I have just received the first Dell 2209WA Black monitor, and it's just perfect. When we got the new computers it was obvious that the CRTs were getting old and struggling a bit, and now this new brilliant 1680x1050 image is jst superb.

We'll be ordering the second on tomorrow - I know when Sue sees this against her CRT there will be no contest!

Many thanks for all the advice, which proved to be spot on. Great forum this!

All the failures I've had with SD cards (three so far) have been related to the write protection switch. There have been no electronic failures.

The most satisfactory Operating Systems so far, in my experience, have bee 98 SE and Xp.

7 is fine so far, but we've only had it a few days.

Cards should be formatted in the camera they are to be used in.

Agree with Paul.

Hope that slight intervention helps!

I think this confuses lots of people.

If you take a 28-80mm lens on a 35mm film SLR and put it on a DSLR then the small sensor means that the camera only sees the centre part of the image projected by the lens.

Therefore, you need a wider lens for the smaller digital format, to get the same effect. The equivalent would about 18-55mm.

So, to understand what a lens produces as an image (if you are more familiar with film) then you mutiply by 1.5, give or take this means an 18mm lens on a digital camera gives a similar effect to a (18x1.5) 27mm lens on film.

Look at it another way. A "standard lens" for 35mm film was 50mm. For the same standard view the focal length needed changes. So a Minox sub-miniature needs a 15mm standard lens, the Pentax 110 needs 24mm, the Hassleblad needs 80mm, and so on.

The only reason now for messing about with "35mm equivalent" figures is that with digital there are lots of different formats (sensor sizes) whereas with film there were a small number of clearly defined ones.

If you are having trouble with manual focus, first check that the dioptre setting on the eyepiece is set correctly.

Point the camera at a blank wall or sky, out of focus is fine, and adjust the dioptre until the etched lines on the focusing screen are sharpest.

Many photographers try to set the eyepiece whilst looking at a subject, which causes the eye to compensate and leads to an incorrect setting.

I've reset the date, so we have just over a week to tackle this - three days isn't enough time.

Without doubt Windows 7 is better than Visat in most respects, although Vista was not as bad in the end as many make out.

Vista is much more annoying than W7, constantly asking for confirmation and permission....