I just got one and it's quite nice, keep an eye on ebay for one. 

have wireless netwrok cards, and we have broadband internet, what do I have to get to setup a network ?

Just a router ? should I be looking for anything specific ? 

that was me above 

It's as easy as pie to setup. Basically first time you plug the router in it will appear as a local wireless device. Connect to it (using default password which will usually be printed on the bottom) and alter the settings to secure the network.

All the nitty gritty will be in the manual. 

cheers.

anythign else to look out for ? 

Make sure to use WPA-PSK and not WEP for the wireless. WEP can be cracked in very short time. Hiding the SSID of the router is a good idea too, just setup the PCs manually.
And change the password to the router. If someone does hack into your wlan, he should not have access to it! Most people leave it on the default password which is a serious security flaw. 

I have realised that my PC is now an embarassing 3 years old! And although it runs most things fine - including Prey which it ran very well - I should probably think about upgrading.

The deal is, I am happy with the monitor / kb / sound card / CD write / DVD drive etc etc. What I would need to upgrade is: Motherboard, processor, RAM, and GFX card (at the moment I'm on a P4 2.8ghz, 1 gig RAM (dunno what sort), ATI Radeon 9800 pro 256 meg).

So, what do people recommend. Keep it simple please - me being able to understand it, and install it without royally fucking up my machine are the most important criteria. 

linux, duh!@ 

With DX10 cards just starting to come in, I would wait until you start having problems running new games before upgrading. 

Are you lazy or smth? google or go to hardware sites for worthy recomnedation

if you ARE lazy then go buy any pre-built box with any core2duo, 3gb ram and any gf7900
that will do 

 

Short Shambler friendly answer = wait

Long Techy Answer = Yeah, wait for the 1st line of DX10 cards to show up that would be a very safe move, also quad core cpu's are just around the corner which is also worth waiting for as games will be using multi-core cpu optimizations in the near-ish future (hl2 engine, crysis etc) so I would say wait a few more months and see what appears it will be worth it. As for ram I would DDR2 would be the standard by then and make sure you get at least 2GB in a matched pair (again this will probably be standard) As for motherboard I would probably recommend whatever the latest N-force mobo is at the time as I've never had any probs with them from the N-force2 all the way up to the N-force 4 SLI I have now. 

CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo, not only the best bang for the buck, but also the perfomance kings leaving AMD in the dust right now. If building a moderately budget box, go for E6400, if you have the money, go for E6600 or better.

RAM: 2 GB of DDR2-667, CL5 for budget, 2GB of DDR2-800, CL4 if you are going crazy for perfomance.

Video: NVIDIA 7900GTO or 7950GT for budget or if you want CRAZY speed and DX10 goodness, go for 8800GT or even 8800GTX.

Note that for _ANY_ videocard listed above, a 400W power supply is a recommended minimum, a 8800GTX requires a 430W PSU.. 

I'm waiting for 9900GTX which comes with its own nuclear generator. 

But it's pretty cool that it seems to be a big step in the evolution of graphics cards going from being actual graphics cards and becoming general computing monsters that should be prove very useful for things like audio processing and all kinds of funky stuff that it can do better than the CPUs. 

the whole ATI+AMD thing seem remarkably prescient... :) 

"Hybrid threading has also proven to be an asset in the company's work with Microsoft's multi-core Xbox 360 console, and Valve says it sets them up nicely for what they believe is a "post-GPU" era looming over the horizon" 

anything like hyper threading? 

hype threading ... 

*drum roll* a hybrid approach for how to distribute tasks over multiple threads/cores on the software side. I guess I should have linked to the article in the first place but it wasn't really that interesting in my view but it's about how valve will tackle multi-core processors in the steam engine:

http://techreport.com/etc/2006q4/source-multicore/index.x?pg=1 

but i wish they had more technical details. It read too much like a press release. 

It didn't really say all that much other than "valve took the hard way and did the best possible!" while providing no real technical insight. 

are awesome! 

stop buying new pcs... ps3 is future entertainment!

It makes baby dolls cry! 

Than: shouldn't you be spruiking the Wii anyway?