FAQS! FACTS! FAX! 088 (16/12 /97)

WIDE OF THE MARK

I was interested in the feature on digital cameras in Connected (25/11/97). In my work as a marine surveyor I use a standard 35 mm camera and often need a wide angle lens, to take pictures in confined spaces. To the best of my knowledge there are no digital cameras within the price range quoted in your article with any form of wide-angle facility. Is this simply because developments have not reached the appropriate stage, or are there any fundamental problems in applying special lenses such, as wide angle, fish-eye, etc., to digital photography?

Peter J Geoffrey

A

Several top-end and professional large-format digital cameras, like the Nikon E2N and Polaroid PDC-2000, already use interchangeable SLR type lenses. There’s no technical reason why a similar system couldn’t be developed for use on compact models. There is no industry-standard lens system and it would take a brave manufacturer to go it alone and develop their own. Compact digital cameras have been shadowing developments in 35mm and APS cameras so it’s quite likely we’ll be seeing models with a switchable tele-wide lens facilities, in the not too distant future, possibly next year. Maybe an enterprising manufacturer will fit a threaded lens collar, so they could take screw-on camcorder adaptor lenses. The Kodak DC50, DC120 and Minolta Dimage all have variable zoom lenses, though the wide-angle settings may not be wide enough for your purposes.

Contacts:

www.minolta.co.uk

www.kodak.com

www.kit.co.jp/nikon

YOU WIN SOME....

I've been using Macs for years and for various reasons I may need to switch to Windows.  However, from what I've read in magazines it seems incredibly illogical. What the heck is the add/remove application. Why can't you just use the waste basket to remove applications? How easy is it to configure Windows 95 to an Internet connection?  I understand there’s a program called an Internet Wizard, does it  work? Finally,  I think I could stand Windows 95 but would I need to use DOS?  Ideally I would never have to go near it. 

Fraser Stewart

A

Hopefully your transition to Windows won’t be anything like as traumatic as you fear. The add/remove utility is likely to be the least of your worries. For the record it is designed to make it easier to delete software specifically written for Windows 95. In general using the waste basket to remove applications is not a good idea, it can leave behind a lot of disconnected files, that may cause conflicts with other programs. Where possible use the uninstall facility, most recent programs have one nowadays. If you’re worried about deleting software in Windows 95, and you are starting from scratch with a new PC, then it’s a good idea to install a utility like CleanSweep or Uninstaller, before you do anything else. They monitor all new installations, so that when the time comes to remove a program, all files -- wherever they’ve ended up -- can be safely deleted. Internet software normally installs quite easily on uncluttered machines --  the Wizards can be very helpful --  problems can arise however, when updating software, or loading additional internet access programs. Don’t worry about DOS, it sits in the background minding its own business, the closest you’ll get to it -- unless you want to make its acquaintance -- is a brief flash of a couple of command lines during the boot-up sequence.

MISSING IN ACTION

Can you please tell me where 300 megabytes have disappeared to on my C drive. I checked all my folders and they add up to 1100Mb; according to my PC the remaining free space on the 2Gb hard drive comes to just 600 Mb.

Atamjit Niber

A

It’s unlikely that it exists in one chunk, but is scattered around the drive in various files. The free-space indicator and pie-chart in ‘tools’ are not very reliable, and compression programs -- if you’re using one --  can produce misleading readings. Several hundred megabytes of empty disc space can apparently ‘disappear’ into a swap file, it’s a temporary memory created by Windows 95; the amount changes, according to the application in use. The way disc space is allocated is another probable cause. Data is stored in clusters, but if the drive contains a lot of files that are smaller than each cluster, the space left over remains unused.  You should be able to recover a few tens of megabytes by running Scandisk and Defrag, and don’t forget to empty the recycle bin.

MONO TYPE?

Scanner and printer manufacturers extol the virtues of their machines when dealing with colour photos but I have the problem of producing copies of old monochrome photos suitable for use in newsletters. Can you give some advice on optical resolution and the best type of machines to use?

Don Budds

A

Most low-cost colour flatbed scanners -- selling for around £100 or less -- will do a really good job of processing monochrome images. Optical resolution on budget models is typically 300 x 600dpi (dots per inch), which should be more than adequate for a newsletter. Almost all scanners can increase the apparent detail in the image, using a technique called interpolation. Basically the software fills in the gaps between the dots, giving resolutions of 600 x 1200dpi, and beyond.