Looks nice and you can get the ATI Radeon™ HD 4330 512MB graphics upgrade for free at the moment.

However I'm a bit wary of 64-bit Windows 7, would rather the 32-bit version as I know then that everything I throw at it will work...

Maybe I'm in the minority but I want good looking cheaper photo frames. Not more expensive ones bundled with "useless" features.

As long as I can copy pictures from my computer to an SD card and stick it in the back then I don't need WiFi, internet connectivity, Skype, MSN messenger, content sharing, Bluetooth or 101 other things which will be used only a couple of times and yet add $$ onto the price of the product.

Keep it simple!

I disagree. You've come up with a classic engineering solution to the wrong problem.

The major issues are pricing and availability of games both past and present. These can't be solved by adding Bluetooth, cameras and other such stuff that you propose - in fact that'll just put the price up even higher.

I don't really "get" Growl I have to admit. Don't applications which require a pop up already have one built into the code? Why would they implement support for an external one (which it isn't guaranteed that the user will have installed) just so a pop up can look, well, prettier?

I tried the Windows version and as a result I got a pop up whenever I plugged in or out a USB modem and when the time hit the hour. Woo, exciting stuff. All my other popups were handled by the applications themselves.

That is because as they increase in size, the manufacturers tend bloat them up with additional functionality which causes the cost to spiral out of control.

For instance, WiFi support is cool - but is it really a necessity? How often do you update your pictures? Is it really worth the extra 30 bucks that the manufacturer slaps on just so you don't have to walk between your picture frame and your computer holding a memory card?

Manufacturers need to go back to basics. I can think of several things they can do to the software to add value which won't increase the cost. Throwing WiFi, Bluetooth and remote controls won't solve the problem of them being too damn expensive.

Whilst Pidgin is a powerful application, the fact that you have to waste a fair bit of time installing a bucket load of plugins and editing loads of preferences to get it to remotely resemble the look, feel and functionality of Digsby ...

Well, you might as well just install Digsby.

The way I do an upgrade is follows:

1. Back everything on your drive to an external drive.
2. Use a partition editor to shrink the size of C to the smallest it can possibly be, move that partition to the back so that you have as much possible space at the beginning of the drive.
3. Create a new partition at the beginning of the drive.
4. Boot from DVD, install Windows into new partition.
5. Copy the files you need from your old partition into your new one.

When you're done, leave the partition and in (say 6 months) delete it when you know you don't need anything else out of it and resize your C partition to take over the space.

The backup to the external drive is only there in case the partition move fails and you get a corrupted drive - rare but I had it happen recently.

Finally, when you re-install Windows 7 in the future, use Double Driver to take a backup of the drivers before you start moving partitions. Then you just need to point Windows at that folder when you re-install all the drivers.

A word of warning if you're thinking about using Google's Calendar Sync application, don't.

It is extremely buggy and has an annoying habit of not copying an appointment up to the Google Calendar server. The next time you sync, it is promptly removed from Outlook! This always happens with appointments marked as "tentative" but also on some random ones too.

If you value your calendar, don't let this application go near it.

Someone once told me that the most enjoyable racing game on the PSP was Mario Kart Super Circuit on a GBA emulator.

I have to admit, I think he's probably right.

It's a shame it doesn't come with WiFi support. That would have made it perfect for sitting under the TV. I can't see many wives being happy about having an additional cable being run from the router to this.