PF Systems Newsletter

Editorial

Hi everyone! We hope you have found our last newsletter informative. It's now time to update you on what has happened since the last issue, and on what is about to happen...

On the 20th of November (tomorrow), we'll be at the Village Green from 10am to 3pm with an Olympic Basketballer (called Ray) from Telstra to answer your questions about the Next G network, CDMA migration, Telstra Mobile Broadband, BigPond Wireless broadband... and help you upgrade your handset or your mobile phone plan. So come down and have a chat with us.

PF Systems News - E-waste

About recycling e waste

Dealing with e-waste

IT products are made from a wide range of component materials which makes them hard to recycle as the products need to be dismantled to separate the component materials. Another reason that e-waste needs particular treatment is the presence of heavy metals such as lead, cadmium, mercury and arsenic, and of other toxic materials which are hazardous to our health and environment.

The RoHS directive (Restriction of Hazardous Substances) which applies to all electronic equipment was introduced at the start of 2006 financial year by the member countries of the EU. It seeks to severely limit the use of many toxic substances in IT equipment to lower their impact on populations and facilitate easy recycling. To meet this directive, asian IT manufacturers have applied this standard to all their goods meaning that countries, such as Australia, are benefitting from the EUs forward thinking (please click here for more information on RoHS).

PF Systems "e-waste" drop off point in Port Fairy

The good news is that an e-waste recycle centre has now opened in Warrnambool. Vantage is partnering with a global electronics recycler and will accept the following items:

• computers (desktop and laptop)
• monitors
• computer accessories
• printers, scanners, faxes
• DVDs/VCRs/stereos/speakers
• mobile phones and accessories

PF Systems will be acting as the official dropoff point in Port Fairy. So please bring all goods to 11 Brophy St, Port Fairy and place in the covered area at the side of our house. For monitors, a drop off fee of $5 will appky, but it's free for all other items.

What happens next?

E-Waste disposed off through Vantage will be disposed in the following ways:

• Plastics are baled and sent to the city for recycling.
• Lead glass from CRTs and TVs are sent to a lead smelter in Adelaide.
• Electronics boards are processed for precious metals.
• Metal is recycled through standard channels.

It is worth noting that the Basel Convention that Australia ratified in 1992 ensures that hazardous wastes can only be exported from Australia with a permit, granted only where it can be shown that the wastes will be managed in an environmentally sound manner in the country of export. This will safeguard against the pointless export of these goods to developing nations.

Pass it on

Encourage your family and friends to take responsibility for the disposal and recycling of e-waste and think about unwanted IT equipment as a potential resource.

Mobile Phones

As mentioned in our editorial, there will be a Telstra Mobile van visit on the Village Green on Tuesday the 20th of November (tomorrow). So if you have any questions about mobile phones, CDMA migration, Next G network, Telstra Mobile Broadband or BigPond Wireless Broadband, come down to see us at the corner of Sackville and Bank Street. Please note that cards (EFTPOS & credit cards) will not be accepted at the van although purchases can be made using cheques or internet banking and of course, cash. Also, a 14 day account will apply to existing PF Systems customers.

Some working handsets will be available for you to test onsite and offsite if required.

CDMA to Next G migration - Post Paid Next G

CDMA to Next G migration - $100 customer credit offer until the end of November (only available on Telstra 165 and Telstra 158).

If you migrate your existing Telstra CDMA service and upgrade to a Next G Telstra 165 or Telstra 158 handset to an eligible Consumer or Telstra Business Post Paid Plan (before the end of this month), you will receive a $100 once off credit by your third bill.

For people located in our area, classified as a rural location, Telstra has a number of Next G mobiles that are recommended for rural handheld coverage. Handsets recommended to optimise your coverage in rural areas are marked with a blue tick on Telstra's website, as well as in our online shop.

Here is an overview of the blue tick phones available on postpaid plans.

Mobile Phone	Samsung A412	LG TU550	Telstra 165 "Country Phone" New!
Colours	silver	black or silver	black/grey
Plan	$0 on a $20/month consumer plan or above (24 month contract) car kit $49 upfront	$0 on a $30/month consumer plan or above (24 month contract) car kit $49 upfront	$0 on a $30/month consumer plan or above (24 month contract)

The Telstra 165 Country Phone has been specifically designed for rural and regional use, with an antenna stub and even an old-school pull out aerial for even better coverage. Slim, rugged, it comes with a belt clip, a 2 megapixel camera, mp3 player, bluetooth... This is a good phone if you work on a farm or spend a lot of time outdoors.

For those who want to stick with Nokia, the 6120 is a suitable handset which is available on a $30 plan. It does not have the blue tick as with the other models shown above, but has shown acceptable performance and coverage.

These handsets are in stock now. So you are welcome to come and see us in our headquarters to connect to a new plan or migrate from CDMA to Next G. Otherwise, we'll be on the Village Green tomorrow.

Also, coming soon is the Nokia N95 - an all-in-one multimedia phone. It has the following features:

• a 2-way slide concept
• integrated GPS functionality
• a 5 megapixel camera
• support for high-speed, mobile networks.

CDMA to Next G Migration - Pre Paid Next G

Mobile Phone	Telstra 156	LG TU500	Samsung A411
Colours	teal or red	black or silver	black or red
Price	$149 includes $10 calls	$299 includes $10 calls	$299 includes $10 calls

The Telstra 156 is the entry level Next G pre-paid handset ($149), but does not have the blue tick. We recommend the LG TU500 and Samsung A411 as they will perform better in rural areas.

Prepaid GSM Phones

New! The Nokia 6070 will be replacing the Nokia 2626 that we mentioned in our last newsletter. For $99, the Nokia 6070 pre-paid pack includes:

• new Nokia 6070
• $10 calls
• Integrated VGA camera for still pictures and videos
• Integrated handsfree speaker
• FM stereo radio

For an overview of the handsets available on pre-paid that we recommend, have a look on our website.

Internet on the Next G network

The Next G network allows you to browse the internet on your Next G handset, whether you want to check your emails, have a look at the weather forecast, do some internet banking or go onto the white / yellow pages. So, first of all, you need a Next G mobile. And, in addition to your mobile voice plan, you need to choose a Browsing Pack (see below) that will suit your usage.

Browsing Packs

* Charged per kilobyte (or part).

These Browsing Packs are suitable for browsing BigPond Mobile Services and email usage.

Pay As You Go

If you don't select a Browsing Pack, the Pay As You Go rate ($2 per MB) will apply to browse and download content. You will be charged on a kilobyte (or part) basis.

Mobile as Modem Browsing Packs

If you need to use the internet on the go, you want to use your compatible handset as a modem, you can plug in your compatible phone to a laptop or PC and use it as a wireless modem to access the internet.

* charged per kilobyte (or part).

Broadband

BigPond Wireless Broadband - up to $299 device rebate

The term "wireless" can be confusing. So, let's clarify its usage and explain what BigPond Wireless Broadband is.

• Wireless within your house: in this case, it designates your home wireless network that enables you to be on the internet on your WIFI notebook.
• Westvic Wireless Broadband: Westvic is an Internet Service Provider that offers Wireless Broadband. The internet signal does not travel through your phone line (which is what happens with ADSL). It is transmitted from towers through the air, like a radio signal, to your home.
• With BigPond Wireless Broadband, you are able to use the internet on the go. How does this work? A modem / mobile card that you plug into your computer will connect you to the internet through the Next G network.

* 7.2 Mobile Card ($349): 550kbps - 3.0 Mbps (down) / up to 1.3Mbps (up)
Standard Mobile Card ($299): 550kbps - 3.0Mbps (down) / up to 384kbps (up)

The latest online offer gives Telstra fixed line customers a 50% discount for the first 6 months plus $299 rebate (on a 36 month contract).

People Telecom - New ADSL Plans

People Telecom has introduced a new range of plans. Their "512k Easy" plan has increased to $42.95/month instead of $39.95/month. You can take a look at their new plans here.

And don't forget that when you sign up for broadband through PF Systems we install for free.

Westvic for non-ADSL areas

Government subsidies have ended for Westvic Wireless Broadband in ADSL enabled areas. You can check your eligibility here. Westvic currently offers all eligible customers free installation.

Broadband Telephony with Engin

Get $100 cash back

Join Engin with any of the following products, stay connected for 3 months and get $100 cash back:

• Engin Voice Box 3102
• Engin Voice Box 3
• Engin enabled Linksys Wireless Router
• Engin Internet Phone 121
• Enfin Internet Phone 121D

The device must be purchased before December 07, and you must connect to Engin within 14 days of purchase (which PF Systems will do for you) and remain connected for a minimum of three months. Here are the plans available:

So if you want to connect to Engin and get $100 cash back, give us a call on 03 5568 1709 or 0417 566 134.

Considered an iMac?

For those of you out there struggling with your PC, have you considered a Mac? PF Systems would recommend an iMac for five main reasons:

• OS X Leopard (Apple's updated operating system) is aimed squarely at the home user who doesn’t want to be a computer expert.
• Currently (and this may change!) you have much less chances of being bombarded with malware - which makes your PC run like crap.
• Aside from being absolutely stunning to look at, the iMac has the form factor that PCs should have had years ago: less space, less clutter.
• Macs can run the Windows applications that you can’t live without through virtualization products such as Parallel's and VMWare Fusion.
• iMacs have hardware and software that are made by the same company so they have a greater chance of working right from the start.

Click here for a comprehensive video guide of the new features in OSX 10.5 (Leopard).

Also, there are some people who should NOT consider a Mac. Please play the following video for details.

The opportunity for Apple exists right now for a number of reasons:

• They have adopted cutting edge Intel hardware.
• They know that what the majority of consumers want to do is rather limited: email, internet, photos, music and maybe videos. This reduces the amount of software a company needs to get right in order to offer a competitive computer.
• The PC market has pushed down the cost of PC hardware to the point that the premium paid for an iMac has been reduced substantially.
• The ease with which Windows software can be written and executed is its current downfall in terms of security and malware
• With the coming close of Windows XP and the introduction of Vista, which has many compatibility issues with XP Software, then why not try OS X.
• With a bevy of new products (iPod Touch, iPhone, OS X Leopard) then why not go for a completely integrated Mac experience?

New Mac OS Leopard

Mac OS X Leopard is Mac's new Operating System and is now available. It comes with a bunch of features such as:

• Finder (to browse your files like you browse your music)
• Quick Look (to browse your files)
• Spaces (create custom workspaces)
• Boot Camp (run Windows on your Mac) etc..
• Time Machine (a nifty backup application for you iMac).

These features aim at making your computing experience smoother and more organised. Of course, to make use of some of these features, you are going to need a super fast internet connection.

Make your computer faster

How a computer works:

If your computer is going slow, then the most usual cause is that your hard disk drive is being accessed too much. How can we stop this happening?

The simple way is adding more RAM to your computer. The maximum you can add is 4000MB, most people have between 256MB and 1000MB. 1000MB will be enough for most people who are using Windows XP, but Vista likes at least 2000MB. RAM is cheap and is an easy and effective way of speeding up the operation of your computer.

Of course, you can always speed up the access of your HDD. This can be done by adding a faster HDD, or even an array of multiple HDDs.

Most people complain about the speed of their computer during startup. More RAM will not necessarily help this. So what to do?

Firstly, you can reduce the number of programs which load at startup. I’ve mentioned previously the Sysinternals utility called Autoruns, you can download this from:

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/Utilities/AutoRuns.mspx

This will output a list of programs which start when windows start. Use the options menu to turn off all Microsoft programs and you'll see a list of 'extras' which you can turn on and off during startup. Secondly, you can defragment your disk so that all your startup programs are stored sequentially.

Or thirdly you can use standby and hibernation options with your PC. Most computers have a low level power setting called S3 which will mean your computer appears off and consumes virtually zero power. So send your computer to sleep instead of shutting it down and you'll enjoy your computer turning on like an appliance, no waiting. Or, if you don’t want to use any power, use hibernation. This can be enabled by right clicking on the desktop -> screensaver -> power settings -> advanced. Hibernation is not as quick as S3 but it does not rely on a continuous supply of power. You can even set up a sequence of events such as standby after 1 hour, hibernation after 10.

Virtualization

Virtualization is the hot topic of the moment in computing. Put simply, it separates your software environment from your hardware. This means that you can run multiple 'virtual' computers on the one 'physical' computer, or indeed take your computer with you on a USB key and plug it into someone's hardware to have your computer operating again. Most implementations of virtualization will be in a corporate environment allowing for a more efficient use of available hardware. But, if you are considering a Mac, virtualization is a great way to bring your Windows specific applications with you.

Two virtualization platforms are available for Mac:

• Parallels
• VMWare Fusion

Parallels has been been the traditional Mac virtualization application and has a loyal following. Yet VMWare, after a successful US market float earlier this year, has more features and higher performance.

Backing up

We all know we should do it, and most people back up their financial records and burn a few photos to disk. But what is the best way of making sure that all our precious data is safe?

The simplest backup routine would take a copy of your entire hard drive, regularly. This process is called imaging. The best program for this is Acronis true-image.

By plugging in a second (removable) hard drive to your computer you can set up a scheduled imaging task. Each day the computer will backup your entire computer. You can (and should) take this backup offsite each night.

If you want to get a little more sophisticated, you could have two disks. This way you can do an incremental backup which just backs up the changes to your disk every day. With incremental backups, your backup disk will slowly fill up with images of how your computer looked each day, and when the disk is full, you clear your second disk and use it to do your next backup.

Most of the time, it’s the emails you really want to back up, and your email data is poked deep inside your computer far out of reach of manual backup procedures. Most people’s backup routine skips this important location. Another advantage of image based backup is that if your computer blows up, you can simply restore your backup to a new machine and everything will be as it was.

You can take a look at OS Xs new image based backup utility by clicking on the video link above.

Well, this is all the news for November and this is probably our last newsletter for the year 2007. We will be taking Christmas orders up to the 17th of December and will be having a Christmas break from Christmas until New Year's day.

Happy & safe computing!

Best regards,

Phuong-Dung Hoang & Ben Druitt

In this issue

• PF Systems News
• Mobile Phones
• Broadband
• Broadband Telephony Engin
• Considered a Mac?
• Make your computer faster
• Virtualization
• Backing up

Considered an iMac?