Q: I would like to watch the television on my computer. Is this possible and how should I set about doing it?

A: I am often amazed at why people would want to watch TV on their computer, still the idea of keeping tabs on the test match is quite appealing.

You need to install something called a TV tuner card in your PC. This will take a standard aerial connection and, with the supplied software, will display a TV screen within a window on your desktop. You can buy a Tuner Card for around £45 (www. scan.co.uk).

Many come with extra software to capture clips and display Teletext pages.

Q: Can you tell me what the difference is between a jpg and a bmp file? They both look like pictures to me.

A: BMP, or bitmap, file is a non-lossy file format.

This means for each dot in the image, there is a corresponding dot represented within the file and consequently has no image-quality loss from the original. Non-lossy formats, such as JPGs, work by generating a series of complex mathematical rules that "describe" the picture.

The upshot of this, depending on the settings used, is the quality of the image can degrade quite badly when saving an image as a JPG file. Essentially, there is a trade-off between quality and file size. The better the quality of a JPG image, the larger the file size. The differences in file size between BMP and JPG files can be quite startling. A 1.3MB BMP file could be compressed to 60 or 70KB (roughly 1/20th the size) with little or no perceivable difference in image-quality.

Q: What type of mouse is the best to buy? I have looked at roller balls, optical mice, infra-red mice and can't make my mind up.

A I would not recommend a roller ball unless you have a specific need for one, such as for computer-aided design, or if you have a disability which makes moving a mouse difficult. The best advice is to spend at least £10. There are mice out there for £2.99 but you will end up buying another very soon.

Microsoft sells a three-button mouse and wheel (the wheel allows you to quickly scroll through text or web pages and is very handy), for around £10 (www.scan.co.uk). Cordless mice are great and the technology has improved considerably since the early days but they do tend to be more expensive, at around £35.

Q: What is the fastest modem available? I have a 14.4 modem that works perfectly well but my friend says this is really slow. What does he mean?

A The fastest modem you can buy is a 56k modem (although there is some talk of a 90k modem being released in the near future). Your modem is a 14.5k modem and so is approximately 3.5 times slower than a modern modem.

Modern modems are very cheap these days (around £26) so you may want to consider upgrading. If you do decide to buy a new modem, go for an external one. They are a little more expensive but much easier to set up.