Archive for December, 2010
Friday, December 31st, 2010
Hey Everybody in Portland Computer Repair Land,
One thing I love about Christmas ending is that the big parts sellers suddenly drop all their prices. In computers, the same dollar always buys you more, and I love that about our industry. So just to keep you in the loop -
1) The price of our basic laptop will drop from $599 to $549 today, you can now get a high quality business class HP laptop for basically the same price as the cheap plastic crap at Best Buy.
2) We have increased the sizes of the hard drives we sell, but not the prices! Now instead of getting 160GB or 320GB choices, you can have 250GB and 500GB drives for the same price.
3) We have added more RAM to our custom systems. The price of RAM has fallen by half over the last year, so we have doubled the amount we are putting into our systems!
Thanks everybody, happy new year!
-Zac
President
Portland Computer Repair
Thursday, December 30th, 2010
Hey Everybody in Portland Computer Repair Land,
Saw this neat article in the New York Times this morning and wanted to share it with you all. It’s from David Pogue, and it suggests 10 ways for you to get more out of technology. A lot of the tips are really useful! Check it out -
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/30/technology/personaltech/30basics.html?src=me&ref=general
Thanks!
-Zac
President
Happy Hamster Portland Computer Repair
Wednesday, December 29th, 2010
Hey Everybody in Portland Computer Repair Land,
Too cute not to share. So, this morning we left our back door cracked open. A little dog, the size of a cat-ish, came up and started sniffing at the door. Hamster suddenly woke up from her perch in the back, bristled, and lunged for the door. She made the loudest noise (still fairly quiet) i’ve ever heard from her, and ran out the door, chasing the dog across the parking lot.
We love this cat!
-Zac
President
Happy Hamster Portland Computers & Repair
Tuesday, December 28th, 2010
Hey Everybody in Portland Computer Repair Land,
I hope you all had great holidays, I had a brief but fun visit home myself. I wanted to write up a quick reminder about license keys. Save them. Please.
If you have Microsoft Office installed on your computer and you ever want to install it again, you *must* have your license code to do it. The disc is not good enough. The receipt is not good enough. Having it installed already is not good enough. Without the 25 digit code from Microsoft you can not reinstall your software. You will be forced to buy new software, no matter what. We can not rescue you! I know in this age of the digital it seems silly and anachronistic, but that little piece of plastic means an enormous amount. Your $600 office professional suite disc becomes a coaster without its license code.
So as you all unwrap your new presents and start playing with new toys, take those license keys, store them away securely, and do not lose them!
Thanks,
-Zac
President
Happy Hamster Computer Repair
Tuesday, December 21st, 2010
Hey Everybody in Portland Computer Repair Land,
Just a quick heads up. We will be closed Saturday and Sunday in order to celebrate Festivus. We look forward to returning to a week in which none of you will show up, followed by a week in which everybody will return from vacation and bring in their computers on the same day. If you want things fixed quickly, dead week is great, if you want to see us running around like chickens without heads, try the first week of January!
Thanks,
-Zac
President
Happy Hamster Portland Computer Repair
Sunday, December 19th, 2010
Hey Everybody in Portland Computer Repair Land,
I am happy to say that Best Buy has really made a great change by deciding to follow our return policy. As of today, Best Buy has announced that they will no longer charge a restocking fee for returned laptops. Further, if you returned a product to best buy in the last 30 days, and you were charged a restocking fee, you can go in and get that fee refunded.
I think it is really wonderful that Best Buy has seen the error of its ways, and decided to follow the same policy Happy Hamster put into place when we opened. Nobody can know from a 20 minute store demo if a laptop is really right for them, so Happy Hamster has always allowed our customers to return laptops in un-damaged, like new condition for a full refund, no questions asked.
Good job Best Buy!
-Zac
President
Happy Hamster Computer Repair
Tuesday, December 14th, 2010
Hey Everybody in Portland Computer Repair Land,
I saw this article online today and thought it was a nice summary of some computer repair tips. I particularly liked this one,
- “Think it through.
Take the time to plan the best way to organize your files. How do you spend your time on the computer, and what do you create? Do you work with photos and image-editing software, surf the web, write short stories, research school projects, or play games? The folders you create in Documents (called “My Documents” in Windows XP) can be easily tailored to show you just the kind of data about your files that you need to track. For more tips about creating a well-organized filing system, see 9 tips to manage your files better.”
Too often in computers people act without thinking, and just sitting down to think through the situation can often improve the outcome. Check them all out here!
Thanks,
-Zac
Happy Hamster Portland Computer Repair
Sunday, December 12th, 2010
Hey Everybody in Portland Computer Repair Land,
Laptops die. I’m sorry to be so blunt about it, but it is true. They also die fast. The average consumer grade laptop dies after 3 to 4 years. The average business class laptop dies after 5 to 7 years, so even the best laptops on earth (the stuff we sell) will only go from the beginning of college through your “exploration year.”
I mention this because yesterday we had a museum piece come in. I kid you not, a customer brought in a 20 year old laptop. One of these http://tinyurl.com/35woum7
Sometimes there just aren’t words. Customer said she had never had it repaired since she bought it, although it was 100% dead when she brought it in, and unrepairable.
Some people get all the luck!
-Zac
Happy Festivus!
http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.michaelfigore.net/main/image.axd%3Fpicture%3D2009%252F1%252Ft3200sx.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.michaelfigore.net/main/page/Toshiba-T3200sx-Laptop.aspx&h=356&w=367&sz=35&tbnid=IuV7_nHO8abYcM:&tbnh=118&tbnw=122&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dtoshiba%2Bt3200sx&zoom=1&q=toshiba+t3200sx&usg=__6EUf5y1cr31gjErBx1LHGjruOP0=&sa=X&ei=dg8FTf3XDYrEsAOSwdHrDQ&ved=0CDAQ9QEwAg
Wednesday, December 8th, 2010
Hey Everybody in Portland Computer Repair Land,
Just a quick reminder here. We will see a huge rush for our computer repair services in about 7 days. However, for the next week or so, we will be under capacity. While we always strive to repair every computer as quickly as possible, computers brought in the next week will probably be fixed a bit faster. If you have been putting off getting a repair done, please don’t wait for the week before Christmas! Bring it in now and save the hassle of our rush.
Thanks everybody!
-Zac
President
Happy Hamster Portland Computer Repair
Thursday, December 2nd, 2010
Hey Everybody in Portland Computer Repair Land,
I am going to go a bit off topic today to address an issue I’ve seen come up on many other small business owner blogs – Groupon.
For those of you that don’t know, Groupon offers giant coupon deals, usually up to 50% off, for local businesses and products. For example, we sold on Groupon a $100 computer tune up for $50. Customers them redeem those coupons before they expire, about 6 months later.
According to Groupon, this is great, because it drives new customers. The dirty little secret is, I have not spoken to a single other small business owner, and I know upwards of 20 who have used Groupon at this point, who would do it again. Here are a few reasons why -
1) They keep half. Thats right, if you do a $100 gift card for $50, they keep $25, and send you $25. So My customer acquisition cost becomes $75. My cost to acquire a new cold customer hovers around $40, Groupon cost me twice as much per customer.
2) They keep 50%! This is just inherently unfair, and every business knows its unfair. You see, middle men, on average, keep about 10-20%. Think about real estate brokers, bankers, etc. Groupon is just a glorified middle man. They stock no inventory, offer no customer service, and provide nothing. So where do they get off charging 50%? I understand its a capitalist system, they get it because people will pay it, but at the same time it really pisses off a lot of business owners that they are so greedy.
3) They don’t limit the sales when they should. I know a cupcake store in Seattle that almost went out of business because of Groupon. Groupon convinced them that they wouldn’t sell very many, so they did not put a limit on the sale. The shop sold 800+ Groupon’s for a dozen cupcakes at half off (remember, the store only got 25%). The shop simply could not keep up with the flood of people. They couldn’t produce cupcakes fast enough, and since they were so crowded, they lost many of their regular, full price paying customers in the process! Eventually the wave ended and they did survive, but only barely.
4) Many of the customers who came to us from Groupon were deal hunters/bargain shoppers. Their returning customer rates are below average. Our returning customer rate from Google or other traditional sources hovers around 40-50% each month, For Groupon our returning customer rates is closer to 10%.
5) This is, I think, by far the most important thing – they are assholes. Seriously. They don’t return your calls, they don’t bargain with you, they don’t discuss with you. They dictate, in strict terms, what you will offer, to whom, when, for how much, etc. You can’t talk to them. Every person I dealt with at Groupon was unpleasant in some way. I would never in my life want to deal with that company or those people again. They are 20 year old kids who got rich too fast, and don’t understand that it goes away as fast as it comes.
So the long and short of this is – I think the Groupon fuss is overrated. They offer an easily replicated/replaced product, and the people they most need to attract, merchants, don’t like working with them. They will, not this year or next, but in 3 or 5 years, run out of people to run their deals. As I said earlier, I can name 20 businesses that will never use them again. Already they are running more and more national campaigns (today is for Redenvelope.com, since when is that a “local portland specific business?”) and as they lose their focus on local business, they will lose their end users. The whole point of Groupon was that the offers were for businesses in your area, that you care about. If they start offering Walmart, Gap and Target crap, people will stop caring.
Alright, I have to stop now so I can get down to the shop and open up on time, so thanks everybody!
-Zac
Portland Computer Repair
