If you have many files (i.e. thousands) on a CompactFlash disk, then it will take a while for the standard file dialog to list the contents of the disk. I have several thousand files on my CF disk, and when I opened the file dialog (within any application) it would pause for between 30 seconds and a minute. If you're anything like me then you'll do the majority of your file management from System, and then you wont experience the problem anyway.

However the need will often arise when you need to use the standard file dialog - e.g. when loading a local file into the web browser or spectrum emulator. The trick is to hide (via System:File,Properties,Read-only) any folders that you don't usually need to browse with the file dialog, because the file dialog will then skip the folder when it scans the disk. A prime example is your growing collection of reference files from 3-Lib's Pocketinfo! Also, if you have a large website stored on your disk, then consider hiding this also (but remember to bookmark the main page).

There's nothing that you can do prevent this, and this phenonoma happens on anything that uses RAM (Random Access Memory), including the harddisk inside your desktop PC. The reason why the problem gets bigger as the capacity of the disk increases is because the disk stores, in addition to all the files, an index (or table) of all the clusters on the disk. This table is fixed in size, which means the disk is always split up into the same number of clusters, regardless of the capacity of the disk. So for example a 32mb disk has the same amount of clusters as that of a 64mb disk, but each cluster is twice the size with the 64mb disk, which means files incur twice the wastage.

However there is something that you can do to help reduce the amount of wastage on a disk. An EPOC device (such as a Psion) typically uses a table called FAT12 by default. By using a larger table, called FAT16, the disk will be divided into a greater number of smaller clusters, which means less wastage because the clusters are smaller. Unfortunately, an EPOC device does not come with the facility to switch to a FAT16 table as standard, but there is a commercial application called Essential Disk Utilities (EDU) which can do this for you. Alternatively you can use a CF card reader connected to your PC to achieve the same result. Both options will cost you around 50 pounds (cheap memory readers can be picked up from 7dayshop and Ebuyer), but for something that you'll only need to do once you might like to see if you can borrow someone elses facilities - or you could ask a high street store such as Dixons to do it for you - they'll usually charge about 10 pounds for the service.

To give you an idea of how much extra capacity you'll typically get from switching to FAT16, on a near full 48mb CF memory card, you'll retrieve up to 15mb that would otherwise just be going to waste! So it's certainly worth the effort. Note that switching to FAT16 will clear the whole disk, so remember to make a complete backup so that you can copy everything back afterwards.

They're caused by bits of dust and grit scratching against the screen as you move your stylus around. If your Psion's screen isn't kept clean and you use your stylus regularly then it's only a matter of time before the screen becomes badly (and permanently) scratched. To help prevent this there's a few things you can do.

Firstly, you can obtain a small cleaning cloth from the opticians or a camera shop. They seem to work quite well; even though they do make your screen more reflective as you first start to use it.

Secondly you can invest in a better stylus. I've noticed that some of the plastic styli that come free with your Psion do not have a perfectly round 'nib'. Some are worse than others but in general you can actually feel the imperfections as you run your finger over it. There's plenty of different styli around now for your Psion. Some are made of aluminium and some combine a pen or marker. Nice though the combined solutions are, I personally recommend a plain stylus with the same design as the one you get with the Psion, because you can slot this into the machine and so have less chance of leaving it behind or losing it. I personally use a Point5 aluminium stylus from Tantronics, but there's plenty out there now so take your pick.

You can also buy a screen protector. Most are easy to apply and remove, and if you can put up with the slight reduction in screen brightness (a small price to pay) then this is probably the best option.

To set the position of an icon in Extras do the following: Select Extras then press the dark vertical bar running along the left-hand-side. Up pops a small dialog window. Firstly choose the 'Icon Position', then select the 'Preferred program', then press OK. Observe that the icon has been repositioned, then try the Ctrl+icon shortcut to test that it works. A small point - if for some reason you need to reboot your machine (thankfully a very rare occurrence with a Psion) then the positions of all the icons will be lost, and after the reboot they're all be positioned randomally again. To make sure that this doesn't happen simply go to System, go into the Control Panel, select 'Extras bar', then immediately press the OK button without doing anything else. All the positions will now be permanently saved to disk, so now the icons will not change their position after a reboot.

It's also worth mentioning that there are better alternatives to the built-in Extras. Some are freeware and others are shareware. I personally use Pascal Nicholas' freeware Macro5.