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My home setup consists of two networked computers: one running Windows 2000 Professional and the other running Windows XP. With a view to enhancing backup and recovery I recently purchased Norton Ghost and a portable hard drive. My intention was to do a full backup of both computers once a month to the portable hard drive, enabling a full recovery in the event of a disk failure on one or both computers. The portable hard drive is large enough to cover the used volume of both hard drives and then some. However, after using Ghost to backup one of the computers to the portable hard drive, when attempting to backup the second computer Ghost overwrites the backup of the first computer – there does not seem to be an option that allows a second image on the portable hard drive. How can I do a Ghost backup of both computers onto the one portable hard drive?

In the past I have used Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software to scan in a document, and then convert the document into editable text. At the moment I have some PDF documents on the computer which Acrobat does not recognise as containing text. Is it possible to run an OCR program over these PDF documents to convert the content into editable text?

I recently purchased a Palm m505 palmtop computer from eBay. After installing the Palm Desktop software on my Windows 2000 computer I attempted to run the software. However, the program crashed with an access violation message. At first I thought this might be a specific problem with Palm Desktop, so I decided to uninstall the program through the ‘Add/Remove Programs’ control panel. However, when attempting to open the control panel the same access violation error message appears. The same error occurs when trying to use either Palm Desktop or the Control Panel through Safe Mode. A search of Google indicates this is a common problem, but I have been unable to find a resolution.

Whenever I attempt to run a particular program, the following error message appears: ‘Resource file version mismatch. Visual FoxPro cannot start. Could not load resources’. I have run other programs from the vendor, and also been sent a replacement copy of the CD, but the problem persists.

A recent Tip of the Week mentioned the Google Earth program. I investigated the program, and it appears my setup does not meet the minimum specifications for running Google Earth. I do not have a broadband internet connection (I still only have dial-up), or the required 3D graphics card. Is it possible to install Google Earth on my computer? The computer is running Windows XP.