Why would O2 be doing this in the first place? Well, they’ve since given a few reasons but the most important, as far as I’m concerned, is so that their website can identify you. Unlike other networks who make it difficult for you to find your remaining balances, O2 give you a useful web link to visit – it reads your phone number from the web page header and then displays the information.

Sadly, now they’ve removed the phone number transmission, that site no longer works (see screenshot from my phone). Boo. Of course, I equally don’t want my phone number spread about the internet – would it have been too much to ask to have O2 encrypt it?

Related posts:

1. The Sony Ericsson phone, Christmas and O2 Back in November I purchased a Sony Ericsson Xperia Mini Pro Android phone as my daughter’s Christmas present. O2 had a limited offer on it...
2. No broadband, no home phone… welcome to O2! It’s been quite a week. I’ve been using O2 broadband for a good few years now and have had no issues. Only recently I also...
3. T-Mobile and Orange owners can now share networks! The merger of Orange and T-Mobile was some time ago and the intention is to continue to run them as seperate entities. None-the-less, there are...

Now, I was happy to spend a bit more to getter a higher quality monitor and there were  certain things I wanted (in no particular order)…

• (Ideally) a zero dead pixel guarantee
• 23″ – 24″ screen size
• Not bothered about speakers
• A USB hub would be nice
• Good general output quality and a lack of external light bleeding
• HDMI or DVI input
• Adjustable stand

After much searching I settled on the Dell UltraSharp U2311H – reviews gave me all the above at a price of around £260. Ordering was easy and the delivery quick – I couldn’t be around for the drop-off so I arranged to pick it up from my local UPS office.

Inside the unassuming brown box was the monitor, various leaflets, a CD, power cable, VGA cable and DVI cable. I needed neither of the connection cables as I was going to use my existing HDMI to DVI cable¹.

The monitor is not sexy but it’s not ugly either. It’s more functional – matt black plastic with menu buttons integrated into the side of the display. The stand is highly adjustable and can rotate around for portrait display. It has DVI, VGA and DisplayPort inputs, as well as a side-mounted 2 port USB hub, with a further 2 USB ports mounted on the back near to the video connections². The stand connects via a standard VESA mount, so the monitor is also wall-mountable. It uses a standard power connection and the PSU is built-in. As you can probably guess this isn’t, unlike the LG, a slimline stunner at 18.4 cm deep but neither is it overtly large.

Cables are routed through a hole in the top of the stand but, unlike some of their other monitors, I find this to be a little too low (especially if you have the stand at full height) so the cables are still visible. It doesn’t come with built-in speakers but you can buy a separate “sound bar” to attach to provide this functionality, if required.

I had some initial problems with the included CD, as the software didn’t want to launch under Windows 7 64-bit. Sadly, it’s a real struggle to find downloads on the Dell website without a Service Tag, and these aren’t provided on monitors under 27″. A google search found no official download link from Dell either. However, Microsoft Update automatically picked up on the new hardware and supplied the appropriate software for download.

The CD also contains the manual and, thankfully, that is available from the Dell website.

PC Pro, when recently reviewing the monitor, had the following to say about the image…

After installing the monitor driver supplied by Dell, we weren`t entirely impressed by the image quality. Colours appeared wildly oversaturated, and in gradient tests we noticed obvious banding artefacts.

However, changing the monitor to its Custom (RGB) setting, leaving the individual Red, Green and Blue controls set to maximum and uninstalling Dell’s driver swiftly improved matters. Our test images and Blu-ray discs now looked amazing, and the gradient test showed a smooth transtition [sic] from black to white with no banding.

However, I couldn’t see a difference when I changed the RGB settings. Running the Windows 7 calibration tests, it showed that gamma was a little low – increasing this and re-running cleartype adjustments made a huge difference to the image quality. The end results, and probably all thanks to the IPS (In-Plane Switching) panel being used, are stunning.

Shunning an LCD backlight it means the Dell does draw more power but, as a result, has an impressive level of brightness. Having said that, with no USB devices in use it does still only use 33W (and less than 1W in standby).

Does it have any downsides? Not that I can find.

However, and this isn’t aimed at this monitor in particular, I’m not overly impressed by the aspect ratio of these monitors. The width is good, but the height is barely any more than my old 17″ Viewsonic. For those not wanting to watch films regularly the current ratios don’t work for normal PC usage. When, say, I’m in a code editor and all the code is “butted” up against the left hand side of the monitor, that’s a lot of lost real estate. Like most people I sit centre of the monitor, but just end up spending a lot of time twisting around to look at the left hand side. I’d much rather loose horizontal resolution to gain more vertical (and, no, turning the monitor into portrait mode isn’t a solution – that’s too far the other way!). Bring back the 4:3 ratio monitors!

Summary of Dell UltraSharp U2311H

An excellent monitor with features galore. It’s a little pricey but you get what you pay for, especially in terms of image quality. And if that quality is important to you, then the Dell is an essential purchase.

Reviewed by David Artiss on 21st March 2011.

1. and for those who read my previous post about the problems I was having watching Blu-Ray movies… yes, this monitor does resolve the issue!
2. note that the USB hub powers off when you switch off the monitor’s power via the corner power button – I therefore use the rear ports for my wireless mouse receiver and a webcam

Related posts:

1. LG E2360V monitor 23/24″ 1920×1080 pixel widescreen monitors are becoming pretty much “the norm” these days. What makes the LG E2360V stand-out however is its slimness and generally...
2. Dell Vostro 460 Have you heard about the Dell Vostro 460? If not you are perfectly on the right moment on getting to know the Dell Vostro 460....
3. Dell Inspiron Zino HD After managing to break my home PC (note – don’t mess around with graphics cards when you still have power to your PC!) I found...

Apple offers free iPhone case to tackle reception problem

The iPhone 4, evolutionary rather than revolutionary, has had users reporting signal strength problems since its launch. It continues to sell well, despite what appears a big flaw and Apple refusing to be helpful.

Let’s have a quick run down of what’s happened since the iPhone 4 launch on the 24th June.

June 24th
The same day as the phone launches, CNET report that users are having signal issues when holding the phone a certain way – in particular having your hand over the left hand corner of the phone (left handed users are more likely to do this whilst holding it).

When Ars Technica contacted Steve Jobs via email, he responded that users should “avoid holding it in this way”.

June 25th
Apple tell the press that losing signal whilst holding a phone is “normal” and that they should “avoid gripping it in the lower left corner”. Alternatively, “Simply use one of many available cases”.

June 26th
Engadget report that a Danish Professor warned Apple about their antenna design back in early June.

June 30th
In an internal memo, Apple tells staff not to offer customers free accessories that could resolve poor reception problems if they complain about low signal strength.

July 2nd
Apple decides to blame software rather than hardware for the signal problems, stating that the algorithms for displaying the signal strength were wrong.

July 12th
Consumer Reports says it can’t recommend the iPhone 4 after conclusive and extensive tests show “there is a problem with its reception”. It also says that its findings call Apple’s explanation of a miscalculated signal meter into question.

Engaget reports that Apple is deleting posts from its forum that make mention of the Consumer Reports article. It also tests the signal issue and reports that they have “confirmed and clarified that the antenna issue affects every iPhone 4″.

So…
I don’t really know where to begin with stating just how wrong this whole debacle has been handled. Apple’s ability to not accept any responsibilty for something that is blatantly a fault, goes beyond shoddy. The signal strength “bug” is simply the equivalent of sweeping rubbish under the rug – the problem is still there, just will now be reported differently.

Therefore, in the middle of all this, would you expect a well respected PC magazine to not only give the phone their top award BUT state “We have managed to replicate the problem, but to do so we had to grip it so hard, and in such an awkward manner, that it wasn’t a problem for us”. Which is odd, as all suggestions are that the signal strength problem occurs when simply holding it in the hand, with your palm gripping the lower left-hand corner. When I hold my phone I hold it like this, but on the right hand corner – if I was left handed, I’m sure I’d recreate the fault. Not only, that but the above tests by various other sites have shown conclusively that this is happening. If, indeed, it only happened when gripping it in “an awkward manner”, would there have been such a flood of users experiencing the problem?

So, stand up and be counted PC Pro, for your review. A review which has been, by the majority of commenters on their website, berated but which they still stand by.

A review, where although the iPhone gets a lesser score that than the HTC Desire, they are now recommending it over the Desire. A review which leaves the signal issue to the end and quickly moves past it after a half-arsed attempt to test it. A review where they admit it’s stupidly expensive (and only give it 3 out of 6 for value for money). I expected better of PC Pro. Even if you ignore the signal issue itself for a moment, the way that Apple are treating their customers (who have, after all, spent rather a lot of money on this product) is shocking. How can you recommend a faulty product, supported by a company that shows nothing but contempt for its customers?

Except, PC Pro is not alone.

Engadget, who are quoted above as stating that thet have “confirmed and clarified that the antenna issue affects every iPhone 4″, says in its review that “the iPhone 4 is the best smartphone on the market right now”.

Consumer Reports - you know, the people who can’t recommend buying an iPhone 4 – has it as their highest rated smartphone. So, they recommend it, but don’t.

What’s going on here? I’m not going to suggest anything dodgy (which many do), but are they getting caught up in the Apple hype, like so many other people? Why don’t they, once they know the extent of the issues, go back and change their review? Or, as is the case of Consumer Reports, you appear happy to have completely opposing views.

In these reviews I don’t notice the other problems with the iPhone being mentioned – for example, the sealed non-replaceable battery (well, unless you send it to Apple with a big fat cheque), the lack of Flash, the iTunes lock-in, etc. It’s as if these venerable, and respected, sites just accept this now as the norm and ignore it rather than keep bringing it up (which, let’s be honest, is the only way this is likely to change).

So, PC Pro, Engadget and Consumer Reports – do you still stand by your review? Will you look further into the signal issue, in light of thedamning evidence that it’s a lot more serious?

Update on 14th July:

Tim Danton, editor of PC Pro, replied…

We do still stand by the review, but I’ll leave it up to our reviews editor whether or not to comment any further…

I’ve not yet had a comment from their reviews editor. Or, indeed, Engadget or Consumer Reports.

Related posts:

1. Why the next iPhone shouldn’t be the iPhone 5 The recent  announcement of the iPhone 4S was met, pretty universally, by disappointment. People were expecting the iPhone 5. However, the release of the 4s...
2. Best Mobile Contracts iPhone 4S Competition Win an iPhone 4S with Best Mobile Contracts Apple launched the iPhone 4S on October 4th and despite some initial criticism from people who thought...
3. The GadgetShow and un-smart smartphone test Tonights included a “showdown” between 4 of the “latest”1 smartphones – the iPhone 4, Nexus S, HTC HD7 and the Blackberry Torch (each representing a...

I am fed up with seeing IPhone splattered over the homepage! Change it, this is PC Pro, not Apple Central!!!

I am disappointed PC Pro have A listed this. The desire got all 36 stars and was A listed. The iPhone only got 33, and was A listed. Does this mean that the stars have nothing to do with whether the product is A listed? Or is it that the Value of the product is not taken into account?

More than this, I always thought PC Pro was a PC for Professional people in IT. And everyone knows that Professional IT people care about functionality more than anything else. The Desire can be used with any PC, has a standard microUSB connection, it is open source, expandable memory, changeable battery, a better interface, you can hold it anyway you like without signal loss, I could go on. So how can something like the super restrictive iPhone get A listed?

Another bunch of reviewers taken in by something shiny, I agree with all of the above comments the HTC Desire should retain the A-List spot as it is far more innovative and less restrictive than the iPhone.

I have seen several videos of people holding their phones in a normal way with the signal falling drastically. Perhaps its not the same with all iPhone 4s, but I wouldn’t call this a ‘minor issue’.

I agree, price obviously is irrelevant to an A-list recommendation, so why bother with a value for money rating?

It just can’t be me that is sick of having Apple products splashed all over the front page of PC Pro and to hear the podcast be almost an advertisement for Apple. Surely PC Pro should be aimed at professionals as the name suggests. I can’t see any reason a IT professional would want to buy an iPhone since there aimed squarely at the consumer. If this is now an Apple based magazine can you let me know and I’ll stop reading…

I agree with all the above comments. I am getting fed by how all the media is getting hyped up over Apple products. There are other companies / products out there which are just as good. In PC Pro I expect balance. Perhaps it is time to review my subscription.

Oops. I guess that could have gone better for them.

Update

Lots more comments since…

I don’t understand why the iPhone is on the A list when it is only average value for money? And how does it get a maximum overall rating when the value for money is poor. And the review doesn’t answer the question of whether the iPhone is worth £220 more than the Desire? Sadly, it all looks a bit contrived.

I also agree with all the above comments. I just do not understand how a device with such a significant design flaw can get 6/6 for features and design or haw it can be recommended above the HTC Desire despite scoring less.

It is massivelly overpriced to be on the A list.

I agree with most of the sentiment above. However, my main issue surrounding the coverage of Apple products isn’t the amount, more so the bias that their products seem to receive. It seems that Steve Jobs’ PR machine has well-infiltrated the PC-Pro offices. For instance, with this phone there are some serious flaws (I’ve seen the signal problem first hand and it’s shockingly bad), yet at the end of the review there’s still a 6-star, A-list rating.

I’ve grown to live with the “yes, but it’s Apple so it doesn’t matter” attitude to flaws that the fanboys all take (Chris Brennan being one of the worst), but I expect a more measured and unbiased approach from a magazine calling itself PC Pro.

If you rate the value for money as 3/6 then clearly you don’t think the phone is worth the money, so how does it appear on the a list? It seems that the A list rating is totally subjective and nothing to do with the ratings. I don’t get it.

I wouldn’t say that i hate Apple. Apart from looking the part, their previous products do ‘just work’. The wife has a 3GS and i admit that is a good phone and i enjoying playing with it and that was worthy of a A listing. I bought an enjoyed using my 32GB iTouch.

But when Apple release a product (given their previous unblemished track record) and it’s released with problems – for an independent magazine to rate it as A-list, because it has a slightly higher resolution screen (but, not as vibrant as an OLED), a better camera (even though the Mega pixel count is the same as the Desire, although I’ve yet to see the comparisons of photo quality between the two).
I fail to see why this should be A-listed.
I guess i should maybe look at another source of unbiased reviews in the future.

This review is not balanced. How could a phone with a problem like the signal issue end up with a 5 * review?? If this was Samsung or a Windows phone it would have been slated. Quite clearly this reviewer is prepared to ignore the flaws because he has been seduced by the shiny publicity machine of Steve Jobs and Apple. – Oh and just one more thing, give me the Samsung Galaxy S any day. Who wants a phone restricted from using flash.

The desire is clearly better, as you don’t have to be careful how you hold it in order to avoid signal drop! Personally, if I had a phone that expensive I’d hold it in a rather tight grip too! The Desire therefore maintains signal and actually works AS A PHONE! If your grip is wrong, the Apple is merely a Smart iBrick.

oh dear…. PC Pro …. how low can you go.

“A few minor issues can’t mask the fact that Apple has again produced the most desirable smartphone on the market”

Since when is loss of signal a “minor” issue with a phone?

Sorry, but the original reasons for looking at PCPro for unbiased advice are beginning to die. This site has turned into a joke, with reviewers more interested in courting corporate “sponsors” than providing totalling unbiased views.

If this phone didn’t have an Apple badge the review summary would read “Nice styling, good screen, over-priced, fatal signal flaw, no-flash support, restrictive customisation. Avoid.”

I don’t understand why the iPhone is on the A list when it is only average value for money? And how does it get a maximum overall rating when the value for money is poor. And the review doesn’t answer the question of whether the iPhone is worth £220 more than the Desire? Sadly, it all looks a bit contrived.

At this point David Bayon, Deputy Reviews Editor, stepped in…

Ok guys, before the talk turns entirely to us “courting corporate sponsors” with our “biased” views, let’s get the signal issue into perspective.

Yes, there is a particular way of holding the iPhone that causes the signal to drop. It’s not a comfortable way of holding the phone; in fact we found it requires you to grip unreasonably hard. We could very easily make a YouTube video showing the fault in action, as many people have, but in reality there’s not one person at PC Pro who holds a mobile phone in that manner. We’ve tested two samples and had no issues in real world use.

The internet magnifies problems such as this with unimaginable speed, and it’s important to take a step back before diving in with the verdict that the phone is unusable. It’s anything but.

You may or may not agree with the review, but the views in it are those of everyone here who’s used the phone. It’s a fantastic handset, and claiming it isn’t just because it was made by Apple is non-sensical. The Desire was the best when we reviewed it; the iPhone 4 has just raised the bar, hence the A List award.

What he’s done is address the signal issue, but none of the others – in particular, that a phone with a lower rating than the previous A list entry has replaced it.

Meantime, it’s reported that there are problems with the iPhone 4′s proximity sensor. It’s used to lock the screen when used for phone calls so that your face doesn’t press anything. It appears that many users are finding that this functionality is not working correctly.

seem there are issues with the proximity sensor now well documented on the apple forums and the inquirer. How can this keep a A star rating with these problems? They maybe fixed with a software update soon….but i thought this was the iphone “its just works”. The media apple-love-in… is a joke… yes it maybe the best smartphone on the market…yes it maybe “cool” but when it fails to deliver its primary use this is very poor…please downgrade to has potential to be great but not yet……waiting software update… or case to improve signal

Accusing the PCPro with all these sins is probably a bit over the top, but on the other hand the reaction is pretty natural – I think it’s the first time when a product with such a low “value for money” made to the A-list.

Also, I find the attitude like “it’s the best phone and doesn’t matter if you can’t afford it” deeply flawed. Surely products like Intel Core i7-980X should have made to the A-list then?

Instead of the iPhone being an A-listed product right now, just have it rated as ‘recommended’ and once its had the software updated to fix its (lets say)’teething problems’ you could review it again, to then give it an “A-Listed Recommendation”; if it deserved it.
Looking at all the comments made on this review, i think that i can confidently say that this product has had the most negative reaction to review, ever.
Also I guess that if PCPRO keeps the phone as A-Listed, i should cancel my subscription and subscribe to another ‘independent’ magazine – I doubt that I would be the only person thinking this.

So, even after David’s intervention, I guess that last comment says it all. My PC Pro subscription has been cancelled too.

Related posts:

1. Why the next iPhone shouldn’t be the iPhone 5 The recent  announcement of the iPhone 4S was met, pretty universally, by disappointment. People were expecting the iPhone 5. However, the release of the 4s...
2. Retractable USB iphone & ipod Cable This review is part of the 1 Pound Challenge – can you find a decent gadget in a pound shop? This unbranded (other than the...
3. Best Mobile Contracts iPhone 4S Competition Win an iPhone 4S with Best Mobile Contracts Apple launched the iPhone 4S on October 4th and despite some initial criticism from people who thought...

So, a good way to improve startup and some other bookmarks and history related tasks is to defragment and trim unused space from these databases.

• Open the Error Console: Tools menu/Error Console
• In the Code text box paste this (it’s a single line):

  Components.classes["@mozilla.org/browser/nav-history-service;1"].getService(Components.interfaces.nsPIPlacesDatabase).DBConnection.executeSimpleSQL("VACUUM");

• Press Evaluate. Firefox will freeze for a few seconds while the databases are “VACUUMed”.

Thanks to PC Pro and Mozilla Links for this information.

Alternatively there are a couple of Firefox plugins available to do just this – Vacuum Places and PlacesCleaner.

Related posts:

1. Asus EEE PC 701 – Updating Firefox & Flash My wife has had her Asus EEE PC 701 for a good few years now and still uses it on a daily basis – pretty...
2. Why I still don’t like Chrome Last year I made an attempt to move from Firefox to Chrome – as much as I love Firefox, Chrome is a lot quicker in...
3. Download Firefox 4 now, before the official release tomorrow! Not intended for release until tomorrow, the final version of Firefox 4 is, none-the-less, available to download (if you know where to look). Firefox 4...

You top up at least £10 a time (I believe that gives you 1GB of data to play with) and that will expire after a month. That’s not brilliant, but pretty consistent with other networks offers (except you’ll pay £35+ for their devices) and a review last year from PC Pro shows good speeds¹.

I’ve ordered one, and can imagine using it when out and about, and therefore topping up as-and-when required. Basically, an essential bit of kit to throw into a gadget bag.

As soon as I can, I’ll add a review to the site.

1. although it may not be the same model of device

Related posts:

1. Pay As You Go mobile broadband is now preferred to Contract Sales figures from the UK mobile broadband comparison site Broadband Expert show, for the first time, that people now prefer Pay as You Go mobile...
2. No broadband, no home phone… welcome to O2! It’s been quite a week. I’ve been using O2 broadband for a good few years now and have had no issues. Only recently I also...
3. Top 6 Reasons to Use Your Smartphone as A Broadband Modem Modern mobile phones are more versatile than ever, especially when they are smartphones equipped with wireless broadband access. Most smartphones can connect to wireless data...

It’s taken me a year but I’ve done it. The only thing missing – that elusive 9% – is a CDN. But I’m not going to have that so I now have the highest rating I can achieve.

Once this site is at its new host, I’ll start looking at the same thing (restrictions on the .htaccess file, amongst other things, prevents me at the moment).

To put this in perspective, Amazon.co.uk and Apple.com both have a score of 63%, Microsoft.com a score of 94% and PC Pro a score of 52%. Google, not surprisingly, scores 99%. What is surprising, though, is that Yahoo – the people who originated this scoring system – gets 82%.

Meantime,  my other story about a software retailer not lowering their prices has been revealed by PC Pro, and they’ve mentioned their name, which I decided not to do. Yes, stand up McAfee. The PC Pro article was also reported by an affiliate, who remained anonymous, but their words reflected my own. It doesn’t help that before this story broke, PC Pro has also published an article about how PC retailers were planning on dropping their prices to reflect the VAT change.

However, no sooner had they revealed the story about the VAT put McAfee decided to back down. Hurrah for common sense.

Some choice comments from their forums…

Do you really want to buy software as complex as a security suite from a company who cannot easily update the VAT rate in their own selling software?

I think McAfee has a very good candidate for “Most Pathetic Excuse of the Year”

Related posts:

1. Why the next iPhone shouldn’t be the iPhone 5 The recent  announcement of the iPhone 4S was met, pretty universally, by disappointment. People were expecting the iPhone 5. However, the release of the 4s...
2. Best Mobile Contracts iPhone 4S Competition Win an iPhone 4S with Best Mobile Contracts Apple launched the iPhone 4S on October 4th and despite some initial criticism from people who thought...
3. Retractable USB iphone & ipod Cable This review is part of the 1 Pound Challenge – can you find a decent gadget in a pound shop? This unbranded (other than the...

However, I’ve struggled to get it work until I came across an article in PcPro (October 2007) about how to do just that. It’s for Ubuntu but works just as well for Kubuntu.

First of all mount the Guest Additions disk. Now run the following…

sudo aptitude install build-essential linux headers-`uname -r`

When that’s done you’re supposed to change to the CD rom and run the following…

sudo sh ./VBoxLinuxAdditions.run

For some reason I can’t get to the CD Rom via the terminal program (well I could, but it said there was nothing on it). Instead I found, by more luck than judgement, that I was able to install it at root via clicking on the CD Rom icon.

Anyway it worked. Amongst other things I can now resize my Kubuntu window up to the full 1280×1024 of my monitor. I’ve also got seamless mouse use – no more using a special key to move in and out of the virtual window, back to the host. All very handy.

Lastly, the same article gave details of a useful command line program provided with VirtualBox for making clones of your virtual hard drives. The command iis in the VirtualBox folder and is…

VBoxManage clonevdi {source disk} {output file}

The source disk is the full path to where you have the virtual drive stored.

Related posts:

1. Uninstalling Ubuntu If you’ve installed Ubuntu as a dual boot with Windows then removing it isn’t easy (which is a shame that they make installation so easy...
2. Blog review of 2011 It’s nearly the end of 2011, so I thought it was time to review what’s been most popular on this site this year. First of...

1. It’s slow (this is apparently on purpose to get you to buy the commercial version. Allegedly)
2. The network bridging that it uses causes my network connection to not start for about 5 minutes after a reboot. Frustrating and nobody on the VMWare forums seems to want to suggest an answer to it.

The other free alternative is Virtual PC from Microsoft but, having tried it, it’s a typical Microsoft product that doesn’t seem to want to know anything about any possible rival. Hence you can set up various flavours of Windows OS’, but everything else is clumped into a big generic “other” pile.

PCPro has recommended VirtualBox so I gave that a go.

Again it was easy to use and, yes, quick. Again I installed Kubuntu, but every time I tried to change the resolution (from 1024×768 to my screens native 1280×1024) or specify the monitor or graphics card model, it refused to boot up.

I also had a frustrating time – my own fault for not reading instructions – with the Snapshot facility.

In the end I gave up with trying to change the graphics properties and just created a clean install of Kubuntu with Opera, Firefox and SeaMonkey browsers added to the existing Konqueror.

I uninstalled VMware and now can get an internet connection immediately my PC has booted. It’s also, as previously mentioned, quick. I’m limited to having it in a window on my Windows desktop in the aforementioned limited resolution, but I can live with that.

I should also take the chance to update my own instructions on updating the above browsers…

Firefox & SeaMonkey. These can be installed in one go using the automated script. For some reason I found I had files missing that caused this script to fail. I simply looked these files up in the Adept Manager.

Opera. Download from their site in .rpm file format, right click on the resultant file and select the option to install it.

And so I don’t have to keep going back to my original post to remember how to request root access – you put sudo at the beginning of the command line.