by Shane Grantham | Apr 22, 2019
Last week I was eating lunch at a restaurant and as I was walking up to pay, something interesting happened. One of my computer clients and a networker was just ahead of me in line. We hadn’t seen each other in person for several years, yet we recognized each other. He had a friend with him and we knew each other from a few networking group meetings. After a little conversation he said he sees me somewhere. And then he realized it’s on LinkedIn or Facebook.
This may sound insignificant, but it says a lot to me about Social Media posts. I have many connections on LinkedIn and Facebook, yet few ever comment or like the things I post. Whenever I run into someone I haven’t seen for a while, they usually say they see me on Social Media and may even mention a particular post they enjoyed. So when I get concerned that not many people comment on my posts, I remember that many people see my stuff, but few will comment or click the Like button.
by Shane Grantham | Apr 21, 2019
An employee of one of my business clients called and said his PC is down in their Fort Wayne Office last week. We talked on the phone so I would know what they had tried to resolve the problem. It worked fine yesterday and when they went to use it today, no response. I dropped what I was doing and drove to their office with some replacement parts. Upon arrival, I started troubleshooting.
First I tested the electrical power at outlet and found it to be good. The power cord also tested normal. I checked to insure the settings on the power supply were good. The voltage was on 115 which is correct and the power rocker switch was on which is correct.
Next, I opened the PC and disconnected everything connected to the motherboard like hard drives and DVD drives in case one of them was defective and pulling the computer down. The CPU fan was also disconnected and the PC still would not start.
I tested the Power Supply with my tester and there was no response at all on any of the connectors – no LEDs lit. The old Power Supply was removed and a replacement one of mine was connected in its place. Now, when the PC power button is pressed, the PC comes to life and the monitor begins the start-up sequence.
What happened to the power supply? Perhaps a component failed inside like a capacitor or resister. or it got overloaded by an electrical spike on the incoming 120AC line. I suggested they get a UPS between the computer and the wall outlet to protect it so this doesn’t happen again.
by Shane Grantham | Apr 20, 2019
This Saturday morning I was leaving Basches Martial Arts about 0730 and noticed a missed phone call at 0705 from a husband and wife client of mine. I called them back and learned that their Kindle Tablet is frozen and unusable. A few hours later after I was done at Spiece Fitness I made an emergency Kindle on-site service call. The wife uses it heavily to read books and without it, she’s lost. I interviewed her to find the history. It has worked fine for a long time and then this morning she found it frozen at the beginning of the splash screen for new books.
It was assumed the single button was the power button and she has never pushed it to turn off the tablet. The cover flap is just closed and the Kindle sleeps when she’s done with it. I felt it needed a hard power reset so I pushed the power button down for about 30 seconds. It finally turned off and blanked the tablet screen. The Kindle was turned back on showed the startup splash screen and displayed her books – quite an improvement over being frozen. We tested it for about 5 minutes by opening books and closing them and closing the Kindle and it worked as it should. She was grateful it was fixed and said “My husband was ready to go buy me another one before we called you!”
by Shane Grantham | Mar 24, 2019
I had a Sunday phone call today from a long-time computer client. They couldn’t connect their Windows 10 work computer to the internet. My client does everything for their business on the internet and when it’s down, their business is down. Additionally, on any given day of the week they may be working; weekends and holidays included.
Saturday they called about an issue and I solved it for them over the phone. The cause was an electrical power outage which disrupted their computer operation and shut it down without my client realizing.
Today, I used my remote control program to see if it was a web browser problem or an internet connectivity problem. I couldn’t connect remotely to the computer so I knew the problem was probably his internet provider’s or his connectivity equipment like the cable modem or the network card. He verified the computer was on and I suspected the cable modem/router needed powered down and back on to reset it.
We were on the phone and I had them unplug the power cord to the cable modem to clear it’s status and restore the internet. They set the handset to the landline phone down and I didn’t hear anything for several minutes. My client called back on their smartphone after 5 minutes and we suddenly realized when the modem was powered down, we lost the phone connection to the landline since it goes through the modem! We both laughed and felt silly that had happened.
They were relieved to have the internet working again on their Windows 10 computer and thanked me for answering my phone on a weekend. Now they could continue with their work.
by Shane Grantham | Feb 27, 2019
I visited a new Computer Repair client recently and I’d like to share how they found me. It started when a partner of a local HVAC company sent me a LinkedIn message. They were looking for a reliable computer company they could count on. They had grown to 3 sites servicing over 20,000 customers and they didn’t have the time or personnel to do their own IT. They went on to say “Your recommendations are why I am reaching out. A person with that level of service is someone who we want to partner with.”
The interesting thing is I have never met the partner of the HVAC in person and they found me purely from my LinkedIn profile which has 40 recommendations. These recommendations are from computer clients, former bosses, co-workers and past clients. If you want to be found on LinkedIn and get business from it, then work on asking to your contacts to recommend you. I also added as much of my experience, education and skills to my LinkedIn profile as I could.
