Computer Services | evolution technologies

Home Theater

Thu, 07 Feb 2008 11:24:00 -0600

We built our first Home Theater PC about 5 years ago. Since then we have built them for many of our customers, but they have always looked more like desktop computers than a piece of an Entertainment Center. I have now started my own line of Home Theater PC's using cases than fit in to any Home Theater's decor.

We also have branched out to HD Televisions and Surround Sound Home Theater A/V Systems. These products fit perfectly into computer business, because one of our mantras when asked what kind of computer "stuff" we sell is "anything you can hook up to a computer".

Home Theater PC's

LCD Televisions

Home Theater Surround A/V Systems

Accessories

Sat, 06 Oct 2007 12:18:39 -0500

The key to making your great new computer usable is all in the accessories. Most new computers sold today have low quality LCD monitors, speakers, wired keyboards, and wired mice. The big computer sellers don't even mention the fact that one of the most important components you should get with your new PC is a Uninterruptable Power Supply. The fact that the electrical grid in Minnesota, causes a lot of brown-outs and power surges, wreaks havoc on your hard drives and motherboards doesn't seem to bother most computer sellers. Having a UPS Backup system is a necessity for any new PC. We have found many great suppliers of accessories but the following ones have the best warranties and service that we've seen.

LCD Monitors have become large enough with low enough prices to make CRT monitors obsolete. Through the years we have used many LCD manufacturers and I have found two that have survived the dot com bust and price wars. Acer and Viewsonic offer large, attractive, inexpensive monitors with great 3 year warrantee's.

When it comes to speakers, wireless desktops, wireless keyboards, wireless mice, remote controls, notebook accessories, gaming, and web cams Logitech's 3 to 5 year warranties and American tech support are the best we've seen.

The UPS power supplies that we mentioned earlier are important enough that only one manufacturer has earned our business. American Power Conversion is the big boy in the back up power business, don't think of using anything else.

Apple

Fri, 05 Oct 2007 18:05:43 -0500

Apple Computing has had an amazing turn around. This is the company that basically invented home PCs as we know them in the 1970's. In the 80's you weren't cool if you didn't have an Apple PC. When they invented the MacIntosh graphical operating system, they were at the top of PC world. Something happened along the way, they got lazy, proud, or complacent. Either way they were a non-factor in PC's for most of the 90's. In 1998 Steve Jobs, one of Apple founders, returned to the company and things began changing. We had shunned Apple ourselves when we first started using graphically interfaced PC's. We just went with Microsoft and Windows. After being underwhelmed by the Windows operating system and all of its problems, we were ready for something different. We decided after buying one of the first iPods released in late 2001 and loving it, that we were ready for an Apple computer. We have been blown away by Mac's ever since. We are on our 3rd one at home now, along with 7 iPods, a Mighty Mouse, and an Airport Extreme Router. You might say we are Macheads. That is not to say we have given up on Windows machines. We still own 4 of those and run them happily with the Mac's on our network.

Because of the way Apple control's the pricing on their hardware we can't save you much money by buying one from us. We offer our Mac hardware for around the same price as Apple does. What we do offer is free installation, a one year on-site warranty and free phone support for life.

We have also gained much experience over the years repairing and upgrading Mac's, something Apple doesn't make easy.

Notebook Computers

Fri, 05 Oct 2007 16:58:37 -0500

When we first started selling PC's in 1999, notebooks were a specialized part of our business. They were technologically about 18 months behind desktop PC's. That is no longer the truth. Over half of the PC's we sell now, are notebooks.

Most of our customers want a notebook that doesn't cost a fortune but has many of the same features they are used to from their home computer. We used to work with some of smaller notebook manufacturers because their lower priced offerings got you high grade hardware. Because of the pricing pressure the big notebook sellers have gotten their pricing in line. We use Acer, Asus, HP, HP Business, Lenovo(formerly IBM), Samsung and Toshiba(Toshiba Satellite A200/205 pictured above). Each of these companies have notebooks for any user: students, business people, media lovers, and gamers.

We realize that you can buy a notebook PC from any of these manufacturers on your own, but most times we can beat their prices. We guarantee we will give you better service than they will.

Desktops

Fri, 05 Oct 2007 15:14:10 -0500

When we build our PC's we start out with the highest quality cases that we can. Currently we are using Antec(Antec Sonata Designer 500 pictured above.), Asus, and Shuttle enclosures.

For motherboards it's Asus and MSI.

After years of using mostly AMD processors, like Apple, we have taken the Intel plunge. We feel for the price and performance factor Intel has taken the lead once again. This doesn't mean that we have given up on AMD's, we have offerings with them, too.

OCZ is the leader for computer memory performance. We use them for our computer upgrades, too.

Seagate hard drives with their 5 year warranties have earned all our business.

HP invented a new technology called LightScribe disc printing. With this technology, if you buy LightScribe media, you can flip your disc over in tray and burn pictures, graphics, and text on the disc cover. HP licensed this technology to many companies. Samsung is one of the licensees and their drives work better and have more features than HP's, so we use them.

ATI used to be a great graphics card company that had innovative hardware and great software. Two years ago AMD bought ATI and both companies have suffered because of it. This merger made us go back to nVidia graphic chipsets. XFX makes great nVidia chipset graphics cards with what's called a double lifetime warranty. This means that they will not only warranty you, but if you sell your card, they will warranty the buyer, too.

Of course a computer wouldn't be finished without the operating system. On our custom built PC's you get your choice of Microsoft Windows.

Being a custom PC builder means we will build it however you want it. If you want something different that we haven't mentioned above, let us know.

Please contact us today so we can start planning your very own custom built system.