Hey Everybody in Portland Computer Repair Land,

The cat has been named. Her name is Hamster. This way, when people come in and ask where the Hamsters are, we can point to her.

But thats not what this post is about. This post is about generating 8 computers in 3 hours. We had a client call in. new client, at 4 PM on Thursday. The client asked us if we could build 8 computers within their price range. We said sure, and then he dropped the bomb – could he have them by noon tomorrow?

Well, okay, normally it takes us about 24 hours to gather the parts and put together, test, etc, a single computer. We needed to 8 with about 5 working hours to do it in (two on Thursday, 3 on Friday). After the initial excitement (yay, big contract!) and the initial panic (crap! 5 hours!) subsided, we got to work. We put in a huge order for all the necessary parts (these were custom order systems using no parts we usually stock). Then we had to get on the phone with our supplier to make sure the order could be pushed through locally. Then we had to order the used monitors (did I mention the client needed used monitors to hit their cost level?) from ebay from a local supplier. We bid on 15 hoping we would win at least the 8 we needed (we won 10, but 2 were broken, so it worked out) and moved some shifts around to bring an extra body on for Friday morning.

That was Thursday night.

Friday morning, 8:30 AM we picked up the parts from our supplier and brought them back to the shop. Two technicians spent the next 3 hours assembling each one, with a third technician testing each one as it was completed. Yours truly drove out to our used monitor supplier to get the monitors, made an emergency supply run to get some extra cables the monitors didn’t come with, and then brought them back to the shop. We tested them (2 bad of 10, not bad for untested e-bay monitors) and got everything boxed up for the client by 12:15.

No sweat.

Thanks,
-Zac
owner
Happy Hamster Portland Computer Repair

Hey Everybody in Portland Computer Repair Land,

Very exciting news here today – we got a shop cat! She has been given to us by a wonderful women who unfortunately could not have the cat in her life anymore, and has come to bask in the sun of our windows and generally hang out. Details and pictures to follow.

Feel free to stop by and say hi to her!

-Zac

Hey Everybody in Portland Computer Repair Land,

Sometimes, just opening the lid of a computer, we know  that it’s going to be a repair nightmare down the road. We have, in the last two days, had customers bring in brand new Toshiba computers. One, a 15 inch Toshiba Satellite, that the customer paid $399 for, will be a paperweight within 2 years. The hinges wobbled like the screen door on a 1970′s ranch house, the kind where 10 kids grew up there, and slammed it every day going in an out. The keyboard had the kind of flex normally associated with a trampoline. Each key press sent the whole keyboard down by a good 1/8th of an inch and then rebounded back up. The image quality reminded me, fondly, of the sorts of LCD screens companies used in the early 1990′s.
In short, the computer is a disaster.

The second computer we saw, another new Toshiba, this one a $499 slimline 13.3 inch computer, had its own set of faults. Beyond the cheap plastic look and feel, the touchpad barely responded. As a user, you need to scream your finger across it to get the cursor to go even tangentially in the sort of direction you want it to move. The mouse buttons…clicking the mouse buttons is an act of faith on this computer. There are not distinct left and right, just one big silver plastic bar, and if you push hard enough, long enough, on roughly the right areas of the silver stick, sometimes the mouse will click. God help people who like to double click. Also, sitting right next to our very, very powerful high speed wireless router, it only recorded a 3/5 bar signal strength. That is a disaster.

I used to be a fan of Toshiba’s consumer computers, good quality at a good price, but these things…have been disastrous. Their cheap, shoddy, plastic construction means they will not last, and while they are alive, they will not be fun or easy to use.

Do not buy.

Zac

Owner

Happy Hamster Portland Computer Repair

Hey Everybody in Portland Computer Repair Land,

I don’t usually post in the mornings, but I just saw something that demands an immediate response.  Geek Squad has launched a new service called “Ask An Agent.” For $40/year, they will

1) Answer any basic computer question that does not conflict with any existing Geek Squad service.

2) Give you one basic computer checkup annually.

3) Give you 10% off all Geek Squad services.

(You can read the full press release here.)

Lets go over the scam here, one piece at a time.

First, I think you can all see the problem with section 1. They will only answer questions for which they don’t currently charge for assistance. This means if you have a virus and ask for help removing it, they’re going to say, “sorry, that is something we do charge for, and you’re going to have to pay us $299 to answer your question.” Further, the questions exclude hardware issues. So if you buy a new printer, and can’t get it installed, they won’t help. That eliminates, in my experience, about 90% of all the phone calls a computer repair shop receives.  So, for $40, you can’t get the important questions answered. Great.

Section 2 is a real scam.  This service, the checkup service, is the same diagnostic test that Geek Squad currently runs for free for any user who brings their computer to a Geek Squad location. This saves you $0. End of story.

Section 3, while not a scam, does lock you into using service from Geek Squad. I think being forced to use Geek Squad’s service (still badly overpriced, even at 10% off) counts as punishment enough.

I also want to look at a really clever piece of red tape in this program -

Geek Squad is requiring you to hold onto the little plastic card they send you with your 20 digit ID, or else you can’t use the discount, or any other service. That is correct, with their multi-million dollar computer system, they can’t be bothered to track who actually owns the card.

So basically, Geek Squad is planning to have you lose the card, and to keep your $40, but even if  you don’t lose it, they will just try to up-sell you over and over again every time you talk to them.

This is a company that does not care about its customers, all they care about is coming up with new “products” and new scams that they can try to push on their customers, and this is just another example of that.

Happy Hamster continues to offer our free 10 minute no-stress diagnostic to every customer who walks in our doors, no $40 charge. Bring in your computer, we’ll take a 10 minute look at it, give you a fixed price for the repair, and let you decide what course of action you want to take.

Thanks everybody,

-Zac Cramer

Owner

Happy Hamster Portland Computer Repair

Hey Everybody in Portland Computer Repair Land,

It’s April 15th, time to file your taxes! We enjoy this day here at Happy Hamster because we can take it a bit easy…for some reason, on April 15th, nobody is thinking about getting their computer fixed. We expect the rush to return tomorrow, but for today, we’ll sit back and clean up and wait for you all to finish up with those taxes (we also use this extra time to frantically finish our own taxes, of course…)
Best,

-Zac

Happy Hamster Computer Repair

Hey Everybody in Portland Computer Repair Land,

Today I want to talk to you all about your universal power adapter, and why it was a silly waste of money. Universal power adapters are the lazy way that computer shops try to have in stock the adapter that everybody needs.

Here are the reasons that universal power adapters are a bad idea -

1) They are 3 – 4x as expensive as getting the correct specific adapter for your computer. We sell regular Dell power adapters, Sony power adapters, Toshiba power adapters, Gateway/Acer/Emachines power adapters for only $55 each. Most universal adapters cost $125 – 200!

2) They break much more easily. This occurs because each universal adapter works on the same principle – they include multiple tips, and you just have to figure out which tip works in your laptop. Frequently, users pick the wrong tip. They either pick one that is too loose or too tight, and they end out breaking either the adapter, or the plug inside the computer. The heads also tend to break off at the joint with the adapter, because they are weakly secured.

3) They don’t last as long. “Jack of all trades master of none” really applies here. Because they are trying to accommodate such a wide range of voltage, amperage, and wattage possibilities, they don’t hold any particular level very well.

4) They often won’t charge your battery. Computer’s are smart enough to know when you have plugged in the right or wrong adapter. If you plug in the wrong one, the computer, to protect itself, will often stop charging its battery, because it does not know the source of the power coming into it.

The really pathetic part about this for computer shops is how lazy it is to only stock the one universal adapter. At Happy Hamster we do not stock universal power adapters, we stock a total of 7, that is all, just 7 different power adapters. Those 7 adapters work in 99% of all computers on the market. Other stores, instead of stocking just 7 items, would rather charge you more, for a worse product, that won’t work as well or as long with your computer.

So, if you need a power adapter in Portland, Oregon, know that Happy Hamster Computer Repair stocks all your options!

Now,

Hey Everybody in Portland Computer Repair Land,

You may have recently heard about something launched by apple called the iPad. If you haven’t, it’s a $600, 10 inch touch screen computer. You just touch things on the screen to make them happen (go to web pages, read an e-book, watch Netflix, etc).

If you want reviews of it, go elsewhere, many people have posted their thoughts on the quality of the screen, its usability, and other markers. What I want to talk about today is what I consider its anti-internet spirit. The thing about the iPad that needs to be harped on is this – you can’t create anything with it.

It does not come with a keyboard, or a productivity suite, or a mouse. It’s just the touch screen. You can get a faux keyboard on the screen and try to type on it, but all reports are that this experience is awful, and only good for very short typing periods.

The internet has, to date, been all about creating. People created a basic framework, and we have built new and better things upon it over and over again. First we built e-mail, then libraries got their hands on it and built catalogs of books, corporations got into it and built websites to tell you about their products, we got into it to post pictures on Facebook and tell our friends what we’re doing with our lives. The internet collectively spawned Wikipedia, a 100% end-user (you are an “end user”) created database of information.

The iPad turns all of this on its head. The iPad is all about the hedonistic joy of taking without giving. Look at how the iPad can give you movies, it can give you books and it can give you games to play! It does not want you to give it anything. The design even screams, “don’t touch me!” The screen, according to all reports, takes fingerprints easily, and you must constantly clean the touchscreen surface. The device itself stands opposed to interacting with it.

I think that is a step backwards for the internet. I think the internet works best as an interactive medium, a creative force. Even at the level of me writing this blog (which I could never do on an iPad) and you responding to it (is it worth cleaning the screen again?) and the iPad counters that goal.

Have a good weekend,

-Zac

Owner

Happy Hamster Portland Computer Repair