Setting up a Raspberry Pi to run "Headless"

On my last post I described how frustrating I had found the whole process of setting up my Raspberry Pi. I have had quite a few questions about the method I eventually used, so I am going to go through the eventual method I used in a bit more detail.

Initial Set Up.

This was much harder for me because of the issues in getting my monitor to work.
Plug in a USB keyboard, USB mouse, Ethernet cable and an SD card that has been freshly formatted and has a new uncompressed copy of NOOBS on it.
The two issues I faced here were that I had used a power supply that wasn't compatible (no idea why!) and I couldn't get the display to work. The green light closest to the sound jack socket was flashing in a steady on/off pattern, which I think means that there isn't enough power being delivered (I cant find out if this is the case though, if you have a link to any descriptions, please email me)

Im using a fairly standard VGA-HDMI lead as shown here.
The instructions for this lead mention that you may have to edit a config.txt file to get it to work. With the NOOBS software, this wasn't necessary, plugging a normal VGA lead (With ALL the pins in place, some have pin 9 missing which just adds extra problems)
The problem for me was that when I used a full VGA lead, my monitor displayed a message that I couldn't turn off saying that the resolution was incorrect. When I used a VGA lead with pin 9 missing, the monitor turned itself off after a short while. I spent quite a few hours trying to get this to work properly, in hindsight this was a waste of time!
The NOOBS software lets you choose which OS to install, I picked Raspbian.
After the OS has installed and the Raspberry Pi has rebooted, you will see a configuration menu. Choose the option to enable SSH access and remember to set this as the default. (Ive seen this option in a couple of different places, so I arent going to be precise - its always clearly marked)
Next, we need to get the IP address of the Raspberry Pi. Simply type:
ifconfig
This will display a lot of information, but on the first few lines it will say what the "Inet Addr" is. It will be something like 192.168.1.85
On your PC, download and install Putty and XMing. Double click on Xming to set it running and then open Putty.
Type in the IP address for your Raspberry and then click "Open".
You will be asked for a username which is "Pi" and a password which is "Raspberry"
Next we have to start the graphical interface for Raspbian, which we do by typing:
startlxde
Hopefully, your PC will now open a window in XMing that shows the graphical interface for the Raspberry Pi.
Once you have set this up, you can unplug the keyboard, mouse and monitor from the Raspberry and access it directly from your PC which is I have found to be much simpler.
Good luck, persevere and don't hesitate to get in touch with me if you have any problems.