UPDATED: UPDATED: August 18,
2006
©2006 L&A Computer Services
As we research computer problems, we find interesting articles about security, useful applications, website design and solving computer problems. We hope you find these tidbits useful.
Monday, March 19, 2007
Another report on computer fraud. View video here http://www.abc4.com/mediacenter/?videoID=60092 Investigations across the country have found that when your computer goes on the fritz, repair techs may be taking advantage of unsuspecting customers. But is that happening right here in Utah? We put several computer repair companies to the test to find out when you computer crashes, will your wallet get burned? From email, browsing the web, to downloading your favorite song, many of us depend on a computer. But when something goes wrong, our information highway can come crashing down. That's when most turn to the big ads in the yellow pages, hoping to find a geek or doctor to save the day. They all sound qualified, and let's face it, most of us don't know our ram from our hard drive, so how do we know what's a fair price for the fix? ABC 4 decided to put home computer techs to the test. First with the help of a computer expert at PC Laptops, we created a simple problem. "We're just going to take this hard drive cable. This is the hard drive right here. Unplug the power cable. That's it," says computer expert Trogdor Nest. Next, we rigged a home office with hidden cameras and put six local companies to test: 1) Geek Box Computers, 2) Affordable Computers 3) On-site Computers 4) Rescue Com 5) Friendly Computers 6) Data Doctors "I would hope that people are honest. There is a potential for those companies to be dishonest and be out there," says Nest. It should be an easy fix. Remember we just unplugged the hard drive. "It's probably going to be the motherboard." Says the tech with Friendly Computers. "It could be a bad memory stick, a bad motherboard, a corrupted windows system file," says the tech with Affordable Computers. At first it appears only tech on the right path is On-Site Computers. "It's not going to the hard drive, at least it doesn't seem to want to," says the tech from On-Site. Others techs had lots of advice. "When there is a memory problem it beeps a lot...when there is a video problem it beeps a lot. It doesn't come on either way," says one tech. Another tech adds, "If it ever says something about booting or can't find the boot device that means your hard drive is failing." Two days...six companies later....all our computer techs were honest and found and fixed the problem. Four techs took five minutes or less to find our unplugged hard drive, but some were quicker than others. Rescue Com took thirteen minutes, while the tech with Friendly Computers spent nearly 24 minutes and didn't even realize how he'd fixed the problem. "There we go...finally got it," says the tech from Friendly Computers. "So it's fixed?" asks our undercover producer. "Yes and no. It's still acting kind of funny but we can get into Windows," says the Friendly Computers tech. And we paid for every one of those 24 minutes. The final bill from Friendly Computers is 83 dollars and 15 cents. Definitely not the cheapest of the bunch. On-Site and Affordable computer repair were just that, affordable. Both rang up at just around 50 bucks. As for Data Doctors, they didn't charge a hefty doctor's bill. In fact, they didn't charge us at all. "I'll make you a deal...if you call us next time.....then I won't charge you anything," says the tech from Data Doctors. From there the prices soar. Rescue Com sure didn't try saving our pocketbook, charging nearly 105 dollars. Last but not least, those geeks at Geek Box aren't cheap. V "We kind of averaged it out and looked at what people were charging," says the tech at Geek Box. And apparently Geek Box decided to charge more. The final bill from Geek Box was the most expensive of our six tested, just over 106 bucks. As a side note, we tried to make an appointment with the popular repair company "Geek Squad", but they told us we'd be offline for two weeks, since that was their next open appointment. When our sister news station in Phoenix put the Geek Squad to the test, they were the most expensive, charging 249 dollars for nearly 6 minutes of work. Bottom line is all our computer companies here in Utah were honest. Still, it may pay to shop around. That way if your computer crashes, your wallet won't get burned. ----------------------------------------------------- By the way, here at L&A Computer Services such a repair would cost $65.00
# posted by lnacomp : 10:37 AM 0 comments links to this post Social bookmark this
I read the article below at http://www.oreillynet.com/windows/blog/2006/06/whos_worse_computer_repair_sho_1.html If you would come to L&A Computer Services. We would replace your hard drive for the cost of a hard drive plus a mark up fee plus labor. A new hard drive is about $100 and the labor is $65. The cost to reinstall windows would be another $130, so we are looking at a total of $295. Is that worth it for you? That is your choice. But that is not dishonesty. What do you think? Who's Worse: Computer Repair Shops or Used Car Dealers? - O'Reilly Windows DevCenter Blog Preston Gralla Who's Worse: Computer Repair Shops or Used Car Dealers? Monday June 19, 2006 2:26PM by Preston Gralla in Opinion It?s the enternal question: Who?s less trustworthy ? computer repair shops or used car dealers? If my experience in the last week with a local repair shop is any indication, computer repair shops lose, hands down. Here?s the story. My daughter had a problem with her laptop. It would refuse to start, or would start and then crash after an hour or two?and then sometimes would work for five or more hours at a time before crashing. Then, after a while, it began flashing a message that the hard disk was about to crash. My 16-year-old son said that he?d repair it for me. But I, Big Daddy, said no, I?d instead bring it to a repair shop. Big mistake. I brought it to a place here in Cambridge. I won?t give the name, but for anyone who lives in the city, it?s the place out near Fresh Pond Parkway, near the natural foods store. I explained the problem to someone behind the desk. He said it sounded as if it were a problem with the hard disk. Considering that?s the error message that would flash, I told him that?s a good guess. But I wanted the whole laptop checked out, just in case it was something else. Did I want the data backed up from the hard disk? he asked. Sure, I told him?until he told me the price ? $300! That is not a misprint. He wanted to charge $300 to backup up 20 GB of data from a functioning hard disk. Right then, I should have left the shop, but I didn?t. Of course, though, I told him not to back up the data; I?d do it myself. ?Was the PC running slowly?? he asked. Well, does the sun rise in the East? Don?t all PCs run slowly ? isn?t that the nature of the beast? Ah, he said. For $225 (or it might have been $250, I can?t recall), he?d give the PC some kind of virtual ?bath? which would clean out any spyware or other unnecessary software. Obviously, I declined, considering that anyone could do the same thing using free or low-cost anti-spyware. So if I had listened to him, he would have charged me from $525 to $550 to perform all of about a half hour of work. For whatever odd reason, I didn?t run out of the store. Instead, I had them look at the PC, which they said would cost $65. That cost would be deducted from any work they did for me. A few days later they called back. The laptop needed a new hard disk. (What a surprise!). They could buy one for $200, and would then charge from about $300 to $400 in addition to that to install it and Windows. So that means they would charge between $500 and $600 for replacing a hard disk! Obviously, I told them no. My son backed up the data, got a hard disk for about $80, popped out the old disk, popped in the new one, installed Windows, drivers, and everything else my daughter needed, and put the data onto the new disk. If I had taken the advice of the repair shop, the tab would have been up to between $1100 to $1200 to back up data, check for spyware, and install a hard disk. For $200 to $300 less than that, I just bought a whole new Core Duo laptop with 1 GB of RAM, separate graphics processor with 256 MB of RAM, and 15-inch screen. So based on that, you tell me ? who would you trust more, a used car dealer or a PC repair shop?
# posted by lnacomp : 10:07 AM 0 comments links to this post Social bookmark this
Friday, March 16, 2007
Grand Central is a product I am looking forward to using. It allows you to do amazing things with your phone. Go to http://www.grandcentral.com/
# posted by lnacomp : 5:39 PM 0 comments links to this post Social bookmark this
