[Technology columnist Walter S. Mossberg answers readers' questions]

Q: At work I am told to turn off my desktop PC at the end of the day. My wife's office tells her to leave her computer on overnight. My former employer said to turn off the monitor but leave the PC on. What's right?

A: Given the energy, environmental and economic crises, my view is that you should completely shut down both your computer and your monitor any time they will be unused for more than a few hours. And, of course, you should set them to go into sleep mode after they are idle for far less time than that. To be honest, I myself am not always faithful to that advice, but I am resolved to get better at it.

Of course, there are some nuances to the issue of overnight shutdowns. If you, or your company, routinely perform important operations overnight, like backups or security scans or system tune-ups, then you have to leave the computer on, but you should still turn off the monitor.

Q: How much memory do you recommend for a new computer running Vista Home Premium?

A: Two gigabytes minimum, and three gigabytes if your budget can handle it. The latter is roughly the maximum that popular consumer versions of Vista (called 32-bit versions) can use.

For smooth, quick operation in common tasks, it's been my experience that Vista demands more memory than either Windows XP or Apple's Leopard operating system. And the need for added memory rises if your PC uses 'shared' video memory, which means your graphics system lacks its own dedicated memory and relies on draining the main memory. This arrangement is common in less expensive computers.

Q: We are planning a trip to the British Isles this summer with a side trip to Brussels. We plan to bring our iPhone on the trip. What is the current situation with using European networks? Will my U.S. AT&T account just work or do I need to make pre-arrangements? I realize my iPhone won't be able to access the faster 3G networks over there, but can I use slower networks? Being limited to Wi-Fi would be a bummer.

A: The iPhone 3G can indeed handle 3G networks in Europe, though the original iPhone can handle only slower networks. Both models can use Wi-Fi there.

You will need to call AT&T before you leave, though, and 'provision,' or set up, your account, for international roaming. Note that such roaming is expensive, with very high rates for both voice use and data use. AT&T has some monthly add-on plans that cut these fees, but, if I were you, I would turn off data roaming until and unless I needed it; do most email and Web surfing via Wi-Fi; and consider downloading Truphone, a voice-calling program that uses Wi-Fi instead of cellphone networks.

專欄作家莫博士就有關(guān)電腦和其他電子設(shè)備的常見(jiàn)技術(shù)問(wèn)題答讀者問(wèn)。

問(wèn)：公司讓我每天下班時(shí)關(guān)掉臺(tái)式電腦。我妻子的公司叫她讓電腦整夜開(kāi)著。我以前的老板則要求關(guān)掉顯示器但不關(guān)機(jī)。哪種做法才是對(duì)的？

答：從能源、環(huán)境和經(jīng)濟(jì)危機(jī)等方面的考慮，我的觀點(diǎn)是在電腦超過(guò)幾個(gè)小時(shí)不用的情況下，應(yīng)該徹底關(guān)掉電腦和顯示器。當(dāng)然，在電腦閑置的時(shí)間遠(yuǎn)遠(yuǎn)少于幾小時(shí)的情況下，你應(yīng)該將它設(shè)成睡眠模式。說(shuō)實(shí)話，我自己也并非總能堅(jiān)持這個(gè)建議，但我決心在這方面有所改進(jìn)。

當(dāng)然，晚上要不要關(guān)機(jī)這個(gè)問(wèn)題還有一些細(xì)節(jié)需要考慮。如果你或你的公司常常在晚上進(jìn)行重要的操作，比如備份、安全掃描或系統(tǒng)升級(jí)，那你就得讓電腦開(kāi)著，但還是要關(guān)掉顯示器。

問(wèn)：對(duì)于運(yùn)行Vista Home Premium版的新電腦，你推薦多大的內(nèi)存？

答：最少2G，如果你預(yù)算能夠承受的話可以達(dá)到3G。3G差不多是Vista通行的一些消費(fèi)者版本（即所謂的32位版本）會(huì)用到的最大限度。

要流暢、迅速地運(yùn)行常見(jiàn)的任務(wù)，我的經(jīng)驗(yàn)是Vista比Windows XP或蘋(píng)果(Apple)的Leopard操作系統(tǒng)需要更多的內(nèi)存空間。而如果你的電腦使用的是集成顯卡，也就是說(shuō)你的顯卡沒(méi)有自己的專用內(nèi)存，而是依靠主機(jī)內(nèi)存，那就需要更多的內(nèi)存空間。集成顯卡在價(jià)格較低的電腦機(jī)型上很常見(jiàn)。

問(wèn)：我們計(jì)劃今年夏天去英國(guó)旅行，順便去布魯塞爾。我們打算帶上iPhone。歐洲的手機(jī)網(wǎng)絡(luò)現(xiàn)在是什么情況？我的美國(guó)電話電報(bào)公司(AT&T)帳戶可以直接使用嗎，還是得事先進(jìn)行一些設(shè)置？我知道我的iPhone在歐洲可能不能使用速度較快的3G網(wǎng)絡(luò)，但能用慢一些的網(wǎng)絡(luò)嗎？要是只能局限于使用無(wú)線Wi-Fi，那就太讓人失望了。

答：iPhone 3G肯定能用于歐洲的3G網(wǎng)絡(luò)，不過(guò)老版的iPone只能處理慢速網(wǎng)絡(luò)。這兩款機(jī)型都能使用歐洲的Wi-Fi網(wǎng)絡(luò)。

不過(guò)你需要在出發(fā)前致電AT&T，并將你的帳戶設(shè)成國(guó)際漫游。請(qǐng)注意這類漫游費(fèi)用不菲，通話和數(shù)據(jù)流量收費(fèi)都很高。AT&T有一些按月計(jì)費(fèi)的附加套餐，會(huì)降低這些費(fèi)用，不過(guò)，如果是我的話，除非真的需要用到，否則我會(huì)關(guān)掉數(shù)據(jù)漫游；大部分的電子郵件處理和上網(wǎng)都通過(guò)Wi-Fi網(wǎng)絡(luò)進(jìn)行；而且會(huì)考慮下載語(yǔ)音通話程序Truphone，使用Wi-Fi而不是手機(jī)網(wǎng)絡(luò)。