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Our philosophy
It’s very important to get this right. After all, this is the main reason why you’d visit us, right? Well, that and all the other things we do.

Even right back in the day when we started (1996), we always had the philosophy that you could use our PCs as if they were your own. This was very difficult back then as there was no technology to prevent the machines being, well, totally wrecked after a period of time, and it was constant struggle to keep them in good order.

We’re not talking an internet café where all you do is look at Hotmail and send a text only response. You can go where you like and run what you like, even change the text size, page setup, display settings, you name it. Don’t forget we’re here to help if you need us.



About adds on, Patches, Viruses and Updates
Every machine is always kept up to date with the latest patches, add ons and updates. You can be confident that when you sit down at our machines you have a reliable, secure and clean machine to use how you wish. If you’re worried about any data you might leave behind, simply log off or restart the machine and everything will be reset to a clean state. This also means you don’t need to worry about viruses infecting your media – they simply can’t survive in this environment.

About our Internet Speed
We have fast, unrestricted access over two high speed lines, currently totalling around 22MB with around 2MB upload, although actual speed will vary according to load and time of day.

About Access Limitations (or lack of them ….)
Unrestricted means just that. You can access anything you want, download, install or upload anything you want. We do have some terms and conditions though and, by using our machines, you are agreeing to them. They are located here. FTP is also possible using any of the downloadable FTP clients.
Peer to Peer (P2P) and Torrent software such as Limewire, uTorrent, emule etc is not permitted and downloads will be prevented - this includes connected laptops.



Installing your own software
If you want to install your own software you can, but remember it will be removed when the machine is restarted. For example, people routinely install software drivers for hardware they might want to put in place, trial apps, utilities, gambling software, specialist programmes, optional game updates and so on. If it's legal and falls within our terms and conditions then we encourage you to use or machines for testing, trialling and playing with new software.

Use of Media
Whilst the machine in each zone vary slightly due to their primary use (ie gaming vs browsing) it is possible in all cafes to use the following media without restriction – just plug and play:

Floppy disc
DVD
CD Rom
Media cards (the top 30 types of card are accepted as standard, others are possible with adapters that you need to provide)
USB devices such as flash memory
Other USB devices such as phones, cameras etc


Social Networking
This is a phenomenon that is here to stay and as of February 2010, Facebook is now officially the busiest site in the world, even ahead of Google. You can access any of the sites whilst you’re in the café and edit them, even upload photos etc as you normally would. If you’ve a Facebook account, why not become a fan of Quarks to keep up to date and take advantage of the Facebook only offers we do from time to time.

What’s on the PCs
All the PCs are serviced at least weekly to keep them up to date. We run Windows XP as this is still the most widely adopted platform in the world at the moment and most people are familiar with it.

Every PC has the following installed (always the latest version except where indicated)

Powerpoint 2003*
Word 2003*
Excel 2003*
FireFox
Internet Explorer
iTunes
Paint
Picasa
Skype
Windows Media Player
Adobe Reader
Google Earth
Open Office – Full version
MSN Messenger
Yahoo Messenger
All the standard OS apps
Language Packs to change the base language from English to whatever you want to use
Java, Flash etc

*Fully compatible with newer Office 2007 formats (.DOCX, .XLSX, .PPTX) as well as older Microsoft Works Files (WPS)

Printing from the PCs
You can print from any of the PCs at any time without having to ask us first to either of our laser printers - colour or black and white. Your prints are registered against your PC number and will be brought to your desk. For details on printing click here

And finally ....
Don't forget, we'll wait on you! We'll bring your orders to your PC while you're working. You're our guest, so just relax. Click here for the menus in Reading and Guildford. Lastly, if there's something you need help with - just ask!