This is slightly smaller and maybe a little more stylish in design. It is 8x6.5x3cm and weights around 200grams. The first major difference is the larger TFT screen this is 4x3cm. The next is this unit comes with a solid rechargeable battery as well as the mains lead to recharge it.

So here I will concentrate on the slightly larger C340 unit. It is 9x6.5x4cm and weights around 200 grams with the two AA batteries inserted. There is 16MB of internal memory.   There are five image modes 5, 4.4, 3.1, 2.1 and 1.1mega pixel. Taking images at 5mega pixels would mean only seven images could be taken.

This is a five port switch so up to five PC's or notebooks can be linked together using this product. It is a 10/100 unit and providing all the PC's have 10/100 cards - or in the case of a notebook a PCMCIA or built in offering they can all talk and transfer files. Of course printer sharing is also possible and in a small network environment it is more likely that the printers would be connected to a PC than be a 'network printer'.

However the box has a large 'Microsoft Office Compatible' notice and for any younger person to consider it this is a requirement. The box says there are eight packages in the box, my take would be somewhere between 7½ and 7¾ as any time limited version -as one product is- can not be considered anything like a full product.

i.Tech was a new name to me and the one positive to come out of a day spent at a conference a couple of months ago. This unit is 37.5x11x13cm this allows space for two speakers and thus a perfectly acceptable stereo sound. It comes with a small 24 page manual that in places could have been a lot clearer, however once you have managed the initial scan - I am told this is automatic on a new unit - there is less you need to do.

This grey oblong box and be used vertically and for that purpose a stand is supplied in the box. In it's more usual horizontal mode it is 24x15x3.5cm (add another 3.5cm to the 15cm depth for the cables). It has a silver grey top and the rest of the unit is near black.   The front edge has seven LED's all clearly marked and well documented in the manual. As indeed are the connections on the rear of the unit.

The maximum dimensions of this adapter are 8x5x2.5cm and there is then a short fixed USB cable of 36cm that can be plugged into any USB port.   The top has a single LED that lights when a connection is made to a router. This means that your older notebook can connect to the LAN and therefore also to the Internet.

I must admit my various forays into Wireless networking have had shall we say limited success. Things today - working with Windows XP - should be easier and often they are, but sometimes ?.   Here I attached the ZyXEL modem (reviewed 30/5/05) to the APC Wireless Mobile Router and switched both units on. I have a PC with a PCMCIA card and also a notebook with a PCMCIA card.

I do hope the in the title sentence gave due warning. I have had this unit for some time and after trying everything I could think of - while waiting for the manual to arrive - I passed on to other things.

The promotion of VOIP has in no small part been promoted by Skype and others who allow Free calls computer to computer, but the quality is not always as good as that from a phone and there are problems, you both need to be at a computer and you could not call anyone on a normal phone line. This last problem was solved in the case of Skype by 'Skype Out' where for only a small charge you could ring a normal phone.