It’s no secret that we’re a mobile computer repair company in Portland. We drive all over and see a lot of stuff, but when we’re done with a customer and on the way back to the office, we sometimes stop in to computer shops long the way. While in those shops, we do a few things that includes seeing how our customer service stacks up against the shops as well as check pricing to ensure that we remain competitive and are not overcharging – it’s called Secret Shopping.

Well, I personally got to do a “secret shopper” trip with my wife and we were not impressed. While I waited for 5 minutes to even be acknowledged at one computer shop, all while standing 5 feet in front of the shop owner, I got to listen to a personal conversation – not a professional one. My wife decided to look a display that included a touch screen computer and as well as a Netbook (we like Netbooks here at Protocol16). The display failed to work  and the Netbook was dead as well with Windows errors. Yikes…

When it was finally my turn to talk, I asked how much they were charging for a memory upgrade for a laptop – a service we do at customer locations. Now, I didn’t act like a geek, I honestly acted like a lot of our customers that know just enough to tell someone what they want.

Sadly, the markup the shop was charging was a heck of a lot more than we do and I was told that I needed to let go of my laptop for an entire day so that they could upgrade it. And in the end, they’d only charge me $10 as labor, to perform the upgrade. That’s crazy because we charge much less, even if we were to charge for a 15 minute block of time. The thing is, for this specific service, we don’t charge our time if that’s all you want – just parts since we take your laptop, turn it over and install the hardware and start windows up to make sure everything’s peachy. This type of upgrade literally takes about 3 minutes to do everything, including start Windows all the way up to see if it’s seeing all the memory.

I’ll be honest, when I find out people are taking advantage of others, I get upset. My poor wife had to listen to me complain while we drove all the way back to the office. I understand markup for a boutique computer shop, but not that much for 1 customer, especially after making me wait 5 minutes just to talk.

In this secret shopping experience, I think we’ll keep our rates where they are.
Justin

I’d like to take some time today to ask that some of you be a little careful with your prized computers…

We got called to a customer site by a customer that was riding the Max and bumped his bag on his way off the train. The laptop was in a backpack, and was “protected”. Needless to say, he got a hefty scare when he got inside his office and found the laptop wouldn’t boot up.

Once we arrived, we quickly found that the laptop had been jarred hard enough to have a memory chip pop out of place (no small feat, since they’re locked in with metal clips). Luckily for him, this 3 minute fix left the computer running once again. We didn’t even charge for the job since the fix was so fast (we may have a 1 hour minimum, but we’re not going to rip you off).

So, the moral of today’s story is to be careful. If you’re using a backpack to haul around a computer, which all of our technicians personally do, please use a laptop backpack. These have padded sleeves inside of them that are hidden, but allow the laptop to feel a little more comfy inside.

Oh, and NEVER put your laptop to sleep or let it hibernate inside your bag – Roasted Laptop anyone?
Justin

One of the most common questions people ask Protocol16 is how to speed up a computer. Whether you’re in Beaverton, Portland or out in Wilsonville, our answer is the same: “It could be several things”.

The first few things that come to mind are:

• How full is your hard drive? Do you have a little box popping up saying that you’re out of space? If so, that could be your problem right there. Microsoft has a tool called “Disk Defrag” that works over your hard drive to speed it up. It basically rearranges the files in a more efficient manner so things work “better”. With Windows XP, you’ll need to run this every once in awhile – we recommend at least once a month. With Windows Vista, as long as you have about 15% drive space available, sit back and relax as Vista runs through the defragment by itself.
• Viruses and Spyware -These stinkers can cause all sorts of problems. These are basically programs that run without you knowing, all while eating up memory. Imagine opening 30 Internet Explorer windows all at once, your computer would slow down. While spyware and viruses are usually no where near as big as Internet Explorer, it’s the same concept. Having all that running in the background can eat up system resources. Also, depending on what type of spyware you have, you could be contributing to a spam operation or worse.Protocol16 recommends Spybot Search & Destroy for getting around Spyware. It’s quick, efficient and not as large as some of the other programs out there. It will also go over your system settings and “immunize” it so that certain vulnerabilities are closed before they happen. It’s free as well.For viruses and home users, we recommend AVG Antivirus, since it’s free for home users. For business users, antivirus solutions really depend on the size of your network and what you’re protecting. Unfortunately, even for small home busineses, most companies charge for business usage. If your home computer doubles as your business computer, you’re skirting the line of home use as well. It’s best to talk to a professional that can recommend a solution that fits your environment.
• Memory – Many people think that memory is hard drive space. Unfortunately, this is not true. Memory is basically a short term bank of storage that your computer uses when you open a program. Think of memory as a “fuel adative”, in the car world. There’s octane added before you pump, but you can go out and buy better gas or an octane booster, all increasing the performance of your car. Back in the computer world, imagine what can happen if you just double or triple the size of that storage area? Believe it or not, with most computers, you can do this quickly and easily. Some of the lower end laptops and desktops these days come with 1 Gigabyte of memory. Most computers can take 2-4GB of total storage without a problem! Why sit using only half or a quarter of the possible “octane”? Memory upgrades are very simple too, shut down the computer, install the chips and start back up – you’ll instantly see the difference in speed.

Those are the main things you can do to speed up your computer. The other options are, restart it once in awhile and not open so many programs at once

And again, if you have any questions, please feel free to give us a call at 503-524-9047, we’re more than happy to help out.
Justin