders.
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System Restore doesn't work in Windows XP | Ask Jack
Taming a laptop mouse-pointer that jumps around
I have a Dell Studio 1555 laptop which has developed an infuriating habit. When typing, the cursor randomly repositions itself in previously entered text and I only become aware of its changed position when I look up to review what I have typed -- usually gobbledegook. I have tried to get help from Dell without success, and I have also sought advice from my IT manager at work but again without success. I have read that the only cure is to "re-image" the PC. Although I am reasonably PC literate, that process is beyond me. Eric Craigie This problem comes up quite often on the net, usually on PCs but sometimes on Macs, but almost never with any useful information. Typically people mention the brand of PC and the operating system, which makes the problem appear to be completely random and therefore beyond rational solution. To identify it as a fault, we really want to know the make and model of the mousepad, the version number of the software driver, and similar details. I'd not run into the problem because, for decades, I've used Toshiba Portégé and IBM ThinkPad laptops with pointing sticks (TrackPoint, PointStick etc) instead of mousepads
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Taming a laptop mouse-pointer that jumps around
Trying to fix a PC that sometimes refuses to start
Pete Morton has a Mesh PC that does not always start correctly but, if left on, can boot after two or three hours I've got a PC which intermittently refuses to boot, sometimes for several hours. When it's misbehaving, it doesn't show a splashscreen, there's no hard disk activity, and it won't boot from a CD, either. If I leave it powered on, it does seem to boot eventually, after anything up to two or three hours. Memory tests and hard disc tests run clean. The PC is a fairly high spec two-year-old Mesh PC. It has been a dog from 13 months, but Mesh wash their hands of it, because I didn't buy extended warranty. Any idea where I should begin or should I just cut my losses? Pete Morton Intermittent faults are very difficult to diagnose, and I can't think of anything that would cause a PC to hang for a couple of hours before booting. (Anyone?) In this case, I'd guess that the likeliest culprit is either the memory or the hard drive, though you say these check out OK. It might be dust or a stray wire or bit of metal fouling a chip on the motherboard (that last one isn't common turned out to be the cause of my son's PC rebooting at random). It might be the power supply, but again, this seems to work normally once the PC has booted. Although you say Mesh has not been helpful, you could try asking on its support forum, in the section called Mesh Computers Owners Club - Customer Care and Technical Support .
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Trying to fix a PC that sometimes refuses to start
A laptop for university
Phoebe Whitlock is looking for a portable that's more powerful than a netbook I'm looking to get a laptop for university. It needs to have a big enough screen for me to work on. A large memory would be a bonus so I can transfer my music and pictures to it. Weight is not really an issue as I will have it on my desk most of the time, it just needs to be portable from home to university. I was looking at a Dell as they are funky looking and practical. My dad has a Samsung netbook, which is excellent, but I definitely need something bigger.
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A laptop for university
BBC Builders: Image wizard Crystal Hirschorn
Another key developer making ripples in the BBC tech talent pool is Crystal Hirschorn, senior web developer of BBC Images. Hirschorn moved from the US in 2001 to study computer science and business at Kingston University. After six years working for the National Archives , helping to build the Electronic Records Online and Domesday sites, she joined the BBC as a clientside developer. But her UK move had been in the planning for years; she completed high school in the US a year early because she was so keen to move. • What are you working on? I am a senior web developer on the BBC Images project which sits within the technology enabling and frameworks section of the BBC (we provide the bits of tech and templates that makes other bits of tech work together). The aim of the project is to provide reusable, easy to integrate web applications templates to best showcase and find attractive images from our programmes. These applications can be embedded on almost any BBC web page and in the long-term we're aiming to enable them to be embeddable on any website, anywhere. One of our most recent projects was for the new series of Doctor Who . The Doctor Who team were keen to show off images of their new monsters, such as the amazing new daleks, so I built a application template which allows audiences to easily find and view them. The new Doctor Who website has 360 degree views of the new Tardis and special videos of the new monsters in action
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BBC Builders: Image wizard Crystal Hirschorn
Kimberley Nixon: ‘I can’t be doing with reading manuals’
Actor Kimberley Nixon on her boyfriend's efforts to stop her iPod killing her, her dad's tech support, and why she prefers PCs What's your favourite piece of technology, and how has it improved your life? It's very boring, and everyone's said it, but it has to be my iPod. I travel a lot, and being on my own for hours for hours and hours on a train or a plane, it's something to keep me company. When was the last time you used it, and what for? This morning on my way to work. I'm doing some rehearsals for the RSC, so it was good to get some kind of music into my system. What additional features would you add if you could? It's already been invented – the iPod pillow speaker, which I got as a Christmas present. I like to listen to my iPod when I go to sleep, but I always get tangled up in the wires. My boyfriend got it for me so that I didn't kill myself
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Tech Weekly: Google’s Eric Schmidt on privacy, Best Buy opens shop in the UK
On this week's Tech Weekly, Aleks Krotoski and Charles Arthur say a fond farewell to Jack Schofield, the Guardian's longest-serving technology writer, who's heading into freelance pastures at the end of the month. Jack takes us down memory lane, through his days with Mosaic, Oracle and IBM, and tells us who he wishes he could have interviewed in his 25 year with the newspaper. Here's a hint: it's not Apple's Steve Jobs. In the news, Jemima Kiss gets answers from Google CEO Eric Schmidt about the recent privacy scandal surrounding the search company's collection of our personal data, and the studio team discuss what the company must do to protect the sanctity of our online identities. Aleks, Charles and Jack also scrutinise the technology strategy that's emerged in the fortnight of the coalition government: the Digital Economy Act won't be repealed, educational technology body Becta is being scrapped to save £80m, and Tim Berners-Lee's semantic web project, earmarked for an influx of cash through Labour via the web science initiative, is canned. What signals does this send to the UK's digital tech industry? US technology retailer Best Buy has set up shop in the UK, but is this really the right move when all indicators suggest that technology consumers have migrated online? Producer Scott Cawley reports from the shop floor. And finally, what are Google's plans for TV? The team tackles the announcements made at the company's annual IO conference, held last week. Don't forget to ..
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Tech Weekly: Google's Eric Schmidt on privacy, Best Buy opens shop in the UK
Government to close Becta
Closure of school IT qango set to save £80m, but 240 staff to lose jobs The Treasury's decision to close the education ICT agency Becta by November, cutting £80m from this financial year's government budget, has dismayed its 240 staff – and some teachers who found its work especially useful because it provided a central platform for standardising on technology. The move has been made as part of the government's wider programme of cuts worth £6.2bn for 2010-11.
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Government to close Becta
Labour candidates must address the liberty deficit | Henry Porter
The failures of the database state have been laid bare, but most of the leadership candidates don't see where Labour went wrong The liberty deficit left by the last government – the gap between the freedom enjoyed by UK citizens in 1997 and what was left in 2010 – is not something that Labour has got its head round yet. The candidates in the leadership election talk about reconnecting with the public, but Balls, Burnham and the Milibands simply don't grasp that they have effectively excluded themselves from the only liberal-progressive act in town. Diane Abbott gets it , but the standard male products of the New Labour curia have got a long way to go. One reason they wrote themselves out of the picture appears in a study from the Centre for Technology Policy Research at the LSE, which is summarised by Ian Grant in Computer Weekly this week. The LSE thinktank concludes : "Despite a spend of as much as £21bn (a year) on public sector IT, it is difficult to find any compelling examples of direct productivity gains and improved public services." Much of the money was spent on intrusive databases – last year, I estimated a total of well over £33bn. We were told it was necessary to give up our personal information to allow the joined-up delivery of services. Prospect magazine praised the programme and declared that personal data was like a tax that we owed to the state; that privacy was luxury we could no longer afford in the modern era. Transformational Government , as the programme was known, was driven by a simple faith in operational savings that were entirely theoretical – "an anachronistic and ultimately ineffective approach from which the UK has only recently begun to distance itself". The following are the crucial lines from Ian Grant's report: "Transformational Government [used an] outdated, 20th-century approach of imposed command and control enabled by large central databases. It distracted government from its own policy aspirations and ignored where the technology of the internet age was heading – towards more localised, autonomous, distributed and consumer-responsive services built around common technical standards." In other words, the statism that demanded we give up personal data and submit to the surveillance society not only had few tangible benefits and was a vast waste of money, but was based on decidedly old thinking that was entirely unsuitable to the internet age
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Labour candidates must address the liberty deficit | Henry Porter
Scott Hicks: ‘I’m struggling with my iPhone’ | Celebrity squares
Oscar-winning film director Scott Hicks wishes that he could use his iPhone when travelling to foreign lands What's your favourite piece of technology, and how has it improved your life? My favourite is my Gator – which, if you're not familiar with it, is a six-wheel independent transmission all-terrain vehicle that I use at my vineyard. It has a light footprint, huge fat tyres, and it's endless fun. In springtime, we're dogged with kangaroos which come out of the bush and nibble the new vine shoots. Because we don't want to shoot them, I get my Gator out and go up and down the rows chasing kangaroos. There's no more contemplative experience than watching kangaroos bouncing along in front of you. When was the last time you used it, and what for? I used it last weekend when my family came up camping at the vineyard. I took my grandsons for a spin. What additional features would you add if you could?
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Scott Hicks: 'I'm struggling with my iPhone' | Celebrity squares