Hey Everybody in Portland Computer Repair Land,

In the last few days we have had the following question a few times,

“When my computer turns on, it hangs on the boot screen for a long time, whats going on?”

Or,

“My computer will turn on, but it just goes to a black screen with a blinking cursor. Why is that happening?”

Frequently, if your computer has an external hard drive or thumb drive plugged in, it can cause problems like those above. If you are having trouble getting your computer to turn on, unplug your thumb drives, flash drives, etc and then turn the computer back on again.

This happens, just like in the old days when a computer wouldn’t start if it had a floppy in it, because the computer tries to boot from the device instead of booting from the hard drive inside the computer.

Give it a try next time you have this sort of problem, and let me know how it goes!

-Zac

Hey Folks,

Just a quick note to let you know that we will be open regular hours on Wednesday and Friday, but we will be closed all day Thursday. We will be available on Thursday for emergency service at 2x our regular rate if any emergencies come up.

Have a good holiday!

-Zac

Okay, so we conducted a poll to see how people felt about the names Herschel and Randal for our cars (now taken down). After 20 votes, its clear that Herschel is a winner, and Randal..not so much.

We will think of a new name for the other car and see what we come up with…if you have ideas, feel free to post them in the comments!

Hey Everybody in Portland Computer Repair Land,

To answer the question about windows 7 in short -

If you have XP, don’t upgrade. Wait until you buy a new computer.

If you have Vista, upgrade immediately.

To answer it longer -

Yes, Windows 7 is a good operating system. It is smooth, runs quickly, does not crash or have any major glaring bugs or problems, and includes a lot of important new security features. It is a worthwhile and worthy successor to Windows XP. It is easier to use wireless internet, to add new hardware, to lock down profiles, and to do a million other little things in a more user friendly manner. The new search system is finally here, and it actually works. You can now search your computer quickly and easily.

The reason you do not want to upgrade your windows XP system, though, is that you have to delete everything and start from scratch in order to do it. That means you lose every video game you have installed, internet favorites, etc. We can, if you bring it into the shop, do our best to save your data before we do the install, but even so, its messy. Plus, if you have a windows XP computer, it is probably older. So stick with it for another year or two until it dies, and then your new computer will come with windows 7.

The reason you do want to upgrade your windows Vista system is simple – it will make you stop hating your computer so much. The upgrade is seamless, you keep all of your programs and files. 7 also looks very similar to Vista, so you have very few new features to learn about. Basically, 7 is an upgrade to Vista, its just a very, very expensive upgrade.

As far as costs go – the upgrade from XP is about $150 in labor and the $150 Vista license. The upgrade from Vista is about $75 in labor and the $150 vista license.

If you have any additional questions, feel free to give us a call!

Best,

-Zac

Hey Everybody in Portland Computer Repair Land,

We recently made a great acquisition – company vehicles! We have two bright and shiny RAV4 high-mileage SUV’s with big hamster decals on the doors.

Well, yesterday one of our technicians (Obie) had a bit of a scare. While driving a new company vehicle to a clients house, a cop fell in behind him. After he parked, the cop pulled in and parked right behind the car.

As is natural, Obie started to get worried. It is never a good thing when a cop follows you, and pulls in behind your vehicle. He started going over in his head all the possible reasons he could get pulled over, thinking about how much the ticket would cost, etc.

The cop exited his vehicle and proceeded to Obie’s window. Obie rolled it down, and the cop said to him…

“Hey, the computer is my car is frozen, can you fix it?”

Best part of the story?

Obie fixed it on the spot.

Have a good weekend everybody!

-Zac

Hey Everybody in Portland Computer Repair land,

As you may already know, Happy Hamster Computer Repair operates 7 days a week, with only a few exceptions for major holidays. We operate a full day on Saturday, from 9 AM until 6 PM, and a half day on Sunday, from 10 AM until 2 PM.

However a customer pointed out to me today that no other computer repair shop in town opens on a Sunday. I thought that unlikely, I mean, computers break 7 days a week, and people frequently have things due first thing Monday that they need to do on Sunday. So I did some homework, and lo and behold, I can’t find another shop in town open on a Sunday. Whats more, I found very few even open on Saturday!

To me, keeping the shop open on the weekends is a no brainer. First, Saturday is our second busiest day of the week. So I would be better off closing on Monday/Tuesday/Wednesday/Thursday/Sunday, all of which are less busy days for us.

Sunday is a little bit trickier of a proposition. The truth is, the shop sometimes breaks even, and frequently loses money on Sundays.  We get very little traffic, so even with the skeleton staff (only two people staff the shop Sunday instead of our usual four or five) its not profitable.

That said, we stay open on Sunday not because of the number of people who come through the door, but rather for the type of people we get on Sundays. Our average Sunday customer desperately and immediately needs help.  Sunday customers are students with a paper due in the morning, business owners who need to turn in payroll, and people with mission critical jobs that must be done right away. By opening on Sunday, we give these people the opportunity to get their computers repaired when they need them: immediately.  I know that the loyalty and gratitude we get from these people means I have found another customer for life. And life long customers fuel the Monday through Saturday business!

Many businesses make short sighted bottom line decisions without looking at the whole picture. In the small picture, staying open Sunday is silly, but in the grand scheme, its another part of what had made us Portland’s largest locally owned computer repair store.

Have a good weekend!

-Zac