This’ll be the only thing I’m gonna talk about for like a week I swear-

How to Solve Blue Screen Errors Using WinDbg and BlueScreenView http://bit.ly/2EHHA2U The Windows Blue Screen of Death visits us all at times. Sometimes, you expect it. At others, the specter of the blue screen looms unexpectedly large. Either way, it is frustrating, especially if you cannot quickly diagnose the issue. Luckily, the blue screen always gives you an error code. But how do you figure out what that means? Well, you use a handy program like the Windows Debugger (WinDbg) or NirSoft BlueScreenView. Here’s your handy guide to solving blue screen errors! What Is a Blue Screen Error? When Windows has a catastrophic error, the system crashes. The crash usually brings you a blue screen. The blue screen (affectionately known as the Blue Screen of Death, or BSoD) displays a whole load of information detailing the crash. Within the information is the why, where, and how the crash happened. What Causes Blue Screen Errors? A blue screen error can have several causes, including: Faulty hardware Faulty software Out of date or poorly coded drivers Overheating Overclocking That’s only five potential causes. Within those, there are numerous specific errors. That’s where the blue screen of death error code Windows 10 Crashing With a Blue Screen of Death? How to Troubleshoot It Windows 10 Crashing With a Blue Screen of Death? How to Troubleshoot It Did a Blue Screen of Death ruin your day? It comes without warning and it persists until you fix the underlying issue. We'll show you a few easy ways to troubleshoot your BSOD. Read More steps in. A blue screen of death error code gives you a specific error to troubleshoot. You can focus your efforts rather than take a guess at what went wrong and why. For instance, the code 0x80240034 WU_E_DOWNLOAD_FAILED means your Windows Update failed to download. Of course, that’s unlikely to cause a BSoD, but you see how the code has a specific error message. How Do You Fix a Blue Screen Error? Fixing a blue screen error depends on the type of error Why Does Windows Crash? The Top 10 Reasons Why Does Windows Crash? The Top 10 Reasons Oh, great. Another blue screen, boot issue or frozen screen in Windows. Now you have to restart and lose most or all of the work you’d been trying to accomplish. It’s frustrating both because of... Read More . Sometimes, a cursory internet search is enough to reveal what’s wrong with your system. At other times, special software for system debugging is what you need. Here’s how you fix your blue screen error using WinDbg or NirSoft BlueScreenView. How to Fix Blue Screen Errors With WinDbg WinDbg is a powerful tool you can use to figure out the root cause of your blue screen error. Installing Windows 10 SDK Head to the Windows 10 SDK download page. The Windows 10 SDK contains numerous tools, including the Windows Performance Toolkit, Debugging Tool for Windows, the .NET Framework Software Development Kit, and other development tools. Follow these steps now. Hit the Download the Installer button. Once downloaded, run the installer. When the Windows 10 SDK installer opens, select the first option to Install the Windows Software Development Kit to your computer. The default installation path is fine. Select Next to continue and accept the license. On the next page, uncheck all boxes bar the Debugging Tools for Windows. Then press Install. Opening and Configuring WinDbg Open your Start menu and head to Windows Kits > WinDbg. Use the debugger for your system architecture, be that 32 or 64-bit. I have a 64-bit system, so will choose WinDbg X64. Now, you need to find your BSoD memory dump. The dump contains the information regarding the crash, such as “cause” and “location”. There are two main types of BSoD memory dumps: a full dump and a minidump. Typically, a minidump is smaller but contains more information than a full dump (I know, how misleading). You will find the minidump logs in your root directory, typically C:\Windows\Minidump. In the folder, you will find the actual minidump logs. Alternatively, the full dump is found at C:\Windows\memory.dmp For this tutorial, we’re going to analyze a minidump (because that’s what I have at hand). Note: Don’t have any dumps at all? See how to turn on post-crash Windows dumps. Okay, back to WinDbg. First, you need to set a symbols source. Symbols are essentially identifiers for programming languages that relate to specific information. They make it easier to analyze the information found in a log (or code). Head to File > Symbol File Path, then copy and paste the following: SRV*c:\websymbols*http://bit.ly/1dF6hHm Then press OK. Analyzing Your Crash Dump in WinDbg Drag and drop your dump file into WinDbg. Alternatively, press Ctrl + D to open the file browser, then locate your dump file. When the dump file loads, you will encounter the initial analysis screen. It will look similar to this: There are two things to take in from this screen: the BugCheck and the Probably caused by fields. Here they are in greater clarity: BugCheck 1A is the error code Probably caused by: memory_corruption ( ONE_BIT ) gives you an instant idea of the issue at hand In this case, you know that a memory error is the likely cause How to Fix the Windows Stop Code Memory Management BSOD How to Fix the Windows Stop Code Memory Management BSOD Use these tips to resolve your memory management BSODs in Windows 10, one fix at a time. Read More of your BSoD. You can take the analysis one step further using WinDbg commands. In this case, the !analyze -v command (highlighted in blue in the above image) will show you detailed information relating to your BSoD. There is a command link under the Bugcheck Analysis header. However, this link sometimes disappears. If there is no link, enter the command in the field at the bottom of the WinDbg window. The command performs a huge amount of automated analysis. WinDbg displays the results under a new BugCheck Analysis header. The amount of information WinDbg throws out feels a little overwhelming. But in this case, you are only looking for a few key bits of information to bulk out the assessment of your BSoD. The parameters directly underneath the new BugCheck Analysis header provide another set of useful information. For instance, in the example below, you can see the fault confirmed as Memory_Management (1a). Additionally, the Arguments (arguments are essentially informative parameters) expand on the information. Arg1 states that “A corrupt PTE has been detected,” explaining that “Parameter 2 contains the address of the PTE.” Now, I know that PTE stands for Page Table Entry, so this error is likely to relate to my virtual memory Is Your Virtual Memory Too Low? Here's How to Fix It! Is Your Virtual Memory Too Low? Here's How to Fix It! The curse of Windows is its slowing down over time. Often, low memory is to blame. Here is one more way to virtually unburden your RAM. Read More , and I can start my BSoD fix there. However, there’s a huge amount of errors that I’ve no idea about. In those cases, an internet search is your friend. Searching for a combination of the initial error code and the additional argument information will return results of other users suffering the same issues. In many cases, the system error you have isn’t new and mysterious. The same BSoD will have affected someone else—you’re not alone. How to Fix Blue Screen Errors With BlueScreenView The WinDbg analysis tool is a powerful bit of kit. You can use it for all manner of dump and file analysis. However, many readers won’t require the full spectrum of analysis tools WinDbg offers. If that sounds like you, Nirsoft’s BlueScreenView is exactly what you need. It analyzes the same dump and minidump files as WinDbg but streamlines the information. You can take the streamlined information to an internet search and start your BSoD process from there. Here’s how it works: Go to the BlueScreenView page and download the program. Once it downloads, install BlueScreenView. Open the program after installation. Here’s where BlueScreenView is handy. It automatically loads any minidumps found in the MiniDump folder. You can then sort the dumps by Crash Time to find the latest BSoD. In the below image you see the BlueScreenView version of the dump file analyzed in the WinDbg section. The major difference is the layout and comparative ease of finding the BSoD information. The Bug Check String, Bug Check Code, and Parameters are the same. BlueScreenView also identifies the ntoskrnl.exe driver as the root of the BSoD. As with WinDbg, you can now complete an internet search with your BSoD information. WinDbg vs. BlueScreenView Is one blue screen of death analysis tool better than the other? It depends on what you want to achieve. BlueScreenView is undoubtedly easier to use than WinDbg. If you need quick, concise information regarding your BSoD, BlueScreenView is the better tool. The majority of people will get along just fine with BlueScreenView, especially given it requires no configuration and provides the desired information immediately, and in a digestible manner, too. Windows errors are common. They’re infuriating, too. However, you don’t have to get bogged down. Here are the most common errors and the solutions to fix such Windows errors The 5 Most Common Windows Errors and How to Fix Them The 5 Most Common Windows Errors and How to Fix Them Don't let a Blue Screen of Death ruin your Windows experience. We've collected causes and solutions for the most common Windows errors so you can fix them when they pop up. Read More . Explore more about: Blue Screen of Death, Troubleshooting, Windows 10. http://bit.ly/2Sg3xKp

Yesterday we released what both Tara and I would most likely consider our first bonafide "single". Incidentally, we chose to record "Victim of the Mainstream" first because we thought it was the least commercially viable song in our setlist. After having looked into what it would cost to hire someone to engineer and produce one of our songs, we quickly realized that we were going to have to do our own production.

This was a frightening realization when one considers the fact that we wanted both a "radio quality" production as well as a production we could stand behind artistically...in other words, a production "without apologies".

From start to finish, it took us nearly an entire month to track, mix and master "Victim of the Mainstream". It took almost two weeks just to get a drum sound (before mixing). When it came to guitar, we had first started out with mic-ing my beloved Peavey Heritage VTX with an Shure SM-57. That was going okay until the amp decided to blow both a high tension fuse and a power tube at the same time. After opening the amp up, I realized, this was a much bigger problem than just replacing a couple simple parts, I was going to have to spend some time troubleshooting, yet we didn't have that kind of time on our hands. We only had about one month free from live gigs in which we needed to figure out how to get the perfect production for our needs and tastes. Oh, did I also mention that my favorite guitar that the pick-ups from my favorite home-assembled guitar that my late father had put together when he was a teenager also started to fail and needed to be replaced? Yeah, that too.

So we decided to try amp simulators. Not having a budget, we just had to deal with whatever we could find floating around gratis on the interweb. Going DI with into an amp sim is not easy to make sound authentic. The ears are immediately assaulted by a harsh grainy sound that feels like sandpaper on the soul. Let's just say that it was less than satisfying. For days, I was scouring the internet looking for ways to make simulated amps sound real. None of the advice I found really seemed to advance our sound. Frustrated, I just started noodling around in my digital audio workstation until the sound started cleaning up and I was able to get rid of the bulk of the digital grain that was consuming my life's essence.

Once the guitar sounds started coming together, the CPU on my little laptop began reaching its limit and the sessions were continuously crashing. So we had to commit and bounce all our primitive guitar and drum sounds down .wav files and re-import them into the session with all the effects, eq and compression written on the tracks. Any tinkering of the final sound would have to be done on top of what was already committed, since just trying to open the previous sessions would crash my laptop.

Eventually, we were able to pull together a rough mix between the drums and guitars that we could deal with and decided to move on to the most scary part of the tracking process...vocals.

The condenser microphone I had borrowed from a friend wasn't at all doing our vocals justice, so we did a little homework and went out and maxed out our credit card buying a very nice vocal mic, at least nice by our paltry standards. The nice thing was, that I had 60 days to return it in case we couldn't afford it, which we can't, however, I think we will keep it anyway and just see what happens with the bills later. Oh yeah, I also had to get a new guitar to record/play with which was also a long process, since I generally don't like most guitars...well, don't like is a bit harsh, let's just say that I feel there are very few pieces of musical equipment out there that suit me. Most likely, I am not alone in this sentiment as many musicians become very picky once they pass the beginner stages.

So the mic sounded pretty good, but even getting well-recorded vocals to sit in the mix and sound big and bold can be another daunting task. No matter, little by little, exercising the patience of a Star Wars junkie standing on line outside a theatre on premier night, we painstakingly carved out the vocal sound that we wanted to achieve.

...and just when you think you've got a great mix going, you realize that it's time to master. Well, since we weren't impressed with any master samples we found people offering on the internet for under $1000, we decided to go at that ourselves as well. We didn't think it would be that difficult, after all, we did have some experience doing "home masters" and the mix was better than anything we had done previously...the song should practically master itself, right?

If you've tried mastering songs at home yourself then you know how laughable an assumption that is. So we've pulled up some alt rock tracks that are being played on the radio and juxtaposed them in our digital mastering suite. We tried a little EQ and Compression and came to the rapid realization that we needed to fix the mix before we could really master. We learned that simply attempting to master a song will magnify absolutely everything that is wrong with your mix. So it ended up being another week or so of going back and forth between the mixing and mastering suite until finally, it sounded like the modern radio hits we were comparing it too. We even checked out all the numbers to see if they were comparing to that of the radio hits and they were!!! Shit on shingle were we in shock.

Then we sent it out to a few producer friends of ours along with a couple distant acquaintances to get some outside perspective that we could trust. Taking everything into consideration and begging for the CPU to give us a few more seconds before crashing, we exported the final master and voila...that's what you are hearing now.

We've learned a lot and now we hope to successfully repeat this process throughout the year.

When you're just consuming music, it's very easy to be under the impression the music production "just happens". Many people assume that you simply download Logic Pro X or Reaper and "bam!", you're songs magically appear on MP3 for the world to hear.

I suppose what can sometimes seem even sadder to me is the phenomenon of consumers judging the level of a particular artist's or groups talent by how high their production ranks on the current industry standards of whatever time period the track is produced.

Don't get me wrong, it's not as though I'm claiming that I have never fell "victim" to this "mainstream" way of thinking. That said, since I did grow up listening to mostly underground music performed by bands with very small budgets or knowledge of music production, I feel that I may have been a skosh more focused on the over feeling of the bands rather than their budget. There was even a time in my very early teens when I would actually get angry at one of my favorite bands if they release something too "polished".

What we've come to understand is that there are certain sonic faux pas that will drag down the integrity of the song and/or the musical group as a unit in the ears of the listener. For better or worse, in the ears of most listeners, they won't give your song a fair chance unless it sounds the way a song "should" sound overall. Unattenuated toxic frequencies will turn off many music consumers before they have even given your song a fair chance.

What if we had just left those guitars sounding digital and grainy? Would the song be given a fair chance?

That was the goal of these productions for us. We didn't want our lack of budget standing in the way between our potential fans and our songs. Sure, some people will hate your music no matter how well it sounds. There are mountains of artists out there who are releasing perfectly produced music that I feel is complete garbage and harbors zero artistic merit, and there will be hordes of music consumers who will hear our songs and find it distasteful. C'est la vie.

We're just very grateful (and surprised) that we were able to release something that we can stand behind for the first time. What's more we are grateful for everyone who ends up digging it.

Until next time...

- Spickler

Oh, it’s not your job? It is now.

This is a long story.

Intro and Backstory

My dad was a mechanic for 20+ years, and for as long as I can remember, I drove him nuts because I would go around the house with a screw driver he left out and take everything apart because I wanted to see how it work. As I grew older I developed an affinity towards computers and electronics, which led me to be “that kid” in High School who changed his grades, crashed the school districts servers, and used the NETSEND command with great success. I would spend my weekends either with my grandparents and uncle working on science projects or dragging my dad outside to help me fix my car (which consisted of him telling me that he would help once I got it taken apart). Those “figure it out” lessons were the probably the greatest gift he could've given me growing up.

I joined the US Army in 2004 and went into communications or “commo” for short (25U) where I managed to go from PVT (E1) when I joined to SGT (E5) by the time I returned from my deployment in 2006. After returning home, I was subsequently transferred from a Light Infantry Unit (walking everywhere) to a Mechanized Infantry Unit (Riding in an armored vehicle everywhere) and placed in charge of the Battalion Commo Shop as the current person running the commo shop was scheduled to retire in a few months and I was the only other NCO. This is where things got interesting and my Commo vs. Mechanics ProRevenge story starts…

Commo vs. Mechanics

As anyone else that was in the US Army can attest to, every Monday is/was “Motor pool Maintenance”, which essentially means, go make sure all the Tanks, Bradley Fighting Vehicles (BFV), or anything else with a motor works the way it should. This included testing all the radios and communication equipment as well. If it didn’t work, we filled out the maintenance forms with the correct shop and have them fix it. All the issues would later be consolidated into a report that the leadership team would review. If a vehicle was on that report, the leadership team wanted to know why it wasn’t fixed.

I ran my shop using the same approach my dad taught me, which was “figure it out” and don’t come to me with a problem unless you have a solution. One Monday morning shortly after taking charge of the commo shop, one of my soldiers came to me with a problem he couldn’t figure out and asked if I could come help him. I agreed and followed him over to the BFV that was giving him problems. After a few hours of troubleshooting we finally traced the problem to the BFV’s slipring. We wanted to double and triple check that this was the problem because 1) sliprings in general have a low failure rate and 2) it wasn’t something we could fix on our own. It required help from the mechanics because the slipring required taking apart the interior of the BFV turret to actually get to it.

So, I went to the mechanics to get there help so we could fix the problem. This is when I learned the mechanics didn’t like the commo shop. I was essentially told by the motor chief to f-off and the slipring is a commo issue and it’s the commo shop’s job to fix it, not theirs. I was pissed at the response and tried to insist we needed his help. However, I was promptly shut down and told to pound sand. At this point, I was beyond pissed, I tried the official way, I even swallowed my pride and asked him nicely, both times I was shit on. I decided I was going to play Global Thermonuclear War and teach him a lesson that neither he nor anyone else in his shop would forget. So, I went to my guys and told them I would be back in about an hour or two because I needed to run home and grab some stuff. When I got home, I went directly for the garage and started packing all the wrenches, impacts, and sockets that I could fit into my portable toolbox. I also loaded up the portable air compressor and any extension cords I could find and made my way back to the motor pool.

Once I got back to the motor pool I had my guys locate every extension cord they could find around the office because I could only find one in my garage and help me run power out to the BFV that we were going to have to fix ourselves. I also had 2 of the guys run to the HQ and find me two of largest empty coffee cans they could find. I ended up having to tell them twice because the first time they thought I was joking… they couldn’t understand why I needed a coffee can of all things. When they returned with coffee cans I had everything in place, I had power and compressed air, tools, and a place to neatly put all of the bolts, nuts, and washers I was about to remove. Under normal circumstances I would only remove the things that absolutely had to be removed, the fewer things to put back together, the better. But these weren’t normal circumstances, and I had absolutely no intention of putting anything back together. It was about lunch time and I decided my way of fixing this issue probably wasn’t the best example to set for my team, so I sent them lunch and told them I would handle this issue so they could focus on the other vehicles after lunch.

For the next few hours I proceeded to dismantle every single bolt I could find. I removed seats, interior plates, shelves, pretty much anything that wasn’t electrical or commo related got removed. I would then place all of the newly removed hardware in the coffee can. By the time I reached the turret I had filled up both coffee cans with nuts, bolts and washers that I had to go find something else to start putting this stuff in, luckily we had Zip-Lock bags by the dozen laying around the office. I grabbed a couple of those and went back to having fun taking apart the BFV. I finally reached the slip ring and managed to luck out I didn’t have to replace the slipring after all! Turns out the mechanics didn’t install one of the cable mounts and one of the commo cables got snagged and cut. Probably took me less than 15 minutes at that point to replace the cable (of course the fact that I completely removed everything in the way helped because now I didn’t have to fish the cable through anything). Once I replaced the cable and made sure all of the other commo equipment worked, I figured while I had everything taken apart it would be much easier to fix any other problems they might have been having. All commo systems checked out, my job was done.

Everything that I had taken out of the BFV was then gently and neatly stacked in the interior of the BFV, I put the lids on the coffee cans, zipped up the bags and wrote “bolts” on each of them. Once everything was tidied up, I went off to find the owner of the BFV and let him know his commo issue was fixed but he should probably have a mechanic look at his BFV because I had to disassemble some (and by some I meant “most”) of the vehicle in order to get to the part I needed to replace and I couldn’t remember how everything went back together.

I stared out of my office window for the rest of the day waiting for the mechanics to get around to looking at the BFV and I still remember the reaction of the motor chief when looked inside that vehicle if I didn’t know any better I could of sworn his head rotated around 3 times and damn near popped off. His reaction was absolutely priceless.

I knew he was about to storm into my shop in a fit of rage, so I got up and decided it was probably best to meet him outside in motor pool. As soon as I reached earshot distance he started screaming and demanding I put the vehicle back the way I found it. However, I was having none of that, I simply shook my head and told him “It was a “mechanical issue” now and it wasn’t my job and I asked for your help in the beginning and was told no because it wasn’t your job. I’m just a commo guy I didn’t know what needed to be removed so I could fix the commo issue in the slipring, so I removed everything, if someone from your team would have been there, I think this whole misunderstanding could have been avoided.”

That vehicle remained on the weekly report for the next 3 weeks while they figured out what bolts went where. However, after that incident I was never told “It’s not my job” ever again and the mechanics were more than willing to help me fix any issues that came up. By the time I left the unit we ended up starting to cross train each other’s team members so we could fix things faster as they came up.

(source) (story by Viper896)

Things are looking up with the economy; at least, that’s what we’re all hoping for. While the evidence really doesn’t back that up yet, there are a lot of businesses hiring and expanding.

If things keep going like they are, we should see a real reduction in the unemployment rate, rather than the fake one that has been reported for the last eight years.

But we are far from being out of the woods. The national debt is still staggering and nothing that Trump has proposed as of yet is going to do a thing to bring it down. Even his 2018 budget proposal does little to reduce the debt, although it’s a good start at going in the right direction.

There are also rumors floating around about a pending financial crash. Granted, there have been rumors floating around about that for years, but the rumors have changed slightly. Now, instead of it being due to the sluggish economy and the rising national debt, the potential for a collapse is supposed to be due to the world’s top financial movers and shakers.

If the rumors are true, and there is plenty of reason to believe them, pretty much every financial collapse that has occurred, regardless of the country where it occurred, has been engineered by these financial big wigs, in an effort to consolidate wealth and the resulting power in their own hands.

These big money men are all part of the globalist elite, working behind the scenes to bring us to a one world progressive liberal government. Supposedly, their plans require that the United States come in line with their philosophy.

That wasn’t much of a problem when Barack Obama was in office, as he is a globalist, but now that Donald Trump is president, they are concerned. Trump isn’t one of them, and in fact, stands strongly against them.

So they want to make Trump the fall guy, showing that his plans to “Make America Great Again” through capitalism and free markets can’t work. That, in turn, means that they want to bring about the crash in the next three and a half years, while Trump is in office.

When and if that happens, we can expect something much worse than the 2009 housing slump and the recession that it brought on.

This will be more like the Great Depression of the 1930s, or even worse. A combination of runaway inflation and unemployment rates that top out over 25 percent will cause havoc in all corners of our nation and the globe. Then, these global elites can “benevolently step in with their answer.” That answer will be world socialism, ruled by them.

Why Start a Repair Business?

Before we even reach that point, we have to survive through the hard financial times which will bring our nation to its knees. For some of us, that will most likely mean the loss of our jobs, our cars and our homes; in fact, it could mean the loss of everything that’s important to us, if we lose our jobs.

Let me say this though, and this is important; not everyone who goes through a financial collapse suffers from it. There are some people who flourish. The key is to be in a position where you are able to flourish, even while others are floundering.

Now I know what many of you are thinking; that to flourish during a time of financial collapse, you have to have a lot of money to start with. But that’s not true.

The key to financial success has always been the same, find a need and fill it. That’s true in times of plenty and it’s true in times of lack. So, what you need to do is find something that will be an area of need in that time, and prepare to fulfill that need.

I realize that can be tricky, but it doesn’t require a crystal ball. All we have to do, is look at what sorts of needs there have been in other countries, when they went through a financial collapse. Fortunately for us, there are a number of examples we can use, most notably Argentina.

While there are actually a number of things we could look at, I want to concentrate on only one area; that of starting a repair business. My reason for this is that repair businesses always flourish during a time of financial hardship.

The reason is quite simple, during a time of financial hardship people stop buying luxuries, mostly because they can’t afford them. As part of that, they try and get more mileage out of the things they have, rather than replacing them.

You might ask how this can be so, when people are out of work and businesses are closing. The answer is simple. Yes, there are a lot of people who end up out of work during a financial collapse.

During Argentina’s collapse of ’99, the real unemployment rate topped 25%. But those people aren’t the potential customers you would be looking for; you’d want the customers who are still working. They won’t have it as bad as those who are out of a job, but they’ll still have hardship too.

Remember, they will be suffering under runaway inflation, and wages won’t be keeping up. So those people will need to get more bang for their buck. Hence, the need for repair businesses.

Anyone can make the most complex DIY projects in no time!

Picking a Business

While we live in a largely disposable society, most of what we throw away is repairable, even if it may not seem so at first glance. There are people today who are making a living off of repairing windshields, reconditioning batteries and cell phones.

Some of these people are just offering repair services, while others are buying non-working devices, repairing them, and reselling them. In the area where I live, there are a couple of businesses which specialize in doing that with appliances. Since they get the appliances for almost nothing, most of what they sell them for is profit. Their only real inventory cost is the parts they put into repairing them.

Start out by looking at what sorts of things you already know how to repair. Perhaps there is something you’ve had to learn how to repair for your own needs at home; or there might be something that you’ve had to learn how to repair as part of your work.

You might even be working in a job currently, where you repair things for your employer. Whatever you know, prepare to start a business repairing that sort of equipment.

If you don’t already have something that you know how to repair, then learn something simple. A moment ago, I mentioned repairing cracked windshields. That’s not really hard to learn, and it doesn’t require a lot of investment.

Video first seen on ChrisFix.

People who have a broken windshield will gladly pay someone who knows how to repair their cracked windshield, since that is a whole lot cheaper than buying a new one.

Prepare to Start Your Business

Besides customers, there are three things any repair business is going to need:

Tools

Information

Parts.

Many repair businesses have little investment in parts, because they buy the parts for each repair that they do. But even then, there are common parts that need to be stocked, just to prevent the necessity of having to run to the store or parts house to buy them for every job.

Getting your tools and parts is going to require some investment on your part. So, you’re better off starting that now, while you are still working a regular job. Taking a small part of what you’re earning every week and investing it for the future is a sound financial decision; one that will pay big dividends later on.

My son is a certified network geek, working for a phone company. He has a number of different certifications on different things associated with his job. Some are specific to telephony, while others are about computer networking in general. So he’s starting a sideline business, offering his services to companies that can’t afford a full-time computer networking geek or telephone repair man.

That has meant buying the tools he needs to have, in order to troubleshoot networking and telephone problems, as well as a few common parts (mostly cables and connectors). So what he’s been doing is taking a small percentage of his paycheck each week and using that to buy the things he needs.

At the same time, he’s working on increasing his knowledge and gaining more certifications. His target is to reach a level of certification high enough that there are few people who know the things he will know.

When he reaches that point, he’ll basically be able to write his own ticket as a consultant, charging pretty much whatever he wants. That goes hand in hand with having knowledge that few people have.

This mechanism is so simple you can put it together by yourself in no time!

Start Small, But Start Soon

One of the things that keeps many people from starting a business of any sort is the cost. We tend to think in terms of needing to rent a storefront and build a complete business. But in reality, many businesses, like repair businesses, can be started out really small.

How small? That depends on how much room you have in your workshop. You can start in your garage or basement, on the back porch, or in a shed in the backyard. That’s the way people used to start their businesses.

If you go to any third-world or emerging country, you’ll still see people today who are running a repair business, small fabrication operation or small store out of their home. If they can do it, why can’t you?

Later on, if your business grows, you can start thinking about renting some space and moving into it. But if you’re going to do that, you’re probably going to need to have grown your business into a full-time job. At first, it won’t be that, more of a hobby business.

Don’t wait to start your business until you need it to generate business for you. Any business takes time to grow, so you’re better off growing your business while you still have a full-time job to pay the bills. That will also allow you to invest your profits back into your business, increasing inventory, buying more tools and marketing your business.

Keep in mind that some repair businesses may not generate a lot of money right now, simply because people aren’t accustomed to repairing things, but rather replacing them.

So you may not be able to grow your business past the hobby business stage. Even so, you should start now, so that you can build your reputation. This will also give you the opportunity to learn how to make your business run efficiently, improving profits. That way, whenever a financial crash comes, you are ready to expand your business.

Marketing Your Business

One of the biggest mistakes that people starting their first small business make is poor marketing. They don’t realize that good marketing is the number one key to opening a successful business.

It is marketing that will being customers in, nothing else. So if you want customers, you need some good marketing material and a good marketing strategy.

I’m going to concentrate on only three things here:

Flyers

While not glamorous, flyers are probably the single most common form of advertising there is, other than business cards. You need a good color flyer, explaining your business, with your logo prominently displayed and clear contact information.

Unless you know how to do this yourself, don’t even try. Hire a professional. While that might cost you a couple hundred bucks, you’ll end up with a much better product.

Image is an extremely important part of marketing. In our modern world, people are highly visual. They are used to identifying a business by its “branding,” which is the current buzz-word for their logo, style, font, and the colors that they use. Good banding and good printed material can make a closet-sized repair company look like it’s the world’s best.

Website

The second important thing you should do for your marketing is have a website. Here in the information age, just about everyone checks out a business online, before doing business with them.

Your website can be a way of introduction yourself to your potential customers, informing them about your services and sharing testimonies from satisfied customers.

The best business websites go beyond just talking about the business and educate the customer. Obviously, this needs to be in some area that is associated with the business.

So if you are repairing cell phones, you should have a series of articles about cell phones; perhaps covering tricks or “hacks” to get the most out of your cell phone, how to care for your cell phone and how to deal with common cell phone problems.

As part of your website, you also need an online presence on Facebook, with a link from your website to your Facebook page. Many people use Facebook as a way of checking out a business, as well as talking about their experience with that business.

Post regularly, talking about milestones in your business, new services offered, links to the articles on your website, funny stories, and articles of interest, which are associated with the products you repair.

Advertising

Finally, make use of the power of Facebook advertising. Your Facebook page is part of this. But more than anything, Facebook is a marketing platform, probably the single most effective one that exists today. Even so, you can advertise on Facebook very inexpensively, setting your own budget and parameters to ensure that you are getting the best value for your advertising dollar.

While there are many other things you can do in marketing, these three are the most important ones to get your business off the ground and starting to grow.

If you do them, chances are you’ll have success. But if you don’t, you’ll probably have trouble finding customers.

Even within the area of repair businesses, there are lots of different choices you can make. The key is in finding something that would fit you and provide you with a good business.

Grab your tools and start practicing your skills now!

Click the banner below for more!

 This article has been written by Bill White for Survivopedia.

from Survivopedia Don't forget to visit the store and pick up some gear at The COR Outfitters. How prepared are you for emergencies? #SurvivalFirestarter #SurvivalBugOutBackpack #PrepperSurvivalPack #SHTFGear #SHTFBag

iYogi Tech Support

New Post has been published on https://myupdatesystems.com/iyogi-tech-support/

iYogi Tech Support

I am not a computer geek and this review is intended for people like me. There are many technical support reviews examples on the web that can make you learn but most of them will not go any deeper than explaining through examples. Recently I had to ask for some technical support from iYogi for my PC and my experience wasn’t that bad. I give a huge credit to the technician been provided to me.

The review of my experience with iYogi technical support might be worthwhile too. Their support options can be pretty affordable. Their professional support “list price” is $ 169.99 for one whole year for remote tech support. My experience isn’t necessarily representative of the kind of support you will get but you will definitely get an idea how does it work. All I can do is to educate people about the kind of support you will get.

Without any notice, I had this weird freezing of my computer. I was almost in the middle of an important work and suddenly my computer crashed. I called iYogi for help as a few days back I went through their website and I found it pretty decent to ask help from unlike other technical service providers (I don’t want to take name though). The technician was pretty helpful and supportive too.

Tech support has always been a huge burden for most companies. But all you have to do is to browse through the net for tech support newsgroups, iYogi has many of them, and then you can quickly realize that most customers don’t even know how to put forward their questions. The mixture of different computers and other things makes any sharp and talented technician confuse and makes it impossible for them to resolve it.

Communication with the customers has to be real supportive, which u definitely get from iYogi. Technicians usually get carried away with their troubleshooting and sometimes cuts off the customers when they speak or neglect their opinion of the issue because a user or customer only knows what it’s really about. Aside from this, an employee or technician should always be courteous and well mannered towards many customers because that’s their area. They should also make the customers understand about the troubleshooting so that the user gets familiar with it.

A real good tech support person has a lot of knowledge and training and it’s a valuable asset to ask for a good salary.iYogi does a lot to protect that type of talent and provide the essential and high-quality tech support that some people need. To respond to this, iYogi is taking advantage of the fact that there really are a lot of iYogi people out there who are ready and willing and able to help the users. Some of them are the nicely paid tech support people with whom you might talk to on phone.

iYogi creates the website like yoga, etc that makes it possible for people for customers or the users to communicate well and for also selecting the right program or plan for themselves. Instead of forgetting the websites that helped us out from the soup, I will suggest you make a bookmark of these websites, for issues are always around the corner.

Since I went for the one-year subscription plan, soon I received a call from a skilled technician over the phone. Though it took time for the technician to understand my problem but I still appreciate that I didn’t get that scripted response what we usually get for other free technical service provider, like after talking to those you feel like banging your head against the wall in frustration. The iYogi technician treated me like a customer but didn’t assume that I knew nothing. This made it possible to zero in on what to do remarkably quickly. After checking a few obvious possible ways, we set a remote connection to my PC so that the technician could work directly on my box.

The short version of my story is that using emailed instructions the technician got to me right after that, and made me understand what actually causing the problem.

The enough good knowledge that is been taught by my technician was that when the computer cannot find an updated driver, it locks itself up and get the freeze. The hardware drivers should be updated on a regular basis. It also helps in augment the computer’s RAM by increasing the PC’s virtual memory. RAM acts as a buffer to speed up access to your programs and files that are in use. Though all of your data is stored on your hard drive, RAM is much faster. Whenever your computer pulls up a file off the hard drive, it loads it into your system RAM so that it can continue to access it faster. The end result is a much faster interface with your computer. The more RAM you have the more programs and files your computer can keep stored in your RAM.

Since this is a virtual Basic site, I won’t be mentioning the brand name of my PC. If you are absolutely dying to know email me I’ll tell you everything. The technician updated my driver remotely and I’m up and cranking again on my PC.

After my whole remote session, I have gone through their website minutely and I learned that they have around 95% of customer satisfaction. I will definitely like to mention what iYogi is good at; employees of iYogi are good at working under supervision or within a team. The technicians are good natured personality and affable character and also help the team morale and teamwork. The personal traits and the characteristics can affect and individual’s output and teamwork much more than you can imagine. And they also leave a mark on customers mind.

If you roll your eyes towards the back of your head, you will realize that you are not alone in making complaints about their computer. There always a tsunami of customer commenting on iYogi’s forum about their technical support. There are few praising and few are disapproving, maintaining all these by the technician and still giving you the satisfactory solutions is an appreciable job.

These guys diagnose the root cause of the errors with a device or hardware and if it can be resolved by manual resetting then they will guide the customers through the step by step process. They wait until the computer is restarted to ensure full resolution of the issue.

After I finished speaking with the technician I also spoke to his supervisor, to express how much I appreciated my technician’s work. The technician has this amazing knowledge of the situation, the courtesy and respect he showed and their diligence in resolving my problem was extraordinary and most commendable. I truly appreciated working with him, as I learned a lot from them. He was a real trouper and quitting wasn’t a part of his character. iYogi should be very proud to have this member of your staff on your team and in your organization. It was a truly great job.

Getting online computer tech support has various benefits. One is that you save a lot of time and get you box fixed as soon as possible. Another benefit is that through their PC tech support guidance, you get some training on how to fix the computer issue. In case the same predicament happens again, you would know what to do to fix it. Thereby saving you the costs of computer repair tech services.

I will also mention it’s amazing to get their 1-year subscription plan from iYogi, for which you have to pay once $169.99 and they provide you with the best technical support free of cost of whole one year. You have to make sure that your computer gets the support maintenance and true tune up, it needs to perform well.

What best you can get customized technical support services at the time and place you want and at any time 365 days. With the overall PC troubleshooting (as technicians call it) experience of around a decade, they not only gives you a deal on tech support but also familiarize you with the workings of your darling machine.

The community is always willing to lend an extra hand, with discussion boards and Q&A services, forums, troubleshooting support may not be real time or hands-on, but it is free and instructional.

The bottom line is that, in at least this one case, iYogi official technical support justifies the price as mentioned on their site, and provides you with the best technical services round the clock.

New Post has been published on Pagedesignweb

New Post has been published on https://pagedesignweb.com/iyogi-tech-support-review/

iYogi Tech Support Review

I am not a computer geek and this review is intended for people like me. There are many technical support reviews examples on web that can make you learn but most of them will not go any deeper than explaining through examples. Recently I had to ask for some technical support from iYogi for my PC and my experience wasn’t that bad. I give a huge credit to the technician been provided to me.

The review of my experience with iYogi technical support might be worthwhile too. Their support options can be pretty affordable. Their professional support “list price” is $ 169.99 for one whole year for remote tech support. My experience isn’t necessarily representative of the kind of support you will get but you will definitely get an idea how does it work. All I can do is to educate people about the kind of support you will get.

Without any notice I had this weird freezing of my computer. I was almost in the middle of an important work and suddenly my computer crashed. I called iYogi for help as few days back I gone through their website and I found it pretty decent to ask help from unlike other technical service provider (I don’t want to take name though). The technician was pretty helpful and supportive too.

Tech support has always been a huge burden for most companies. But all you have to do is to browse through the net for tech support newsgroups, iYogi has many of them, and then you can quickly realize that most customers don’t even know how to put forward their questions. Mixture of different computers and other things makes any sharp and talented technician confuse and makes it impossible for them to resolve it.

Communication with the customers has to be real supportive, which u definitely get from iYogi. Technicians usually gets carried away with their troubleshooting and sometimes cuts off the customers when they speak or neglect their opinion of the issue because a user or customer only knows what it’s really about. Aside from this, an employee or technician should always be courteous and well mannered towards many customers because that’s their area. They should also make the customers understand about the troubleshooting so that the user gets familiar with it.

A real good tech support person has a lot of knowledge and training and it’s a valuable asset to ask for a good salary.iYogi does a lot to protect that type of talent and provide the essential and high quality tech support that some people need. To respond to this, iYogi is taking advantage of the fact that there really are a lot of iYogi people out there who are ready and willing and able to help the users. Some of them are the nicely paid tech support people with whom you might talk to on phone.

iYogi creates the website like iyogi, etc that makes it possible for people for customers or the users to communicate well and for also selecting the right program or plan for themselves. Instead of forgetting the websites that helped us out from the soup, I will suggest you to make a bookmark of these websites, for issues are always around the corner.

Since I went for the one year subscription plan, soon I received a call from a skilled technician over the phone. Though it took time for the technician to understand my problem but I still appreciate that I didn’t get that scripted response what we usually get for other free technical service provider, like after talking to those you feel like banging your head against the wall in frustration. The iYogi technician treated me like a customer but didn’t assume that I knew nothing. This made it possible to zero in on what to do remarkably quickly. After checking a few obvious possible ways, we set a remote connection to my PC so that the technician could work directly on my box.

The short version of my story is that, using emailed instructions the technician got to me right after that, and made me understand what actually causing the problem.

The enough good knowledge that is been taught by my technician was that when the computer cannot find an updated driver, it locks itself up and get freeze. The hardware drivers should be updated on a regular basis. It also helps in augment the computer’s RAM by increasing the PC’s virtual memory. RAM acts as a buffer to speed up access to your programs and files that are in use. Though all of your data is stored on your hard drive, RAM is much faster. Whenever your computer pulls up a file off the hard drive, it loads it into your system RAM so that it can continue to access it faster. The end result is a much faster interface with your computer. The more RAM you have the more programs and files your computer can keep stored in your RAM.

Since this is a virtual Basic site, I won’t be mentioning the brand name of my PC. If you are absolutely dying to know email me I’ll tell you everything. The technician updated my driver remotely and I’m up and cranking again on my PC.

After my whole remote session I have gone through their website minutely and I learnt that they have around 95% of customer satisfaction. I will definitely like to mention what iYogi is good at; employees of iYogi are good at working under supervision or within a team. The technicians are good natured personality and affable character and also help the team morale and team work. The personal traits and the characteristics can affect and individual’s output and team work much more than you can imagine. And they also leave a mark on customers mind.

If you roll your eyes towards the back of your head, you will realize that that you are not alone in making complaints for their computer. There always a tsunami of customer commenting on iYogi’s forum about their technical support. There are few praising and few are disapproving, maintaining all these by the technician and still giving you the satisfactory solutions is an appreciable job.

These guys diagnose the root cause of the errors with a device or hardware and if it can be resolved by manual resetting then they will guide the customers through the step by step process. They wait until the computer is restarted to ensure full resolution of the issue.

After I finished speaking with the technician I also spoke to his supervisor, to express how much I appreciated my technician’s work. The technician has this amazing knowledge of the situation, the courtesy and respect he showed and their diligence in resolving my problem was extraordinary and most commendable. I truly appreciated working with him, as I learned a lot from them. He was a real trouper and quitting wasn’t a part of his character. iYogi should be very proud to have this member of your staff on your team and in your organization. It was a truly great job.

Getting online computer tech support has various benefits. One is that you save a lot of time and get you box fixed as soon as possible. Another benefit is that through their PC tech support guidance, you get some training on how to fix the computer issue. In case the same predicament happens again, you would know what to do to fix it. There by saving you the costs on computer repair tech services.

I will also mention it’s amazing to get their 1 year subscription plan from iYogi, for which you have to pay once $169.99 and they provide you with the best technical support free of cost of whole one year. You have to make sure that your computer get the support maintenance and true tune up, it needs to perform well.

What best you can get customized technical support services at the time and place you want and at anytime 365 days. With the overall PC troubleshooting (as technicians call it) experience of around a decade, they not only gives you a deal on tech support but also familiarize you with the workings of your darling machine.

The community is always willing to lend an extra hand, with discussion boards and Q&A services, forums, troubleshooting support may not be real time or hands-on, but it is free and instructional.

The bottom line is that, in at least this one case, iYogi official technical support justifies the price as mentioned on their site, and provides you with the best technical services round the clock.