Hey Folks,

Tonight at 5 and again at 6:30 you can see yours truly on the Channel 2 news report. A crew just finished interviewing me to talk about the Conflicker virus and the story will air tonight.

Thanks!

-Zac

Hey Folks,

Short one today, still recovering from yesterday. In the post-spring break rush, we took 23 calls yesterday, exceeding our previous record by a full 65% (15 calls). We also set a record for jobs, booking 10 seperate customers for work, and pushing my guys schedules to their limits!
To give you some perspective, when we started this company in September, it took us 2 full weeks to get 23 calls!

Thanks everybody for your continued trust and support,

-Zac

Hey Everybody in Portland Computer Repair Land,

Many of you, at this very moment, have your computers plugged either directly into the wall, or into a simple power strip that plugs into your wall. You all don’t know it, but right now your computer has a very high risk of suffering from a power surge, especially those of you in older buildings or converted apartments where the power is most dodgy.

A power surge happens when, for a brief moment in time, more than the regular voltage/amperage goes through your wiring. Although most devices won’t care (your hair dryer can withstand the potential damage) your sensitive electronics care a great deal. Computers deal with power surges mostly by being destroyed on the inside. Often times a computer that suffers from a surge will show multiple dead internal components. It’s not uncommon to see a dead power supply, dead motherboard, and dead hard drive inside such a machine. Usually such a computer must be replaced entirely, as the repair costs far outweighs the cost of a new machine.
Take hope, though, because you can easily avoid these events.  Spend $20, and buy a power strip with an integrated surge protector. A surge protector will absorb any irregularities in the current flowing through your wires, and prevent them from reaching your computer. For $20, you can avoid the potential risk of complete computer destruction! So yes, please go forth and buy one.

This lesson, as always, comes from a customers story. One customer lost not one, not two, but three separate computers in the course of only a single year because of the poor quality electrical supply in his apartment. We told him to buy a surge protector, and so far his forth computer remains living.

Thanks everybody!

-Zac

Hey Everybody in Portland Computer Repair Land,

Yesterday we talked about a big piece of hard drive fail. Today we had the exactly opposite story! A customer called in this afternoon saying his external hard drive would not longer read. We told him to turn off and unplug the drive, and leave it be. He did so. We arrived on site, the drive sat un-touched or messed with, and after about 15 minutes of taking it apart, we saw that his hard drive was in good condition, but the USB port connecting it to the computer had failed. We put his hard drive in a new enclosure and all of his data (about 2,000 CD’s of music worth) was safe and secure.

We can’t know for sure that the story from yesterday would not have happened if the customer had left his product alone. We can know, though, that the odds would have been much higher.

Have a good night everybody!

-Zac

Hey Everybody in Portland Computer Repair Land,

I’d like to talk to you all today about a basic rule we all learn in childhood, that often gets forgotten in the panic of computer meltdowns: if it hurts to touch, stop touching it.

For example let me share a customer’s story from today. This morning somebody called us in a panic. He had an external hard drive with years of critical data, and suddenly he could not get his computer to recognize it. He said that he could not hear the drive spinning, and that when we touched the case, it was almost red hot. We told the customer to turn off the hard drive, and wait for us to arrive. In a case like this, an electrical short is a near certainty (shorts can cause extreme heat buildups) and that we needed to remove the hard drive from the casing before any further damage occurred. We scheduled a technician to meet the customer about 4 hours after they called.

Well, unfortunately the customer simply couldn’t wait quite that long. He kept trying to turn the drive on and off and make it work while he waited for us, until suddenly black smoke started to pour out of the external drive casing. When we opened the drive casing, the front of the hard drive had a large black melted plastic hole, and the odds of any data recover dropped through the floor.

I can’t say for certain that we could have recovered the customer’s data even if we had the drive in non-melted condition, but I do know that the odds would have been much higher. So keep in mind, in a crisis, the best thing you can do is nothing. Often times trying to do more actually hurts your odds of getting the kind of help you need.

Thanks everybody!

-Zac

Hey Everybody in Portland Computer Repair Land,

Just a quick friendly St, Patrick’s Day reminder not to drink near your computer. Remember, beer is sticky, and if you’re drunk you are much more likely to spill it. So drink safely tonight by not drinking at your keyboard!

Thanks,

-Zac

Hey Everybody in Portland Computer Repair Land,

Just wanted to make a quick “the more you know” style post for this overcast Saturday. Did you know that you do not need to download anything to get a virus? It’s true. A lot of people think as long as they stay away from scary websites and downloads, they will never become infected. Unfortunately, viruses are now much more sophisticated then that. Using the holes that exist in Windows, an evil-doer can put a virus on your computer simply if you’re connected to the internet.

Now, don’t let this make you paranoid, Microsoft releases patches to fill these holes almost as soon as they are discovered, and good anti-virus will provide most of the protection you need, but don’t fall into the trap of thinking you’re safe just because you stay on nytimes.com.

Thanks everybody,

-Zac

Hey Everybody in Portland Computer Repair Land,

Sorry I haven’t written in awhile, things have been crazy busy around here, although they were a bit slower today. Anyways, today I want to talk to all of you about one of the greatest tools we have here in the office. It’s not some big fancy expensive piece of equipment, but rather one of the smallest, cheapest things we buy. My friends, I’m talking about the humble paperclip.

Paperclips are useful for many things in computer repair. For example, did you know that in every CD-Rom drive ever made, there is a hole? And did you know that if you take a paper clip, unfold it, and stick it in that hole, the CD tray will pop out? It’s true! And an inordinately useful little fact to know when dealing with a broken computer that can’t power on, but from which somebody needs a CD.

Paperclips are also useful for poking things that are too hard to reach otherwise. For example, often times the power button a laptop will be lost, broken or displaced. With a humble unfolded paper clip, you can easily still reach into the machine and push the power button on the motherboard. Paperclips are also useful for fishing out screws that get dropped into the nooks and crannies of cases.

Want to know more ways you can use your friend, the paperclip? How about for turning on your computer? If your desktop motherboard isn’t connected to a power button, a paperclip can be used to “jump” the motherboard (just like you would jump your car) to act as a fake power on switch. (Please note, non-experts should probably not attempt this).

Anyways, I know it’s a little goofy, but it’s true, we use paperclips a great deal here in the office for all sorts of little things that would otherwise be really annoying to deal with.

Have a good night everybody,

-Zac

Hey Everybody in Portland Computer Repair Land,

We had a fairly humbling experience here about a week ago that, now at its conclusion, I’d like to tell you all about. I offer free keyboard replacements to anybody who calls asking for one. I have done hundreds of them, and they are all relatively straight forward. The easiest take about 4 minutes, the hardest maybe 15. So, as a good will thing, we just replace them for people at no charge (except the keyboard itself).

Unfortunately, all good winning streaks must come to an end, and I met mine last weekend. One of the ways a keyboard can attach to a motherboard is through what we call a “ZIF” connector. Basically, a small plastic lift gate snaps down on the keyboard cable, and holds it in place against the metal contacts on the board.

These lift gates are fragile, and must be handled delicately. Unfortunately, despite my best efforts, I accidentally snapped one off on a customer’s laptop. Now, replacing a lift gate actually takes an enormous amount of effort, because you can not buy them. The plastic piece is too small, and too valueless for them to be sold. So, using a time honored trick, I hot glued the keyboard in place.

Success!
Except…wait…3 of the keys didn’t work. Somehow the contacts were ALMOST perfectly down, but not quite.No problem, just pull the glue off and do it again…

Then, disaster, while removing the hot glue, I ripped the ZIF connector clean off the board.

Well, nothing to be done for it but pull out my customer service hat. We sent the computer out to a motherboard repair shop in California, and just got it back today. Our total bill for my snapping off a tiny piece of plastic? $200.

Sometimes in computer repair, things go wrong, even for the big boys. The important thing is to admit you did wrong, apologize, and make it right. I like these challenges, because they help me to reaffirm why I run my company the way I do. Every time I run into a problem like this, where the company can choose to stonewall and save money, or spend money and do right, I get to reaffirm how we do what we do.

And, of course, every time, we learn just a little bit more about computer repair!

Thanks everybody,

-Zac