PC Health Check

Your PC has been running slowly, it keeps crashing, you're sure there's a problem, but you don't have a support contract. What should you do?

Century provide a PC health check either on site or at our workshop from £65 + VAT

Call 0845 331 3599 for more information

Century Computing Support Services Ltd
Bayleys Lane
Tipton
DY4 0HB
Tel: 0845 331 3599
Fax: 0845 331 3499

Hi $name

This newsletter is designed to provide you with information, reports and reviews that are of interest and that you'll find useful, so please let me know if there is a burning issue, you want to see covered.

Century Finance and leasing

This month I would like to introduce you to Century Finance. You remember that project to update the PCs and upgrade the server to Windows 2003? But you couldn't really justify it because of the cost? Well now you can afford it using leasing from Century Finance.

You can use a lease agreement on any purchase (subject to credit scoring) over £1000, including software, hardware and labour. Add to this the fact that rentals are fully allowable against taxable income, whereas other purchases are not and now you really can take advantage of low cost IT.

From this month onwards, every quote that Century send out, will indicate the equivalent monthly lease price for comparison; to show you just how affordable our solutions really are. An FAQ on the new Century Finance service is available on the Century website. If you have any other questions or want to speak to someone about financing your next purchase with leasing, please call us on 0870 005 3599 today.

I wish you all the best for the rest of the month.
Rob Green (MD)

World Cup on your PC

The BBC have increased capacity and plan to show every single World Cup game via their broadband site. The broadband feed will carry the same commentary as that broadcast over the UK television network. Filtered by IP address, the feeds will only be available to those viewers in the UK; as the BBC is funded by the UK licence fee payer.

However if you're an IT admin reading this, I can imagine the thought that just crossed your mind. If the 30 or so people in your office all watch the match on their PCs, your network will at best fall to its knees and all of the feeds will continuously buffer, making it unwatchable, or at worse, the network will jam and not allow anybody to access the feed, your emails will back up and you'll have a major IT headache.

A number of solutions have been suggested including limiting PC access to the BBC.co.uk site during the World Cup via your firewall, disabling Windows Media and Real Player clients from running on your network or just accessing the video feed with one PC and displaying it via video projector onto one end of the office. Be aware that alternative options for closet workplace World Cup watching exist, including the Sling Media box that will 'sling' your home TV picture to any networked PC around the world.

If you need help setting up any of these options or would like to buy either a video projector or Sling Box please contact a Century Computing engineer today on 0870 005 3599.

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Do you pay tax on Ebay sales?

The Inland Revenue have paid for a £250,000 'web robot' to be built and unleashed on Ebay, with the express intention of catching the VAT dodging high volume traders who use this as their primary channel to market. The Revenue are quoted as saying that "it [the web robot] will force an extra 20 businesses to register for the tax". Ok so this increase will amount to over £1million a year extra in VAT contributions - meaning the quarter of a million for the robot could be viewed as money well spent.

Figures from the National Audit Office estimate that over 70,000 people make a quarter of their income by trading on Ebay, although if second hand stuff is being sold, it is only VAT on profits that need to be paid.

It is worth noting that unless your Ebay sales generate profits of £54,000 + per annum you aren't legally obliged to register for VAT.

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Who said schools are dumbing down?

You may have heard of the Mosquito alarm that has been used to drive teenage gangs away from shopping centres. It releases a high pitched tone, that only those below 20 can actually hear; due to age related deafness (presbycusis).

A number of tech-savy teens have taken the sound and converted it into an MP3 music file which they now use as a mobile ringtone whilst in class. The teachers cannot hear the noise, recently dubbed 'TeenBuzz', so they have no idea that the children are still using their phones whilst in class.

We have uploaded the sound to the website for you to test out with your kids - but I'll be honest we couldn't hear it. (Ok it's true, we are over 20 :)

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£20K for ratting on the company

The Business Software Alliance (BSA) is increasing the potential reward for people who report the use of illegal software within UK businesses, from £10,000 to £20,000. People are encouraged to submit leads via their website and they will be granted anonymity.

Research by YouGov has found that 64% of UK employees who had raised an internal alarm about illegal software, but were ignored, would report the offence to an outside agency. The bad news is 65% of employees with an axe to grind and who felt that their companies treated them unfairly would consider reporting their firms to outside agencies. Interestingly, 1 in 4 said that large salary rises for the board or poor salary reviews for staff would spur them to act too.

If you are unsure about any licensing issues, or feel that you may have the incorrect number of licences for the machines you use, please phone a Century Engineer on 0870 005 3599 to discuss the solution.

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