Hi everyone,

Here’s our newsletter for December 2004:

Broadband news

Thanks everyone who signed up with us for Broadband. Most of you must now be connected and it should not be much longer for the few people who are still waiting. We know there have been some issues with both Bigpond and Westvic however both services seem to be sorting themselves out and we know Westvic is certainly flying at the moment.

We would like to congratulate Meg Balmer who won our prize draw for a 256MB MP3 Player, amongst all the people who signed up for Broadband with us before the 31/10/04.

Westvic have put lots of efforts to resolve problems they have had initializing the service around Port Fairy and they have successfully connected all the people who have signed up in Port Fairy. With the addition of two additional access points (one on the water tower and one on the fire station tower) you can be sure that everyone will have excellent signal.

Most of the people who signed up for ADSL with Bigpond are now connected. Bigpond seem to have experienced some authentication problems recently which has resulted in connection drop off for many people. We are currently contacting Bigpond to find out what’s happening and will keep you posted in our info/news section on our website.

If you are having trouble with Bigpond the first thing to check are the three lights on your Speedtouch 530 modem. If the third one is flashing orange then the modem is not authenticating properly. If you have changed your username recently this could be the problem and by following the instructions on our website (coming soon in our help section) you should get yourself reconnected quite quickly.

Media Centers – The era of convergence

Now is the time to stop purchasing each new release of technological advancement in home entertainment appliances and focus on the computer era – the era of convergence.

If it is not a computer based product (or compatible with), then you should not buy it. Computers are currently making the transition from our offices to our pockets and lounge rooms. ‘Media Center’ is the term coined by Microsoft for a computer suitable for your lounge room.

With these PCs you will be able to:

· watch DVDs

· watch HDTV

· watch normal TV

· plug a satellite TV box in

· browse the internet and your local home network

· play all your music and videos, look at your photos

· play your games (although dedicated games consoles are more cost effective at this stage)

Side benefits of a Media Center include cool features like time slip which enables you to skip the commercials on commercial TV.

These machines are capable of extremely high-end audio and video and are all you’ll ever need for entertainment in the lounge room. The basic components in the lounge room will be the amplifier, speakers, display unit and a Media Center.

Media Centers can be bought as a unit, or X-Box add-on, or built and customized yourself or by a computer technician. The Media Center shown above is silent and this is very important if the device is to be in the lounge room. Silence will increasingly become mandatory for computers as their noise is as distracting at your desk (if not more) than in the lounge room and we no longer need to put up with it.

As with a normal computer, all components in the Media Center will be easily upgraded and changed. Although pricing is still at a premium for high end Media Centres, low end Media Centers can be constructed for well under $1000 and you can start enjoying the benefits of a Media Centre approach. By developing your house in this direction, money will inevitably be saved as system redundancies are avoided.

PF Systems Christmas specials

CHRISTMAS deals until 24/12/2004

Click on the box pictures for more details.

Budget

Value

Performance

$413

AMD 2400+ Sempron

40GB HDD

256MB

CD-RW

$636

AMD 2600+ Athlon

80GB HDD

2 x 256MB

DVD/CD-RW

$1149

P4 2.80GHz Prescott

250GB HDD

2 x 512MB

DVD-RW

PF Systems’ Santa also offers you some great deals on laptops before Christmas. Click on the laptop pictures for more details.

Budget

Value

Laptop

HP Compaq Business Notebook nx9040

Toshiba Tecra A2

$1609

$1693

CELM-1.4GHz 40GB 256MB 15TFT DVD/CDRW XPP

Up to 3.5h battery life

CELM-1.4GHz 40GB 2 x 256MB 14.1TFT DVD/CDRW WIFI XPP

Up to 4h battery life

Mobility Laptop

Toshiba Tecra A2

Acer Travelmate 2303LMI

$1610

$1745

CELM-1.4GHz 40GB 256MB 14.1TFT DVD/CDRW WIFI XPP

Up to 4h battery life

CELM-1.4GHz 40GB 256MB 15TFT DVD+/-RW DUAL WIFI XPH

Up to 5.5h battery life

The laptop models shown above might be subject to changes according to stock availability. Please check our mobility section for updated deals and prices.

Our MP3 Players section has now moved onto our online catalogue and an interesting new product in this section is the iRiver IFP-995 which would currently be the ultimate solid-state MP3 player currently selling. You can browse our selection in our entertainment section.

Next newsletter: Backing up. Please email us any feedback or suggestion in regards to our newsletter.

Best regards,

Ben Druitt & Phuong-Dung Hoang – PF Systems

PS: If you want to unsubscribe from our mailing list, fill in the form in the Mailing List section on our homepage www.pfsystems.com.au and we will remove you from our list or send an email to unsubscribe@pfsystems.com.au.