I'd skip Juicy, I'd look at Formula but I love Shimano. Second hand XTs and they are brilliant.

Sounds pretty light as it is, doubt there are many cost effective ways to drop any serious amount of weight.

I mean I am building some lightweight wheels (about 1300-1350gr the pair) but that might be a pound lower than yours and they will cost me near the 400£ mark. An expensive pound especially when you have pretty darn good wheels. (my current ones are over 2000gr and second hand so I am justifying it that way.)

I think the forks are more cost effective but that is something you are considering anyway. Probably you are dropping another pound off from that change no?

The other change would be the tyres? The maxxis are pretty heavy.

And no offense but if you are a bigger fella maybe try and lose a couple of pounds yourself? :p I can't go much lower am 8 1/2 stone

Panasonic LX3? I think at the moment is the best compromise between very portable and near DSLR capabilities.

PS3 for me, starts getting decent games -Uncharted 2 one of them – and has Blu-ray. I don't have that many friends that play online though so that does not make much of a difference for me but if you do then it should make a big difference for you.

I am a computer geek and I couldn't / wouldn't use explorer (finder in my case as I have a mac) to categorise my music ever. In any case you don't have to import it really you have only got to tell itunes to find your music and put it on its interface (ie it does not even have to put them in a new location, all your files remain where they always have been). From there it is a matter of tick the boxes of the songs you want to be transfered and sync…

For the guy that struggles with drags and drops … a decent book for novices will help, I mean spend some time to learn the basics it will make a huge difference in using your computer.

Same stuff XT is just a bit lighter and some say have a bit more stopping power. Either way for 28£ more I'd buy XT.

If you don't have a firewall integrated into a router of yours then get one of the free firewalls. Comodo firewall is a bit of a pain to configure so it does not jump up at you all the time but brilliant once setup. Some sort of spyware detector / cleaner is also good idea.

sorry unintentional double post

I thought that the story was simple, pants I wouldn't call it, a bit pedantic maybe and simple dialogue but somehow I loved it. I can see its flaws but overall it won me over big time.

38£ each Juicy 3s from Merlin, 58£ each for the 5s but at that point you might as well go for the Elixir Rs for 75£ each or 150 for a pair of Hayes Trails.

Personally wouldn't touch the Juicy 3s with a mile long stick I would rather spend 170 and get a pair of SLX Shimanos. Have a pair of second hand XTs… LOVE THEM.

Avast and AVG are just fine, they are just trying to sell you on something that will make them money.

I am quite the geek but I got tired of having to tinker with the machine all the time just to do some of the Apple updates. I love OS X and I have a MB Pro and dual boot in Win 7/OS X on a hackintosh. The MBPro is a bit set and forget kind of deal the hackintosh not so much. It hasn't been updated since 10.5.4 only cause it is too fiddly to do. There are things that might not work and generally not a good idea if it is your main / work system I don't think.

I have been using a hackintosh which I made out of a pretty bog standard PC. Did that a little while ago and have the system updated all the way to 10.5.4 I think. After that it became too much of a hassle to keep it up to date. I am not sure if they have managed to get away with updates from Apple. Even if they have you have to make a habit to check the updates every time to see if a specific one will mess up your installation.

Frankly I wouldn't use it as my main machine (I don't, I have an MB Pro for that I have the hackintosh just for playing about with.)

As above, dual-quad core chips and plenty of memory are nice to have at editing photos/videos. You can skimp on your graphics card but you will always be much better off with a dedicated card as opposed to a motherboard machine.

2GB of RAM as a minimum (it is cheap nowadays), 4GB is rather cool and probably enough for the time being. 2x2GB chips so you have a few more slots open for future upgrade.

A fairly basic mobo for the new i7/i5 processors is sufficient – something like the GA-55 from gigabyte. The i5 750 should also cover you pretty well and a HD 4550 from ATI is perfect if you don't play games – EVER :)

When it works it is brilliant. When it does not it can take them a little while to sort it out but they always do. Having said that I am with them for over 6 years, paying 16£ for 10Mb no phone line which suits me just fine as I run VOIP over that :)

If Alpine is the Olympic replacement then I guess I'd be fine getting them for the build and save an extra 40gr :) No?

That's great Daffy, I guess my question is then why choose the Olympic over the Crest or Alpine as they are lighter and look tougher? Or have I got it all wrong?

Depends on his connection speed and how much you upload/download.

The sad part is that if anything they sold more than they would have without that stunt. The people that were going to buy it bought it, the ones that were not going to buy it might have bought RATM and some that were not going to buy either might have chosen a side just for the heck of it. So it was free publicity for them.

Shimano for me too after a 2 pairs of Avid Juicys that I really didn't like, and a spin on some Formula K18 which left me slightly unimpressed. SLX from Merlin, look good are cheap and are pretty darn great brakes.

Thanks for the readytoridecycles link Rob. I had seen the CRC ones but they are not the aries :)

Squaremilecoffee.com Passeio Minas Gerais for the percolator. I suggested the Winter Espresso not realising you were not after Espresso.

Does anyone else sell them apart from eBay? A quick search hasn't returned much!

Avast or AVG. Though the paid version of AVG works a heck of a lot better than the free one.

I will be in Wigan for 10 days as of Tuesday. Is Gisburn rideable at all this time of year?

If it is going to be installing the OS in one of those then do it 60-400. Put the OS on the smaller one leave the other for files. That way whenever you have to reinstall windows no need to wipe your data along with the OS.

Flickr is free, easy to use far as I am concerned and no need for anything else other than a Yahoo account (no need for toolbar or anything else). In any case you would need some sort of an account from any other site anyway.

I think it absorbs drops and bumps very well really. I haven't done anything very demanding on it – not too much into riding under 0 degrees – but it feels very controlled when you hit the bumps. If you want it a bit more trail focused put 120mm fork. Had a pair of Recon 85-130mm on it and it feels well balanced even at 120. No more though.

Push the boat out why don't you…

Deserved really ;) Almost as good as the Anthem X! lol

I've got one but that is still before I got XT brakes, SID Teams and Olympic Rim based wheels on it so it looks a tiny bit tatty. Might post it when I get home – don't have the pic at work.

Maybe buy the frame and build it up? There is a good chance that with a bit of shopping around you could reach the spec of the X1 with similar if not less cost? Just saying cause that is what I did and the color of the frame is a fair bit more understated than the full bikes.

A couple night's at Hilton in Manchester with my better half :) Though I am doing that anyway!

It is a bit outside your budget – by a bit I mean a good 100£ at least – but try and get an LX3. It is smaller than the TZs, has nearly no shutter lag and has a very bright lens allowing you to take clear pictures of faster moving objects or with less light.

Biggest drawback/advantage depending on your point of view is its wide angle lens. Very good for landscapes and slightly more artistic photography less good for close ups and taking pictures from far away as it has very limited zoom.

They look cool very cool actually, I think a pair is going to be under my tree :)

That should be no problem then. Many movies will probably even play from the external anyway.

In any case you have no much of a choice if he cares for portability and ease of use :)

Well a 1GB movie from my laptop to the 'slow' one is a minute and a half deal, on the 'fast' it is a 30-40 second. Backing up my laptop on the small takes 30 minutes or so about 15 on the fast. Depends how often and for what he will be using it for :p
Having said that the convenience factor of the USB powered one is probably worth the speed hit.

But there is a big but here, if he is planning on loading movies on the drive to watch – especially if they are large files – you can expect slow downs and stuttering.

I have a 320GB 5400rpm bus powered external (not sure of the brand of the HD itself) and a TB external Firewire 800 one. Yes the bus does make a difference but it is at least twice as fast if not more.

I probably sound like a broken record by now but I think XTs are brilliant. XTs are not very pretty agreed – though with XT 770 shifters are ok – but they are reliable, powerful and feel very controlled and well made. My opinion but I only have for comparison a pair of Oro K18s and Juicy 3s.

I am sure neither your 1TB WD nor the Seagate 1TB are bus powered that the OP asked!

Love that movie, have it on DVD – the director's cut of course :)