CT Conference.

Just arrived back from the Computer Troubleshooters annual conference.  As usual it was full of sessions and speakers and vendor displays. This was the largest CT Conference ever, with 140 attendees, from 10 countries. It was held in Tucker GA. near Atlanta GA.

Keynote Speaker.

We had a very special keynote speaker at the CT Conference this year; Dave Crenshaw author of The Myth of Multitasking:How “Doing It All” Gets nothing Done. And his latest book. Invaluable: The Secret to Becoming Irreplaceable. He gave us the once over of how to become invaluable to you our customers. Just a great presentation.  Thanks to our sponsor Autotask, we all received a signed copy of one of the books. I choose the “Invaluable” one.

Main Events

There were several other events that took place during the CT Conference. One major event was the Casino Night, Karaoke, Awards and Conference dinner.  Several awards went to CT’s for 5 and 10 yr service and the coveted “CT of the Year”, won by Doug Smith.  Well done Doug.

The Karaoke was a lot of fun, not too many takers but those that did sing were very good. Now the dancing was a different matter. LOL. The casino was a lot fun too.  Some big poker players in CT! The dealers were wonderful, explained the games so that we all had a good time.

What was learned.

OK the fun is one part of the CT Conference but we did learn some things.  One of the sessions we had was how to use Social Media better. We had Path Interactive staff in to show us how best to use our Web sites.  Very informative and I now understand many things that I didn’t before.  I will try putting them in to action to get my web page higher on the search engines so you can find me easier.

Also as part of the CT Conference we had several vendor presentations about the Cloud and what they could offer as solutions and user confidence in the Cloud. There are several solutions that allow you to be in the Cloud but still have total control of your system and data. Some even allow both on premise and in Cloud as a solution to your needs. Some great stuff.

We had a Q&A session where CT Management asked us a question after which we then went and discussed it in break away groups.  After the session each group gave a synopsis of what their group came up with. It is interesting how similar the comments/opinions were. A great time to learn about each other and how we are all different but yet similar.

Something that was unique to this CT Conference was in one session we had  a panel of 4 typical CT prospects, who were brave enough to tell us what they really thought of IT service companies. Note these were not CT customers. But was eye opening in what and how they think of us.  Thank you panel.

Conclusion

The CT Conference was well worth the time away from the business to meet with and have fellowship with the other CT’s. Most of us only meet this one time a year, the rest is through forums and CT webinars. I plan to implement several of the recommendations made during the CT Conference to make my CT business the best it can be for you my customers.

I can’t wait for next years CT Conference!

I am very excited and pleased to inform you that the BBB has given Computer Troubleshooters Delaware/Powell (OH) Accreditation.

You can be confident that the services you are/ or will be receiving from Computer Troubleshooters is always going to be of the highest quality.

We look forward to serving you.

Computer Troubleshooters – Technology Solved

WINDOWS 7 SP1

Well it’s here and installed. Can’t say I’ve noticed anything major but maybe that’s a good thing.

When I started the update I was surprised that it took so long – over an hour on the shut down! Then on the start up it was over 30 mins.  At points I wasn’t sure it is was even still running. Would be nice to have a tag letting us know where it was in the process. The start up at least gives you the percentage so you can tell that it is moving forward.

Other than time I did not notice any problems with the install.

I would love to hear about your accounts of Windows 7 SP1. Drop me a line.

Be safe on the internet and have fun.

Your Virus Checker is out of date down load now!

Have you seen that before? Have you clicked on the download? If you did you are not alone. I am finding that these type of POP ups are causing the main stream user to go nuts if not crazy.

The message looks legitimate enough so sure I’ll click on it.  Bang you now just downloaded a virus or worse and will need some heavy duty Virus etc. clean up.

My warning to you is if you are using a Anti Virus product and you see  this message cancel out of it and in a worse case scenario end the task and close your session down.

Hope this helps prevent you from being infected. If you do become infected stop everything and give your friendly IT guy a call!

Be safe out there!

I Know this Computer Guy….

I have a friend that can fix my computer for free. He does his magic on it gives it back all done. So why should I pay for a computer Professional to do what a “friend” can do for free?

Yea, I like free but I also understand that free comes with a price somewhere. Maybe not now but somewhere.  No,  I don’t have a problem with getting your computer fixed for free, that is life and I’m all for it.

BUT…

Buyer beware. Is the problem really being fixed or is it just a get around? Does this friend have access to the vendors and support that he needs to really be able to resolve the problem? Is there any guarantee for the work done? Can you take it back for more work if need be? If there is a problem, has there been precautions taken to make sure that your data is kept safe and secure? Are they able to recover from these problems?

Most “friends’ will not have any vendor relationships for the products they use. Most are free and don’t really have any true support from the vendor. OK there are user groups and they are extremely helpful but there are some user groups that can cause more damage than help!

A Professional computer repairer will have a relationship with vendors. Usually have access to a much more knowledgeable user group, that is also trustworthy! Most of the time the work done is guaranteed so if you, the customer aren’t happy you can take it back and have them take another look at the problem.

I have heard of a situation where the “friend” reloaded a pirated version of the software to fix a computer  -for free – and the person owning the computer had major issues when they then tried to call up the support center for some help.  Not so free now is it?

An important thing to remember is that the “friend” can not offer a solution that could prevent further issues taking place, the Professional can and will.  It may will cost you, but then how much is your computer worth in terms of the data that you have on it.  It may surprise you what it’s worth when your data is lost.

Conclusion

So the next time you have a computer problem and have a “friend” that will fix it for free think about what that true cost could be.

Ohio Regional Meeting

Had a great time this last Saturday, at our Ohio Regional meeting. It was up in Cleveland. So not to far.

There were 11 of us plus several guest presenters. We talked about how to us Social Media to market our products & services better. Thank you to David Toth Founder & CEO Worksmart Integrated Marketing for that presentation. We had discussions of how best to us a PR. A thank you to David Wasserstom, CEO, Vantcomm Communications, for his presentation.

From our own ranks, Computer Troubleshooters, we had Brian Rosenfelt, Principle of CT Independence – he also organized the meeting – talk to us about a book the “Little Red Book of Selling” which we all received a copy of. Our thanks go out to CharTech for that who also provided the lunch for us. Very tasty.

The CEO of Merrymeeting, John Davies also gave us some Q&A time which allowed us all to learn ideas from each other. Thank you John.

And last but by no means  least was a presentation from another one of our own, Kim Weinberger, our Assistant National Director for Marketing, she also is an owner of a Computer Troubleshooters franchise in Wisconsin. Here we were presented with ways to improve our long term marketing.  Some of you may be seeing some of this new marketing arriving at you offices soon. Keep a watch out for it.

As with any good time it had to come to a close sooner than we would have liked but with food, laughs and knowledge we headed back to our respective businesses.

Have a great week-end and remember Computer Troubleshooters -Technology Solved.

Until next time.

Make sure you get the latest Windows updates from Microsoft. There are several that are gong to fix critical security vulnerabilities.

Any questions about how to apply them give us a call. (740) 531 2422

Today I would like to talk to you about virus/trojans/malware/spyware/spybots/pop ups etc.. All are different in what they do but they all are intended to give you grief.  Some more than others. There are ways to prevent them, some free and do an OK job but be careful you may get what you pay for.
Most protections only do a good job at one or two parts of the protection.  So even if the Anti Virus says malware/spyware protection you probably should have a second product specifically for malware and spyware

This weekend in the town I live in there was a fire downtown that destroyed a couple of buildings. No one was hurt thank goodness but a business was put out as were a few apartment dwellers and the County Juvenile Court building.

As the news went spread around about the fire and damage I was thinking that many young people due in court on Monday may have thought that their day in court would be delayed or even forgotten with the court records up in smoke.  But alas, due to some great planning and forethought all the records had been backed up and better yet backed up to an offsite location.. Thus the courts continued as normal in most cases, just the venue changed. With no records lost.

Us computer professionals are always going on about disaster recovery, data recovery,  data backup to offsite locations.  Well I hope this will bring your attention to the urgency of why we go on about it.  If you want to be in the 21st century then act like it and get your data backed up correctly!  Am I being plain enough? Good.

Sales hat on : I have a couple of different options for backup that I would love to talk to you about. so give me a call or fill out the contact info and I’ll get back to you. : Sales hat off

Don’t wait to get you data backed up!

Delaware Company Receives National Industry Honors and Certification

Leading Managed Services Provider Selected for Product Line

August 31, 2010 Bakersfield, CA—Today CharTec released another wave of the select few Managed Service Providers authorized to provide their product line.  CharTec, a Hardware as a Service (HaaS) solution available to hand selected channel members, includes custom hardware, licensing fulfillment, and content filtering all neatly packaged for resale to end user clients.  The product received the prestigious “Innovation of the Year Award” for Managed Services by Business Solution Magazine and three Channel Insider “Bull’s-eye” Awards in 2009.

The CharTec Academy training included rigorous sales process education, meticulous understanding of MSP Best Practices and delivery, and a concentration on presentation performance for MSP’s across the US and Canada.   CharTec stresses that not every company applying for the program will be accepted.

This group of attendees received training on the CharTec line of hardware products which included the newly released CharTec BDR (Backup and Disaster Recovery), and  VMS (Voice Management System) as well as receiving product information from Doyenz, gloStream, OwnWebNow, and Reflexion on how their services can enhance business.

“CharTec releases its eighth wave of partners for 2010, and included some visiting alumni partners as well. These CharTec partners demonstrate passion and dedication when delivering a ‘Beyond HaaS’ experience to their clients.” said Alex Rogers, creator and CEO of CharTec. “At CharTec, we select our partners for their ability to properly deliver Managed Services in the channel. We are excited to welcome this next wave into our elite community.”

The selected CharTec® partners received Academy training on the product line in Bakersfield, CA and are now fully authorized to deliver the solution.