The screen on my IBM Thinkpad X31 has a long scratch (about 20mm) one of its bottom corners. The cause? My cat, pawing the screen to chase the mouse pointer as I was working (okay, playing with the cat). The scratch doesn’t appear to be too deep, but it does distort the display beneath it, although this seems to be as a result of some kind of optical effect rather than more serious damage to the screen itself. A friend suggested using toothpaste to buff out the scratch, much like using T-Cut to repair car bodywork, but I’m sceptical. Have you got any better ideas?

Wendy Baddock, Plymouth

The Treo 500v doesn't have a reset button, and Palm has yet to explain how to perform a hard reset to wipe all user data from the device. Here's how to do it:

1. Turn the handset off using the power button on the top edge.
2. Hold down the red Call End button on the right of the device and keep it pressed while you press the power button to turn the handset on again.
3. An on-screen message will prompt you to press Up on the five-way navigator button or Down if you want to cancel the operation – release the power and Call End buttons, and press Up to begin the reset operation.
4. Wait several seconds while your data is erased and the Treo 500v is restored to its factory-fresh state.

Since upgrading my computer to Windows Vista (from XP Pro), I've been having countless problems synchronising my PDA with it. Everything was working perfectly in XP with ActiveSync, but it can't be installed under Vista. When I plug in my handheld, it starts to synchronise, but always fails. Is this a known problem with Vista?

James Green, via email 

My Windows Mobile device has a 256Mb memory card, of which I've used 122Mb. However, the card is listed as being full. Have you any idea what has happened to the other half of my memory? (I've tried reading another, 128Mb card and that one was correctly detected.)

Geoff Lindsey, via email

I know it's possible to use a mobile phone as a modem with a laptop, but I would like to do something slightly different. I have a laptop which does not have wireless capabilities, and an iPaq which does. Is it possible to connect the two and allow the laptop to use the iPaq's wireless connection?

John Huckle, via email

When I close down Pocket Internet Explorer, the next time I open it the website I was last looking at loads up. Why doesn't it display the website I've set to be my home page?

Charlotte Samson, via email

I'm thinking of importing the new Sony Reader device, but their Connect store doesn't sell ebooks to the UK. Do you know of any other suppliers of ebooks that would be compatible?

Dave Saunders, via email

I'm using Windows Vista on my two desktop computers and Windows XP Professional on my laptop. The desktops are connected to a router using Ethernet cables, while the laptop connects to the network wirelessly. If I open the Network And Sharing Center in Vista and click the link to display the network map, my laptop doesn't appear on the map, even though it's listed as being part of the network.

Connecting the laptop using a cable doesn't make any difference. Although this doesn't prevent me from sharing files between my computers, I just wondered what the reason for this problem was.

Phil Lambton, via email

Having just bought a new wireless router, I decided to take the opportunity to increase my wireless security. Part of this process involved changing the default name of the network and enabling WPA encryption. Before I made these changes, I was able to connect to the network wirelessly using my Orange SPV M3100 but, since changing the network password, the connection cannot be established. How can I change the settings on my handheld to include the newly added password?

David Smith, via email

Maybe I'm just too used to my iPod, but I find it very difficult to navigate through the mobile version of Windows Media Player. Having used the Library to select an album to listen to, when it is finished I click Menu followed by Library to try to choose another album. However, rather than being transported to the root of the library, I am shown the same album tracks again. Am I doing something wrong or is this just the way it's meant to work?

Samuel Jarvis, via email 

A recent decision was made to equip all of our sales staff with Windows Mobile PDAs, and I'm in charge of training new users. I would like to give a presentation to a group of employees to show them how to accomplish various tasks with their PDAs. Can you suggest any software that could help?

Thomas Randle, via email 

I own a Samsung i730 that I synchronise with my Vista PC using Windows Mobile Device Center. I wanted to know whether it was possible to change the image that’s displayed to the left of the Mobile Device window, so I don’t have to look at a cartoon representation of my device.

Andrew Morton, via email