Last week I came within an inch of getting out my old XP installation disk and removing Vista altogether. I've never known such a buggy OS as Vista. My wireless is notoriously unreliable (not the signal, but the software which runs it) and regular blue screens of death. For all the extra memory and hard disk it requires I don't notice any tangeable improvement over XP. Has anyone use Linux that can offer any pointers?

I have to admit that i was disappointed with my Dell laptop (slowed down very quickly after installing just a few applications). So much so in fact that I replaced it with a different make after a year. Laptops have a knack of going wrong more easily than desktops and, in my opinion, probably only good for 3 years service before problems start to occur. Trading off future specs and economy, a mid-market £500-ish laptop (£500 from one of the online discount vendors, not PC World or Currys prices!) should see you through 3 years. For your purposes, you won't notice the performance difference of more expensive laptops so no point paying the silly money knowing you'll be replacing it in 3 years time anyway.

Yeah, tend to agree. Aim for the £500 bracket (Dabs.com are very reasonable). I'd say at least 2GB of RAM to run Vista properly and a Core 2 Duo or higher. Other than that 250GB should be plenty of drive space. Also, see if you can get a deal on an external hard drive so you can back your work up.

I think Ju-ju is coming in through the Findaphd.com page, and so is getting this page (http://www.findaphd.com/students/forum.asp) rather than the new one.

Do you mean the old forum (not this shiny new one)?

I think it was dominoes that started the Olympic movement. Anyway, you'll be pleased to know that I've found a clip of GB winning gold in the diving on Youtube (funnier with sound).

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=SwEPDlL45xw

What day does the men's flower arranging take place? When is darts going to be part of the Olympics?

Splendid. The bounced message said:
"215.45.5.97 does not like recipient."

Now I'm not sure what you've done to offend 215.45.5.97, but I think I used to go out with his sister
215.45.5.98.

Okay, here goes...

That said, your email address just bounced back (and I copied and pasted it). Does [email protected] still work?

Brilliant, I'm on it. Thanks a alot!

I need a new mouse mat, any help mods?

If you are a PhD student and short of ideas, you're best speaking to your supervisor as I doubt anyone on here has sufficient knowledge of your area. If you're not a PhD student, you need to do a literature review, identify gaps in knowledge and formulate your own ideas for research projects. This will be excellent practice for the hard work required in the PhD itself.

I'm of the opinion that it doesn't matter what deadline you have, you will always struggle to meet it. If you must submit by September next year, you should agree a submittal date (with your sups) of 6-8 weeks prior and do you darnest to meet it (so you have contingency). In terms of your project specifics, I can't really say for sure as it depends how much analysis you have to do. That said, if you can get all your core analysis and diagrams done before Christmas (and you work to a July 31st deadline for final submittal) you have 7 months to write up/draft/re-draft etc. This is feasible even allowing for some additional analysis stipulated by your sups. The trouble is, your goals are too broad. You'd be better splitting the wider goals down into smaller chunks, setting a deadline for each of those. So I'd work up a task list, assign durations to each and then prioritise them. Perhaps if you can break down as far as weekly targets, you'd give yourself the best shot of meeting your broader goals.

Hence, the workload itself is perfectly achievable, from here on in it's about you being organised so that you can achieve it.

I would certainly mention them as they can only benefit your chances. You will no doubt be asked what you've been doing for the last year and why you withdrew so mentioning the skills you've learnt will help counteract this. Have a think through the sorts of things you've been doing - e.g. time/project managament, analytical skills, communication skills etc and see how you can convince the employer that these will bring value to their business.