RSSGo Ahead.. Ask A Question!
Posted by callthatgirl on December 26, 2009
Blog That Girl is the blog of “Call That Girl”. The technical diary of a woman running her own computer repair business. Listed in this blog you will find documentation, tips and tricks and maybe a few rants and raves from my life as a woman running her own business. Thanks and enjoy! Lisa
This area is an open blog for everyone! Feel free to post a question in the comment field below, and I will try my best to give you a fast answer!
Hi Lisa! It’s Scott, your webmaster at HolisticGeek.com. My question is: What the most preventable issue you see the most incoming calls to Callthatgirl?
Clients could be backing up their data so if a computer crashes, they have their pictures and music!
Lisa
Hi Lisa,
I have been doing what I thought was right by backing up my photos and info on an external hard drive for the past 2.5 years and now that hard drive cannot be read by the computer. How do I get all my photos and data off the “broken” hard drive? Is this something you can do? Thanks
I have been using MS Outlook 2003 for several years. A couple of months ago a new problem raised its ugly head. When I send emails with attachments, some of the recipients receive a winmail.dat file and the original attachment is GONE! Appears to be maily a problem with webmail recipients. I’ve tried changing from HTML format to RTF and Plain Text. Nothing seems to correct the problem.
testing reply feature.
Lonny, for the most part, it’s not your fault, but rather the people you are sending documents to. They may not have the right software or program extension correctly configured. Are you using Microsoft word as your editor in Outlook? I have seen that before, if you take it off and test it, then folks may be able to open it on their end. Not everyone uses MS Word for documentation.
Hi Lisa
Cool feature here. Today while I was fixing lunch my Mac OS X 10.4.11 desktop screen got dark across the top half of the screen. I shut down, restarted…tried adjusting the lighting…called apple support and he had me pull the plugs and reboot…that helped for a while but then there was some flickering going on toward the top of the screen. Now the top half is very dark again. They told me I should bring it into the apple store, gross…is there anything you can help me with?
Thanks,
Becky
Becky, sounds like there may be a backlight that is out or going out on the Mac. If you’re not a fan of the Apple store, try calling Northbrain. They are located in the western burbs and are one of my referring partners. I dont’ work on mac hardware issues. http://www.northbrain.com
Let me know what they say! Lisa
Hi Lisa! Merry Christmas (late) and Happy New Year.
I have been thinking about getting a netbook. Is it worth it? What are your thoughts?
Steve
Hi Steve, I think they are worth it if you want something small to run around with. Not for a home computer though. They are really meant for “internet machines” (I believe) surfing the web, email, etc. I did have a client in that had been using it for business applications, but the icons and fonts are so small, it was hard to read in a proper manner. I hope that helps! Lisa
I have an IMAC 2005…hard drive (Maxtor) probably fried. What is the best place to get one, and I only have 512 k of RAM so I will need more of that too I guess. We only use this machine for photo viewing and storage and internet. Thanks Chris
Chris, you may want to contact my Mac referral partner, Northbrain for a quote. http://www.northbrain.com
Our mac troubleshooting is limited to mostly entourage and some applications. Thanks! Lisa
Hi Lisa, I have a netbook and it freezes all of the time. I have to actually remove the battery to shut the computer off. Is there anything that I can do to prevent this.
Hi Junita!
We can try doing a clean up and remove a few bugs that may have come with the computer and see if that helps. It may be low on memory, but those netbooks probably come with the max you can install. How old is it?
Lisa
Hi Lisa,
My printer communication problem seemed to resolve itself. Two questions for you:
- when Windows sends me a “we want to update” message, should I go ahead or not?
- working on Vista, should I switch to Windows 7.0 or wait for update to it?
Thanks.
Hi Becky! It’s ok to do updates, but always try to do them during the day and not at 3:00. Many of my clients wake up in the morning to computers that have crashed due to an update going bad. Windows updates will not install Windows 7 for you by the way.
As for switching to Windows 7 if you want to buy it, it works great for me! Just remember that installing a new operating system takes work, backing up your data and installing new programs/printers, etc.
Hello,
Im having troubles with my laptop, its a HP Comapq NX7400. The problem is that I plug-in the AC charger and it will not charge the battery, the LED light for the battery charging doesn’t come on. I have tried buying a new charger, and didn’t work. When the laptop is not plugged into the charger and I try turning it on it powers up and then shuts down, while this is happening the LED for the batter blinks and shuts off. Showing that the battery is low. I don’t know what to do, I was thinking of bringing it to a specialist in town. maybe the power supply or battery??
Nick,
I just finished “repairing” an HP with the same exact issue. I got a 2nd AC charge adapter plugged it in. No light and no charging. Got a 3rd one and it ran fine. HP has been having issues with some of their chargers. It may not be the case with you though. There are many things that could be the issue. It can be anything from the CMOS battery being weak to a broken connection on the motherboard.
I would:
Verify that the AC adapter brick is receiving power.
Plug the adapter directly into the wall socket, bypassing surge protectors, UPS units, or extension cords. The adapter LED should light up.
If you do not get a light, try the adapter in another wall outlet in another room or verify that the first outlet works with a lamp or hairdryer.
You can also isolate the power problem to a bad adapter by swapping it out with yet a 3rd adapter(That’s how I fixed the last HP).
If the adapter LED lights, check the computer for bad connections.
Examine the system power socket to be sure it does not have any bent, missing, or pushed-in pins.
Plug the adapter connector directly into the computer, bypassing surge protectors, extension cords, etc. Be sure that the adapter connector fits tightly into the computer’s power socket.
If you have access to another computer like yours, try your adapter on it or its adapter on your computer. This is what confirmed it for me with the charger that failed to start one PC and didn’t start the other PC either.
Hope this helps
If not, “Call That Girl” may be the girl that you need.
Sounds like the power connector or as we call it “DC power jack” is bad…happens all of the time on compaq’s
This is my first time checking out Lisa’s site so I don’t know if she works on laptop components or not.
Lisa help us out here..add a page to your site about laptop repair if you do it!
Hi Lisa. Saw your post on technibble.com. I love seeing women in the tech field. Wish there was more of you out there. Was wondering at what point did you decide to go into this business full time? Currently I have a full time job, and on the side Ive been doing tech support for years. Tech support/ computer repairs is my passion. Love helping people with their computers problems and showing them what is possible with computers. Lately I’ve been getting more and more clients but still not enough to make that jump to be on my own. Any advice you can share with me
Love the site.
Heya Jose! I went into business fulltime after I had a corporate job go wrong. I decided that “single day” that I had enough of “their world” and could build a better world, on my terms.
I didn’t have any clients for 5 months pretty much, it was a hard road, but I made it work with tons of networking and doing anything I could do, to make it work. I have about 100 marketing campaigns right now out, so that took 2 years to build. I’m savvy…are you savvy enough to do it? LOL
I’ve also had it with “their world” to. lol… The savvy-ness is with in I can tell you that. But the idea of going at it alone is a bit scary. Plus ad the fact that my other half would kill me if i left my full time job. lol… One other question, did you see the so called “writing on the wall”??? Meaning that you saw the signs telling you that there is something else for you besides the 9 to 5 job? Because I see it..
For both “heavy users” and also some newer users, what one Outlook “Desk-side Reference” or “Job Aide” do you suggest for optimizing and troubleshooting issues? InAdTHANKSvance!
Hello Lisa
Yesterday microsoft did a security update on my sister’s computer. Now PC Tools won’t open. it comes up with an error 104. Any quick suggestions?
thanks
Hey Lisa
Started receiving your posts and enjoy them. My question is, I am a new computer business and was wondering do I need a form for the customer to fill out when dropping off a computer for repair?
Hi Lisa,
A blast from the past:)
You have me totally confused now on virus protection. We are looking right now at Kaspersky is it any good? We have 3 computers that need protection home business(farming) Any ideas? What would you recomend and what do you charge to check over computers do we have to bring them in or can it all be done on the internet. One is a laptop which was new in January and the desktop is a 2002 model with upgrade of RAM memory and the other is an older laptop that isn’t used very much. Let me know.