One of the questions people usually ask me, especially when they find out I can put on 500 or more miles a week (on our REALLY busy week), is what types of things I see throughout the day.

Well, for non-computer stuff, I see a heck of a lot of traffic violations. There is a reason I hesitate when lights turn green – I check both ways before crossing. I also see traffic accidents. I’ve seen rolled over cars, cars scrunched like an accordion on both ends, cars in ditches and I missed the big motorcycle pileup on I5 by about 3 minutes (it happened behind me by about a mile or so). It’s gotten to the point where I now carry a camera and two first aid kits. I’ve also considered some safety/emergency lighting for the Protocol16 truck.

The absolute worst area I’ve seen is the on-ramp at the Westbound Highway 26 tunnel (aka: Vista Ridge Tunnels) in Portland. That specific spot is particularly nasty, especially when it rains. My advice – stay in the left hand lane around that spot and don’t rubberneck when their is an accident as I’ve seen several accidents further up the road from people not paying attention or trying to watch behind them as they drive away.

For computer and repair related things, there’s all kinds of things that I see, and contrary to what people think of my industry – Protocol16 don’t make fun of customers. That being said, we’ve seen all kinds of nasty things inside cases that cause heat problems for customers.

Note: If you have any pets, you can have problems. As much as I love my girls (I have 2 dogs at home), they can cause all kinds of issues with my computers if I don’t watch out. If you feel comfortable enough, a helpful hint is to open your computer case when it’s off and use some of the canned air you can buy from Protocol16 or other stores (We’re cheaper…) Just as long as you don’t turn the canned air upside down, you’ll be fine. If you’re not comfortable doing this, Protocol16 can do it during any normal visit.

We’ve seen all sorts of things jammed into CD and DVD drives as well. Good people of Portland, please inform your children that Legos are not supposed to go into the CD/DVD drives… As much as I loved to play with Legos as a child, computers just don’t like them as much.

Lastly, if you smoke, it effects your computer as well. The tar from the smoke gets sucked into the computer case by the fans. That tar ends up sticking to the internal components of your computer and can cause all sorts of issues. Through the year, all that adds up. I’ve even had a personal friend that quit smoking after seeing the goo inside his computer – it literally scared him to think that could be inside him as well. One good thing here is, I don’t see this as much anymore…

Yes, there are crazy and wacky things that happen while we’re on calls, but those stories are ours. We really do not make fun of customers and we try to turn every call into an educational experience for the customer. I haven’t laughed at a customer yet.
Justin

There has been a rash of sites across the internet that have been hacked by various bots and “evil” type people that have taken over websites all over the place. This weekend, I was on a major blogging directory looking at the Top 100 sites and decided to visit one. I was instantly met with a “You’re infected” message that quickly turned my Mac browser into Windows, with Windows Prompts and all the goodies – including hard drives that I didn’t even have…

With all that, I figured there are a lot of people out there that don’t know what to watch out for, so I took screen shots while it proceeded to “scan” my computer for viruses and spyware. Note: If you haven’t gotten the humor or hints, the following describes exactly what some people see when they get infected with fake antivirus software.

So, without further delay, I present a Protocol16 first: a Video about Spyware and Virus infection on a Windows 7 computer. See it here. I go through exactly what happens with a general user when they are prompted to download and install a specific type of fake antivirus package.

Some clients that we help out with in Portland for computer repair and services ask us if Protocol16 designs websites. The short answer is “No”.

Here’s the long answer:
Websites for SOHO (Small Office/Home Office) ans smaller businesses can run many hundreds of dollars, if not thousands of dollars to be designed. This is typically not something that is budgeted with most businesses and can be a huge expense for businesses. We understand that a “cheap” website can cost upwards of $600 for an actual designer to sit down and design your site, money you don’t (usually) have.

If you build it they [won't] come… Unfortunately, this is something that is a common misconception. Even with SEO (Search Engine Optimization), building a website does NOT mean instant success and an instant pickup in customers. I’ve personally been through this situation with another company I started years ago. I had the whole mentality that all I needed was a website and I’d be set for business. Nothing could be further from the truth – nothing.

Building a website, or even redesigning a website does not mean that traffic will pick up. It takes time to do, time for traffic to pickup and you must do several things, in a specific order, to stay ahead of the search engine game.

SEO is not an “instant result” problem solver. SEO takes time. I’ve personally consulted on websites being built and typically, I hear “well, we’ll design the site and have someone SEO it later…” Don’t fall for this mentality and please don’t think things work like this, they don’t. SEO takes time to work. For this website (protocol16.com), we’re working on SEO and it’s taking a bit to go after specific terms due to everyone else targeting them. The funny thing is, for other terms, we’re #1 on Google.  That sounds great, but it took a month to get there. On top of that, here’s a hint about how things went:

Before the launch of Protocol16, we had a landing page, otherwise known as a “coming soon” page. On this page, just before launch, we used targeted keywords to get Google, Bing, Yahoo, et al to understand what we were up to. When we launched, Protocol16 was on page 96 for our target keywords. We are now (almost a month and a half later), below page 10,and much less depending on the term you use. Again, for another term, we are already #1. After launch, with SEO changes, blogging and a few other tidbits, we had an increase in traffic of more than 2,300% over one month to the next. Sounds great, until you realize that we had a total of 19 visitors that hit that launch page for August 2009…

Launching a website typically a huge affair for a business. There is great celebration, everyone gets excited and then….nothing happens. We have typically seen that a website gets abandoned, information becomes outdated and eventually, things just stop working correctly since phone numbers and email addresses have changed. Eventually the website may be lost to cybersquaters that grab your domain after it expires, costing more money.

Now, after reading all that heart ache, you’ve been warned, and as such, prepared for launching a website – something we FULLY support. Yes, I just said “No” then “we support it”…

For small businesses, we specifically recommend TemplateMonster.com for website templates. This can save THOUSANDS of dollars, very quickly. Unfortunately, these websites are not setup, in the code, for SEO in the beginning. The templates typically need to be altered to ensure that things happen correctly, in terms of SEO. There are also several other things that must happen in order to ensure that things go well.

It may sound crazy for an IT company to send business to another company, but we honestly and wholeheartedly feel that this is the best bang for the buck for a small business. At the same time, I’m currently considering hiring a web designer to assist customers with their needs (ie: taking a Template Monster template and setting it up). Unfortunately, it’ll probably be about a month out before I do so, due to another project Protocol16 is taking on. That project will be another story for another day, but we feel it’ll be a huge success for our small business customers.

If you have any questions about this article or computer repair, in general, let us know – we don’t bite!
Justin

I hope everyone is keeping warm in Portland! Fall is here and Protocol16 is now offering special discounts to some special people…

We’re offering a permanent $20 off discount,  for labor, for the following groups of people:

• Military (Army, Navy, Marines, Airforce & Coast Guard – including Guard, Reserves & Retirees)
• Emergency Responders (Fire, Medic, Police as well as Mountain Rescue and Ski Patrol)

Just show your official ID or DD214 to your technician each time you call us and it’ll be an instant $20 off.  Oh, and we’re not done!

We’re offering a permanent $20 off discount, for labor, to the following organizations:

• Emergency Responder Organizations (Mountain Rescue, Ski Patrol, K-9 Search)

We’d love to offer discounts to Fire, Medics and Police organizations, but we know you typically have internal IT departments. If you don’t, give us a call and let us know. As long as you’re orginization is not-for-profit, we’ll give you the same discount each time we visit.

If you have any questions or you need some on-site (or even pickup) computer support or repair, let us know!
Justin

A lot of people out in the Portland Metro area need computers recycled. In fact, even my father-in-law needed some computers recycled since he just didn’t want to throw the machines away – not to mention that it’s practicably illegal now (or is it?)… But, it can be very hard to get rid of these machines and some places even charge you for the removal of them. Not Protocol16.

Well, with that said, Protocol16 is offering Free PC recycling in the Portland Metro areas. This means that if you have a PC, or even 3, that you need to get rid of, give us a call and we’ll be more than happy to stop by and pick it up.

Why We Do It
Protocol16 recycles computers in Portland due to the fact that it helps the environment. Secondly, it’s because we can actually recycle the parts into repairs that we do on computers (we offer lower pricing for re-used parts, in specific situations). Third, helps a lot of people out with the problem of recycling their computer. Forth, some computers be worked into a donation program for various non-profits around the Portland Metro areas. These would be non-profits that need computers or hard drives (for storage space) in a very severe manner. We are still working on a list of possible candidates – we’ll publish a list when we set it in stone.

Like we’ve always said, we hope to leave every single customer with a smile on their face and this is something that helps everyone.

What We Take
First and foremost, we use computer parts. That being said, we primarily collect the computer towers and laptops – working or not. We will, however, accept Monitors and LCD screens, as long as they’re in working condition. We don’t mind scratches, chips, etc.

So, if you’d like your computer recycled, give us a call and let us know that you have a PC for pickup. We’ll make an appointment to collect them for you, at your convenience, no strings attached.

Requirements
If you wish to recycle your computer, just let us know and setup an appointment. Our only requirement is that you sign a slip stating that Protocol16 has taken the computer from you. We’ll write down a quick description and serial number, if we can find one, and just ask for your signature. It’s that simple!

Due to space requirements, we do have a maximum amount of computers that we can take: 3 full computers at once.

Contact Us
If you have a few computers that need to go away in Beaverton, Portland or even Woodburn, give us a call and we’ll make your appointment!
Justin

Hello everyone in Portland. I spend a lot of time talking with folks in the industry to stay on top of things (hardware, software, patterns, etc) and we’re all seeing a rash of errors from Windows saying “You may be a victim of counterfeiting”.

This error generally means that the computer talked back to Microsoft and found that there is duplicate key in their database. The activation keys used for computers are a unique identifier and can be stolen and installed on other computers. If you have a licensed copy of Windows, as a great book says: Don’t Panic!

In these cases, all the computers seen had spyware and viruses on them and needed to be cleaned. The fix is simple and should take less than an hour to fix, depending on what type of computer you have. By the end up the support call, you will most likely have a fully valid version of Windows again, without needing to purchase another copy, unless the original copy you have installed was bad.

As always, if you have any questions, please let us know.
Justin