CST Newsletter July 2013

CST News

Well, winter has certainly hit with a vengeance. I hope all our customers survived the wet period last month and that those of you higher up were not too badly affected with the snow. We certainly seem to have been less affected than areas further north. Also as a customer said to me, better this time of year than later when calves and lambs are about.

We have been especially busy lately with sales also picking up. Hopefully it is a sign of a general lift for the town.

Second Hand Sales

We sell a lot of second hand PC’s and laptops. At present we have a good selection in the shop at good prices. If we do not have what you want, ask as we may be able to source others. Usually what we sell is ex lease stock. This means it has been used in places such as offices and businesses and has run out of its lease period. They are checked by our suppliers and have Windows reinstalled – back to the state they came from the factory. Most will be about 4 years old.

We also sell a number of our own second hand systems or systems that are “on behalf” of customers. We are very careful with what we will sell as they reflect on us. These will all have Windows reinstalled and are tested by Blake or Dave before sale. I will not sell anything that has come from Trade Me – too much of a risk!!

 

Picture of the Month

Words are not needed!

 

Website Of The Month

There is a lot of reading here but it is funny – the top 100 April Fools Day Hoaxes. Some people have amazing minds – I am nowhere near cleaver enough to thing up these cunning things.

 

Amazing Animation

Thanks to Isabel for this movie of a Mars landing. You would just about think you are there.

 

Windows Tip Of The Month

If you have a programme you use a lot, rather than finding it all the time by going to the Start Menu, in Windows 7, you can put it on the Taskbar. This is the bar across the bottom of the screen where the Start Button resides.

To do this if the programme is already running, right click the programme’s icon on the taskbar and then click Pin this program to the taskbar.

If the programme is not running, click Start and find the programme on the start menu. Right click on the icon and click Pin to Taskbar.

 

Buying a Printer

If you are thinking about a new printer, here are a couple of things to think about:

The general rule of thumb is that you get what you pay for. If you buy a cheap printer, the running costs will be higher. We always have running cost figures available at time of purchase.

If you simply want to print in black and white, then consider a laser printer. The laser printer above my desk at CST has done over 63000 pages and not missed a beat in more than 10 years. The toner cartridge costs $182.00 and is rated at 2500 pages. This is about 7 cents per page. Compare that with what you pay to keep the ink up to an inkjet printer!

Laser printers use an entirely different method of putting the image onto the page – they use heat to “weld” a black sooty material to the paper – just like a photocopier.

Laser Toner Cartridge

 

Inkjets work by firing liquid ink at the paper – effectively like painting. The ink is stored in the familiar cartridge which you buy regularly. All colours are made from the three primary colours – cyan (blue), magenta (red) and yellow. Some inkjet printers store their colours in a single tank, others use separate tanks for each colour. This means that when one colour runs out, the inkjet printer stops. If there is still plenty of the other two colours, you still need to replace the whole cartridge. Whereas if one colour runs out in a separate tank model, you only need to replace that colour tank – more economical.

We can get colour laser printers today and they are becoming more economical. If you are interested, please ask. We can show you the type of picture produced by a colour laser as we have one here at CST.

 

Tablets

These are not what you get from the pharmacy!! This is a one piece mobile computer typically driven by a touchscreen rather than a mouse. They will have an on-screen hideable virtual keyboard. They are usually bigger than a smartphone having screens 7” across or bigger. The Apple marketing machine is amazing and would lead you to believe that their product is the only tablet available.

However, other tablets are available. We sell a range of Samsung tablets which have proven very popular and do the same things as Apples but give you more choice in terms of products available and lower price.

The Samsung products range in price from $569.00 for a 10.1” tablet through to $999 for a 10.1” Galaxy Note with the following specs:

• 1.4GHz Quad core processor
• Android operating system
• 2 GB RAM
• 16 GB storage
• 1.9 MP Front camera, 5 MP Rear camera
• Touchscreen keyboard
• Wireless (= connects to any wireless network)
• 3G (= connects to cellular internet using a SIM card)

 

 

In addition we can source a smaller tablet model from HP – the Slate 7

• 7” screen
• Android operating system
• 1 GB RAM
• 8 GB storage
• Front and rear cameras
• Touchscreen camera
• Bluetooth
• Wireless

All this for only $250.00