As we walk through the door to sort out computer problems, customer concerns are frequently raised about  the customer service and the amount they are paying for their broadband and gas and electric. It is also true that a number of customers find the bills they receive too complicated.

We want you to experience the same quality of service that your computer systems receives and extend this to tasks like boiling the kettle, switching on a light, making a phone call and surfing the internet; so that they are just as pleasurable!

We have teamed up with Utility Warehouse Discount Club to offer you substantial discounts on your contract free broadband, telephone service, gas and electric supply, and all of this together on one clear monthly bill.

Oh, we forgot the big one...they provide award winning customer service (according to the UK's leading consumer magazine) from their UK based call centre in London.

We are really impressed with their service and feel that they compliment everything that IT Hound is all about. If you feel you could benefit from cheaper gas, electric and phone calls then give click on the banner below for a video presented by French and Saunders then give us a call.

We spend on average over 70% of our daily life in front of a computer screen and the “infoweb” has become a great encyclopaedia and portal for dating, researching, shopping, reading the news, booking holidays, checking train times etc etc. The one downside of this is the time it takes to sift through the different sites and browse bookmarks to locate the correct information…

…What if you could access all your favourite sites on one web page, personalised to you?

Netvibes is a next generation portal designed to bring you all your sites under one roof (or should we say window?). Once you have created your free account and logged in, you can start to pull in information from various news sites based on a commonly used technology called an RSS feed (Look at any major media site and there will be the letters RSS). On top of this you can also bring in your Google mail, view whats happening in Facebook and follow people on Twitter

So if you can bring all of this information into one webpage, will you actually get time to make that cup of tea or arrive on time for your dinner date?

Here’s more about Netvibes: http://www.netvibes.com

If you do travel a lot for business or pleasure, now it is easier than ever to carry your office around with you, access the Internet and chat online with loved ones using a Netbook.

Hear at IT Hound we have a preference for Samsung as a manufacturer and we recommend their N Series range of netbooks. Weighing in at less than 2 kg they can easily fit in your handbag, hand luggage or hidden away in your rucksack.

A webcam is inbuilt and they are plenty of spare USB ports for plugging in an external keyboard or mouse. The hard drive space starts at 120 GB so plenty of storage space and of course linked in with Dropbox’s online backup storage your important files do not need to reside on the laptop itself.

When we have done presentations to clients, it’s not just the content that clients are interested in, it’s the “cute laptop” we are doing the presentation on that catches their eyes.

Click here to see more of Samsungs’ N series with Amazon:

Having a backup is a critical part of computer security whether you are a business, a family or and individual. Particularly if you travel a lot with your backup or simply want to transport files (presentations, music, designs etc), you will want to have a backup device that is lightweight secure and durable.

The ideal device for this purpose is an external hard drive and most manufacturers provide them whereby you can backup and transport the data but the files themselved can be intercepted by others if you lose it or have it stolen. On top of this what happens if you accidently drop it? Unfortunately most external hard drives do not bounce!

There is one exception that we like at IT Hound and that’s Freecom;s ToughDrive Pro range of external hard drives. You can through it against walls, drop it down the stairs and play catch with it (We obviously don’t recommend you try this at home, instead leave it safe and secure in your bag; however its nice to know that your data will be shock proof.

The key other factor is security and the Freecom range have a unique way of encrypting all the hard drive with a password. You decide the password, enter it to lock and unlock the drive…with out the password no one can access your precious files.

Amazon tend to sell the whole range here and size range from 120 throguh to 500 GB, they even do them in Pink…

…find your colour and size today: www.amazon.co.uk

The team at IT Hound are always raving about the virtues of Skype and with the ability to make and receive calls to other skype users for nothing, who could argue with them. Similar to MSN or Yahoo Messenger in that you can send text messages to other people in your Skype list, if you have a pair of headphones you can be calling loved ones while away on business, chatting to clients or making conference calls with co-workers from other offices.

Installation is simple and once you have chosen your ID which is usually a name, you can add other Skype users you know to your list and with one double click of your mouse you will be conversing with them instantly.

Over the last few years Skype have been continuing to improve the call quality and these days it would difficult to differentiate between a standard phone call. Having faster and faster broadband connections means that you can take advantage of Skype’s video conferencing facilty. Plugin your webcam and you can be interviewing that potential candidate in stead of paying his travelling expenses to visit yoru office.

IT Hound uses Skype to conference in suppliers and to support clients with any IT support queries.

To find out more dial…we mean…click here!: www.skype.com

Computers are getting smaller and smaller, infact they now look like works of art hiding the complex and fascinating technology which is under the casing. Some of the more recent Netbooks to come on the market have screen sizes as small as 10” which means running programs can be challenging especially if you are using the inbuilt track pad and not an external mouse.

This is where Rocket Dock helps and for those of you fortunate enough to use a Mac, it works very much like the Dock there giving you easy access to programs.

Once you have installed Rocket Dock, rather than clicking the START button and searching for your favourite program, you can launch programs from the dock!

Another advantage of rocket Dock is that you can minimise your open programs to the dock instead of clutering up your toolbar.

“Launch” yourself here: http://rocketdock.com/

These days using msn, yahoo messenger, AIM or ichat is as common as having a phone number. But what about if you have MSN and your friend in the US has Yahoo Messenger? Till now the only way to do this would be to install Yahoo Messenger as well which means you computer becomes alive with different sounds and pop ups from each of the different programs which can be distracting!

Digsby is a universal messaging client for Windows computers that allows you to store your logins for a multitude of messaging programs and you can even keep track of your emails and friends on social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter. So all you have to do is sign up for free with Digsby, download the software and off you go!

Click here for more details: http://www.digsby.com/?utm_campaign=vid&utm_content=vid&utm_source=vid

Digsby are developing a version for Apple Macs, so instead IT Hound recommends using Adium which works on the same principle as Digsby but without the social networks and email facility.

To download Adium, click here: http://www.adium.im/

Lots of IT Hound’s clients want secure backups for their documents and to be able to access them online and anywhere in the world. Dropbox is a wonderful application that is also free for up to 2 gbs of file space. So if you want to access your files at different locations this would be the ideal tool for you to use. Simply download and install on your main computer and save your regular files to the dropbox folder …this is the clever part; when you save to dropbox you are actually saving to their secure server online which is only accessible using your password. If you then want to access your files from any computer with Internet access, you can by going to Dopbox’s website and logging in with your username and password. That’s not all, they even provide a facility to version control your documents, so if you created a document last week and have been updating it daily; Dropbox will store all changes so you can revert back to previous days!

STOP PRESS: If you have an iPhone you can now access your DropBox there too as they have created a free iPhone application!

All this for free and if you wish to expand to 3 gbs, you can by getting your friends to sign up too. For businesses Dropbox provide a 50 gb storage version which a couple of our clients are using to provide them with total online secure storage.

For more information on the free 2gb version click here or if your business requires more storage, click on the DropBox image below.