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Is you cell service in the DEAD Zone?

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Have you ever walked into someones home and your cell service has disappeared?

That chill that runs down your spine when you notice no cell service. That means you cannot be in contact with your kids. What if something happens and they can’t reach you, then what?

You just bought your dream home and you close escrow, and you find out that you have to go outside your dream home just to get a call out because you have no cell service inside? You have just entered the DEAD ZONE!

Believe it, or not. This is an all too common scenario we see each day. To make matters worse, this is almost like a dirty little secret. You have no cell service, unless you go outside, or you have to hang your cell phone close to a certain window, just to get a single bar of cell service.

Is there a solution to poor cell service?

single story cell service coverageYou are in luck. We at Rancho Santa Fe Home Theater are one of Southern California’s top experts in the field of restoring your cell service inside your home.

Our field technicians can asses, and pinpoint where to boost your cell service bars, and actually enhance your 3g, and 4g Data internet service on your iPhone, Blackberry, and Android cell phones.

In addition with more cell service bars, it will reduce you battery usage on your electronic devices.

What kind of coverage does it have?

2 story cell service coverageWe have several models that cover from a single story application from a 1000 square feet to multiple story homes and offices up to 40,000 square feet.

Using a dual band technology of 800 and 1900MHZ, it does not interfere with your existing WiFi internet of 2.4GHZ and 5GHZ.

Schedule an appointment TODAY!

So pick up the phone, send us a text at 858-764-2648 or if your cell service does not work at your home, then send us an email at support@ranchosantafehometheater.com to schedule an appointment to solve this dirty little secret, once and for all.

 

 

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admin

How to improve your cooking.

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How to improve your cooking.

family cooking

Are you tired of the same old meals that you serve your family when you are cooking and would like to put a little pizazz into the your routine?

Being raised with 4 older sisters and a father who was the Chef of the U.S. Grant hotel, in our household there was never a dull moment. Cooking was part of our daily routine where we gathered to share stories about what happened that day. We shared the good the bad and the ugly.

Each of us was taught about cooking with feeling. Our father said it was one of his secret ingredients that united a family, as well as a staff of sous chefs, assistants and dishwashers in the kitchen.

This secret ingredient that created the unity in the kitchen when cooking was a special concoction that has been taught from generation, to generation.

So what is this secret ingredient to improve my cooking?

Unfortunately, this ingredient is something that has been lost in translation for a number of years. I feel very fortunate to pass this on to you and your family so that it may bring your family closer as it has in our household.

A number of years ago, I happened to be at a training seminar. And the guest speaker had a personal cook. As a curious individual that I am, I ventured into the kitchen. There was this little man cooking a meal in this huge kitchen at this hotel. At the time, I was not a fan of Indian food. But what caught my curiosity was that, as he was cooking, he was singing these wonderful songs. Keep in mind, I could not understand a stitch of what he was singing. But when he came up to me and offered me a taste, I said no, no, no, I don’t like Indian food.

It was the most delicious taste I ever had.

He insisted, and I wanted to be polite, so I took a bite and tried it. WOW! I loved it. Then it hit me like a lightning bolt. I am convinced. That the quality of food was great and he knew how to spice it up. But the most important “secret” ingredient was the singing that I forgot about that occurred in my own home growing up.

How does this apply in my kitchen?

Cooking with music affects our body, our mind and our emotions. The quality of his emotion, and the quality of feeling, was the secret ingredient that made that meal from, let’s say a bronze medal, to a gold medal if we were to use this analogy.

For most us, we can’t carry a tune to save our skin. Fortunately, Apple has created an iPhone, iTunes, and iPad that can help us with this dilemma. Then the final ingredient to improve your cooking is to have the joy of music in the kitchen at your fingertips.

This is possible with the installation of a pair of speaker in the kitchen. If for some reason, we cannot get the wiring to the kitchen, we have our wireless speakers from Sonos that will do a great job as well.

It beats the alternative of having to crank up the family room stereo, just to be able to hear it in the kitchen. then you end up yelling at each other. That is just wrong on so many levels.

With Memorial Day just around the corner, let Rancho Santa Fe Home Theater give you that richness, that connection, the gift of music to bring you and your family closer than before.

Bring back the fun, engaging and enjoyable experience that you have been missing. So pick up the phone and give us a call at 858-764-2648 to schedule a complimentary assessment to get that secret ingredient into your cooking lifestyle.

Because at the end of the day, creating that bond of love within the family is what its all about.

 

 

 

 

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admin

Top 5 Mistakes in Wireless Networking

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Top 5 Mistakes in Wireless NetworkingWireless networking router

Let’s face it. Wireless networking is a part of our everyday life whether we like it, or not. Now that we have that out of the way, let us get into some of the mistakes we uncover when a client invites us to their home to unravel some of their problems with their existing wireless and why it doesn’t work as promised.

1. Don’t ever use the router that your internet provider issued you.

More times than not, we discover that this is one to be a common issue. Think of it to having multiple meetings going on in the same board room. The problem is that the router can only pay attention to one meeting at time. The minute you have more than one device requesting access to the internet, guess what? Your internet quality goes down. Unfortunately, the internet providers never tell you this because they just don’t want to. We will leave it at that. In most households what is required is a router that can multi-task. So look for a router with the MU-MIMO stamped on it. It simply means that it is a multi user router for mulitiple devices. Here is a link if you would like more info from Amazon

2. Why is the antenna lying flat?

Too often we see a router, or wireless access point that has 2 antennas laying flat in a one-floor home. If we can visualize the antenna holding on to the center of a delicious glazed donut that just came out of the oven. And the smell of that donut has a radiating smell of the sweet glazing trying to reach you nose. Since the antenna is laying flat, the smell is only going up to the ceiling and down to the ground. Its never going to reach your nose.

But if you stand the antenna straight up, then the glazing smell with permeate from side to side. Therefore, covering a lot more distance of an area.

3. Don’t put a router, or wireless access point on the back of a TV

This one is a doosey. There are times where we cant find the router, or access point. So we end up doing a site survey to find it. Since the invention of Smart TV’s the convenience of accessing Netflix, Pandora and other streaming services, we are finding the wireless networking routers and wireless access points stuck behind the TV. Guess what? Not a good place.

You want to avoid lighting fixtures, power lines, A/C units, elevators, fish tanks, and anything else that with lots of metal or water. The reason is that these items will block your signal from getting through.

Ideally we end up relocating the router, or wireless access points at least a couple of meters away from any possible RF interference and in line of sight what they’re to be connected to. What this does, is it give the signal the clearest path possible. So we want to mount them as high as possible.

4. Don’t use your name, or last name as your SSID

This is like broadcasting to the world, “Hey! Come hack me because this is my wireless network.” There is no realistic reason on earth to do this. Also avoid using WEP encryption at all costs, since it can be hacked within a few minutes these days. If for some strange reason a device requires WEP encryption, because it can’t handle anything else, then we go to Plan “B”

In plan “B” we use the MAC address filtering and put it on a secure VLAN that allows routing only to the device it needs to talk to.

5. Don’t use just one device to test the signal strength

Do yourself a favor. Use the actual devices that you are going to use everyday to make sure you have adequate coverage. Believe it or not, each device has its own power requirements, antennas and other nuances I won’t bore you with. One of the best tests is to use an iPhone to connect. Apple hand-held devices are notorious for having extremely poor signal strength. This is the reason why Apple removed all of the wireless signal strength meters from their app store.

We hope this article was informative and useful to you in the case that you are struggling with your wireless networking around the house.

On the other hand, if you feel that you just don’t want to mess with your wireless network anymore and would like someone to simply take care of it, then pick up the phone and give us a call today, or send us a text message at 858-764-2648 to rid yourself of this thorn at your side.

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admin

How to create a text emoticon

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Got next generation text messaging?

For most of us 160 characters is plenty to get your message across. But one day someone decided that words are just not enough. That is where the text emoticon came to life.

Now your text can express yourself in such a way like no other way to get your point across. Your message now has your own personality with a certain jen ne sais qua, that your message could not express itself in any other way.

So without further a due here is how to create these little beauties.

Text messaging emoticon dictionarytext message emoticon

 What if 160 characters is not enough for my text?

We live in a multi generational society where enough just does not work for everyone. That is where a new type of text messaging service comes in. Apple rolled out iMessage to give us the ability to include pictures and expand our horizons. but now there is new kid on the block and his name is WhatsApp.

Who is WhatsApp?

WhatsApp is a new platform of text messaging where you are not limited by 160 characters. With this service you can include pictures and videos as well. Now you can send the most elaborate messages to your friends and family without using any of your text messaging data plan. This is because this app uses the internet data network, not the cellular data network.

Can you hook me up?

We sure can! To learn more about how we can assist you in setting up your smartphone with this App or other useful tools that will simplify your life, pick up the phone and give us a call, or shoot us a text message to (858) 764-2648 to make life a little bit simpler.

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admin

Hotmail is dead, now what?

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Hotmail is no more as of today, May 2nd 2013

hotmaillike most of the other familiar names that we have grown up with, like email.com, AOL, me.com, Richochet wireless services and most importantly Dial-up internet, Hotmail is dead. Just like a floppy drive.

Microsoft announced that your hotmail account is now on their outlook.com server and state that you will now have some newer features like SMTP and Skydrive.

But for most of us that have been faithful to Microsoft since the 1990’s that just want a simple email account, we now face a new challenge of this merger.

Here is what Micrsoft stated about Hotmail:

“Today, we’re excited to announce that we’ve completed upgrading all Hotmail customers to Outlook.com. Coupled with the growing organic excitement for Outlook.com, this has pushed us to over 400 million active Outlook.com accounts, including 125 million that are accessing email, calendar and contacts on a mobile device using Exchange ActiveSync.”

The last time Microsoft did cut us off at the knees was with Microsoft Money. This accounting software had all the bells and whistles you needed with a great dose of simplicity. For those of you that have made the journey to transfer your date to Quicken, you will need a third party application to make it work correctly.

What happens next now that hotmail is dead?

For those of you that have configured your email accounts to hotmail and are having a difficult time with the integration of outlook.com you can pick up the phone and give us a call, or send us a text message to 858-764-2648 and one of our technicians can re-configure your computers to simplify this process.

Remote Services available for hotmail

If you are out of our service area and require assistance we now have remote services available to assist you with your computer without having to be physically there on-site. Now there is a solution for every situation that may arise on your PC, or Laptop. One more thing i forgot to mention that we work on Machintosh computer as well.

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admin

Netflix on your LG Bluray

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Netflix imageHow to get to the Netflix menu on a LG Bluray

As part of Rancho Santa Fe Home Theater’s commitment to customer service, we have created a short video on how to get to the Netflix feature that is on the LG Bluray player.

How big is this TV?

Our creativity never ends. Here is a bedroom installation where the client was having a difficult time reading the ticker symbols from his bed. So our solution is a bigger flat screen TV along with a soundbar. How big you ask? Well how about 90-inches on a tilting swing arm. check it out.

What kind of remote is this?

Part of our keeping things as simple as possible, we programmed an iPad so that the client could clearly see the buttons to control everything in the bedroom.

For more information, or a demonstration of this remote, please pick up the phone or send us a Text at 858-764-2648

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admin

Mirror Your iPad On Apple TV

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How To Enable Your iPad To Mirror Your Apple TV On Your Flat Screen

Here are some simplified instructions on using the feature called Mirroring on your iPad along with the use of the Apple TV. As part of our commitment to customer service at Rancho Santa Fe Home Theater. We will post frequently asked questions about our products and services that we have installed, serviced, or programmed. So lets get started….

1. On your iPhone or iPad, if you DO NOT HAVE iOs 7, then double-click the Home Button which is the round one that is on the lower front of your display. This will bring up all of the Apps you just used on your iPad and will shift your entire display up and grey it out for a moment. This is normal and everything will resume back to normal once we are finished mirroring.

If you have the latest iOs7 operating system, then using your finger swipe up from the bottom of your screen to access the Control Center like the image here.

Airplay image

2. Now you will see the AirPlay icon as shown below in grey.

iPad Airplay icon

3. Tap the AirPlay icon to display a list of available AirPlay devices. Upon doing this, the icon will turn to a blue color instead of the grey color. The change in color will indicate that the Airplay is active.

4. Enable AirPlay Mirroring* from this menu by tapping the name of your Apple TV, then toggle the on/off slider to ON. Some of you may have multiple Apple TV’s in different rooms. So pick the one that you are in front of.iPad airplay display

5. AirPlay menu with Mirroring option ON and the icon has turned blue in color indicates that you should see an exact mirror of whatever is happening on your iPhone, or iPad.

6. Now Tap on the Home button and select the Apple App that you want to see on your television. For example if you want to surf the internet, Tap on the Safari icon to enable this.Safari iconIf you are still having issues enabling it, then why not give us a call at 858-764-2648 to ensure that your WiFi system may not have the range it should to enable this powerful, yet easy system.

Many times, we find that the current WiFi system that the cable companies, AT&T just does not have the distance to travel to every room that you live. Therefore, it reduces the practical use of this feature.

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