PF Systems Newsletter

Editorial

In this newsletter:

• Change of address
• Vista SP1 and XP SP3
• Upgrade deals
• File associations
• File recovery
• Internet
• and the hottest little bits of technology available at the moment.

Change of address

PF Systems is relocating. From next week onwards, we will be operating from 2/4 Steven Street in Port Fairy. Our landline will not change (5568 1709) but it might be down for the next couple of days so if you need to contact us, please call Ben's mobile on 0417 566 134 (computer repairs enquiries) or Phuong-Dung's mobile on 0448 342 522 (website / mobile phone queries). You can also ring our Internet number which is 03 5249 5759.

Vista SP1 and XP SP3

It’s been a month of major service pack releases. First Service Pack 1 (SP1) for Vista and then Service Pack 3 (SP3) for Windows XP.

We still get a lot of questions about Vista Vs XP and by most accounts Vista has been a relatively slow starter for Microsoft. However, the first Service Pack for Vista may be the correct entry point for those considering Vista.

The typical development process for Microsoft:

Vista underwent a three year Beta/Release Candidate development, and when it hit the shelves at the start of last year it should have been good to go. As an operating system, it showed a lot more maturity than XP both in the way information was presented and how it was found. It also had a strong focus on security after lessons learnt from XP prior to Service Pack 2.

If you remember, prior to SP2 for XP, the world of Windows was brought to its knees by the Blaster virus and an endless succession of mutations which targeted XPs buffer overrun vulnerabilities. These allowed the Blaster-type attacks to restart your machine. SP2 was a serious response from Microsoft which helped XP rise above imminent disaster.

And although Vista has not suffered the same problems, it has suffered from some usability, compatilibity and functionality issues, due in part to the increased security focus:

Service Pack 1 for Vista is meant to signal a safe entry point for the rest of us to upgrade their world to Vista. It is hoped to have the same galvanizing effect as SP2 had for XP and propel sales of Vista in the stratosphere predicted and required by Microsoft.

For more detail http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase/winvista_sp1_inside.asp

For most, the impetus to move from XP (which is comprehensively adequate) to Vista, just isn’t there. Not that XP SP3 is anything special, and is more aimed at VARs like PF Systems as a means of streamlining the integration of over 100 Security updates since SP2. It’s a must have, but you’ll not notice much difference as an average user.

In short, you should have these Service packs (available from Microsoft) but they are not going to change your user experience noticeably. SP3 is installed whenever PF Systems fixes your computer.

For interest, here's the sales stats for Vista and Apple OSX over the past little while.

Upgrade deals

For customers owning a PFS Computer or upgrade, consider the following deals:

Buy PFS Office or Family Upgrade before 01/07/2008 and receive free Kasperky antivirus and $50 trade in.

• Office upgrade $230*
• Family upgrade $1019*

* after cash back

Buy PFS Office or Family computer before 01/07/2008 and receive free Kasperky antivirus and $100 trade in.

• Office computer $330*
• Family computer $1141*

* after cash back

PFS Family Computer 2008 - enhanced

This is our new higher end system which is extremely fast and as prices have come down, we have just upgraded this model to a faster processor (again!). We have also added an advanced graphics card.

• Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 CPU, 3.0 GHz, FSB 1333MHz, 6MB L2 Cache, 45nm, Socket LGA775
  
• 2 x XMS2 2GB PC-6400 (800MHz) DDR2 Corsair RAM
• 1000GB Western Digital CAVIAR SATAII
• Galaxy GeForce 9600GT PCI-E 512MB DDR3 256-bit, 650/1800MHz, Dual Dual-Link DVI, HDCP Capable, HDTV, Silent Heatpipe

• Super All Write SATA DVD-RW
• USB card reader
• Microsoft Vista Home Premium

with a family system package

price without system package (inc. OS): $1299

price with system packge: $2099

PF Systems Warranty Policy - FCR (Fast Component Replacement) option

• 1. 3 Year onsite (Port Fairy Area) Warranty for all PFS Upgrades and Computers.
• 2. In the event of component failure, PFS will send the failed component back to warranty.
• 3. In order to get you up and running as fast as possible, you will be given the option of Fast Compoment Replacement (FCR).
• 4. FCR ensures you downtime is minimized. Your part will be quickly replaced with the same or equivalent part and you will pay the following:

  
  FCR cost to you = [cost of replacement part] - [% of warranty time remaining on failed part] * [current resale cost of failed part]

  eg. Your 80GB drive fails two years into your 3 year warranty. It originally cost $120, it’s now worth $70. You elect to have it replaced with a 160GB drive which costs $80
  FCR cost = $80 - 33% * $70 = $56.90
  You’ll end up with a new, bigger drive with a new warranty, short downtime, for a cost of $56.90.

• 5. If you do not elect to take FCR, you’ll need to wait for the component to be returned from warranty (which may take up to a few weeks).

File associations

Just a recap of a sticking point for PC/Mac users – file associations. File associations are used by the operating system to determine what information is contained in a particular file in order for the computer to determine HOW to open it. Some common examples are:

• .doc – Microsoft Word Document
• .txt – Standard simple text file.jpg – JPEG – a common digital camera compressed image format
• .mp3 – MPEG-3 – a common digital audio compressed audio format
• .pdf – Adobe Acrobat digital publishing format

By double-clicking on one of these above file types, if your file associations are correct then the relevent program will be opened to handle your file.

Under Windows, if you go to ‘Folder Options’ in Control Panel and click on the ‘File types’ Tab you’ll see that there are a lot of file extensions, and they are all linked to a specific program which will handle them.

In this way, double clicking on the file will first open the appropriate program, and then load the file within that program.

If you can’t see the file extensions shown on your screen you may need to go to ‘Folder Options’ and then uncheck “hide file extensions on known file types”.

The other way to open a file, is to know yourself which program is required, open that program first and then open your file from the file menu.

If you’ve ever gone to open a file, and receive a message that Windows is unable to find the right program, then the entry in the file association list (in Folder Options) is broken. You can manually elect to respecify the correct program by checking “select program from list” at the prompt and then finding the right program. If the program isn’t listed in the list, you might need to use the browse button and go the applications installation directory.

File recovery

For those people who fail to backup correctly and lose their data, a final option may be professional data recovery. Technetics offers free quotation and inspection and may be well worth the money if your data is valuable.

Here is an overview of the prices:

Internet

ADSL2+

ADSL2+ is only available through BigPond in Port Fairy. Our area does not have access to the Exetel plans mentioned in our previous newsletter. We apologize for the misleading information. Here is again a summary of the ADSL2+ plans available through BigPond.

* Costs are calculated based on the "12 months at half price" offer which applies when you are a new customer, have your landline and a post paid mobile phone ($20/month or above) with Telstra, and include equipment cost (standard ADSL modem) and installation.

The lowest plan available only gives you 600MB of data which is going to be used quickly when you are experiencing ADSL2+ speeds. Additional usage is charged at $0.15/MB, except for members on the BigPond Liberty plans. If you are on a BigPond Liberty plan, once you reach your usage allowance, the speed of your service will slow to 64kbps.

That's why PF Systems recommends the BigPond Liberty 12GB plan $89.95/month.

What's hot?

PF direct laptops

Price goes down ...

HP Pavilion DV2711TU (HP Product Code: KM834PA)

• Intel Centrino Core 2 Duo processor T5450 1.67GHz, 2MB L2 Cache, 667MHz FSB
• 1024 MB (2 x 512MB) DDR2 SDRAM (667 MHz)
• 120GB 5400 RPM HDD
• 14.1" WXGA (1440 x 900 Resolution)
• Fixed LightScribe DVD+/-RW SuperMulti with Double Layer
• WIFI
• Integrated HP Low Light VGA Webcam
• Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium
• 6-cell Lithium-Ion battery

$860 (PF direct) RRP $899

We recommend an upgrade to 2GB of RAM for $78 to run Windows Vista Home Premium. smoothly

iMac - Free upgrade to 2GB of RAM

iMac 20" 2.0GHz/1GB/250GB/SuperDrive 2.0GHz Intel Core 2 Duo Free upgrade to 2GB of memory 250GB hard drive 8x double-layer SuperDrive ATI Radeon HD 2400 XT with 128MB memory $1375 (PF direct)	iMac 20" 2.0GHz/1GB/250GB/SuperDrive 2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo Free upgrade to 2GB memory 320GB hard drive 8x double-layer SuperDrive ATI Radeon HD 2600 PRO with 256MB memory $1630 (PF direct)

Happy & safe computing!

Best regards,

Phuong-Dung Hoang & Ben Druitt

In this issue

• Change of address
• Vista SP1 and XP SP3
• Upgrade deals
• File associations
• File recovery
• Internet
• What's hot

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