PC Stuff

[Soton Seagull]

Morning one and all. I write this from my normal perch at work, but over the weekend, in a moment of spending weakness, I bought a home PC. When all sorted I can NSC from home as well hooray!

Couple of questions?

Which ISP would people recommend? I don't want to spend a fortune as I won't be surfing all the time (infact apart from Albion related stuff, I'm not convinced there is much of merit on the net!). I tried a Freeserve disk, but It didn't work, maybe I have the connections wrong or something. Stupid technology!

The PC I bought has CD & DVD writer functions, so should I do the broadband option? Or is that a little expensive (And are the quality of recordings ok?)?

Any other advice for the 1st time PC owner (well 1st time since my Spectrum 128+2 about 15 years ago!)?

Most importantly I have bought CM4, so I will search out those CM4 threads for advice etc, as I am seem to be duplicatiing Hinsh's start to last season.

Forgive all my questions and blatant naivety, but we all have to start somewhere.

Cheers.

 

[Braders]

ntl broadbands only £12.99 - i think i don't pay the bill , but that doesn't sound hurrendous ! p.s completely given up with cm4 its sooo slow !

 

[Dropkick Turnip]

OK. First minefield. The going rate for broadband is about £27 a month so to be getting it for £12.99 I'm guessing that braders has the ntl TV package already. Either way, broadband is definitely the way to go if you are planning to download music and films. A three minute song takes a minute or two to download with broadband versus 30 minutes on a 56K dial-up connection. No contest!

As for which ISP, I don't know of anyone who's had a really bad experience with any of them. BT Broadband seems good but I use Tiscali because they were offering a free modem (usually about £50 with anyone else) when I was ready to take the plunge and they seem fine as well. It's worth hanging onto the 56K modem that came with the PC (I'm assuming that one did) and get yourself a "pay for what you use" connection in case your broadband ISP ever does fail and you desparately need to get on line-I know how addictive NSC can be!

Second, let's spilt your CD/DVD question into two.

MP3 music files are highly compressed and therefore not as good as the original CD. However, unless you have a very trained ear and expensive hi-fi equipment or just a high bullshit threshold then it's unlikely that you will be able to tell any difference between them. For this reason, having a CD writer is good news as you can make compilations up for the home/car which will sound just as good as the originals (download Nero Express and it converts MP3s to CD format for you). I also download complete albums and road test them in this way before deciding whether to buy them or not. Get yourself on a peer to peer file sharing network like kazzalite and virtually any song you want will be out there on someone's computer somewhere.

As for films, I know very little here but I suspect it's unlikely that you will be able to download anything as good as DVD quality via the web but your DVD writer will good for ripping films that you rent to save you buying them. Somebody else on the board will no doubt fill you in more where films are concerned.

I'm afraid I know nothing about CM4.

Errrr hope this helps.

 

[Braders]

d-t that is true !

 

[marvin]

If you are going to be online short periods of time and not doing anymore than browsing the occasional small website or message board then a standard pay as you go dial-up on a v90 or v92 connection will suffice.

If surfing for 20 mnutes or more on average per day then you need to up to either a pay monthly deal (start around £10 a month) but only if you don't intend downloading any streaming media (things like goals off seagulls world) or large files like films.

If you do then BB starts @ £18 for ntl and goes up from there to around £50 for 2mb bb (waste of money)

for a decent ISP for the first 2 see www.birminghamcarers.org.uk/cd you even get me as basic tech support on that!

for BB if in a cable area go cable if not investigate if you can have ADSL in your area.

 

[Eddie the Seagull]

I'd definately get Broadband for an extra tenner a month there's loads of offers with free modems etc. from £19.99 month.

Top 10 Broadband ISP's

I use Demon - no probs after 6 months.

I did initially use BT but they messed me around.

It's worth finding out where the ISP's servers are - the nearer the better.

 

[beorhthelm]

On the internet, broadband is slightly overrated unless your going to do loads of downloading. i had to switch back to my dailup last weekend, and hardly noticed - most sites have so much fluffy graphics and badly written script code that they take a second or two to process. But broadband does give you the option. Best bet is to go with cable provider if you can get it.

More importantly, the first thing you need to do while you have a spanking new clean PC is to install a firewall or set up whatever came with Windows (im assuming XP which has one built in) and get some anti virus software. set it up and block everthing that you dont need or dont know about - you can always unblock later. Second lesson is to not download every piece of crap that offers itself to you, thats the best way to end up with a slow computer. Dont need to be paranoid about what might get onto your machine, just be wary and inform yourself.

IMO, the general quality of MP3 that you download are poor. If your listening quietly on your PC they seem ok, but a half decent home stereo/in-car system will show the poor quality, especially as you turn up the volume. However if you get high bit rate samples you'll notice less and less - 194Kbps is very good and should be aimed for.