shanenin

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Posts posted by shanenin

  1. Time just goes by. I started my computer repair business 6 years ago. I knew just a little more then the average geek. I knew how to relaod windows and basic hardware trouble shooting. WE have grown steadily over the years. We moved to a new better location last August. I got a picture of our geeky messy shop. I am proud of it :-)

    We also are starting to move into Apple repair. We are very inexperienced with it, but will learn!

  2. We got another mac 13.3 inch laptop in a few days ago. The authorized apple repair shop in our town told our client it was not worth fixing. He brought it to us for a second opinion. We installed a new lcd back lite inverter, harddrive and the thing runs like brand new. The client gave a us a big smile and a thank you along with $350 (that price also included data recovery from the bad drive). It was a great paying job for us and the client did not have to buy a new Mac. Everyone was happy!

  3. hey bozodog :-)

    I Like your new name business name! Just a suggestion that will cost you no money but might bring in some big sales. I noticed when I used to search for "computer repair rochester mn" or "virus removal rochester mn" we never came up in google search results. Just recently I made 2 little changes to our website , now we are getting then #1 spot for the virus removal and #3 for computer repair. 2 of the most important things google uses to index your site is your title page and the content in your h1 tags.

    <title>Low cost Computer repair, virus removal Rochester MN</title>

    and this

     <h1>Low Cost Computer Repair, Service and Sales Located in Rochester MN</h1>

    after I did this, I asked google to crawl my index page only and within 24 hours we got those top search results! Also putting your website name in your signature on besttechie will also help you get better search results.

    We just did this a week ago and we have seen results. I always ask people where they heard about us and this week we got a few extra "web search" clients.

  4. I just got a email in regards to that job this evening. I was told that none of the kid's ipod touches with be recognized in iTunes. Hmm, not sure why. They were running iTunes 7. I am not sure why it is not updating by itself. I manually(remotely) installed itunes 9.2.1, the highest version supported by OS 10.4.11. That seemed to fix the issue :-) I am still a bit worried about the updating issue(lack of).

  5. this was the model

    http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/imac/stats/imac-core-2-duo-2.4-20-inch-aluminum-specs.html

    this was the guide at ifixit.com. they seem to have complete teardown guides of every mac/ipad/ihpone made

    http://www.ifixit.com/Device/iMac_Intel_20%22_EMC_2133_and_2210

    it is the only place I go when I do any apple repair

    it seems magically sealed. but the key to getting into it is to pull the front glass off with suction cups. it is just held on by magnets :-)

  6. We did an interesting job on an intel 20" imac today. We suspected it had a bad hard drive(verified it with spinrite). It was a pretty easy job removing the hard drive. it was a bit tedious, but not to complicated. Great documentation at ifixit.com. I used my old Gentoo live linux cd to copy the data off the failing drive(has built in read only support for hfs+) . Installed the new drive, installed the OS, then copied the data back to it. If we could do 4 of these jobs per month i would be happy :-)

  7. I wonder if apple cares if the same copy is installed on multiple computers?

    I think I would feel ok reinstalling from the same retail disc on multiple computers so long as it was the same version that originally came with the mac. That seems honest enough for me and probably apple.

  8. don't we need the older versions for older macs? I don't think apple will come after us like Microsoft would if we were putting an updated version of an OS on an older computer, but.... Will newer versions run on PPC ? I guess we have a lot of research to do

    lots of good info I found here

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mac_OS_X

    it seems like I would need something as old as 10.4 (tiger) for older g4 and g3 computers. 10.5 (leopard) runs on both intel and powerpc all on the same dvd.

    then maybe a copy of 10.7 for all the newest ones

  9. We have a decent computer repair/service business in the Rochester, MN area. We have never advertised Mac repair, but we do a Mac job every few months. We have done some mother board replacements and a few dc jack board replacements, and hard drive replacements(clients had discs). We are going to start advertising and try and get at the growing Mac business. We hope to go after the easier, more profitable hard drive and os reload jobs. I think all we need to buy are some universal install discs. opposed to some that are for example, only work on the "mac mini". This is where I could use some help. To cover the last 8 years of macs made, what kind of OS discs would we need on hand to cover ourselves. I am just looking for any insight into going into this venture. All comments are greatly appreciated.

  10. we built 4 new work stations for our computer repair business when we moved to our new location. We went with 2 xp pro machines, one windows 7 business and one windows 7 ultimate. I still use tend to use the xp machines myself. We have a special need to have xp machines(or at least a virtual system) in case we need to help customers trouble shoot xp issues. With that point aside, XP does everything we need it to do.

  11. Jumper the two power pins on the motherboard that the power button connects to. When you turn on the main switch for the outlet that the PC is plugged into it should turn on.

    that may or may not work depending on the motherboard. If I remember correctly, I have worked on pcs with a power switch that would stay stuck on the on position(similar to jumping it). If I remember correctly it would fire up, but then immediately shut down.

    Another possible solution: you may want to check in the bios if their is an option to restart after power failure. if so enable it.

  12. I feel uneducated. I have been in the tech business professionally for 5 years giving bad advice and doing some things that may have lost client data. I was under the impression that system restore with xp did not delete personal files/folders. I use it and told clients on a regular basis not to worry about using it, your files will be fine. I noticed a couple of days ago that a folder I created on the root of c: with drivers in it disappeared after running system restore. This behavior also happened with folders on the desktop. Do you guys have any insight to what is going on? A link to a thorough explanation to what files are saved or removed with system restore would be great!

    edit added later//

    I need to test this, but i think it must filter files based on extension, for example .exe.

    edit adder later//

    I made a folder on the root of c: it contained the following: test.txt, test.rtf, test.hhh, test.exe. The system restore only removed the test.exe file. Based on that one test, files of unknown type are saved along with known types like word docs. I suspect .exe and .dll files in particular are not saved.

  13. I have been toying with the idea of doing a public service type commercial. We would give a tip on tv about keeping your computer safe, run better, or some other computer related help spot. People will associate us with helping. I think it would be a great idea. I am looking for suggestions on a tip to offer in either a 15 or 30 second spot. I would prefer 15 second spots, but they may be too short, that would only leave about 8 seconds to give the actual tip.

  14. Thanks. that is me in the ad. I sure hope they do well.

    Advertising is an interesting thing. You want to reach as many people as possible, but you can't spread yourself to thin. You also need frequency. It is a trade of, if you have a certain amount of money to spend every month, you can try and reach everyone in the area one time, or reach 20% in the area 5 times. Frequency verses Reach. We need to find the sweet spot.