With Andrew Hardy Owner of DoubleClick-IT

Q: As a beginner in computing, I tend to make a lot of mistakes. This has resulted in having to reformat my machine and reinstall Windows and all my applications on a number of occasions. This is very time-consuming - is there any way I can keep a back-up copy of my files?

A: Most back-up solutions concentrate on saving data files such as Word documents and databases. But over the last couple of years, a number of products have been released that take a 'snapshot' of your hard disk and allow you to restore not only your data but all your applications too. Probably the best software currently available to do this is Norton Ghost (www.norton.com). This is an excellent piece of software which works reliably with a range of really useful features. With falling storage prices (you can now buy a 15Gb hard disk for as little as £63 plus VAT), it is now entirely feasible to buy a back-up hard disk and keep multiple copies of your system drive.

Q: I use Internet Explorer 5 and I have heard I should regularly clear my internet cache. How can I do this?

A: When you view a web page, your browser saves a copy of all the image files that you download over the internet. When you revisit a page, the browser recognises the image has been saved and loads it from you hard disk (which is much quicker) and this is why a page loads faster the second time you visit it. However, this store of images (called a cache) can very quickly take up very large amounts of space indeed. To clear your internet cache in Internet Explorer, select 'internet options' from the 'tools' menu and in the section 'temporary internet files' click the button 'delete files', click 'OK' when it has finished and close the dialog window by clicking 'OK'.

Q: I have a Pentium 60 with 8mb of RAM and I recently upgraded from Windows 95 to Windows 98. Since doing this my machine has been running VERY slowly indeed. Even opening a simple Word document can take an age and the hard disk is constantly working.

A: Your problem is almost certainly due to not having enough memory in your machine. While Windows 98 will work with 8mb, when you use applications like Word (which are quite large) the machine quickly runs out of memory and uses space on the hard disk instead. This is known as swapping and is quite normal to some extent. The problem is that hard disks are about 1,000 times slower than memory and if a lot of swapping occurs (sometimes known appropriately as 'thrashing') this can make your computer grind to a halt. Try a few computer shops and ask for a price for upgrading to 16mb or even better 32mb of memory. It should cost about £40 for 16mb and £60 for 32mb plus fitting. You will see a dramatic improvement.