Q: Which web browser should I use to browse the internet?

A: The simple answer to the question is whichever one suits you best! There are currently three mainstream browsers on the market and these are, in order of popularity: Internet Explorer (IE), Netscape Navigator (now distributed by AOL) and Opera. During the past few years, IE has gained dominance of the browser market.

Many would say this is because of the aggressive marketing of IE. While this may be true, in my opinion, the success of IE lies in the fact that it is simply a better browser than Netscape (I'm bracing myself for hate mail).

Opera is becoming more popular, mainly because of its speed, although this is achieved through a very unforgiving page-rendering process that means if the page is malformed, Opera makes very little attempt to render it properly.

Q: I have an IBM Aptiva with a modem card. Until recently, I could access the internet with no problems but then I was suddenly getting the "line busy" message every time I tried to connect to the internet. I have tried several internet service providers but they are all the same. The fax software also has the same problem.

A: The first thing to do is try to establish where the problem is. Try connecting to the internet (first making a note of the number you are dialling) and if you get a "line busy" message, try calling the number on a telephone (several times) and see if you get the engaged tone.

If you do, the problem is with the internet provider and you should try another. If there is a ringing tone, the problem is likely to be with your machine or your connection to the telephone service.

Try connecting the computer directly into the phone socket in the wall with no "splitter" adaptor. If you still have no success, you may have a faulty modem card and you should seek help from a computer repair shop.

Q: We currently run our applicants' database on Excel. This seems to cause conflicts with Word such as system crashes and loss of data. Is there a simple reason for this and are there any simple software packages that might be more suitable? We are running five networked P II 32MB+ RAM systems on Windows 95.

A: To be honest this is a problem that can't adequately be tackled in a column this size but I do have some observations.

Although an excellent package, Excel was never intended to be used as a database (although many people use it this way) and you should consider moving to a more appropriate package, such as Access, to store this type of information.

The system crashes and conflicts could be due to any number of factors, such as the type of network you are using, the software you have installed and the system maintenance procedures you have in place.

You are using a very old version of Windows and you should consider upgrading to Windows 98, NT or 2000 because they have very good support for networks. My heartfelt advice would be to pay for some computer consultancy on the best way to get your systems working reliably again.

When sending in your problems, please ensure you provide a name and contact telephone number so I can call you back if your question needs any further clarification.