FAQS! FACTS! FAX!  588 (06/11/07)

Q. Being able to listen to the previous week's output from the BBC in the comfort of one's kitchen is a wonderful technological advance, and that's as well as being able to tune in to any radio station in the world. But occasionally my Wi-Fi Internet Radio loses its broadband connection and has to reload its buffer, thereby causing a break in the programme. Are there known problems with this technology?

Richard Thorpe, via email

A. In the same way that reception on an analogue radio can suffer from interference and interruption, so too does Internet radio. Instead of radio signals flying through the air these devices are reliant on a steady stream of data ‘packets’ finding their way across the Internet, quite possibly from the other side of the world, down through your telephone line and into your PC. Inevitably there are bottlenecks in the system and at peak times some parts of the Internet come under enormous strain. Closer to home, at your local telephone exchange, your connection to your ISP may be shared with many others, and if your neighbours all decide to go online at the same time and download music or video files your connection can slow down to a crawl. Internet radio brings to mind Dr Johnson’s famous remark upon seeing a performing dog walking on its hind legs: ‘The wonder is not that it does it so well, but that it does it at all’…

Upgrading to a faster broadband service might help, and networks are being constantly improved but it’s a quirk of the technology and I suspect something we’ll have to learn to live with for some time to come.

Q. My wireless router uses WPA security. I have used it for some time and visiting friends and family have connected with no problem. We all use Windows XP SP2. I recently purchased a laptop with Vista. When trying to connect this it offered me a choice of no security, WEP security and 4 flavours of WPA2 security but no WPA. How can I achieve a connection wirelessly?

David Redclift, via email

A. Welcome to the alphabet soup of wireless network security... In theory your new WPA2-equipped laptop should be able to communicate with your WPA router and I would try all four modes and see what happens. Although WPA2 is backwards compatible it mostly depends on the design of router, and there have been problems with some older models not being able to handle the more recent security system. If the Wi-Fi router is less that 2 or 3 years old it may be something simple and all that’s needed is quick tweak to a configuration setting or a firmware update but either way the place to start is the support section of the router manufacturer’s support website; check the FAQs or send them an email.

Q. I have just bought a new camera that has a 10-megapixel capability when set at its highest quality setting. Photos taken at this resolution are of course very memory hungry and result in huge files. This can be a problem if you want to email them on to someone for example. Is there a simple way to reduce the file size when saving to my PC? I don't particularly want to reduce the memory on the camera beforehand.

Les Morgan, via email

A. If all you want to do is compress or reduce the amount of data in your picture files for emailing then let Windows do it, or use a third-party application, like Picasa. To get Windows to prepare your pictures for emailing simply open the folder containing the images using My Computer or Windows Explorer then select the image or images you want to send (to select multiple images hold down the Ctrl key and click on each one in turn). Now right click on the highlighted file and select Send To > Mail Recipient. A dialogue box opens and asks you if you want to ‘make images smaller’, this should be checked, so just click OK and a few moments later a blank email message window opens, with your resized images attached.

Programs like Picasa work on similar lines, simply select the photos you want to send, click the ‘Email’ button and they will be automatically reduced in size and attached to an email message. In both cases the original files are unaffected. Reducing the size of the images stored on your PC is not a good idea; after all why go to the expense of buying a 10 megapixel camera and then compromise picture quality by further compressing the files? If you are running out of disc space upgrade, fit a second slave drive, or buy an external drive and store them on that.

Q. In the last few days, whenever I use my DVD rewriter on my XP computer, it shuts down and restarts. I have run a diagnostic program and all the temperatures and voltages are okay. Could it be my motherboard?

Mike Leigh, via email

A. It’s very unlikely, this kind of fault, which crashes the system, causing XP to reboot (this is a default setting) is usually due to a software glitch. Setting the writing speed too high on your CD/DVD burning program is one possibility though it could be a hardware problem, like faulty memory, insufficient memory or system resources, and even a dicky drive.

The first thing I would do is disable automatic reboot and this will force Windows into displaying an error message that might give you a clue. To do that open System Properties by pressing Winkey + Break, select the Advanced tab then under Startup and Recovery click the Settings button and uncheck ‘Automatically Restart’. If that doesn’t help try uninstalling any CD/DVD writer software and see if the built-in Windows CD writing utility causes the crash. If so the chances are it’s faulty or insufficient RAM (I wouldn’t run XP on less than 1GB of RAM), or the drive.

If you have a computer problem write to: fff@telegraph.co.uk

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© R. Maybury 2007 1610