Electrics@Home & Computers@Home

Home Networking With a Home or Small Business Network you can share one internet connection between several computers, connect to the internet or other PC's wirelesslyor by cable, share printers and files between computers, manage backups in one location, play games between computers and share your PC's broadband connection with your XBox or Playstation. We can help with setting up your internet and email, setting up and securing your wireless router and WiFi network and add new computers to your existing internet connection.	Problem Solving We will always try to advise you how to remedy your problem over the phone. This, of course, only costs you the price of your phone call. Please note - this is a normal phone number, not a premium-rate number. If we visit you, charges are worked out according to a standard table of prices. If something needs to be replaced, then an all-in price will be quoted at the start. All repairs and upgraded components are covered by our one-year on-site warranty, but this does not apply to software and virus-related problems, which can occur at any time for a large number of reasons. If the problem can only effectively be sorted out by a reload of the operating system, we will usually need to take the computer to our workshop. We will save all user files and internet setting (if this is possible) and restore them at the end of the job. Your computer will be returned two working days later. Customers wishing to bring their computer to us for repair will benefit from a reduction of charges but is strictly by appointment only.	Transferring Data Transferring your data and settings from the old PC to the new PC Now you have a brand new computer - how do you get all of your files and settings across from the old one to the new one? The task of transferring files and settings to your new PC is a relatively simple one but it can still be a bit daunting to the novice. You may need to use quite a few CD's or DVD's if you have a lot of data including music, movies and photo collections. You can also use an external Hard Drive, USB Pen Drives, existing networking or purchase a special USB data transfer cable to get the job done. Why not get us to do the transfer for you? If you'd rather not take on the task of data transfer yourself, we'd be happy to help. We'll copy your important documents, photo, music and movie collections to the new machine for you with a minimum of fuss. Set your email account/s up and get you connected so you can get on with things. At the same time, if your old PC is going to go to a new owner you can have us 'securely wipe' the hard drive on the old machine so your data is inaccessible.
Dead PC If your old PC won't boot up or even power on - chances are we may still be able to get your data onto your new PC. Why not let us perform a free diagnostic and analysis to see if we can help? With our "No Fix - No Fee" policy, what do you have to lose?	FAQ - Can programs be copied to the new PC? Generally, they cannot - you would require the original installation files (usually from a disc or download) to create a fresh installation on the new machine. Usually we can then copy the data files to the new machine and import them into the program. For example, the data from a Family Tree program could be transferred and imported after installing the program on the new PC. That way you wouldn't have to manually re-enter all the information you'd put in previously. Please ask for more info.
Spyware, Malware, Trojans Did you know that something can be downloaded to your PC by you (or one of the family), opening up a 'back door', exposing your personal information, photos, credit card or banking details and more to criminals just by visiting a 'bad' web site? Some of those web sites seem harmless; they offer FREE stuff like desktop wallpaper and programs that seem really useful or fun. A lot of them target children. Did you know that your computer and internet connection could be sending 'spam' (junk email) messages to thousands of people around the globe without your knowledge? Some 'malware' is just annoying or embarrassing when it keeps popping up advertisements or redirecting you to 'adult' web sites but some can be downright dangerous! Complete removal of most trojans and malware is possible with a reputable Anti-Virus / Anti-Spyware application but some variants are quite difficult to detect and remove and thus require manual cleaning techniques. We have very high success rates for removing rootkits and self-replicating malware variants. When you've had enough - just give us a call! In our experience, we've not found an AntiSpyware program that will detect and remove ALL traces of ALL malware. That's why we take a multi-layered approach to cleaning a system successfully; using several different software packages and techniques to achieve our goal. For these reasons, we don't try to clean an infected PC 'on-site' or charge by the hour for virus & spyware problems. Considering that one scan may take an hour or more depending on the number of files in the system, we could be at your house for a very long time! Sometimes if a computer is heavily infected and too many critical Windows files are damaged, the only practical way forward is to format the system and reinstall Windows. In these cases we will endeavour to backup any user profiles and data before taking this drastic step.		Have a health-check on your PC If your computer seems a bit sluggish and programs are taking forever to get started, then the chances are that it's become a bit cluttered or short of memory.A Heath-Check will include removal of unneeded temporary files and other unwanted 'buildup', stopping unnecessary programs from running at 'startup', resizing the internet cache and removing temporary internet files and uninstalling redundant software. Any updates for software will be checked and applied if necessary, the hard disk will be scanned for corrupted or damaged files & sectors and a full scan for viruses, trojans and spyware undertaken. Finally, physical memory will be checked and virtual memory set up correctly.