MoreFrom News

I like the sound of a smart TV

2012-01-10T11:52:00.009Z

This is what I'd like my TV to do for me.

My main objective would be to watch exactly the things I like and to discover some new things I didn't even know I'd like. I get very limited time to watch TV, so I like to make it worthwhile. I prefer to watch films, enjoy a good drama series and the odd documentary. TV for me is a mix of escapism and education.

So what I really need is my TV (or the software inside it) to learn my preferences and make recommendations, a bit like the way Amazon has 'learned' my music taste and now makes pretty good recommendations. Better still would be if my TV knew the sort of programs I might like and recorded them for me (just in case I fancied the look of them). I think recorded programs or on demand via satellite would be better than streamed from my broadband connection. UK broadband is overstretched as it is, with more connected TVs I'm pretty sure your program would stop streaming just as it got to a good bit.

So here's the scenario - I sit down in front of my TV. My TV switches itself on and recognises it's me (face recognition is already in TVs apparently). I'm automatically presented with recommendations, split into - what's on live now, what's recorded that I've selected and what my TV thinks I will like. I simple speak the name of the program and it starts to play. Sounds great doesn't it? The good thing is it's not unrealistic. Samsung SmartTV, Sony Smart TV, Apple iTV and GoogleTV all have elements of this technology.

There's a lot of speculation on which of these brands will 'win the smart TV war' - well I think my money is on Google. There will be times when I sit in front of my TV and even with all these clever and accurate recommendations on what to watch, I still won't like the look of anything. That's where Google will be a winner. I can simply speak a keyword into the a Google TV search (that already knows the kind of stuff I like and the kind of stuff people who like what I like watch) and hey presto - lots of new ideas will appear.

Sounds pretty smart to me - where do I sign up?

Although... what happens when you add the other members of the family ?

PC Advisor Awards 2012

2011-12-22T10:45:00.004Z

If you're lucky enough to be winding down for Christmas - Why not take a few minutes to vote in the PC Advisor Awards

You could win yourself £250 to spend at Amazon

There's only five categories and you don't even have to vote in all of them.

The one we're interested in is the BEST SPECIALIST ONLINE IT RETAILER

We won it last year so it would be great to win again!

To make sure you're entered in to the prize draw you need to register your email address on the PC Advisor site before you vote not after.

Go here to register: PC Advisor Register

It will only take a few clicks to register then pop back to this post for the link to the awards

Go here to vote in the Awards: PC Advisor Awards

Good luck and have a great Christmas

NEWS RELEASE: The world’s first chain of personally curated, social shopping enabled online stores

2011-11-30T10:08:00.018Z

MoreFrom.me is a groundbreaking e-commerce concept where anyone can personalise an online store, share it with their social network and earn commission on every sale.

The MoreFrom Group runs several websites including the award-winning MoreComputers.com On analysing customer behaviour, MoreFrom identified a particularly influential group who were recommending to their social network which products to buy and where to buy them.

MoreFrom set out to find a way to reward and encourage these important Facebook, Twitter and blog influencers. They created MoreFrom.me, which embodies this kind of social selling.

Brian Trevaskiss, Head of Marketing at the MoreFrom Group explains:"MoreFrom.Me combines the best marketing tool - (a recommendation from a family member or friend) with the power of social media.
It's an online presence individuals can personalise and curate, where they are compensated in a transparent and authentic way."

MoreFrom.me makes it easy for anyone to create a personalised online technology store. These influencers can curate from over 100,000 big brand and niche products, recommending them through their site and then through social networks. They can earn up to 13% commission for every sale they make.

Brian adds: "In targeting these groups we can increase our business revenues through viral networking by empowering a 'virtual' sales force. It makes for very effective marketing as these people have both access and credibility."

The MoreFrom.me model takes e-commerce and social selling to the next level. Brian identifies four key markets the service appeals to. "First are the technology enthusiasts, proud ‘geeks’ who people turn to for advice. A second group is made up of IT industry professionals who want a zero cost way to sell online. Third are non-profit organisations looking to raise funds, and lastly technology bloggers who can earn affiliate commission for sales of products they review."

Technology bloggers have embraced this idea in particular, Matthew Gibbons, creator of ‘All Things Android’ comments:"Our aim at All Things Android UK is to provide useful information that our readers can trust. If we recommend an Android device or an associated product, it’s because we’ve done our research and genuinely believe it’s a quality product".

"We created our online store All Things Tech UK as a natural progression from recommending products to being able to sell them. In one easy step readers can make a purchase based on what they’ve read. The very fact that they’re reading the blog in the first place means they trust what we’re saying and will invest in a product as a result."

ENDS

Notes to Editors
For enquiries and further information:
Please use this contact form
View and Download MoreFrom.Me images

About MoreComputers.com
Morecomputers.com is part of the MoreFrom group of websites. The MoreFrom Group evolved from the award winning website MoreComputers. The MoreFrom Group was launched in 2010. www.MoreFromGroup.co.uk

Chris Wheater and Simon Lewington founded MoreComputers.com in 1995 in order to provide technology products in a simple, painless way through a trustworthy and reliable service.

About MoreFrom.me
The world’s first ‘social shopping enabled’ online stores reward customers when they create personalised versions of the MoreComputers.com website and then recommend its IT products to purchase.
www.MoreFrom.me

Handy rechargeable USB batteries means it’s time to chuck out the chargers!

2011-10-31T10:49:00.004Z

MoreFrom.me’s full of flash pieces of kit ranging from top of the range laptops to the latest LED TVs.

But sometimes, it’s worth noticing that good things really do come in small packages, especially a nifty product I’ve found very useful.

The Moixa USB Cell AA Rechargeable Batteries have proven to be a bit of a godsend in our gaff since we got our hands on these little beauties.

I’m a user of wireless mice and keyboards, and whilst in many ways they are spot on, they use up a hell of a lot of batteries. Batteries of course cost money, and rechargables are to be quite frankly honest a bit of a pain in the derriere.

Up until recently I’ve been using clunky chargers that take ages to boost batteries back to anywhere near an acceptable level of juice. Sometimes you even need to leave them on overnight, and carrying them around is just extra baggage.

However, these USB batteries just make life a little easier.

The premise is simple. Just plug these batteries into any USB port, and they will charge up in about 5 hours. Pop the top back on, put them in your device and they power it up. Sorted.

They’re great when on the move as there is no need for any cables, and I can finally cast off those blasted chargers.

Using them is going to save me money as I don’t have to keep shelling out on alkaline batteries, and also it will save energy that won’t be used up using chargers. That’s also good for the environment too.

Also, there’s no need to worry about losing the tops off them as they have a little cord that is attached to the barrel of the battery.

These are mightily handy things that I’m sure will come in useful in many situations. A must buy!

Discover the potential of MoreFrom.Me

2011-10-26T12:00:00.006+01:00

Here's a link to morefrom.me/BrianTrevaskiss

I'd like you to see my MoreFrom.Me 'in action'. This will show you what it is and more importantly what you can do with it.

I've spoken to a lot of people in these first few weeks since we launched MoreFrom.Me and not surprisingly not everyone understands how it works. Some people haven't discovered it's full potential, I believe this is because there's nothing like it out there.

It's not an affiliate scheme
It's not a reward scheme
It's not a shop in a box
It's not a white label
It's not a review site

It's kind of all those things rolled into one!

I've been adding reviews and recommendations (for things I've personally bought) to my MoreFrom.Me and if you take a look, you'll see how it changes the whole site.

Here's an example of how a reviewed product looks.

If you decide to buy anything I've recommended or indeed anything from my site, I'll earn commission. That's what happens with all MoreFrom.Me sites.

Lot's of people have set up a MoreFrom.Me and are earning good commision. Over the next few weeks I'll be introducing some of them to you, so you can see how they make the most of this new idea.

So, take a look at my MoreFrom.Me and if you decide you'd like one yourself go to www.MoreFrom.Me, it takes less than two minutes to set one up.

PS. If you do buy anything from my MoreFrom.Me I'll donate the commission to charity or somthing - I'm only using this as an example, not a money spinner for me!

How MoreFrom.org can help Schools, Charities and Clubs

2011-10-14T16:46:00.014+01:00

MoreFrom.me has launched MoreFrom.org, a service especially for charities, schools and clubs. Here’s how it can help them raise money to buy new equipment, and also boost their profile.

A gadget and technology lover like myself was always going to be attracted to something like MoreFrom.me, but there are a whole host of other people and organisations that can benefit from it.

Their new .org service for schools, colleges, charities and clubs can help them purchase new technology equipment through the commission they make on their very own MoreFrom.org stores.
In education, it’s very important for schools and colleges to keep their equipment up to date by purchasing quality, value for money goods that can help students and staff.

By creating their own Morefrom.me stores, schools are put in charge of raising much needed funds for brand new IT equipment, efforts that promise to go much further than more traditional 'supermarket vouchers for schools' schemes.

With MoreFrom.org, schools and colleges can upload their own branding, logos, and descriptions on their own about us page. They will receive credit for everything they sell, something that will encourage parents to buy from their store rather than elsewhere, knowing their purchase will help their child’s education.

For charities, getting involved with MoreFrom.org is a great way of raising funds to buy brand new goods. But there are other benefits for a charity to have its own store.

With MoreFrom.Me continuing to grow, a personalised store is also a great platform to reach out and promote your charity, raising awareness of the good work you put in to aid your cause.

MoreFrom.org is beneficial for clubs too, especially if they are regular users of technology products.
Now, I’ve mentioned photographers before, but I must say this service would be great for snap-happy camera clubs. By recommending products they have tried and tested out, they can be seen as experts in their field. Let’s face it, people are going to buy from people who know what they are talking about.

This not only means customers will return to you in future, but with the credit you’ve earned from the sales you’ve made, it’s easier for you to purchase the latest models, try them out first, and then tell your loyal shoppers whether you would recommend the products.

All in all, I think this is another example of how MoreFrom.me is moving quickly to provide something that can work on different levels. They tell me there’s even more plans in the pipeline.

For what they are, we’ll have to wait and see.

MoreFrom.Me is 8 weeks old & we've added 8 new features since launch

2011-09-29T10:14:00.004+01:00

It's been 8 weeks since the launch of MoreFrom.Me, (our afiliate/reseller program that gives you your own version of our website) and it's going great guns, we've already added 8 new features.

If you haven't had a look at us yet, you only need 60 seconds to watch our 'what is it' video.

Or if you've had a look and promised yourself a closer one, check out new features we've added:

Extra personalisation:

Your own text in the 'About Us' page
Links back to any existing site you might have
Pick your own recommended products for your homepage
Your reviews now take pride of place

Lots of tools to help you sell:

Banners to add to any other sites you might have
Custom signatures for your email
Emails for you to send - 'Best Sellers' and 'My Recommended'
An instant email newsletter of your tweets

All of these things are easy to do, as is setting up your MoreFrom.Me

Go to www.morefrom.me for more details

The Price You See = The Price You Pay

2011-09-01T15:04:00.012+01:00

You may have seen that credit card surcharges are in news again. Which? say 'Consumers are paying £265k a day in airline card surcharges' and on BBC news 'Debit card surcharges must go' has over 150 comments.

The trend in tech retail to hide credit card surcharges, delivery costs and even VAT seems to be continuing. If anything it's getting worse. So much so, we need to stress even more that all our prices include everything - The price you see is the price you pay!

If you visit our sites you'll notice we've added a large 'No Credit Card Fees' sticker and every product page carries the line 'The Price You See = The Price You Pay'. We've done this so when people visit our site comparing our prices, they'll hopefully realise we're showing the total, final price.

We believe all retailers should be upfront about pricing and delivery charges, and the total price of a purchase should be made clear before a customer enter the checkout. Being sneaky about extra charges or only revealing them at the last possible moment is something certain retailers, even big well know names seem happy to do. Not us! Some retailers will add 1.5% as a credit card surcharge, right at the last minute, after you've entered all your details.

and another thing (to finish off my rant) watch out for retailers who'll charge you 10p per minute to telephone them. Even if it's to solve a problem they've caused! Then to annoy you even more they'll play you adverts while you're paying!

Thanks for listening, I feel better now.

New Categories & Products!

2011-08-26T10:50:00.016+01:00

Just a quick update on some new categories to the site this week. With all the hype around tablet devices we've now added a category into the Computers section that currently contains 40 Tablets with offerings from all the best known brands such as the Motorola Xoom, Galaxy Tab, Asus Transformer, HTC Flyer and many more. We've noticed some retailers listing these in their phone department, but we believe they are much more of a laptop/netbook replacement so that's where we've put them. The Phones section still contains all the unlocked Smartphones on the market. To see my tablet recommendations check out my personalised homepage here. And if you want your own personalised homepage go here.

We've also updated the TV & Audio section to better reflect the range of Home Cinema systems, Bluray and DVD Players we have on offer.

In Components we've recently added Coolermaster and Xigmatek brands. The fastest growing area in components seems to be Solid state Drives which now has around 100 drives in stock.

And finally don't forget there are over 1600 software titles available for download from the top games publishers right thru to Microsoft. So no waiting in for a box to be delivered !

MoreFrom.me is Go!

2011-08-25T16:42:00.015+01:00

MoreFrom.me is well and truly up and running. After waiting eagerly to find out what it was all about, and then being involved with all the initial tests and trials, I’m now set up on this unique social shopping concept.

So, how does it all work and what’s its appeal?

Getting started:

MoreFrom.me says it is easy and takes “two minutes” to get started. Now “two minutes” can sometimes be seen as a figure of speech and not an actual literal timescale. Like when you’re picking up that friend who's never quite ready and they say, “I’ll only be two minutes”, when you know it’s really going to be a lot longer as they frantically apply make-up/hunt for their keys/try to get out of bed.....

However, I found up setting up on MoreFrom.me and customising my layout surprisingly simple, and it does actually take only two minutes. Less in fact, if you don’t spend 30 seconds deliberating which picture of yourself looks best to use.

This is great for those of us with short attention spans, as we can quickly get started with MoreFrom.me without having to go through tiresome box ticking and the nagging thought, “is this all going to be worth it?”.

What’s in store?:

MoreFrom.me allows you to put your brand or your name on the award-winning MoreComputers site. You gain credit from every sale you make which you can then use to get money off when buying from their huge array of technology goods.

So, you’ve got your store, now what? First thing is, they’re not lying when they say there are tens of thousands of products. Thankfully, I found navigating my way through this myriad of technology goods simple as I could browse by category, price and manufacturer.

Then it’s up to you to recommend products and have a look around at what other people have picked out as key buys. The fact that you can see from users themselves what they think of products is crucial, as internet shopping has always seen consumers take note of testimonies.

Also, once you’re all set up, you can check out the hints and tips site for some excellent advice on how to get the best out of Morefrom.me on http://morefrom-me.blogspot.com.

Who’s really going to be into this?:

Because MoreFrom.me has so many product ranges there is a lot to attract anyone who uses technology goods, but there are some specific user markets for whom the service could be particularly useful.

An example of this is photographers. Now I know photographers, and if you get four of them in a room together they will talk ad nauseum about new products, accessories, ISOs, SLRs and other more technical subjects.

MoreFrom.me has hundreds of cameras and gadgets for photographers, but offering a platform for your own recommendations on products gives people the chance to become trusted sellers.

Schools and charities can also benefit from this as they gain a commission for every product sold which they can use themselves to buy IT equipment from MoreFrom.me.

My verdict:

Whilst Social Shopping is not necessarily a new thing, there’s nothing out there like the concept MoreFrom.me have. Gaining credit on products you sell is innovative and very appealing. The service has the potential to move into other marketplaces too, and I’m pretty sure there’s more to come from Morefrom.me in the future.

Overall, I have to say I’m mightily impressed! If you'd like to buy from TheLadyTron, click here!

MoreFrom Launches Social Shopping Concept

2011-08-02T15:27:00.002+01:00

The following press release has been circulated today with details of our MoreFrom.Me launch

Sheffield, UK. August 2nd 2011

MoreFrom group, owner of MoreComputers.com, announced today the launch of MoreFrom.Me, the first implementation of their 'From.Me' social shopping concept.

It's well documented that online shoppers love recommendations and independent reviews from fellow shoppers. Even better is a recommendation from a person the shopper knows. The people giving out the advice and the writing reviews are often forgotten, 'From.Me' gives these people the profile they deserve and rewards these unsung heroes of online shopping.

The From.Me concept is simple: personalise, promote and earn

An online retailer lets anyone set up set up a personalised 'from me' version of their website, in just a few easy clicks.
The 'From.Me-er' (as they become) can then use their new site when recommending and reviewing. Sharing on Facebook, Twitter, Google+ etc. is built in.
When people buy the recommended product, the From.Me-er is rewarded with credit to spend at the retailers store.

"We were looking for a way to reward our customers, especially those helping other shoppers and helping us promote our site. The From.Me concept became the answer. It's easy for our customers to do, costs them nothing and they earn credit for doing something they were already doing" said Chris Wheater MD of MoreFrom group. "We soon realised the From.Me concept would be attractive to a wide range of retailers".

Gadget enthusiasts, gamers, IT companies and charities are amongst those who received early invites and are already using their MoreFrom.Me. 1000s more have reserved their usernames and have just been given access.

"This is just the beginning of the From.Me idea, we have many more customisable features already being developed. It's created 'Me Commerce'. A network full of genuine customer opinions, other customers can trust, that are delivered in a highly personal way". Added Brian Trevaskiss Head of Marketing. "MoreFrom.Me takes the whole concept of Social Shopping and makes it a reality".

MoreFrom.Me is free and you can earn up to thirteen and a half percent in commission. The award winning MoreComputers.com customer service team processes all sales, deliveries and returns.

-Ends-

Please link to http://www.morefrom.me

NOTES TO EDITORS:

MoreFrom group is a group of websites best known for MoreFrom.com and MoreComputers.com.
MoreComputers.com sells over 100,000 products including computers, televisions, cameras, accessories, telephones, satNav, MP3 players and downloadable software
MoreComputers.com is rated as one of the best online retailers in the UK and is award winning:
Won PC Advisor Best Specialist online IT retailer 2011
Received six out of six stars for customer service in the PC Pro Awards 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010
Won Best Online Retailer in the PC Pro Awards 2009
Won Retailer of the Year in the PriceRunner awards 2006
MoreComputers.com has a 94% customer service satisfaction rating, compared to the industry average of 85% (PC Pro magazine 2009 Service and Reliability Survey)
MoreComputers.com was founded by Chris Wheater and is headquartered in Sheffield

Further background is at http://www.morefromgroup.co.uk

The press contact is Brian Trevaskiss on 0114 292 29 30

3 Weird and Wacky Innovations

2011-07-21T15:39:00.020+01:00

As one of my tasks whilst undergoing my work experience placement, I was asked to scour www.MoreComputers.com for the most unusual and completely ridiculous things I could find. So, here you have it, my top 3 perplexing, interesting and on the other hand, plain daft products:

1. Swann Pro-430 Sprinkler Head CCTV Camera

This CCTV camera is perfect for catching unsuspecting troublemakers in the act. The very realistic design is a perfect disguise to hide it in any office, shop or school. Unfortunately, it does not give the wrong-doers a soaking but is a great novelty product none-the-less.
Just because the design is so cunning, don't think for one second that the spec is any less impressive...

It records in colour, the quality being decent too. Also, it can plug straight into any TV meaning that you need no 'middleman' products and makes the set-up very simple.

2. I-Fluid PC Video Game

Have you ever wondered what it's like to be a drop of water?
Now you can spend an enthralling day-in-the-life of a water droplet, facing all it's challenges, with every-day objects becoming your worst enemy:

Avoiding being absorbed by tablecloths, flour and scattered cake crumbs
Balancing on sizzling vegetables, avoiding vaporisation from the heat of a deadly frying pan
Escaping from deadly thirsty cockroaches during a Mexican party

This extremely odd and pointless game completely baffles me, but may be a great way for your children to be introduced to the world of physics (?).

Visit the i-Fluid official site for more details.

3. 3DConnexion Space Navigation 3D Mouse

This relatively new and unique piece of kit takes the world of mouses into a new dimension, literally!
You can now explore the depths of your PC. This is a great product, especially for animators and such like. They can fully enjoy the 3D graphics they've created and explore cityscapes as if you are actually living in your computer.

This product may be quite irrelevant and pointless to common people like myself but is a great way to explore and fully immerse yourself in all your 3D creations.

In Depth: The Hauppauge HD-PVR

2011-07-20T10:12:00.013+01:00

The Hauppauge HD-PVR is a few years old now, yet it is still one of the best-sellers at www.MoreComputers.com but has it stood the 'test of time'?

Overview

What it can do:

Record TV programmes as a ‘middleman’ between a set top box and a PC

Record gameplay from most major games consoles including the PS3 and Xbox 360

Record in 1080i High Definition and in AVCHD Blu-Ray format to be replayed via a Blu-Ray player

Save the recordings directly onto your PC

Change the file type for compatibility with portable media players and YouTube using the provided PC software

With the software provided you can burn your recordings to DVD and Blu-Ray discs

Transfer your previously recorded programmes from your Sky box (or similar) onto your PC then burn them onto a disc

Transfer your VHS cassettes to discs using a VHS player, the HD-PVR and a PC

What it cannot do:

Store your recordings it’s self (it has no hard drive)

Record TV single-handedly (there is no built in tuner)

Play discs (there is no built in disc drive)

Burn discs without a PC

Burn discs, change file type etc. on a Mac, as the software is not compatible

In Depth

As you’d expect from any product of this type, it records your favourite programmes and films from your TV. However, unlike most, the Hauppauge HD-PVR doesn’t have a built in tuner this means it needs to be wired up to a freeview, satellite or cable TV set top box.

To makes matters worse there’s no internal hard drive, meaning you need a PC to save your recordings.

This means that the HD-PVR is a kind of ‘middleman’, you need 3 different devices (the HD-PVR itself, a set top box and a PC) to do what a traditional PVR does.

However, there are redeeming features for this product that make it worthwhile:

The HD-PVR can make real-time H.264 compressed recordings with a resolution of up to 1080i, 720p or VGA/D1 along with high definition 5.1 surround sound where possible, usually only achievable with high-end PVRs.

It also records in Blu-Ray AVCHD format so the included software, you can burn all your recordings onto a standard DVD or Blu-Ray disc, both of which can be played back on any Blu-Ray player for the full experience.

What’s more, you can record and watch your favourite HD shows simultaneously thanks to the Audio/Video component loop through, although, because there is no built-in tuner, you cannot record one channel and watch another.

It also has an IR Blaster to change the TV channel automatically so you can record what you want, when you want. This means you don’t have to be there to change the channel for the programme that you want to record.

A key feature is the ability to transfer your previously recorded TV programmes from your Sky+ box onto your PC. Unfortunately, this is a very tedious operation, to do so you must replay them back as they are re-recorded by the HD-PVR.

You can also transfer all your old home movies from traditional cassettes to your PC to burn onto a disc and give them a new lease of life using the S-Video input.

The included software selection: Arcsoft's TotalMediaExtreme, TotalMediaTheatre and MediaConverter, is a major bonus to this product, introducing numerous features...

You can convert your recordings to a games console compatible format, copy them to your console and play them back on your TV whenever you want.

You can convert your recordings into the correct file format for most portable media devices, to watch your clips on the move.

There is also the opportunity to convert your recordings into YouTube and Facebook compatible files, so you can share your favourite TV moments with all your friends.

Also, you can playback and edit all your recordings on your PC

In addition, you can hook up the recorder to your Xbox 360 or PS3 (and other consoles) to record seamless gameplay footage as you play. You can then uploaded your game highlights to YouTube and other online video sites, to show off your skill to your friends and family. This video pass through system, also means that the footage is uploaded to your computer whilst the recording is happening. This provides instant viewing, flawless recording and uninterrupted gameplay.

What’s in the box?

The product comes with everything you need to get started:

The HD-PVR box - a mere 19.8cm wide x 17.3 cm deep x 7 cm high – this controls everything; it’s the nerve-centre of the all the recordings you’ll ever make.
The HD-PVR PC software – System Requirements: Windows 7 (32/64 bit), Vista (32/64 bit), or Windows XP Service Pack 3. This is the software that you need to be able to playback and save your recordings onto your PC. N.B. this product is not compatible with Macs so, sorry to all the Steve Jobs’ out there but I’m afraid to say that this product is not for you.
A power supply (for obvious reasons).
A USB cable – connects the box to your PC.
An IR Blaster cable – for the automatic changing of channels when recording.
A Component video and audio cable set – all the standard cables required to set the HD-PVR up and connect with your cable or satellite top box or your games console.
A Quickinstall guide – tells you everything you need to get going.
Remote control – to control the functions of your set top box, not the product itself, in functions like changing channels.

Verdict

The HD-PVR was the first of its kind when it was released: a PVR (Personal Video Recorder) that can transfer all your recordings to your PC and can also record your gameplay from a games console. Now many other companies have stepped up to the mark with their own versions of a Personal Video Recorder to rival Hauppauge.

This product is great for everyone wanting to record their favourite TV shows and gameplay, and it's much better than any built in feature in a DVD or Blu-Ray player.

It may be a few years old, and with technology improving so quickly, you’d expect it to have been left behind. However, its' uses are as relevant today as they were when it was invented and it's still up there with the competition, keeping a sturdy foothold in the market. It does exactly what it says on the tin, providing an excellent video recording experience.

Received an average of 4.5/5 from MoreComputers' reviewers

Customers come first for MoreFrom.Me

2011-07-18T15:43:00.004+01:00

Today was the day we officially told the world the name of our secret project. But we told our customers a couple of days ago to give them the chance to get in first.

We've been talking about our new project for some months (code named Project Chameleon), so it was genuinely exciting to be able to use it's real name, MoreFrom.Me, for the first time in public today. But why tell our customers about it before anyone else?

I'm still not going to give anything away as to what MoreFrom.Me is, but a major part of it is having a MoreFrom.Me name or username. As the name suggests, it's all about you. The name you pick becomes your URL, so it's great to grab the username you use the most, the one everyone knows you by. There's nothing worse than entering your name on a site only to find it's been taken already.

With all this in mind we decided we'd give our fantastic customers the chance to grab their favourite user names first. They also get the chance to reserve the desirable first names and single letters. Seems only fair to give the people who've supported us so far the chance to bag those cherished names.

Having said all that it's still early days and there's plenty of usernames left, so go reserve yours now at MoreFrom.me

OFT agrees 'rip off' surcharges are unfair

2011-06-29T17:01:00.006+01:00

Great news today, the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) has agreed with Which?'s surcharges super complaint. We comply already and always have done! No hidden charges. No nonsense.

We've said hidden charges are annoying to online shoppers for a long time now, so it's great to see some action at last!

Cavendish Elithorn, senior director of the OFT's Goods and Consumer Group, explained that 'people are frustrated about being asked to pay for paying.'

He added 'consumers find it harder to shop around and find the best deal if they have to invest time and effort in discovering surcharges. This also weakens competition between retailers which is bad news for the UK economy.'

Which? use the budget airlines as examples, but online IT retail has plenty offenders too. The price you see is the price you pay on our sites. We look forward to transparent prices from others soon.

Once Again, More Brands Added This Month

2011-06-28T15:22:00.023+01:00

It's that time of month again for me to spread the word on the latest brands to hit the MoreFrom sites. If you read my last blog, you will know we now have over 100,000 different products listed and we're still adding more.

As a proud owner of an iPhone and various iPod's, I'm pleased to report we now have many more 'i' Accessories for you to sink your teeth into. Personally, Griffin is my favourite brand when it comes to protective cases and there's now a large variety of these in 'MoreIPods'. They are not too expensive, look very smart and do the job. Griffin are well know in this area, although if you're shopping for a iPhone case with a bright and funky design, then take a look at Cygnett. Also in addition to these are XtreamMac, who produce iPhone cases and cables.

There is one particular accessory that excited me, the 'Griffin Slap' for the iPod Nano 6th Gen. It's a really clever product that enables you to strap a Nano to your wrist and avoids the hassle of removing it from your pocket to skip a track or change the volume. They come in a number of vibrant colours, and can turn your Nano into a watch when the display is set to the lock screen. Will this product be enough to put H.Samuel out of business? I don't know, although I do know I want one!

We've also added more software brands. Roxio produce some really useful format conversion kits, which enable you to convert various files and DVD's to iTunes and other portable device files - many of these are available for download also.

Like always thank you for reading, and if you have any questions or wish to highlight any brands you feel we should stock, please leave a comment below and I'll see what I can do about it. More brands coming soon.

A Round Up Of This Weeks Tech News

2011-06-02T11:43:00.020+01:00

This week has already seen some very interesting goings on in the technology world. Nokia are in financial trouble, and rumours about Twitter's latest developments are making the rounds. However, in amongst the media frenzy lies some very cool and some quite pointless gadgets. Here are my favourites;

GoFlex Satellite Mobile Wireless StorageThis GoFlex Wireless storage device allows you to store and stream movies, music and images to up to three WiFi devices at the same time. Targeted at Tablet users, families who entertain their kids as they travel and people on the go, it is light weight, has a USB port and can be easily charged in the car. Sounds great, but is anyone else wondering what happens if you have more than three kids that all want to hook up to phones, iPads and laptops? Someone's bound to come across this issue at some point surely?

Folding Electric ScooterThe race is on in the motoring industry to see who can develop the fastest and most reliable electric vehicle. Not quite leading the way, but sneaking up from behind is this Folding Electric Scooter from Lit Motors. Not only is it carbon friendly and folds down to half its size, it is also suitable for carrying a large box or in this case a person. They hope to release this in the US later on this year, so if we are to see it in the UK, at a guess I wouldn't expect to see it on the shelves until early on next year.

Asus Padfone

Over the past few weeks I have been both excited and saddened by the Bento Book by Rene Woo-Ram Lee. Excited because it is such a genius concept, but saddened by the fact that at present it remains just that, a concept. So, imagine my amazement when I cam across the Asus Padfone, which is beyond just a normal Tablet, it is a Tablet and a Smartphone combined. Yes, really - the Smartphone simply slots into the back of the Tablet like a cassette and will all run off the latest version of Android - even better.

My only issue with both of these concepts, if I'm honest, is what happens when the phone rings? Think about it. Do you use the Tablet as a phone, or take it out and lose where you are at. This aside, I still wouldn't mind giving one of these a try, preferably the Bento Book, but until then the Padfone will have to do.

Pointless TechnologyBringing a whole knew meaning to the term "you snooze, you lose", this pointless gadget shreds your hard earned cash as you catch a few extra zzzzz's in the morning. I can categorically say that this is one gadget I would not like to test out. Who in their right mind would chose willingly to shred their money, seriously?

Review: Asus Eee PC Seashell Netbook by Karim Rashid

2011-05-23T11:19:00.015+01:00

Last week I was lucky enough to get my hands on not one, but two Asus Eee PC Seashell netbooks to play around with and review for you.  

At first glance, it is hard to know what to think of these two tiny netbooks. Both wrapped in a 'wave-imitating' plastic, I can 'sea' how they came up with the name (see what I did there?). Though nice to the touch, I do wonder if wrapping a laptop in 'touch and feel' plastic is a tad juvenile, arguably this could be Asus' target market of course. I have to say, the matt-brown netbook reminds me ever so slightly of a chocolate bar, enough to make my tummy rumble. The pink one could easily be mistaken for an Essex handbag, if I'm honest.   

Opening up the Asus Seashell, I was pleased to see one or two shiny pearls hiding inside. For example, blatantly taking some inspiration from Apple, it has a multi-touch trackpad which allows you to scroll and zoom in and out easily. Considering they are only small gadgets and not the easiest to type on, I was glad to find that the keys are raised and well spaced, again taking inspiration from Apple MacBooks. This makes typing on such a small gadget bearable.

  However, as I switched on the netbooks, the Seashell sank a little in my opinion. The 10.1 inch screen is a tad clunky and the resolution is ok for a standard netbook, but nothing spectacular. It's not all bad news though, a play around makes it clear that, whilst these are no office computers, they are well designed and targeted at younger audiences.  

The 'Eee Dock' at the top of the desktop, with 'Eee Amuse', 'Eee Sharing' and 'Eee Xperience' are clearly aimed at the under 20's, with games and entertainment taking president over setting out documents and day-to-day usability. Again the colours and textures (and we all know how I feel about pink gadgets), are more suited to style conscious teen girls, than anyone else.

  If you were to ask me whether or not I would buy one of these for myself, I would say hell no. However, if you were to ask me whether or not I would buy or recommend one of these for a younger relative, or a girly, pink obsessed friend - then the answer is yes.   

As for Karim Rashid, I'm a little bemused as to why a man who designs chairs as beautiful as this for Magis, created a wavy, sea inspired netbook range for Asus?

We've hit 100,000 and not out! - What else could we have added?

2011-05-16T12:13:00.025+01:00

With over 100,000 products now listed on the site, variety is something the MoreFrom Group doesn't lack. This week we added further brands to the MoreCameras Division for all of you camera lovers, which include a wider range of accessories to get your teeth into.

Nikon is a brand I am sure you will have heard of, they are well recognised in the camera industry. On the MoreFrom site, you can find everything from Nikon's fabulous budget-buy Coolpix Range, to their high spec models. If you call yourself a 'true pro', you might have come across the award winning Nikon D7000 series- this baby has more features than you could imagine, including a 16.2 MP CMOS sensor.

I am sure most will agree that a camera is not complete without its accessories. The newly added Lowepro range is definitely worth a punt if you're in the market for a camera case. They are recognised in the industry as the leading manufacturer in this area, and pride themselves with over 40 years of creating the perfect cases. We have also added Proper Bags to the site, they provide a range of generic bags & cases - these are definitely worth a look if you can't locate a compatible case for your camera. Another addition is UniRoss if your searching for a spare battery, rechargeable camera batteries and charging units. In addition we have added Sigma, who supply compatible lenses for leading brands Nikon and Canon. So, along with the other items in our Camera Accessories section, there's a good chance that if your looking for something in particular, MoreFrom can deliver it straight to your front door with free delivery.

If you have any questions or notice a brand/product you feel we should stock, please leave a comment below and I'll see what I can do about it. More brands to follow, thanks for reading.

We're supporting the Which? surcharges super complaint

2011-05-11T10:21:00.013+01:00

Continuing our crusade against hidden charges we have at last been joined by consumer watchdog Which? who have launched a ‘super complaint’ against hidden credit card charges. A super complaint is made to the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) and can be made about any market that is not working properly for consumers. As consumers are not in the position to overcome this issue themselves, Which? have issued a super complaint on behalf of all consumers.

We’ve been championing this cause for many years with our “Philfing” campaign. “Purposefully Hiding what you are Looking For”, where retailers hide extra charges such as delivery and credit card charges in order to display what seems to be a cheap price.

The MoreFrom group sites have no credit card or other surcharges, but many of our competitors continue to hide extra charges until late in their checkout process in the hope that customers will complete their purchase regardless or assume that all retailers do the same. The price comparison sites are also poor at pointing out these differences and unscrupulous retailers simply play the game of advertising low prices to get consumers to their sites where they are then hit with extra charges.

WE DON’T DO THIS ! The price you see on our product page it the price you actually pay and our standard delivery is FREE, regardless of how much you spend.

So next time you are comparing prices, remember...

MoreComputers prices have no hidden charges

Take a look at the Which? Super Complaint web page for more details.

In the coming months we'll also be revisiting our online shopping annoyances survey to see if anything has really changed. More details on this soon.

It's All Gone A Bit James Bond

2011-05-03T11:18:00.016+01:00

Any self confessed geek who doesn’t get excited, not even just a little bit, by the very thought of teleportation devices and x-ray specs, in my eyes in not a true tech geek. James Bond inspired gadgets are about as cool as they can get. Although MoreFrom aren’t likely to start selling products that are exactly like these any time soon, there’s no harm in having a sneaky peek at what ultimate Bond inspired gadgets are out there… just in case you want to try your hand at being a 007 agent for the day.

Tornado Night Vision Goggles – Generation 2+

As if the name isn’t cool enough, feast your eyes on the Tornado Night Vision Goggles. These goggles have two eyepieces that funnel into one night vision tube and lens. Using infrared it is possible to see in low to zero light, and only requires two AA batteries - pretty impressive for such a complex piece of kit.

With a price tag of £3.5k, surely there are other uses to justify the purchase of this rather extravagant boys toy; practical jokes, finding your way to the loo in the night without waking up your other half, creeping up on burglars… I feel I may be clutching at straws here, but I wouldn’t mind giving some night vision goggles a go myself.

Bluetooth Laser Virtual Keyboard

Virtual typing is a relatively new phenomenon, allowing you to type without even having to lay your fingers on a physical keyboard. This Bluetooth virtual keyboard apparently makes it easy to type away on any surface without making a sound, and can link up to desktops, laptops and mobile phones using Bluetooth technology. It has 120 minutes of power if you type continuously, and allows you to reach similar typing speeds of a normal keyboard. All this in a device not much larger than a matchbox.

Robo-Fly - The Ultimate Spy Gadget

We’ve all seen the film Robocop right? Well say hello to robo-fly, the ultimate spy gadget. This tiny robotic insect has been developed by scientists at Harvard University, and is the first six legged robotic creature to mimic the flight methods of its intended counterpart. Weighing in at 60 milligrams, with a wingspan of 3 cms – it looks like a fly, and it flies like a fly, who in their right mind would ever stop to think that this is in fact a spying robo-fly?

Document Scanning Pen

Knowledge is power, and in typical James bond situations, time is of the essence. This document-scanning pen is essentially a pocket photocopier, only much smaller, lighter and easier to conceal. It quickly scans and stores text and images into documents which can be uploaded via USB later on. On a practical note however, if you’re not a thrill seeker looking to become James Bond for the day, this handy pen still has its uses, allowing you to quickly and easily scan on the go.

So, there's a glimpse at what the world of 007 inspired gadgets has to offer. If being James Bond for the day isn't up your street, maybe a real life 'Go Go Gadget Copter' will be...

LadyTron's Round Up Of This Weeks Tech News

2011-04-26T10:46:00.014+01:00

3D TV’s – Disney and Paramount Sign Deals With Virgin TV

To date, Sky TV has been leading the way with the variety of 3D content available to view on demand, but are their rivals, Virgin, catching up? I think so! Virgin has signed deals with two media production giants, Disney and Paramount, to add more content to their 3D on demand service. In theory, as more 3D content becomes available, the demand for 3D TV’s will increase to suit. I’m still skeptical about 3D TV taking over the relatively new HD TV. I know that I won’t be buying a 3D TV any time in the near future, not until 3D TV without glasses has had time to flourish and there is no chance of it making you feel sick!

Looking For A Super-Fast Computer?

Well look no further – the Tiahne-1a super computer is now officially the fastest computer in the world according to the TOP 500 Project report, published twice yearly. With 229, 376 GB of RAM compared to an average 4-6GB of RAM on a standard laptop or PC, this machine is a beast. Its mammoth memory means that it is capable of processing 2.507 pletaflops, which to you and me is the equivalent of 2507 trillion calculations per second. Trouble is, there’s only one of them in the world, and looking at the size of it you’d struggle to fit this bad boy into your average home study!

Smartphones And Tablets To Over Take PC’s by 2013

Technology analysis firm Gartner have predicted that by 2013 sales of smartphones and tablets will over take those of PC’s and Laptop computers. From recent figures they have estimated that we will own 1.82 billion smartphones compared to 1.72 billion PC’s, and that’s excluding the rising tablet market. Are we seeing a shift on how we consume the Internet and is the demise of the desktop PC imminent? According to these figures, the PC may become a ‘Retro’ object well before we ever expected.

MoreFrom the Gadget Show Live 2011

2011-04-20T11:32:00.017+01:00

Last week we managed to escape the confines of MoreFrom mansion and headed to Birmingham NEC. Our destination - The Gadget Show Live 2011 'the UK's ultimate consumer electronics event' according to their website and pretty good it was too. As you'd expect there were a mass of phones, laptops, cameras and many of the latest tablets.

I did get quite excited when I realised there would be bikes too. Although the selection on offer was disappointing in the end, too many weird electric hybrids for my liking and a rather pointless test track.

The show is split into many different areas; 3D experience, gaming and future tech all had their own zones as the Gadget crew like to call them. With the Game Zone particularly impressive, I imagine it was heaving at the weekend with rows and rows of gamers vying for prizes and getting a taste of future releases.

If you wandered off the beaten track a bit you could also find the Robo Tech Challenge area - great if you like Robot Wars and that kind of thing. The Photographic Workshop also looked good for the latest cameras and picking up a few retouching tips.

Music and sound were well covered with everything from DJ kit to in-car entertainment. Yes there were cars with ridiculously large speakers and yes there were scantily clad 'personality' girls.

The massive 'Super Theatre' where the presenters chat (and sing?) and demonstrate kit was unfortunately not open for the trade day (the day we attended) but it looked very impressive and reports say it was.

All-in-all it was a good show - some big brands like Apple, Nikon and Toshiba were missing, but their products could still be found. Highlights for me were the Motorola Xoom tablet, the 3D TV demos and the 70s Batmobile. Will we be back next year? Probably, there were no brand new products launched, but it was good to see so much shinny plastic in one place.

Brother Printer Promo- Save up to £200

2011-04-05T11:51:00.022+01:00

If you're like me, you love a free gift. Our blog last month on Samsung printers highlighted that saving money in today's economy is important, I now have some more fantastic news to report.

Brother has put together a great new promotion made up of several different offers on selected printers:

Cashback - from £50 to £200
Free 3 year on-site warranties
Free toners

To make it easier to select which offer suites you best, I have created a dedicated Brother promotions page on the MoreFrom Group websites.

"How do I claim my free prize?" - Simply visit the Brother website then enter your details and the designated promotional code (shown on our product page).

"What kind of saving is this offer worth?" - If you opt for the 3 year warranty, Brother suggest the value of the saving is worth £149. For the colour toners your looking about £194, and £70 for the high-yield black - the cashback is self-explanatory.

"When is the expiry date?" - 31st May 2011

This is a great promotion and if you're looking at a new printer, this will certainly save you some money. Follow this blog for more interesting promotions and MoreFrom news.

Danny at MoreFrom Group

Proof we did win an award at the PC Advisor Awards 2011

2011-03-30T11:53:00.006+01:00

In case you didn't believe us, this is me picking up our award for Best Specialist Online IT Retailer at the 2011 PC Advisor Awards. You can see the full rogues gallery on PC Advisor's Facebook page. Including what could well be my worst photo ever (not going to put it here).

A big thank you once again to all our customers and the readers of PC Advisor for voting for us. Not to mention a big thank you and well done to the MoreFrom customer service team. Proving once again they really are something special.

It was a great night and I'd like to say thanks to PC Advisor for putting it together.

Young Sheffield engineer's career set to start with a bang

2011-03-14T16:37:00.009Z

The doorbell rang at MoreFrom HQ the other day and a lecturer from the local Wisewood School & Community Sports College started to apologise. He apologised for dropping in un announced, but it turned out he had good reason. One of his students, 16 year old Connor Plant, was in the process of building two very unusual PCs in a bid to win a national competition.

Connor had entered his GCSE project for the regional heat of the Young Engineer for Britain Competition and won! He was therefore in the final due to be judged at the massive The Big Bang 2011 - UK Young Scientists & Engineers Fair.

His lecturer explained that Connor was working on new designs for the final and that they were hoping MoreFrom could help out by providing some internal components. It sounded like a great achievement to have made it to the final and we were only to happy to help.

The new cases, one a in the style of a traditional piece of wooden furniture and the other, an ultra modern sculpture. Both designs take advantage of the Intel Mini-ITX motherboard at 17cm2, about the size of a Mac Mini, it's incredibly small and has CPU and graphics built-in.

We were also able to loan Connor some monitors and keyboards so he could demonstrate his new creations at The Big Bang fair. The Big Bang 2011 was held at ICC London ExCeL from 10 - 12 March, 25,000 people attended. The headline shows included Sky 1's Brainiac Live!, BBC's Bang Goes the Theory and BBC's Wallace & Gromit 'World of Invention' roadshow.

Connor didn't manage to add the overall title to his impressive list of awards, but he looks set to follow in the footsteps of previous winner Ruth Amos, also from Sheffield. Ruth won the 2006 competition and has since gone on to set up her own company StairSteady as a result of her success.

We wish Connor every success for his future and who knows one day he may be challenging the British designer Jonathan Ive for Apple's top job.

5 Year Warranty on Selected Samsung Printers

2011-03-11T16:31:00.020Z

In today's economy, saving money on your office equipment is so important to make your annual budget go further.

Samsung have recently announced they are extending the warranty period on selected printers from 1 year to 5. This means your investment will be covered for a large part of it's life.

The offer will save you around £200 - based on the fact a 2-year extended warranty normally costs £100.

The MoreFrom Group websites list all of the qualifying printers and I have added a link to the Samsung terms on each product page.

These are the qualifying printers

CLX-6250FX

Like most offers, there's an expiry date - for this one it's 30th June 2011. If you have already purchased one of these selected units after 10th January 2011, you qualify too! You must however register your warranty within 3 month of purchase.

This is a great offer, and will hopefully save you a lot of money.

Danny at MoreFrom Group

The Apple Rumour Mill

2011-02-28T13:06:00.009Z

With rumours of the iPad 2 media preview due to take place on Wednesday, I’m taking a look at all that the Apple Rumour Mill is churning out, and what we can potentially expect from Apple over the next year…

iPhone 5

Well… there’s not too much hot gossip on the iPhone 5 – only this; an apparent leak of the new screen for the next Apple phone. It’s the bezel of the new potential iPhone 5 screen, which is much bigger than the one of the iPhone 4. Whether or not we will see this on the next Apple phone, who knows – I will keep my ears to the ground for the next set of iPhone 5 rumours the Apple grinder kicks out.

Is Apple’s head designer heading home?

Head of Industrial Design and the man behind the iPhone, iPod, iPad and the MacBook, British born Jonathan Ives is rumoured to be leaving the Apple HQ and heading home to the UK so that his children can attend school here.

Whilst I think it’s sweet that he wants to educate his kids in England, this teamed with an unwell Steve Jobs would create a cloud of uncertainty for Apple, which could impact their future products and share prices. I hope he does stay a little longer as, being the Apple-a-holic that I am, I want him to continue producing more fantastic gadgets for me to play with… and of course, review for all of you.

iPad 2

At the International CES technology conference, mock-ups of how the new iPad 2 will look have been leaked – the next model has a flatter back and will be slimmer at just 9.8mm, which is 4mm sleeker than the original model.

Matching the iPhone 4, there are front and back cameras to enable facetime and back left of the new model hosts a huge speaker to play the 128GB worth of music and films you can store on it. We'll also be getting a USB port and enquiring minds would really like to know if we can run Microsoft Office on this version. Is it any different aesthetically? Not really… Will the technology behind the new model blow us all away? I hope so…

It may be lighter, there is talk of a white version and expect a retina display iPad to blow away the competition. The thinking is it will be dual-core as all the tablets are taking this road in 2011.

Unsurprisingly the media launch in San Fran, is on March the 2nd - the UK event is set to take place at the BBC Television Centre in London on the same date. The press invites see an Apple iOS calendar peeling away to reveal the top right hand corner of an iPad, tantalisingly not showing evidence of facetime or..... anything.

However, there is a chance that this mock up is just to throw us off the scent, rumour also has it that this iPad 2 is the new ‘Big Thing’ to come out of Apple HQ, fully equipped with new apps such as iMilk, iFire and iMotivator:

Seasonal Technology Marketing Needs a Shake Up

2011-02-21T14:24:00.010Z

Watch out for the Man in a Bunny Suit!
Let’s admit, everyone, including myself loves receiving a beautifully wrapped present and opening it to find a brand new gadget inside. The kind that will keep you awake at night unless it is switched on, working and you’ve played with it. Seasonal celebrations such as Christmas and Valentines provide countless opportunities for technology suppliers to persuade us to buy their products for our loved ones. Some do this well, others do this badly and some just miss the mark completely.

Just to say…
February 14^th marks the annual day of love. Since 1382 we have been displaying our affection on this day with the exchange of poetry, cards, flowers and now… camcorders. Garish pink and purple ad campaigns, asking us who we would rather kiss or elope with, are taking over the tech world, and are being complimented by offers on pink iPods, Hello Kitty Cameras and…. TV remotes? (yes, apparently TV remotes make the perfect gift for loved ones who like watching TV).

One does have to question, who are they talking too? With Valentines day set aside for romantic gestures… we are being told that these now come in the form of pink gadgets and are seemingly being convinced to buy them instead of flowers and chocolates, but does this really have the desired affect? “Keep you’re special someone safe with a Cisco Fixed Network Security Camera,” or “Sat-Nav’s: The way to your loved one’s heart”. Need I say any more?

Look out for the man in the bunny suit!
Well Easter is just around the corner and I dread to think what will come next… I anticipate websites laden with Easter eggs, poke a chicken competitions and maybe, if you buy an ink cartridge or a paper shredder it will be delivered by a courier man in a bunny suit who presents it in a basket full of Easter eggs… now there’s a thought.

‘Tis the Season…...NOT YET!!!
As we all know when you are young, an hour in the playground feels like a lifetime and as you get older the years fly by. Just as you are getting used to this year’s politics, economic furore, world disasters and revolutions, out comes the tinsel, the lovely ecard with the dogs and kittens and 'that' woman is warbling over shop speakers again (you know who I mean).

Christmas is the time of year when technology retailers go all out to convince you to buy from them. Turning websites into a scene from the inside of Santa’s grotto, they all compete to see who can have the most snow, holly and reindeer on their landing page.

Demanding children are busy asking for laptops, cameras, games consoles and phones and the tech world aims to capitalise on this as much as possible… “Come and poke Santa’s little helpers” they cry, in a bid to get you to enter a competition, that you subsequently lose but they still have your email address, so they can aggressively send you offers on ‘cool gifts’ year upon year until you give in.

More Computers wins PC Advisor's Best Specialist IT Retailer

2011-02-09T13:52:00.004Z

I'm pleased to say the readers of PC Advisor have voted MoreComputers.com winner of the PC Advisor Awards 2011 reader award for Best Specialist IT Retailer. It's fantastic news. The awards were voted for by more than 14,000 PC Advisor print and online readers and I'd like to say a big thank you to everyone who voted for us.

Our customer service and development teams also deserve a big thank you too, without their hard work and commitment we'd be lost - Go team!

Take a look at all the award winners here at PC Advisor Awards 2011

Tech-citing 2011

2011-01-26T11:38:00.008Z

As people are purported to like people, I thought I would let you know what I actually look like. This is me supporting MoreFrom at the recent Sheffield Business Awards. So there you go.

I'm not sure if this has ever been stated in an outright manner, so I felt it best to say so now and at the beginning of 2011. We'll start as we mean to go on. TheLadyTron loves all things tech. I love the idea of tech, the plans for tech, gadgetry and gizmos. I can occasionally be found pondering how the internet takes images, words and graphics and can send them to squillions of screens for all to see at the touch of a button or from the heat of your finger on some clever bit of kit.

It's very overwhelming. Go on, try and plot the process in your head, I dare you! I guarantee you'll get the same look on your face that I did and it's not one you'll want to be seen sporting in general public (or the Apple store in my case).

What (wo)man can now do is amazing. We are all explorers of space, the fantasy has become reality. It might not be in suits amongst the stars but it is definitely in another dimension.

Enough of my theological musings and on to the main points. Last year was a very exciting year in technology and 2011 promises more of the same. I thought I would outline some highlights, whilst I wait for a Galaxy Samsung to be dropped off for my entertainment:

Apple's MacBookAir - Launched last year, initially I got rather excited about this pretty bit of kit. On closer inspection the spec is not as impressive as the Macbook Pro so I ordered another one of those but with a solid state drive.

Kinect - I fear this was rushed to launch for the usual Christmas gaming wars. The concept is well-received and the console itself does what it should but gamers the world over can be heard shouting "Give Us Games!!". When will these companies learn; take a product to market when it and all the necessary components are ready and not before.

Google is to hire more than 6000 people in 2011 - Apparently this is to counteract the increasing threat of facebook who can now boast that 10% of their 2,000 strong workforce used to work for the top dog search engine. Google, rather sensitively or fortuitously (you choose dear reader), announced this on the day Yahoo Inc. let plans be known for staff cuts of 150 - 200, due to falling revenue figures.

Internet TV - This years big thing is all about Internet TV. Apple, Google and Samsung are already dominating the headlines with their efforts, debuts and relaunches planned for the coming 12 months. The Beeb has come under heavy and probably undeserved fire, for rumours on what is happening with their Youview TV. Apparently there are technical glitches but as the BBC is renowned for quality and their website is still light years ahead of most, I'll reserve my judgement.

App Inventor - A free app for inventing android applications. All you need is this free browser-based software, a mac or a pc and a google account. No programming skills necessary. Go on have a play...you know you want to...

Tron Legacy - This is obviously a nod to my heritage, the main reason for mentioning last years uber cool cyber release. What it lacks in plot it makes up for in stunning visuals and action sequences. Nuff said.

Sony Ericsson PSP Phone - Planned to be released around May 2011, I'm not sure I would want one as a permanent extension to my arm, like my current phone is but I deffo want to have a play.

Cyber Clean - Goo in a pot to get rid of all the nasty things lurking between your alt button and your Z key. Apparently there is more bacteria contained within the un-chartered depths of the gaps between your keys than under a public toilet seat. The only difference is the absence of smell to alert you....euuwwwwww!!

Carrera not Scaletrix - I had to buy a slot car set recently, not for a child but for a client. Random I know and I was informed by a secret geek agent that anybody who knows anything about slot cars doesn't buy scaletrix but Carrera. Carrera uses...wait for it.......German engineering which makes for a more reliable slot car that doesn't come off the track as easily. Who knew?

Rumour Mill - (As quoted from Stuff Magazine) "Netbooks running Google's Chrome OS will launch this month ◆ The sequel to Fusion Garage's doomed JooJoo tablet is incoming, with Android replacing its shonky proprietary OS ◆ Toshiba is prepping a Regza-branded TV phone with a 4in screen ◆ Google's Nexus Two will launch at the same time as Android 3.0. ◆ The next iPhone will have the SIM card built in."

and the award for the most award nominations goes to... More Computers

2011-01-10T12:36:00.005Z

We've kicked off the year with a total of three award nominations, all very exciting and all very different.

First up this week are the Sheffield Chamber of Commerce and Industry Awards on Thursday 13th. We are nominated for the Excellence in Customer Service Award for the second year running. We narrowly missed out last year and are one of only three nominees this year. It would be great to see the team get further recognition for all their hard work and clinch it this year.

Next up are the PC Advisor Awards 2011, these are reader voted awards and we are nominated for Best Specialist Online IT Retailer. It's the first time we've been nominated in these awards and are through to the final five companies. PC Advisor is a very popular PC magazine and website, so it's great to get recognition from their savvy readers.

Last but not least are the PCR Awards 2011 and we we are up for the Best Online Retailer Award. More Computers is nominated along with four other websites including Amazon and Play. It would be great to take on the big boys and win! PCR is the trade magazine and website for the home and business computing sector, so this is very much an industry award. It's the first time we've featured in these awards, they are judged by some of the most influential people in IT so a win would be fantastic.

Will we do the treble? Who knows. It's possible, we've always been focused on providing the best service for our customers and we've made some major advances in the past 12 months. Whichever way it goes, we're more than happy to get so many nominations, it's a major achievement in it's self. Thanks to everyone who voted for us and thanks to the team for making it happen, wish us luck!

Merry Christmas

2010-12-22T14:36:00.004Z

To all our customers in 2010 we'd like to say thank you for your custom, we really appreciate you choosing to shop with us. We have a lot planned for the start of 2011 and you can be sure you'll be one of the first to find out what we are up to.

We'd also like to say a massive sorry fo any orders that have been affected by the courier delays. All couriers are struggling to deliver on time with the extra seasonal demand and the effects of the snow.

Once again we are really sorry for any disruption you have had. Have a great Christmas from everyone here at the MoreFrom group.

Note: Our customer service team will be on holiday from 5pm 23rd December until 9am 29th December. Orders can be placed on our website throughout this time and will be processed on 29th December.

'Zut Alors!' - Ben the Bodyguard

2010-12-11T12:56:00.011Z

Sometimes, just sometimes you stumble across something so cool you're compelled to write about it. I don't even care that the actual app is as dull as dishwater.

That's kind of the point though and I think this is what David Zax (and all the other journo's and bloggers) miss in his article on the Fast Company website. There is stuff out there, that has a purpose, is necessary and useful but is mind-numbingly and soul-destroyingly dull.

Nobody really wants to discuss finance, legal issues or burglar alarms. What they do want is to avoid huge tax bills, jail or their property being broken into.

This is a big part of the challenge for company heads, marketers and PR's today. How do you get companies with not very exciting products, services or applications heard above all of the noise of the internet?

Well I think Nerd Communications have just shown us how. They've caused a media storm, an online phenomenon and I'm quietly (or not so quietly) sitting here, waiting to see what they do next. I will also check out the app when it arrives. I may even use it and it might even be useful, 'Zut Alors!'.

I also love the laissez-faire attitude of Stefan Telegdy, Chief Nerd (according to David Zax, that's what his business card actually says!). At the end of the day it's easy to see they are super-talented and probably live, breath and eat this stuff.

This just demonstrates what happens when hard-work and talent without pomp and assumption comes into the playground that is the internet. How else would this app have got so much attention?

Olympus Cameras - Nice but not naughty

2010-11-17T13:01:00.014Z

Olympus is the third largest manufacturer of cameras in the world, just behind Sony and Canon. They've got some pretty cool stuff going on what with mirrorless technology in their DSLR and the new PEN sub-brand.

Q: What's the biggest complaint about a DSLR?
A: It's too heavy

What do Olympus do about this? Well they address the problem by developing a compact DSLR and when a photojournalist got hold of it, within 3 months it was awarded camera of the year!

Listening to their sales rep he would have you believe that the straight forward DSLR's days are numbered. Well they may be but I remember how resistent the market actually was when Digital first came out, even when you could prove that costs were saved. It might happen but it won't happen overnight and there will be those purist, fanbois who won't hear a word of it.

Olympus have a strategy for this though, they understand as many camera manufacturers do, that the DSLR users drive the market, although you'll never totally convert the top end. We are going to be seeing a lot of PEN or new generation cameras over the next two years. They want to be clear, it's not a revolution it's an evolution.

Olympus have basically taken the best bits of a compact camera and put them into the DSLR, removing the mirrors and shrinking the lenses. Although, never fear you can still use old lenses using a clever little retro-adaptor.

This product is attracting people who want a DSLR but with the benefit of being lightweight and portable whilst not losing any of the quality. So let's introduce the award-winning E-P1 PEN camera.

It has a Hi-Def video which is complemented by Olympus' dedicated, specialist sound manufacturers or their audio division. There is a versatile accessory port so that you can clip on an external microphone. This means you can take it to a gig or record little Gemma's violin recital and play it back in all its earsplitting glory.

You can change from the screen view to an electronic clip-on view-finder which comes as standard with the E-P2 and is an optional extra with the E-P1. It is, apparently the best on the market Diopter.

It has AF tracking (Auto-Focus), an easy to navigate menu system, PCM linear stereo sound and you can activate the video via a button on the back rather than having to try and find it on the menu, when you want to record something quick.

The Image Stabilisation is in the body so any range of lenses can be used with the adapter, without compromising quality. It won't surprise you to know that black is the no. 1 best seller closely followed by silver, then red and oddly in the Channel Islands only, White (If anyone knows why please get in contact).

There is also a pop-up flash, a live guide e.g. light and dark changes and it takes pictures in realtime. There is a choice of menu graduation or colour saturation which is also realtime. One of my fave features is the level gauge with roll and pitch which acts as a spirit level.

It has something called a 'Supersonic Wave Filter Dust Reduction System', which for me is right up there with flux capacitor. It means it cleans itself.

You can get an underwater kit for it and a standard or wireless flash gun. You can also get two adapters to make it backwards compatible.

This bit of kit would be perfect for a hobbyist photographer, someone who is out on location a lot and budding, young photographers who are just starting out.

For those of you with larger households that need to factor in disasters such as sticky fingers, sand, dribble and sibling rivalry the tough Olympus Compact range might be more up your street and you have a hope in hell of the camera surviving from precious shot capturing through to computer upload!

They've got HD video and all moving parts are internal. There is a floating electronic board, shock absorbers, they are freezeproof up to -10˚c which judging by the weather forecast will be useful very soon. It is scratchproof. To test this mighty, indestructible instrument of pixel capturing we threw it across the room and kicked it against the wall. It passed the test.

The 3000, 5000 and 8000 all have face detection and shadow adjustment.

One of the last things that impressed me was the Spider case. It's a camera holder that means you can easily pull your camera out and it automatically retracts, which is perfect for those on-piste skiing shots!!

The range is also competitively priced so if you are searching for a Christmas gift get your hands on one of these bad boys.

Sony Vaio Z12 & Z13

2010-11-17T12:13:00.006Z

Sony Vaio's are good but they are expensive and this new range is no exception.

I do like Sony Vaio's. I had the misfortune of working (albeit fairly briefly) for a very cross-tempered multi-millionaire who would only use top of the range Vaio's and by proxy I would get one.

I'll admit it was nice to get my hot little hands on something more expensive than the run of the mill corporate laptops and have a bit more power / functionality. Whilst based out in Spain for the work it was useful in my apartment to use in the absence of a TV to watch films. It was a good work laptop, reliable, sturdy and reasonably good-looking.

This new generation of Vaios takes it to the next level. I reviewed the Z12 and since that the Z13 has arrived. Now, I'll hit you with the painful bit. Without knowing anything about the product first, the price will make you do a hasty and sharp intake of breath, quickly followed by a long slow whistle.

But give it a chance and you'll perhaps realise it is no different to fanbois of Mac products spanking extra cash for that something special.

It's quick. I mean frighteningly quick. Turn it on, you practically blink and it's ready to go. Opening applications and using the internet (depending on your connection speed of course) is a dream. Although through experience I appreciate most new equipment is quick whilst uncluttered by apps and programmes etc.

It's disturbingly light and whilst I personally feel not as good looking as some kit, it's still attractive in a very aluminium, carbon fibre masculine to the 'nth degree sort of way.

The screen is superb and just shy of HD quality, the keypad a little odd-looking but user friendly and the very slim screen seems to bear some tenuous link to russian gymnasts. It's a very flexible ultraportable.

For a more detailed technical specification visit the dedicated MoreFrom page or the PCPro review. Also look out for the Sony 'VAT back' offer, we think it's pretty darn good!!

Get the VAT back with Sony

2010-10-29T10:53:00.004+01:00

The Sony VAT back Christmas promotion starts today. Sony say it's the biggest promotion they've ever done. Simply buy any of these selected Sony products and download the claim form. You need to send the completed form, including the product serial number along with the European Guarantee and proof of purchase to Sony. If you look at the Ex. VAT prices shown on our site - that's the amount your product will cost. As an example: on a £1000 product you save £148.94.

It's a genuine offer that's being heavily promoted by Sony with TV ads, so we expect stock to sell out fast. We're one of the few online retailers who are authorised Sony partners, not everyone is. If you were thinking about a Sony now's a good time to buy.

Printers Are Sexy

2010-10-26T14:43:00.011+01:00

No I haven't gone completely mad. Printers need to work. Seamlessly. Often they don't or they spew out paper like trees grow really quickly on this little planet of ours. Or they go through ink like an alcoholic with a bottle of whiskey. Or they are noisy and you get that one little line that appears on every page right at the crucial point. Toner is expensive, that's a fact.

When you are on a deadline or getting ready for 'that' presentation or just promised you'd cook tonight and need to print off the recipe or your partner really will leave you this time, printer failure can cause rages in people that is frightening to behold. Forget road rage, printer rage involves an inanimate object often small enough to throw.

Now having some experience of working with Epson and HP I have to admit that I did prefer HP's printer products as a rule. The products were great and I really liked the sales guy, Howard who I worked with in my Nikon days.

I bought a HP printer earlier this year for my office and have tended to stick with HP on printers. Epson I liked the campaign they did on the London Underground a few years ago. It was attention grabbing but it used pixellation which no-one wants to see in their print results.

However I would now like to introduce you to my new favourite. Brother. Here's a little information as to why.

They are the only printer manufacturer that makes a separate toner and drum on their Mono printer, which means you don't have to replace the whole thing every time your printer needs more toner.

They have been awarded eco-accreditations for zero landfill from their factories and because they have reduced the amount of non-recyclable materials in manufacture and increased their use of recycled materials. They were awarded an Energy Star, The German Blue Angel and the Nordic Swan. The Nordic Swan takes a serious three and half years of factory visits and book auditing to attain. Wow, who knew?

Brother materialised over 100 years ago starting, funnily enough, with two Brothers who repaired sewing machines in Ngoya, Japan. These boys then moved onto making them and diversified into typewriters, microwaves and Karaoke machines. They in fact became the biggest supplier of Karaoke networks in Japan.

They've been knocking around Europe for 60 years and on our lovely Island for 50. Brother are the leading supplier into the NHS and with their latest product range it is easy to see why.

The HL-5350DN Mono Laser Function Printer may not be sexy but there are a couple of thoughtful elements that have gone into the product design and aftercare. We tested it with the Lenovo ThinkPads to see how easy installation is. This is often not only a bug bear but a frustrating process for even hardened technogeeks.

So we went to plug in the USB cable from laptop to printer, but a sticker over it on the printer gently reminds you to install your software first. We didn't even need a disc, the Lenovo just found and installed the driver and it was "well quick". On the wireless printers the laptop automatically finds it on a drop-down list, with the plug in printers the install discs were used.

This model is a good basic networking printer for a number of office users. It has actually proven to be cheaper over 3-4 years than its nearest competitor. It prints quickly, quietly and without fuss or fanfare. Which is what you need for your clucking group of admin ladies or busy accounts department.

We then moved onto testing the DCP-375CW which is a wireless printer. I have just told my Mum to buy one. Previously she had bought HP like me and on my recommendation.

It's black and sleek but not in your face. It incorporates Brother capillary action technology which was developed in-house which is a unique way the ink is distributed to save you ink (yes, SAVE you ink) and the USB cable is run internally to reduce cable mess. Even the plug is on the side so it can sit flush to the wall. Simple yet brilliant design.

It prints photos in fantastic quality in just 49 seconds! It's just great design which is the part I find sexy. I don't expect you to agree, most people really don't think printers are sexy but each to their own and I find any company that is genuinely passionate about their products, attractive.

Lastly, we tested the MFC-6890CDW which can print photo quality on A3 sized photo paper in colour at roughly a £1.40 cost. We printed out a picture of penguins and decided it would be good enough to be framed and put on the wall. I'm terribly fussy about these things and I am the first person to point out any pixellation or aberrations in print.

This printer would be great and affordable for a graphic design studio or small creative agency.

What I am impressed about with Brother is the care, attention to detail and ingenuity that goes into each of their products. Most companies spend time trying to figure out how to get you to spend more money on cartridges, toner and other consumables, whereas Brother concentrates on saving you time and money ensuring you keep their products for longer and will therefore always buy Brother again.

Their commitment to the environment is impressive, tackled head on and transparently. I'm not often left with absolutely nothing negative to say about a technology company but I was seriously impressed.

Use their printers combined with this browser tool and you'll never print wasted pages again.

More survey success - Press Release

2010-10-19T11:37:00.003+01:00

PRESS RELEASE

More survey success - Sheffield based company MoreComputers.com shines in national survey of online retailers

Yorkshire based electronics retailer; MoreComputers.com has once again beaten off stiff competition from 40 renowned national players including Argos, Amazon, Dixons and Play to be awarded Highly Commended in the PC Pro Service and Reliability Survey 2010.

MoreComputers.com was set up by local entrepreneur Chris Wheater, and sells 90,000 electrical products, including cameras, laptops, phones, televisions and computer equipment.

The city firm scored a massive 94% for overall customer satisfaction, 92% for Service and 95% for delivery in the biggest survey in the IT industry. Having topped the survey last year they were narrowly squeezed off out of the top slot by the stalwart of British retail John Lewis.

Chris is proud of the results and comments, "These are great results, we’ve become increasingly known for our outstanding customer service, receiving six out of six stars in the last five years in the PC Pro survey. It’s this consistency that reflects our determination and hard work to please our customers."

The PC Pro Service and Reliability Survey is designed to showcase the best brands and companies in the IT industry with over 12,000 people completing the survey and commenting on their favourite products and retailers across 20 product categories.

The star ratings for all 40 retailers can be found here

We're celebrating after the PC Pro Awards - again

2010-10-06T14:24:00.003+01:00

I need to say a massive thank you to everyone who took part in the PC Pro Service and Reliability Survey for this year. The MoreComputer's results were fantastic again this year and we picked up the Highly Commended Award.

To quote PC Pro "Last year's winner is narrowly squeezed into the runner-up slot, despite a strong showing across the board". John Lewis sneaked in and just swiped the top slot from us, but I can live with that, they are the stalwart of British retail.

More telling is the full list of 40 retailers the survey rated, with some big names showing very poor performance.

This year, over 12,000 readers took part in the survey. They were asked about the customer support they received, the reliability and quality of the products they bought, and whether they'd buy from the company again. The information was then combined to produce a star rating. We maintained our maximum six stars across the board, which is a credit to the team here, who deserve a massive thank you too - it's their award.

For the past five years we've scored six out of six for Customer Service and it's that consistency I'm most proud of. Thanks again for your custom over the years and for helping to spread the word.

Help choosing the right inks and toners for your printer

2010-09-15T12:54:00.003+01:00

Another reminder - our InkFinder tool can help you select the right printer toners and cartridges. There's always free delivery available (we don't make you spend over a certain amount to qualify!) and when you've found your ink why not add it to your Wish List for future use.

Help choosing the right product from real experts

2010-09-15T12:31:00.007+01:00

This week we've updated our Expert Advice lists from PC Pro, PC Advisor, Computer Shopper and Micro Mart. So if you're ever not sure what product to buy - don't forget our round up of all the main magazine Best Buy Winners. You can be sure these products have been tried and tested by journalists that really know their stuff.

Find us on Facebook - Follow us on Twitter

2010-08-10T10:06:00.006+01:00

Love them or loathe them social networks have become a part of modern life and it's about time the MoreFrom Group joined the conversation. Over the last few weeks I've set up a Twitter account and made our first Facebook page. I'd like to think that by using these social networks (and this blog) we can start to have a two way dialogue with our customers (if of course you'd like to talk to us). I've started to post snippets of what we're up to here day to day and my ongoing plan is to share information I hope you'll think is worth reading.

You can expect to hear about new technology and new products and the odd offer and competition. I'll also be sharing any information I think small businesses will find useful, especially help and advice to make your website work harder. I like to think we're pretty good and developing websites and getting traffic to them, so I'm looking forward to sharing that knowledge with the many small businesses and entrepreneurs we have as customers.

Let's not forget about our tech analyst TheLadyTron, Clare already tweets about what's new in the world of tech and when she's reviewed any new products. Follow TheLadyTron for her totally honest opinion - she tells it like it is.

So If Facebook is your preferred method of communication these days add More FromGroup to your list of friends. If you prefer Twitter, please follow MoreFromGroup. And if you're really feeling sociable do both!

Lenovo - It's Little Red Eye isn't Evil

2010-08-04T14:29:00.005+01:00

Now I'm probably with you when you think of computers made in China. Traditionally China has had a bad rap and not entirely without reason. Ask any top IP solicitor where their main cases are based and it's China (I have actually asked this question of a top IP solicitor). Make something good and the Chinese get hold of it take it apart and work out how to make it cheaper, that's not an insult it's just the way it is.

They have a larger, cheaper workforce, the time and inclination. It would also be very naive to think that other companies elsewhere in the world don't get hold of a competitor's product and take them apart.

So it's fair to say that when I found out that Lenovo had very quietly taken over IBM 'ages' ago, I gave a bit of a groan and thought to myself well that's that product condemned to the stupidly low price shelves of Dixons or Staples, possibly even Asda...

But listen up and buckle in for a surprise. I .....quite.... like..... them. I also like the history of the company and I liked the passion of the chap who patiently answered my questions and lent me a laptop to test drive. I personally (and this might be a female thing) need to like a company before I'll buy a product from them. It's that emotional buy in thing, I don't like parting with cash for a company I don't actually like.

So a quick history lesson.

Lenovo is a Chinese company formed in 1984 by a group of Academics from the Academy of Science, originally with the goal of writing Chinese language cards. The first pentium product in China was a Lenovo and the first home pc was a Lenovo.

In May 2005 Lenovo decided to takeover IBM's pc division as a way to get into the Global Market. They have been No.1 in China for 11 years and No.1 in AsiaPac for 9. They have a worldwide market share of 10%.

The ThinkPad Edge 13" and 15" have both been designed for the SME market, they are their value line in the consumer market with a slightly less business look and feel. Initially I didn't like the little red eye dot on the lid and inside which to my strange mind looked a bit evil and seemed to follow me round the room.

But put it in the context of the Chinese, red being a significant colour of good fortune to them, it takes on a different feel. The laptops look like the IBM's did and they have quietly phased out the IBM to the ThinkPad brand and I like the way they've considerately done it so as not to alienate the IBM fans out there.

It's got the red 'nipple' and old IBM keyboard layout and style

They are good, a stalwart choice. They will never be a Sony Vaio and don't claim to be but they are better than an Acer or a Dell. They work hard on retaining cost effective quality and are proud to call themselves innovators.

Did you know, for instance, that the McClaren Formula 1 team use ThinkPad's and ThinkStation's?! Or that they are still the only laptops certified for use in Space Stations?! The geek in me thinks that's pretty cool.

They are solid laptops and feel familiar because of the IBM history. They would make good business laptops, comfortable to use if you are a field sales person, or to use in an airport or on an airplane. They'd be a good choice for companies looking to refurbish their staff with a new suite of laptops.

The only downsides I can think of....They didn't rock my world although I was pleasantly surprised. There was one design fault on the 13". Underneath the base there is a convex strip designed to raise it a little at the back. But because of the small size of the laptop it makes the screen top heavy and at a slight risk of being awkward or tipping if you don't hold the base when you open the screen. It would have been better if flat or weighted, but I guess the point was to keep the weight down.

They were quick, easy to use and intuitive. Sound was not particularly great so I wouldn't watch The Watchmen or Transformers on it. Music would be okay if a little tinny, depending on your musical preference, so if you're a basshead forget it. When I paired it with a Brother Printer we wondered if there would be an issue with the driver, but it found it and downloaded it automatically, with little fuss or fanfare.

My verdict? I don't love them but I like them. I think they are good value for money, robust and something you could rely on for a lot longer than a Dell, Acer or dare I say it... Samsung.

PC Advisor and MoreComputers.com

2010-07-15T12:57:00.003+01:00

We've been working closely with PC Advisor Website/Magazine recently. The technology experts at PC Advisor review hundreds of products every year and you can now find these expert reviews on our websites. Take a look at this example for the Flip MinoHD 4GB camcorder. Also their Top 5 Charts, PC Advisor magazine's monthly round up of the best buys and group test winners, are now in association with MoreComputers.com. And you can shop the chart winners from the dedicated pages on our sites.

Full range of Acer products now available

2010-06-30T10:29:00.004+01:00

You may have already spotted it, but we now have a full range of products from industry leader Acer on our sites. You may know them for their Laptops and Desktop computers, but did you know they also make Monitors, Televisions and even Mobile Phones.

Solid State Drives

2010-06-10T16:16:00.034+01:00

I've recently been spending some time trying to speed up my PC. As usual over time, performance seemed to have become a bit sluggish, so a disk and registry clean-up, un-install session and a defrag was in order.

All done but I'm still not happy! This machine should be flying - so whats going wrong? So I set about some analysis of what my machine is actually doing. After some indepth monitoring of my performance monitor in the Windows Task Manager I realised the processor was hardly doing anything, the memory was only half used and the gigabit network card was practically on tick-over.

So why do I still sometimes have laggy performance when doing simple windows tasks. After a process of elimination my focus turned to the hard drive. I found out I had a Seagate 7200rpm SATA drive with 2MB cache. Seems reasonable to me for a year old desktop machine. But the more I monitored performance the more I realised this was now the weakest link in my machine. So on I moved to research the latest drives. Solid State Drives (SSD) and more importantly to see if I could justify the cost of an upgrade to save me a few, but an annoying few, seconds!

To my pleasant surprise I found the prices have come down to something very affordable and in terms of size I don't really need huge capacity. Most of my data is stored centrally on our server so I really just need enough space for the Operating System and some of my key applications. So I turned to my trusty back issues of PC Pro magazine. Bingo! A labs section review of Solid State Drives in the June issue. After a quick read and a check on our site for prices I'd settled on the "PC Pro Recommended" Intel X25-M 80GB Drive (SSDSA2MH080G2R5) at £174. (£20 cheaper than when it was reviewed)

The tiny drive arrived in a small retail box and comes with a mounting bracket to allow it to fit neatly into a desktop machine. I swapped the SATA cable from the existing drive onto the SSD and attached my current hard drive to another SATA connection, then set about loading Windows from scratch. Immediately there is a significant speed difference as the obligatory reboots whilst installing and applying updates are noticeably faster. After a couple of hours of re-installing all my applications I was ready to go.

Wow! Now I'm really flying! Applications appear on screen as if they have just been minimised, not loaded from scratch. There's no point trying to give you any time measurements - Everything is just the blink of an eye. It's the best £174 I've spent in years. I think our standard PC configuration will be changed to incorporate these drives as standard since non of our users need large local drive space and when you offset the cost against a normal drive then you are only looking at around £100 premium. Admittedly I did pick a "PC Pro recommended" drive, and they did find some "dogs" that gave no noticable speed increase over a normal hard drive. So if you are thinking of trying this kind of upgrade then do your research or stick to this drive. The end result of all this effort is that we now have a dedicated category for SSD's on our site that contains 60+ drives.

If you are still not convinced watch this amazing video from Intel comparing the speed of an SSD to a traditional hard drive. Good luck with your upgrade!

New threat: tab napping, please be aware

2010-06-09T15:24:00.005+01:00

I'm always reminding people not to click on links inside emails as its a very insecure thing to do. The trouble is that's what IT Managers everywhere are telling people to do and as such phishing attacks are declining. That's the good news.

The bad news is that hackers are as always one step ahead and there's a new threat out in the wild. Its called 'Tab Napping'.

The basic gist of it is, you go to an online banking site and get to its login screen, then you suddenly think of something else you wanted and open a new tab to do a quick google search. Normally there's nothing wrong with that, however if you hit a malicious site the original tab could change without you knowing about it. When you click back to it, you expect to see a login page and as far as you are aware you browsed to it yourself so its in a trusted zone in your mind. If you then submit your login details, you could be supplying fraudsters with your details.

These attacks are highly sophisticated but here's how to protect yourself:

Make sure you always check the URL in the browser address.
If the URL looks suspicious in any way, close the tab and reopen it by entering the correct URL again.
Avoid leaving tabs open which require you to type in secure login details.

MorePhones.co.uk gets more phones

2010-06-09T15:08:00.017+01:00

Our range of sim free mobile phones has been expanded this week. You'll find handsets from Blackberry, HTC, Nokia, Samsung, Acer and more. Plus loads of Phone Accessories

iPad Review

2010-06-09T13:16:00.008+01:00

I managed to get hold of an Apple iPad a few weeks ahead of launch, but it has taken me until this long to get over having to give it back, before I could bring myself to write about it.

I'm going to use the UK adverts own claims to write my review, it makes sense. Interestingly I would urge you to watch the UK and American versions which are essentially the same but use a slightly different turn of phrase to appeal to each audience respectively. Something many companies, not just in technology, fail to do and alienate their audiences because of it.

'What is iPad...iPad is....Thin'
I prefer the word slim to thin which is a moot point but I think slim has better connotations than thin, in this image obsessed world of ours. But it is indeed slim, smaller than most people expect it to be, although the comment invariably made is, 'Oh it's just like a big iPhone'. Well yes, it is.

'Beautiful'
Yes it is beautiful and if you are into engineering and product design, then this makes you want to weep at it's incredible construction and promptly go home and destroy anything that is inferior, which is pretty much most things. But let's get something straight, I am saying this about the design which even the most stalwart anti-Apple person cannot disagree with. Believe me I checked and forced it into the hands of technical people who virtually spit in the direction of the fruit branded company. They had to admit, it is cool.

'Goes anywhere and lasts all day'
Apart from being slightly nervous about being mugged by carrying it around ahead of the UK launch, it is convenient to carry about. I don't think it would ever fully replace a laptop and I would want a good case to protect it, particularly the screen but it was useful, which I will come to in a bit. It lasts all day and then some. Oh Apple please apply this to the iPhone. It has an incredible battery life but made the iPhone look, frankly, rubbish. In fact I keep looking at my iPhone now with a sneer on my face. You do have to charge the iPad for a long time but it is well worth it.

'There is no right way or wrong way'
Nope there most certainly isn't. Which ever way you turn it, the content moves to suit. And that is all there is to say.

'It's amazingly powerful'
Hmmmm, what does this actually mean? It was quick, instantaneous and when you were near a Wi-Fi connection it was quicker than most laptops. But one rumour I have heard is that until everyone is on freeview and the television people have passed over the old bandwidth to the mobile networks, lots of people using iPads for the internet or as a phone will break the current infrastructure.

'It's magical'
It's not magical. There is no magic in an iPad just a lot of clever programming, coding, design, navigation etc, etc. It does not cast spells or cause people to fall in love inexplicably.

'You already know how to use it'
If you are already a user or past user of Apple products, specifically the iPhone or iPod, then yes you do. Normal PC users will still declare that everything is backwards and intentionally designed to be the opposite of PC function just to mess with their heads.

'It's 200,000 apps and counting'
Well I've heard there are only 3,000 available and in the states, PADGadget and TechCrunch, claimed there were 5,405 as of the 1st of May, so I think their claim that there are 200,000 doesn't necessarily mean they are all available to the public and only 20% of them are free. Some of the apps I played with were cool but not really anything new from the iPhone, perhaps better and easier because there is more screen space to play with. Films were amazing on it, as were games and browsing the internet. Books I can see being a big hit with commuters and frequent flyers. I had a particular addiction to Bebbled.

'All the world's websites in your hands'
Browsing the internet, from what I can gather, is everyone's favourite part. It is just so easy.

Scenario 1; You are in bed and (sadly) think of something you want to know, nay need to know right there and then. You pick up your laptop, open up the screen wait for it to wake up, by which point you are fully awake. Once it is awake, you open your browser, wait for it to load, type into Google, click search and wait for the list to load, then click on the website you want.

Scenario 2; You are in bed and (sadly) think of something you want to know, nay need to know right there and then. You lean over and grasp your iPad, slide to unlock, touch safari, type straight into Google, choose from the list of websites and hey presto.

The only downfall is when a company has not optimised their website for the mobile web. But then that is their loss, most likely.

'It's videos, photo'
When it comes to things like this I should really have been born a boy. I am a big fan of Transformers. I loved it in the 80's as a child and collected the stickers for the book with my friend who was a boy (at 8 he was not my boyfriend, I was very particular about this). I love the films and used Christmas as an excuse to buy my husband the special DVD box set that actually changes into a Transformer. So I loved being able to watch Transformers on the iPad in glorious, spectacular detail. When I showed clips to others it elicited predictable 'oooh's' and 'aaah's'.

I must admit I didn't really look at any photos, but judging by the graphics, they'll be marvellous.

'More books than you can read in a lifetime'
This falls down with me. It's one of the only areas I am a weird purist in. I love books, books are sacrosanct to me. I don't even purchase them online unless it is a study / work book and even then I still prefer to wander into a hallowed, quiet, low-lit book shop to finger the pages.

But putting that aside, the book function was pretty cool and thumbing through Winnie-the-Pooh virtually was a novelty. I can imagine travelling with an iPad when you only have a little space in your luggage and it dispensing with the whole, 'Oh-wa, which books do I take so as not to stop me from being able to bring back duty free' dilemma. It also means if you make the wrong choice you can easily chop and change.

I also can't listen to the advert without wishing they would say 'more books than you can shake a stick at', rather than the actual line.

'It's already a revolution'
If by that they mean when you walk into a public place for a meeting everyone in there will go into a hushed silence and look at you like you have just brought in a piece of the moon, then I think the word they are looking for is revelation. There are no revolts in the street for the iPad and no-one has ruled 'let them have iPads', followed by heads being lopped off by an angry mob.

'And it's only just begun'
This I would agree with but not just for Apple and they need to be careful here not to tip over the line of confidence in a solid product, to arrogance and cockiness. The Android phone is widely tipped by many to upset the Apple cart with the iPhone dominance and I sincerely hope they are not greatly underestimating other technology companies out there. They may have consolidated touch screen technology, and cemented that it is here to stay, but that just gives many other companies the building blocks and a solid platform to build another generation of products.

In Summary
It really is an expensive toy to most. Many people would like one but don't know how to justify having one against their disposable income, which for the masses is still tightly counted and rightly so.

Apple fanbois will want one and if they can will buy it.

Initially, I failed to see it's purpose other than it being handier than a laptop for browsing the internet, quite cool for films and other grown up play time activities. It was when, for me, I took it to client meetings that it came into it's own. It was so useful to be able to sit in a public place and punctuate my points with an instant, online demonstration, without going through the rigmarole of setting up my laptop, trying to get on a Wi-Fi connection (many places still have crap connections) and worrying about where to plug it in without being sued by someone tripping over it.

My other bug bear, which you can't get round with touch screen technology and is quite funny when you think about it, I don't like people touching my screen. I'm very particular about this with my laptop. So to have something as pretty as the iPad covered in greasy smears and smudges irked me a little bit, so I'm now a compulsive polisher.

Finally, I will go back to the original point. I can't help it, it's just so beautiful.

Fujitsu LIFEBOOK review

2010-05-20T14:21:00.007+01:00

A solid competitive corporate laptop, some interesting ideas on their consumer models, a convertible tablet and introducing; ‘The Beast’, something for a largely ignored growth market, the silversurfers. Stay with me, I get the bad out of the way to progress onto the good….

So in the offices of MoreFrom I met the Fujitsu rep, who was rather excited to have received, only the day before, four brand new laptops to take to various merchants who sell Fujitsu products.

I was rather excited because I got to play with them. I’ll get the dull data bit out of the way and explain the models:

1) Fujitsu LIFEBOOK S710 Standard S
2) Fujitsu LIFEBOOK S760 Premium S
3) Fujitsu LIFEBOOK Convertible T900
4) Fujitsu LIFEBOOK NH570 18.4 inch Notebook

The S710, S760 and T900 tablet are a bit plastic feeling and looking, but certainly not as bad as some of the Sony Vaio products and I like the Green Pledge throughout their product range. I think Fujitsu could do well to invest in some seriously hot ergonomic designers and the product design in comparison to other products didn’t leave me breathless. This rang true of all four of the laptops I test drove.

I think they could also work on more synergy between their product range, as it didn’t look like a family, more like distant relatives who only see each other at weddings or funerals.

Two of the LIFEBOOKS had sort of retro off white keys with the rest of the product in black and silver, which aesthetically doesn’t work. The apparent standout feature of the S760 is the unique scroll wheel function, but we failed to get it to work and I came away not really understanding it’s point, other than someone in marketing using it as a USP. It’s certainly unique but I wouldn’t say a selling point. The S710 which was the standard laptop of the lot was my favourite in terms of product design, it looked much more current but lacks the power of the S760.

I’m not sure I understand the point of a tablet and this was compounded by the Fujitsu T900 ‘convertible’. It wasn’t particularly intuitive and got very heavy after a while, plus you’d need an accessory to tilt it if you put it down so it is better used as it should be, as a laptop.

The 18.4 inch ‘top of the range’ consumer LIFEBOOK NH570 or ‘the Beast’, as I liked to refer to it as, had what was described as a high gloss piano black. It held no appeal to me in terms of looks or size but that is more of a personal statement.

One major design flaw on ‘the Beast’ was that the screen wobbled incessantly, clearly the bevel and hinge were not designed to support the very top heavy 18.4 inch screen and you only have to tap it slightly to watch it wobble like a weeble, (but it doesn’t fall down).

Bad points aside, there are some pretty good bits. The S710, which has a nipple mouse, reminds me of the old black IBM’s which had a red nipple and was one of the best corporate laptops I ever owned. Speaking to some serious development techies, they all felt Fujistu’s were sturdy, reliable computers and would consider buying one again.

I would definitely recommend the S710 as a corporate laptop and it would be worth investing in the higher price over a Dell and I hate to say it, an HP as I believe you would have a better, longer, mutually beneficial relationship. Anyone who has tried to do presentations on an airplane over the duration of an eight hour flight would appreciate this laptop, which also has a good battery life and the option to add an extra battery if needed.

The graphics cards were pretty good on all of them and the sound was impressive when I put it to the test on jazz, classical and Mr Scruff, at full whack. There was no distortion, a personal bug bear of mine with many other products.

Having hung about some Fujitsu fan forums, most of them seemed lifelong fans although many were in agreement with me about the off white keys. There was a minor tussle between someone who felt they were good in low light settings and someone who just said, in that scenario backlit keys were better anyway. I got the feeling the person who liked them for low light settings doesn’t get out much.

I liked the feel of the S760 but I don’t think the price will stand up against other premium products and I think more work needs to be done on the scroll wheel as I was hard pressed to find anyone who could explain it’s point in any great detail.

I’m not a fan of the tablet but I can see uses for it, being able to turn the screen 180° in smaller arenas, for presentations would be useful and something I have wished I had the ability to do in the past. The design, look, feel and navigation needs more work before I would recommend it though.

‘The Beast’, whilst not to my personal taste, isn’t aimed at me. What I will say is with the increase of silversurfers it’s the perfect choice for them. With the large screen, full qwerty keyboard, good sized keys plus the fact that you remove the need for a PC with CPU and shed loads of cables, makes it a solid contender for those older generations who are just embarking upon their IT journeys.

Introducing our new 'Technology Analyst'

2010-05-04T16:27:00.006+01:00

I'd like to introduce you to Clare MacKenzie who's just started working with us. We've given Clare the very grand title of 'Technology Analyst' which basically means she'll be taking an in-depth look at the tech products we sell. Clare or 'Ladytron' as she's already been nicknamed is a true 'girl geek' in every sense, she lives and breathes technology products and gadgets, and is not afraid speak out when a product fails to deliver.

We've asked Clare to analyse all the tech product ranges we sell, here at the MoreFrom Group. She'll be looking at what's liked and what's hated, what sells and what doesn't - and asking our customers what they think of our product ranges. She's also keen to find out what new stuff you'd like to see us offering. With over 70,000 products and more than 300 brands to go at it's no small task - but Clare is up for the challenge.

She will need your help though, feel free to get in touch; email ladytron@morecomputers.com or follow Clare on Twitter @TheLadytron

Winning Ways Event Sheffield

2010-03-19T10:54:00.007Z

I was pleased to be asked to speak at a local business event earlier this month. "Winning Ways To Move Your Business Forward” took place at Sheffield Wednesday’s football ground. It was organised by Business Link Yorkshire and the Federation of Small Business and was a free event designed to provide practical advice and support to help local businesses grow and boost their sales.

I was invited to deliver a short presentation with the very grand title "How to turn your website into a customer magnet". Feedback was great with lots of people saying it was refreshing to hear SEO and Adwords tips from someone who's making it work - not just trying to sell their service.

I'm looking forward to presenting again on this topic and the organisers have said they'll have me back. Follow me on Twitter to find out when the next event will take place.

MoreComputers.com launches UKs first Apple iPad store

2010-02-12T10:37:00.002Z

News Release:

Innovative online retailer MoreComputers.com is all set to capitalise on the recent Apple iPad frenzy. On the evening Apple announced it's latest product (tipped to be as popular as the iPod) MoreComputers.com were quick to register the domain name www.MoreiPads.co.uk. They've now added a dedicated iPad web store, the first of it's kind in the UK, to their growing group of web sites.

It's the latest development of their multiple web site strategy explains Brian Trevaskiss "One website is not enough these days. Very few businesses have just one product they sell to one group of customers. It's more common to have many products or services and even more customer groups to target. It's very difficult to develop a site that targets a wide audience and offers thousands of products. if your customers don't see what they want straight away, they leave your site. You can't cover everything on one website, without causing confusion".

"We believe the solution is to introduce additional sites dedicated to smaller product groups or specific niche audiences. That's what we are doing with MoreiPads.co.uk and the other 50 websites we now call the MoreFrom Group".

You'd imagine maintaining and updating 50 websites would require a lot of man hours and make a business more expensive to run, but Brian is keen to stress it's smart technology that takes most of the strain. "We operate in a very fast moving, low margin sector and all our costs need to be controlled tightly so we can offer low prices to our customers. A single database stores the information that is fed to the individual sites that are built on-the-fly. It's the flexibility of this design that will allow us to take advantage of 'the next big thing' as and when it happens".

The actual release of the iPad is still some weeks away but More's ability to react quickly means buy the time they are available their site will be relatively well established in the eyes of the search engines. Time moves rapidly online with one normal year said to be the equivalent of 7 online years - so it pays to act fast.

Quick round up of iPad info links

2010-01-28T09:23:00.003Z

Just a quick summary of some of the great Apple iPad information I've come across

Live blog from the launch event

3 minute video from PC Advisor

TechRadar's first impressions

PC Pro editor Tim Danton's view

Why Apple's iPad chip is a big deal from TechRadar

Claudine Beaumont, Technology Editor at The Telegraph pulls together expert views

VeryGoodService.com

2010-01-21T14:51:00.004Z

VeryGoodService.com is a site dedicated to showcasing only companies that have been awarded for offering good service. It's a simple idea and like most simple ideas works really well. Needless to say you'll find MoreFrom.co.uk on there after our recent best online retailer win.

The site is still at an early stage but you'll already find lots of award winning companies and websites divided up into categories. There's shopping, finance, going out, travel, media, communicate, your home and the fantastically named yummy mummy.

Pay them a visit at www.verygoodservice.com sign up for their newsletter and be sure to follow them on Twitter.

Free Shipping - 5 good reasons NOT to offer free delivery

2010-01-21T14:38:00.003Z

So I've covered 5 good reason to offer free delivery in my last post, might be best to read that one first if you haven't already. Our trial still indicates free delivery is working for MoreComputers.com, but I'm conscious it might not be the case for every online store.

Here's my 5 reasons it might NOT be right for you:

1. Free must mean free - you may not be able to do that
Internet shoppers are on the whole a savvy bunch. Whilst I believe they'll check out an offer with free delivery first, they will still visit other sites and go through the order process to check the final price. If you've simply included the delivery cost in your price and that makes you the same as the other site, you'll lose the sale. Why? Because the shopper is on your competitors site and it's easier to click their buy button than go back to you.

2. You need a mix of delivery options
One of the key reasons free delivery works for us is we are able to offer Next day delivery, within 2 days delivery and our free option is within 5 days. Our customers have different delivery needs so there's a mix of delivery selected. If we only had the free delivery option it would not be sustainable. The mix of options means on average we are losing less overall.

3. You need a mix of products
You may offer a mix of delivery options but if you only sell one product or one type of product it may not work. If that product is something the majority of people are prepared to wait a week for, nearly everyone will choose free delivery.

4. You need a mix of customers
I believe our trial is working because we have a wide mix of customers. The IT managers and trade dealers who buy from us often need something next day to solve a particular problem. On the other hand we have consumers who do not need a product quickly and are available to accept a delivery at anytime. These seem happy accept the inconvienence of not knowing when their purchase will arrive. If you only sell to customers who are flexible when it comes to deliveries, they'll all opt for free shipping.

5. You've worked out you can offer free delivery - but only with a catch
This is a personal thing more than anything but I don't like 'Free Delivery*' it's that dreaded asterisk that immediately says there's a catch. Even before you've read what the catch is you feel cheated and start to distrust anything the company says. There are many tactics being used, most common is 'free delivery when you spend over £X' It's worth considering especially if you have a shop that sells things customers will always need and will be happy to add to their basket to reach the minimum order value. But do it without the asterisk. I would avoid *only on selected items *to a local store *only when you buy an over priced accessory *on items under a certain size/weight.

I hope these free delivery posts have been useful, be sure and follow me on Twitter for more online retail insight.

Free Shipping - 5 good reasons to offer free delivery

2010-01-07T17:02:00.006Z

MoreComputers.com is a successful, award winning online retailer. I've recently been trialing 'free delivery on everything' and monitoring the sales results closely. This blog post outlines the good reasons to offer free delivery based on my real experience as a major retailer. I intend to do a post on what I see as the reasons not to offer free delivery next.

You'll find lots of free shipping articles online from research companies and marketing 'experts', but I hope this will give you an insight into a genuine use of free delivery. From this and my next post I hope you will be able to decide if free delivery is the right thing for your business. At the end of the day it will hurt your profit if it's not.

Here's a bit of information on our trial to put things into context. We sell thousands of different products and make thousands of sales. We added the words 'Free delivery on everything' next to the prices on our site. Then 'free delivery within 5 days' was added as an option in the basket along side 'next day at £9.95+vat' and '2 days at £4.95+vat'. We told our existing customers about the new delivery option by email. We added free delivery to our price comparison data.

So I think it's fair to say we haven't really used free delivery to drive new customers to our site as yet, we wanted to see the effect it had on conversion based on our existing traffic levels.

So here's my 5 good reasons to offer free delivery

1. It removes a sales barrier.
I'm convinced of this. Before starting our trial I'd read 43% of online shoppers said they abandon a purchase because the delivery charges were too high. So far in our trial I'd say we've seen a marked increase in sales from the same amount of visitors.

2. Customers want it.
There certainly seems to be a whole set of customers who think free delivery is the most important deal clincher. It's always a talking point. I spoke to an affluent businessman recently who spent £1500 on a new laptop - he couldn't tell me anything about it other than he got free delivery. I've also worked in a company that had a 'we don't pay for delivery' policy. It was supposed to make you haggle over the delivery cost, but it made people pick a supplier with free delivery.

3. You win more new customers.
When we removed our delivery charge we immediately notice more lower value items being bought. Whilst we obviously don't make much profit on sales like these, I see it as a cost effective way to win new customers. They experience buying from More and with their permission I can send details of new offers and remind them of our existence. Over time we may build a relationship and they may purchase again and even go on to recommend us. Looking at our data I can see we're getting more consumers shopping with us, probably because they're not as dependent on receiving their orders next day like some business customers.

4. You will retain your customers.
Customers remember free delivery and I'd like to think it helps us to stay on their shopping list. I often hear 'I shop there because it's free delivery'. In my research I read in a ComScore study 72% of those surveyed said if an online retailer stopped offering free shipping, they would leave them and do business with one of their competitors. It seems like a loaded question to me but I believe free delivery combined with a previous good shopping experience will cut down the amount of shopping around our customers do.

5. Not all customers will select free delivery
This is something we are monitoring very closely. So far it looks like the percentage of free delivery compared to paid is sustainable. Probably down to the nature of what we sell, but our next day and 2 day delivery options are still being used significantly. It looks like our business and IT professional customers require next day deliveries and are happy to pay for that service.

Follow me on Twitter to make sure you get my reasons not to offer free delivery.

Please leave a comment about your free delivery experiences.

5 tips for smart sale shopping - Is that bargain really a bargain?

2009-12-21T12:50:00.004Z

For those looking for tips and advice on Sale shopping this year, Brian Trevaskiss of MoreComputers.com provides some shopping savvy tips to ensure you get the most out of the January Sales;

1. The 'guidelines' that govern 'was' and 'now only' prices in stores have become less clear in recent years. At one time a store had to have offered a product at the higher price for 28 days prior to showing a new lower price with a saving. These days many retailers interpret things differently and items that are half price may never have been sold at a higher price. So you need to check the 'current market price' and not be fooled by a huge saving that isn't real.

2. Owners of 'smart phones' like the Apple iphone have an advantage when it comes to checking the 'current market price'. There's a clever 'app' for that - when you're out and about in the sales and spot something that looks like a bargain, you can check the price there and then. Take a photo of the barcode and the 'app' will automatically look for search results on Google and comparison shopping sites and deliver the results to your phone instantly. You'll then know if the product in your hand is a true sale bargain or not.

3. Look out for 'loss leaders', most stores are prepared to lose money on one or two genuine reductions, just to pull in the crowds. Sign up to email newsletters and check voucher/coupon sites ahead of the sale start date to be sure you know what these are. You may also get advanced notice of sales and be able to beat the queues by shopping online. A lot of stores prefer to clear stock online than ship it around their actual shops.

4. If you miss out on the 'loss leaders' it might be worth waiting for the end of the sale when stores reduce prices further to clear stock. Don't be afraid to ask when a sale is due to end, most assistants will be able to tell you. This can also give you a chance to check online prices.

5. Don't be distracted by 'sale blindness' ask yourself would I still want this if it wasn't reduced? If you feel the urge - remind yourself that the reason the majority of products are in the sale is because no-one wanted to buy them at full price. It may be old stock or a piece of technology that simply doesn't work very well.

More news in the news

2009-12-09T10:49:00.006Z

Great start to the day today, my in box had three separate bits of More news coverage waiting for me to look at. The first one I looked at was my online shopping tips for Christmas in The Yorkshire Post that can be read below

Then both the Sheffield Star and the Creative Sheffield websites have featured our round up of the year and the launch of our new MoreFrom.co.uk website.

Here's the links:
In the Sheffield Star:
Online retailer taps into new markets

On the Creative Sheffield website:
More from MoreComputers.com

It's nice to look back on what's been a fantastic year for More and to look forward to an exciting 2010.

Click on this image to enlarge.

Sony L11S1E/S - The Future is Here!

2009-12-08T12:33:00.006Z

There is one product in particular which is selling like 'hot cakes' at the moment, many of our customers may have this in mind for the perfect Christmas gift or just upgrading their current set-up- I am taking ofcourse about the Sony L11S1E/S all in one desktop PC.

Enjoy a new family entertainment experience with multi-touch screen and it's Slim and stylish design saves space and can fit in any room. Not only is this product one of our best sellers, but it is on the PC Pro A-List and is great value for money. Along with a 500GB Hard Drive, 4GM of memory, Blu-Ray Drive and 3.0GHz Intel processor, the Sony L11S1E holds massive entertainment and work-related potential.

5/5 for me.

Danny at More

Apprenticeship program

2009-12-01T11:53:00.003Z

We're welcoming a couple of new recruits here in Sheffield this week. Emily and Anna have joined us on our new apprenticeship program. Both 17 years old and in their first 'real' jobs they'll be working on everything from sales and order processing to customer service and admin. It's great to be expanding the team and we're hoping these guys will be the first of many to join our apprentice program. Just don't mention Alan Sugar.

Business Yorkshire 2009

2009-11-27T16:43:00.008Z

I've spent the last two days at Doncaster racecourse at the Business Yorkshire conference and exhibition. I was there to speak at the Google University seminars as mentioned in earlier blog post. This is just a quick post to let you know how it all went.

The event itself saw around 3,000 people attend over the two days, with the mornings being more popular than the afternoons. I did my presentation four times in total and it all seemed to go down well. It's always interesting to chat to business owners after presenting and I've met businesses as diverse as make-up sales, canoe accessories, power tools and speed dating for over 50s. Plus a chef with a secret recipe Jamaican marinade!

All these businesses said they gained some extra knowledge from listening to how we do things and that it gave them something to think about applying to their business websites. Of particular interest is how we go about promoting 60,000 products and managing our extensive adwords campaign. People are relived to hear there are ways and means to automate the process.

I'm looking forward to doing more of the same and just to prove as was there there's a quick video below.

Online retail secrets

2009-11-19T16:36:00.004Z

I had some great news this week, following on from my presentation at the Sheffield Google event the other week. I volenteered to do a similar thing at the Business Yorkshire exhibition and conference. I'm pleased to say Google thought it was a good idea and I'll be speaking alongside Satyan Joshi who is delivering the Introduction to Google AdWords at the event.

Google have asked if I could talk about some of the business challenges I've overcome using our website & online promotion. They don't want me to talk exclusively about my experiences of Google products in particular, but if they have contributed then obviously they would like me to explain how.

I see it as demonstrating the practical 'real world' use of Google Adwords after people have been introduced to the 'theory' from Google.

There are three main challenges I'll be talking about:

Being successful in a very competitive market - there are hundreds of electrical retailers online.
Promoting a huge range of 60,000 low margin products with a miniscule marketing budget.
The limitations of being perceived as a 'computer' supplier and how we need to broaden our appeal.

Here’s a link to more information about the event
Brian Trevaskiss at Business Yorkshire
Be sure and say hello if you go along.

Here’s a link to a Sheffield Star newspaper story other day.
Online retailer set to share secrets

New Specification filter

2009-11-02T12:38:00.001Z

The latest addition to the MoreComputers.com site is our new Specification filter. Now when you're browsing our site and you select a sub category, 'Notebooks' for example you have the option to look at just the notebooks with an Intel Core 2 Duo processor. You could then pick just notebooks with a 15.4 inch screen. Get the idea?

Basically the new Specification filter lets you filter out the products you want to look at. It's not just on notebooks either, it works on all the sub categories that have specifications to select from.

Shopping for external hard drives is another good example. You can now just pick the disk capacity, say 1000GB and just look at the one you want to consider.

We're still labelling this new feature as 'Beta' because we know there will be improvements to make, so be sure and send us some feedback.

Google Event

2009-10-27T16:38:00.006Z

I was speaking at a Google seminar in Sheffield last week, the event was held at the new Electric Works building in the city and attended by 150 or so business people from the area.

The evening kicked off with an introduction from James Wilson of Creative Sheffield (the organisers of the event) who introduced Paul Scriven leader of Sheffield Council. Who must have one of the best email addresses I've ever seen - leader at sheffield .gov .uk. Then came the team from Google who talked about trends in online advertising, searching and how to create a good website in general.

Next it was my turn to get up and speak. I was there to talk about the business challenges we come across running MoreComputers.com and how we use our website and Google to overcome them. We use a lot of Google services including search, shopping and adwords. I was keen to help people see how we use them so they could relate to the theory from Google.

To round off the evening it was time for questions, some of which where aimed at me, so it was good to expand on what we do and how we do it. all in all it was a good evening and I'm hopeful we'll do something similar with Google soon.

Here's a link to the Google Event page on the Creative Sheffield site

Sheffield Award Winners

2009-10-27T15:14:00.002Z

The local newspapers and BBC Radio Sheffield have been in touch to ask about our PC Pro award win. Our MD Chris Wheater was invited on to the Gareth Evans radio show to chat about the big win, online shopping and they even got on to Sinclair Spectrums and Manic Miner at one point.

Our local papers The Star and The Telegraph have printed the news, with headlines 'Logging on for award - computer firms key to success' and 'IT firm scoops on-line award'. One paper described me an an 'Internet Diamond', I'm thinking about getting that printed on a T-shirt or at least my business cards.

Here's one of the PC Pro Awards articles that made it online.

Windows 7 versions

2009-10-21T10:49:00.003+01:00

I spent a couple of hours yesterday trying to make sense of all the new Windows 7 products. When I started we had 18 different Windows 7 products listed on the site. Half of them were Microsoft's N versions, these are the same price but with Media Player removed. Apparently Microsoft have to produce this version due to a European Commission fine back when XP was launched.

So I've removed the N versions. I then went on to divide up the other options into three categories. The full version for clean installs, the upgrade version for when you already have older Windows and the anytime upgrade for upgrading from one version of Windows 7 to another.

Within all these categories you get to choose from Home Premium, Professional and Ultimate versions.

Here's a few links you may find helpful when choosing which version is right for you:

MoreComputers Windows 7 page
PC Pro's everything you need to know about Windows 7 pages
Cnet's Crave blog about Windows 7 N versions page

I would post some links to the Microsoft site but I can't get on it today - must be a busy day for them. Will update this post when I can get access to their site.

Windows 7 upgrades

2009-10-15T15:37:00.002+01:00

If you have purchased a new PC or Laptop after June 26th 2009 (or are planning to purchase - up to January 31st 2010) with Windows Vista (Home Premium, Business or Ultimate), then you may be entitled to the ´FREE´ Windows 7 Upgrade Option.

Windows 7 becomes available on October 22nd 2009 so any upgrade will be available after this date. Please note that some models may not be eligible for the upgrade offer, please check with the manufacturer before purchase. You can order your Windows 7 Upgrade kit from the manufacturers.

Here's a list of links to the right pages on the manufacturers websites:

Lenovo Windows 7 upgrade
Samsung Windows 7 upgrade
Sony Vaio Windows 7 upgrade
Toshiba Windows 7 upgrade
HP Windows 7 upgrade
Fujitsu Windows 7 upgrade
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More products from more suppliers

2009-10-15T14:54:00.004+01:00

We've been actively looking to expand our range of products and find alternative suppliers for existing stuff. We're now working with several new UK distributors and our range has grown from 40,000 to 60,000 items.

In terms of new products we've added brands like Cables To Go, Corsair, Freecom, Monster, OCZ, and Swann just to name a few.

The other reason to look for new suppliers is to improve the pricing and stock availability on products we already sell. It's especially relevent at the moment with the recession still making things tough for everyone, all of the UK distributors have been running their stock down, which has a knock on effect for retailers.

The good news is stock availability is starting to improve and I think it's fair to say our suppliers are feeling a little more optimistic.

New look MoreComputers.com

2009-10-14T14:24:00.004+01:00

Our site has had some major 'look and feel' developments and feedback so far has been very positive. We decided to do something different from the normal formula for online shops which all seem to follow a very similar format. In our new site we're trying to introduce our own graphical look, to hopefully make us a bit more memorable

At this stage in the development we've kept the features and functions of the previous site and tried to lay them out in a more logical way, whilst introducing the new design elements. Apologies if you find something has moved and it takes you a bit longer to find it again.

We do have a list of things to improve within the new design, not least making it more compatible with the older versions of Internet Explorer. The new design does work much better than past designs on Mac Safari.

It would be great to get your feedback on the new look or simple anything about the site. Please leave a comment here and I'll be sure to discuss it with the team.

PC Pro Awards 2009 Winner

2009-10-14T12:28:00.006+01:00

A big thank you to everyone who took part in the 2009 PC Pro service and reliability survey. I'm thrilled to say we won the 'best online retailer' category and maintained our 6 out of 6 stars for customer service for the forth year in a row. Well done to the customer service team!

We beat off some big household names like Amazon, Argos, Dixons and 27 other retailers to win. PC Pro had this to say:
'The online vendors category has more competition than any other, with over 30 companies rated here. To stand out takes something special, and Morecomputers clearly has it, with customer service being key to its success: it scored a 94% satisfaction rating, compared to the industry average of 85%, and it was universally praised for its delivery accuracy and punctuality too'.

It's always nice to win awards, but it's the customer voted for awards that mean the most to us and with 14,000 people taking part in the survey these are the biggest in the IT industry.

You can see more details on the PC Pro Awards 2009 site

Chris Wheater MD at More accepts the award for Best Online Retailer from comedian Hugh Dennis