P.S:
This transcript was auto-generated.
SPEAKERS
Edward the Computer Doctor and Amr The Internet Guy
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
computer, clients, backup, people, data, customers, website, preventive maintenance, Edward, laptop, check, Lenovo, backed, bought, problem, day, remotely, call, business, internet.
SPEAKERS
announcer, Edward Lissack – The Computer Doctor, Amr The Internet Guy
Online with Amr the internet guy stream it today on your favorite podcast platforms. This podcast focuses on entrepreneurs and business owners helping them become more successful and conducting their business on the web without being stuck with technology, getting a headache, pulling their hairs out, or buying expensive software.
Hello, hello, and welcome to a new episode of the podcast. So today I’m talking about something very important, yet very much overlooked. You know how much time we all waste when our computers are not working? Well, having a sluggish computer or a computer that doesn’t respond 90% of the time to what you want to do, and you end up waiting those few minutes every time you’re trying to complete an important task, which is very much detrimental to your productivity, especially if you’re a business owner. I’m talking about that. And today, I have a person who has a great solution. And our motto would be prevention is 10 times better than treatment. So without further ado, let’s meet the computer doctor. Hi, guys, welcome to another episode of online today I have a special guest with me. Mr. Edward Lee sack.
Thank you, Amr
So Edward, as I start, I usually ask my guests to introduce themselves. And you know, tell people who they are, what they do, where they’re located. All right. Well, I’m
Edward Lissack I’m the owner and computer doctor for computer age service enterprises. And by offices in Colquitt Lim, and my other office for around working spaces at the Fountainhead network and go Platinum as well. Where is that I’ve
never heard of it? We’re right there inside, where this
unless we’re in a parallel world in a parallel universe of the same thing. That’s always possible. One never knows.
I’m intrigued or the first time we met, I can’t remember how many years ago, or three, I don’t know,
three years ago, and
I remember seeing on your card on of course, that was pre COVID, the computer doctor that makes house visits. So tell people a little bit about it?
Sure. Basically, a client calls us up and says they’re having problems with their computers. So then, I asked them various questions like, what can you tell me a little bit about the issue that you’re having with your computer, and then they give me a better idea. And then I make a house call appointment to actually go to the person’s home office or business office location, and actually assess and see further what the issues are. And those issues can range from anywhere from component failure problems to software issues, to just the system not performing properly. And then we implement our treatments and solutions to bring the computer back to a healthy state. And at various times, we do need to bring the computer into our lab, in case we need to do some invasive surgery.
Perfect. So I’m interested to know because from what I can notice, many people have problems with their computers. They either ignore the problems or then unaware that they have a problem like, you know when it’s slow, or sluggish.
Mm hmm.
And then kind of you get used to it at some point, right? Yes.
But how like, what is the point that you find when people call you at the end, like when they’ve had enough of what?
Well, unfortunately, some of the calls that we get is when the computer is already unresponsive, oh God, they go the press the power button on, they see the windows come up and it just sits there it hangs go any further. Other times they’ll get what we call a non system disk error, which means their filing cabinet, their electronic filing cabinet or the hard drive is just not working properly. Due to some configuration issues and usually from past experience, on call clients tend to wait until at the very end which is
almost everybody.
I would say a good 80%
anyway, okay, so just to let you know, guys like when we say on call clients, these are the clients who call only when they have a problem. That’s right. So the other type of clients would be the clients who have preventive maintenance. So yes, I’m trying to explain this, like a car. When you buy a new car. Yeah, sometimes the dealership will offer you to prepay for your maintenance so that everything is covered. They get it in the car price. If you pay on installment, everything gets taken care of. And then you get peace of mind. And to me there’s a lot of value doing this with anything that’s hardware, computer, a car, and elevator something like that.
Well, yes,
but some people think, Oh no, it’s expensive. I’m not going to do it. I’m going to wait for when something happens. So I want to explain to people with computers, what is preventive maintenance? What do we do? What does it entail preventive maintenance? What What do you do? Let’s say I got on your I think you call them virtual health care plans. That’s right. So when I get on your virtual health care plan, what are you going to do for me?
First of all, for our customers who are already on this package, we go in remotely by remote access, we first of all, make sure that their data backup is in order, make sure all of their data is backed up. And also we run some system diagnostics using various diagnostic utilities. And this will tell us right away, if there’s an issue, this Think of it like running an EKG on a heart monitor, you’re checking the checking the heartbeat, these system diagnostics, check the heartbeat of the computer, and checks the blood flow through all of the circulation, all of the components, the parts and everything. And also even through Windows as well. And it gives us an indication if there is a underlying issue. So it’s this way, we pick up the underlying issue right away. And it can get fixed right away, rather than it going on and on and on to the point where it just everything stops working.
Exactly. So I like your analogy, because it’s like a human being Right, right, you see a small problem here and there, you ignore it. And you don’t go do your checks, you don’t see the doctor, and then suddenly, something big is happening to you. And it takes more time and more effort. And God forbid, like, you know, we’re in COVID. So we don’t wish for anyone to be sick. And we don’t wish for any machine to stop working. When we’re working from home. Now most of the time, like a lot of people don’t even have access to their office computer anymore. And they’re using their personal computer as the office computer. Sure. And that brings a lot of other challenges because like the stuff that’s on it, the crap that that your kids have put on it. And so what would you recommend if somebody is using the same computer for both work and leisure?
Okay, one of the things is to first of all, have it checked by a professional computer doctor or specialist, where they could not only check for diagnostics, if there’s any underlying issues. Also, they could check to see what programs are in there. If there’s any sort of adware or spyware that has dipped in from the internet. And then to ask the customer, did you put this in? Are you aware of this program, and quite often a lot of our customers will say No, I never heard of it, we just dumped it, we get rid of it. Whereas there’s could be games in there. If there’s a lot of games, it can also cause a lot of slow down old computers. So we suggest to our customers maybe keep one game on there, but take the rest off. Because they’re very highly and they’re they’re, they’re intensive for the computer. Especially when the computer has limited capacity, like unlimited storage filing cabinet, which is your hard drive. Think of it like when you go to your doctor’s office, you’d see all these big tall filing cabinet cases, you’re pulling out all these different drawers, you’ve got all these different folders and pieces of paper. That’s your hard disk drive in your computer. It’s exactly the same concept. I call it the electronic filing cabinet manager sized. So you want to make sure that you have it well organized and clean. And that way when you want to get something it’ll come up quicker. And we provide that service as well, especially utility that we use to organize things from everything chaotic out of sequence into a more orderly sequence where you can get to things.
So you know, in my opinion, the most underrated stuff with a computer or even a website is the speed Yes, because many Many people have a slow computer or a slow website. And they don’t care, they just ignore it. Right? But what they’re not thinking about is that every time you’re trying to accomplish every time you’re trying to get work done, you’re wasting another maybe 1012 minutes, multiple times a day. So if you add this time up, you’re probably wasting about an hour a day, or fret extra, because your computer is slow. Now. So for everyone listening to us guys, just figure out what your hourly rate, how much are you charging your clients, hourly, whatever you’re doing, and then do one hour a day and figure out how much is it costing you per month. And you’ll be amazed, like the number that you see you wouldn’t believe it. Because like, I don’t know, if you do the math, if you say like, somebody that hour is $50 an hour a day, that’s 50 times five. So 250 per week, let’s exclude the weekends, times four weeks at $1,000. So it’s caused a slow computer is costing you $1,000 a month is almost the price of a brand new computer, right? But because you keep ignoring it, you’re not aware of it. So and again, when it reaches the point that it stops any other problem because now he can’t work. And you have to pay for the fix, and you have to wait for the fix. So how much downtime you have, if you factor all this, you realize that it would have been so much easier to have regular preventive maintenance done. And Edward, you’ve mentioned backup. What’s the percentage of people who don’t have a backup? Well, I’ll
be honest with you have everybody I talked to, and everybody that I asked to the question when I’m doing my seminars 75% they’ll do their back, oh, my God, that is very, very high. backup is the same thing as an insurance policy. You know, when you’re going to insure your house, your business, your car, your boat, your RV or trailer, you’re insuring your data, you have to ask yourself, what would happen to my business? If I lost this data? How did it impact my business, in terms of clients revenue, and older records that I keep, why would happen? This is very important to ask yourself. So data backup is very important. It keeps you in tune and right with your data. And a lot of people get the misconception that using Google Drive, OneDrive and Dropbox, they say assume that it’s a backup, it’s not all it is, is that it’s what we call a file and sync share facility. That means that when you go with your smartphone, or your tablet computer or your laptop, out of your home office to different parts of the country or world, you can grab that data off the cloud, you can do that. That’s all it’s for a bad cop is completely different. It’s a set of data that gets permanently backed up to whether it’s a portable USB storage device, or into what we call a secured cloud backup. And there’s a lot of different companies that provide this service. There’s like Carbonite is one of them. One of my customers, Toronto uses Carbonite. I have a few clients here that uses blue point, which is another technology company that provides cloud backups. The difference there is that it’s all backed up. It’s there in case something happens.
Yeah, I like the hybrid, offline online backup, because you also have to plan for when you for any reason, lose internet connectivity. That’s right. You don’t want to have everything on the cloud. I mean, the cloud has great benefits, like one benefit you rightfully went over? Is the synchronization between devices because we all use now more than one device. Oh, yes. And you want all your files to be current. So you open from your house and you do some editing and you go to the office or go pre COVID when we used to go work out of Starbucks, and you want your files to have the latest update. And that’s great when everything is on the cloud. But when you don’t have an offline backup at all. And you find yourself for a reason without internet connectivity, or with limited like sometimes you have internet, but it’s not as fast as you want it. It’s right. You know, before I moved to North America, I was in the Middle East and sometimes the marine cables that connect the continents together, would get severed by a ship. And we’ll have slow internet for two or three days, and it will drive everyone crazy. Because you can’t do anything. So you got to think about that day, if it comes, you got to be prepared. We’re not we’re not saying Doomsday, but we’re saying just be prepared, especially if you’re a business. Because if you don’t have access to your data, a friend of mine used to joke. Somebody asked him in a in an airport while traveling from one place to another, how much was your computer? And he had a laptop at Toshiba laptop at the time and he said, This computer is too old, it’s probably worthless. But the data on it? Yes, it’s more than a million dollars. Exactly. So he said like that’s it, it’s my intellectual property is like what I have on there is not the actual machine.
The backlight.
So what do we say to people who? I don’t know, think of the virtual healthcare. I don’t like the be the people would probably think we’re talking about the health system, like the provincial health. Now the computer health care. Yeah. So I would, because I, as you know, I do a virtual healthcare also for websites. Right, right. And I get a lot of push backs. people, mostly when they think of it, they only think cost. They don’t think benefits. Yes. And I get it. Like, you know, in my case, you build a website, you’ve spent X amount of dollars on it, you don’t want to keep spending like you want to in your head, you want to think you know what i’m done with the website? Why am I Why do I keep paying, right? It’s done. It’s live, it’s up and running. And I often tell them, okay, two things that you guys need to actually think about. Number one is the backup, we were just talking backup. Now, what happens if your website has an error or a folder or something happens on your hosting server, or God forbid you get hacked or, you know, malware, you get your site gets infected with malware, which is, it’s actually if you ask me malware, and hacking is the worst thing, because they also ruin your reputation as a business. It’s not just the website down is the message that your clients will see a threat and they somebody can put bad stuff on your website, any takes a lot of effort, and a lot of skill to remove malware from a website properly and disinfected properly. So why wait until it happens. And again, we’re not wishing this on anyone. And we’re not saying it will happen 100%. But if you look at statistics, there’s about 27% risk of websites. And I’m thinking, if you have a computer that is not clean enough, there is not disinfected, that it doesn’t run properly. Yes. And you’re working on your website from that computer. Right? You can actually infect more than you’re lucky, you can infect your website from your computer, or download the other way around, download something bad from the internet, onto your computer. And last. So I’m wondering, what do we say for people who are only looking at the cost part?
Well, you have to outweigh the benefits versus cost. There are a lot of benefits to a to a monthly maintenance program. In this case, we call it the virtual computer health care plan, which is a maintenance program, the benefits are first of all, your computer is going to be more reliable, you’re going to have more reliability, because if something is discovered in the diagnostics, something irregular, will pick it up very quickly. Before it gets to the point where you can’t do anything. You know, we look we already see it. And then we say this is what we found. We’ve done this for a few of our clients already.
And you’ll fix it right so you know, if it’s done, you’re not gonna wait, you’re just gonna deal with it.
It’s just gonna be dealt with exactly, we let our client know. And we say to our client, we should we need to fix it now. Before it gets to before it goes any further. And then so that’s one of the big things is knowing sooner rather than later when it’s very good. It’s an issue. The other thing too, is assurances of your data backup. You don’t have to then second guess. I don’t know what our last thing my backup with this type of plan. We set up your backup. In fact I did just did this the other day for a new client who came on board. I set up the new client on an automated backup system. So every
new monitor it. So you know if it’s happening
regularly or not, every single month, I go and buy remote access into our clients computer. And we actually look at the backup. All of our clients use portable USB storage devices, all of them, there’s maybe one or two that use that. And cloud. Yeah. But we always say to our clients, even somebody who has a large amount of data, use both use both methods. So then they use both methods. So the ones that have a cloud backup, we actually go into the cloud backup software, and make sure that it’s backing up properly. When we go into the USB storage device. In fact, I just did this late last night for another client in Toronto. I checked the special utility for backing up. And then I actually go into the drive itself and open files and look at the data. And especially looking at the last time the date was changed.
Yes, no, that’s
what I thought that it was correct and up to date.
Because I tell you what, if you have backups by not testing them, it’s as good as not having backups, because maybe the backup is corrupt. That’s right, when you need the files the most in case of emergency, it won’t work. So you always need a specialist to check this up for you do this periodically. I mean, if you have daily backups, no one is going to go every single day and check it. But on a monthly basis at least is like every month, you will reserve some time for each client to go and look. And it’s all part of the plan.
All Yes, all part of the plan that’s included in the plan every month. So we have several customers already on their monthly virtual computer health care plan. That’s automatic. I put it into my calendar, I contact my customers and set up the appointment to go in remotely. And I do a complete check. Just like I did for one of my Toronto clients last night.
I know that you’ve been in business for what, 20 years now?
Well, I’m phillyd 26 years. Wow. What was the last November and now into my 27th year?
Wow. Congratulations.
Thank you. that’s
a that’s a good milestone.
Thank you Amr.
So what’s the awareness like 25 years ago. And now
25. When I first started in the field, it was very, it was still very new to a lot of people. And I can remember the days when it was Ms. Dos?
Yeah. The boring black screen and 3.1
for Windows and even 3.11 for Workgroups. And when you wanted to add stuff to the computer, you have to manually go in and add it. Yes. So it was more challenging back then. And there wasn’t as much awareness about adware and spyware and ransomware It was almost non existent back then. I mean, there was an awareness of viruses and if Yeah, yeah. But over the years, as things evolved and changes, there’s a lot more code, there’s a lot more programs, there’s, I would say that the amount of hackers compared to back then and now is like 100, maybe even 1,000% more now than there was back then. And there are more sophisticated and what Yeah,
they’re well, they’re well trained.
And what they’re doing is that they’re actually you know, people who go to sort of websites that they’re not sure of these programs, hide and slide into the computer from the website. And then it’s not only add word spyware is also another thing, which is even more destructive called ransomware. Yeah, the reason why it’s more disruptive, because once it’s in the computer, it automatically sets the program to block everything he can get to anything in your computer. And some of it even encrypts your stuff. Yes. So that is a very difficult thing. That’s why having a backup is also very, very important. Because even if the if the ransomware attack were to happen today, B and you have a backup from yesterday, or even from a week ago, yeah, you wouldn’t care, you can still get to that data. Whereas if somebody never backs up their stuff, then the only other option to recover is a data recovery lab service. And that concludes Lost upwards of 5000. Oh,
yeah. And the outcome is never guaranteed as wakley.
That’s a No, no. Yeah, exactly.
And that’s why sometimes big, like larger organizations, yes, sometimes end up paying the ransom instead, which is not something recommended, by all means to make criminals richer, yeah. So that they can go and attack more people. That doesn’t make any sense. But I’ve read about cases where some cities in North America, some in Canada, and some in the United States ended up paying ransom because like, you know, there are some sensitive sectors and industries, you can’t be locked out for more than 24 hours, the threat like that the loss is tremendous for plus, now the attacker is also not only hold your data to ransom, but they threatened to release it to the public. So if you’re a hospital, what damages is going to do if I play your patients records, become public on the internet, that’s too bad for for you, as well as for the patients.
And it’s not only that, they also, they also sell it to the highest bidder. Oh,
yeah, they sell the data as well.
Yeah, they sell it to the highest bidder in the black market, where they will then replicate that information. That’s a real serious challenge. And this is not just local, this is worldwide. I know, this is a worldwide issue. And that comes to the other subject of also, that I like to discuss if we still have time. Sure. Yes. How to protect yourself against online fraud as well.
That’s a great thing, please, let’s do it. Yeah.
Okay. Online fraud comes in several different forms. For one, you get an email in your inbox. And it’s, it’s, you think it looks legit. It says, in a well known bank, whether it’s Scotia Bank, or TD Canada trust, or Chase Bank, or Citi Bank, or even Barclays Bank, or net West, you know, they think it’s they think it looks real. And it says your account has been locked out, click on this link. But in actual fact, it’s not the bank that’s doing this, these are very well educated, professional hackers. As soon as that link is clicked, it’ll take you to a website that’s going to look like the bank, but it’s not. And then the person puts in all the information, and then the hackers will then take that information, actually go into the online banking, and then take everything out of those accounts. If it’s a credit card, then they’re gonna charge they’re gonna fix it. And some, some credit cards, especially corporate credit, credit cards, don’t even have a set limit. Yeah, they could all of a sudden see a bill for half a million dollars.
And if you have too many employees, you wouldn’t notice unless the amount is big, exact. So if they start doing like $100 here and there, you’d only discover it later.
That’s right, exactly. And the other form of online fraud is pop ups. So you know, you’ll be doing stuff on the internet. All of a sudden, you get these pop up screen saying your computer
is infected. And that’s the pop up that is actually affecting it when you’re
like, Oh, yeah. And then also, we know there’s a problem with your computer, they’ll ask you to click on this link. Or they’ll ask you to call this toll free number. Yeah, this happened to my cousin Oh, I
met pretend to be Microsoft. And yeah,
yeah, exactly. In fact, I want to share a little story about Microsoft. About six or seven years ago, I got a call from someone claiming to be from Microsoft support. I knew it was fake right off the bat. Because the person was very aggressive on the phone extremely aggressive, kept insisting that there was a problem with my computer. And I kept asking the question, how do you know there’s a problem with my computer? You’re not remotely connected? Yeah. How do you know? And the person kept evading the question. So anyone who gets these pop up screens, or these phone calls, just get rid of them straight away. They’re fraudsters. They’re only after one thing, and that’s your harder. Yeah. They don’t care about anything else. Unfortunately. Yeah.
Microsoft doesn’t call anyone guys exactly. Don’t initiate a call. Like if you have a support ticket, like you went on the Microsoft website. Yeah. And you had a problem. You described your problem and you created a support ticket. Yes. They may ask you for your number and call you back to follow up. But on their own, they don’t just initiate calls. That’s right. The government never calls anyone Even if you have a ticket, even if you asked them to call you back they want. So when someone calls you and say like, I’m from the government, there’s a problem with your social security number or whatever is that they say these days, like last year, they were calling and saying we’re from the tax agency. This year, they’re saying we’re from the Social Security Agency. And maybe next year, they’ll tell you, we’re from the Foreign Affairs, I don’t know. So all these are fraudsters. And you know what, like, think about it this way. Even if it wasn’t a fraudster, right? There’s no harm to discard the call, and go do your own research anyway. So don’t respond.
Exactly. So whenever you get these emails, these online pop ups, these phone call from all of these different organizations, just put the phone down and click on the X to get rid of these pop up. Yeah. and delete those emails. When in doubt, if you’re not sure, talk to somebody who you can trust.
Yeah, talk to a techie.
Yeah, talk, talk to someone who you have a good business relationship with, who understands this and is aware of this.
And most of us, actually, I want to highlight this because it comes kind of comes in every podcast episode. Most of the business owners that I spoke with, they have like a free discovery call, like a 30 minute discussion. And so if somebody is not sure they’ve seen something, they’re not 100% sure whether this was a fraud or not, or whether their machine is infected or whatever. Use a professional like schedule a call one of these free calls. Just to ask the question, I’m sure everyone would like to help.
Sure. Well, actually, for me, for me, it’s the computer doctor computer aid service. We offer a virtual one hour free consultation discovery session, to address any concerns that you have. If you have any questions, anything that you want to do on your computer. We will do the consultation and then depending on what you wish to do, then only then we will give you some recommendations.
Perfect. And Edward, you get this question a lot. Which antivirus is the best?
Yes, I do get this a lot. I the answer that I give a bar and to everyone else, even to my customer that I took care of a few days ago. I give them the recommendation of my own personal experience. I’ve used McAfee, Internet security and Kaspersky Internet security. And those are like the best ones I’ve ever used. Just like somebody might ask me, What computer would you recommend? Yeah, I recommend three different kinds. I recommend Dell asis, that’s ASU I love and also Lenovo, IBM, Lenovo.
I’m glad you didn’t say HP because I don’t like it. My experience with hp laptops, the business ones that are mega expensive, are good. But the personal HP computers three times in a row in the past 10 years. The motherboard stops working right after the warranty expires. I had one with 18 months warranty right on month number 20. The motherboard has gone all the way and then I had one with only 12 month warranty. And a week after the warranty expired the motherboard is gone. So I’ve decided you know what, I’m not going to do this anymore. Lenovo for the people who don’t know that brand. That’s IBM. So a company called Lenovo acquired IBM. Chinese. Lenovo is a Chinese company, but it’s huge. And that’s why you don’t see IBM personal computers anymore. And they’re in bigger servers and cloud. And then you have assets and what many people don’t know because some people would think never heard of this before. The motherboards that you get in other computers are actually made by Asus. Right. So it’s it’s a hardware like started as a hardware component company. Yes, then I don’t want to say recently because they’ve been available for more than 10 years. But it became more famous recently. You know, with their new laptops. Mine is asked us on I love it. Great. The performance is great. It’s very fast. Sure it’s light. So you know when it’s on my back I don’t feel like I’m carrying a brick and the battery stays for about three and a half hours. Sure. And for something that light with a good screen size and everything is brilliant. And I don’t know if I’m if I’m allowed to offer advice when you’re buying a laptop, especially laptops, how I go about it is is a few bits and pieces. Number one, I want something that slight in weight. Because I had a Lenovo, I love Lenovo are workhorses. I know they don’t look sexy because they don’t design them with color and stuff. But like there will work for the next 15 years Exactly. But they’re heavy. Like the actual machine is like, heavy. That’s right. So I want something light because pre COVID I used to move around a lot with my laptop or my bag for get onto the train or the SkyTrain go downtown Vancouver, you know, and with the Lenovo like, my shoulder was aching, right? So I want something light, but maybe light is not for everyone. I want battery power, you go and work for Starbucks. And sometimes there’s no socket, you want this computer to survive for a couple of hours you therefore. So I look at battery power, then I look at the screen resolution because some of these PCs, especially the cheaper end, yes. Once you’re outside in the light, you can’t see anything for the screen resolution only works indoor. Sure. And when you’re buying it in a shop, you’re in a shop, so you’re not gonna test it outside. So this is something that you have to ask a professional about. or do a little bit of research the screen brightness, like there’s a number there tells you like the level of brightness and stuff, but it’s too techie. So just ask someone and tell them whether you work indoors, outdoors, or both. That’s right. And then the technician or the person will be able to help you. And these are the three things that are normally look at the rest, in my opinion, like many people are fixated on his Intel processor better than AMD. Or does this computer get hot quicker than another? Yes. And I don’t really think there is one thing or it depends on the design of the machine. And I don’t think one processor is predominantly better than another for different they have different purposes. One is for gaming one is for like, it depends what you want to do with it.
Yeah, exactly.
And and yeah, like so. Always have a preventive maintenance plan. Is it worth when you’re buying a new computer to go and buy extended warranty?
It depends on a couple of factors. Because I’ve spoken about this to a few clients, though, I helped them to get a new computer through dell.ca they seem to be the ones to offer the extended warranties. So I would suggest when you’re getting a computer, they all come standard with a one year warranty. I suggest at least get another year. Okay, at least then
I was gonna take three. Yeah, two, okay. Instead of just
saying the minimum Yeah, saying their minimum. And over here. Having it like for me personally, I have a Dell vostro notebook computer that I bought. Wow. I bought
it Oh, they don’t make them anymore. That’s right.
I bought this laptop from dell.ca. In April in a month’s time. I’ve had that computer for eight years. Wow. And when I bought it, I got it. I bought a three year extended warranty. Because I wanted yes for three years. So for me personally, I tend to get the maximum extended warranty that I can get. So I had the first year and I bought another three years. But it’s all
Yeah, I’m sure people who are buying from Amazon sometimes when you buy hardware from Amazon. Yes. They try to sell you some kind of an insurance with an extended warranty. Yes. I think they use a third party company.
That’s right.
So do some research guys, because what I read about them is that they’re not as good with everything. They’re good with some stuff, but not all the stuff and that you know, read the Terms and Conditions quite well with the extended warranty to figure out whether it’s repair, replacement, what type of service you’re purchasing. Exactly. The best ones of course, are the replacement. Something happens we’ll take it back. That’s it and give you a new one. Exactly. I’ve used that I had a I can’t remember the brand now like that was 2001 I dropped I bought a new computer and after a few months I dropped it and it broke a laptop. And at the time like 2000 2001 laptops were mega expensive. They were like $3,000 or something. And but I was lucky I had this insurance that covers accidental damage. Yes, they took it and give me back my money and then I bought a new computer.
That’s why I say that. But I also get as well, with Dell they do offer, they do offer accidental damage, I always get that with my laptop. And I got that for three years. Yeah. And so, and then that computer is now eight years old, and I’m still using it. And it just goes to show that that particular computer company, there’s no
doubt is brilliant,
I love their systems are built to last. And I, I recommend a lot of Dell computers to a lot of my clients, they actually take my recommendation, they purchase Dell. And then once the purchase that I go and see the customer, we take the data from their existing computer and the new computer and set up the new computer for them during the covid 19. Where he can’t necessarily do that. I like to share just one little story, a longtime client in Toronto, about six months ago, purchase a brand new Dell computer system, a desktop computer with our recommendation, I set up a zoom session because my client has an existing laptop, we use the client’s laptop, we set up the zoom, we were able to see each other on the video and I was able to guide my client through the steps of taking this stuff out of the box.
How to set it up. Yeah,
how to connect the cables and everything.
Oh, yeah, because it’s brand new. If it’s a if it’s not a laptop, if it’s a PC, then you have multiple ports that you have to crack, right. So
that’s also my customer bought a desktop computer. So I was able to virtually on zoom, assist my customer and get it up and running. And then we did that. And then once my customer turned on the computer, then we put in the remote utility and then you can go and finish off the job, which is exactly what I did. And we do that for all clients who buy new computers. And before COVID hit us. I was doing all these things at the client’s location. It’s
a great idea. Yeah. Yeah, I’ve been there before. Like we’ve worked together on a couple of clients and our member one time a client wanted to give me I think it was eight computers for us to fix. Yes. And the fight. It was pre COVID. But the funny part is because he came with a box full of laptops. Yes. And he asked me to open the trunk of my car is a he felt like we’re doing something bad. Because like you, you have the money. Yes. Like they drove the goods. And they go, right? I was. So it can be contactless actually even with COVID. That’s right, you can agree on some drop off and pick up points. And you can go even all the way to their office, or home or home office, and just ask them to leave it outside the door.
And that’s exactly what we do. For the COVID meant 19 measures. Actually, we’ve already done this for quite a number of our customers. We arrange a pre arranged date in time. When we are when I arrived, the computer is sitting there waiting for me. I bring it to my lab, disinfected, backup the data, make sure everything else is fine. Do the usual diagnostics, and then any required services. Yeah. And then we then arrange a specified date and time for a contactless delivery. And then we proceed with that
perfect. And I have to say, in most cases, you don’t need to take the computer away, you’re able to log in remotely and fix it anyway like this. No, these are some specific cases, especially if the computer won’t connect to the internet, then we can do a remote remote, or won’t even start, like so in this case it has to be taken. That’s right. But in most cases, the disinfection and and looking at the performance and optimizing that performance. Can Sorry, can be done via a remote session. Oh,
yes, absolutely. I would say that 80 to 85% of our servicing is done virtually virtually and remotely. About I would say 15 to 20% of the time is when the computer just is not working properly. Yeah, that’s really
if it’s too old of you, or you waited too long to call. Yeah, that’s probably gonna be
and then that’s where we come into the contact list, pick up a delivery and we do the lab servicing.
Yeah, I mean, it’s like regular health care guys. Like if you’re, if you’re healthy doing you’re exercising, sleeping, well, eating well drinking a lot of water. You don’t need to go to hospital, probably if you have a little bit of a cough and not COVID. But you know, you just take a panadol or an Advil and you’re good. Same thing with computers, but if you leave it for too long, then you need to go to the hospital and run checks and stuff. Exactly. So is the same thing with a computer. Don’t leave it for too long. The minute you feel like it’s a little sluggish. behaving be strange or or you know, not doing something that you want it to do. Just get in touch with, you know, the computer doctor or a computer doctor or, or someone you know, trust and let them have a look at it.
Absolutely.
So Edward, thank you very much for being here. I just need to let everyone know that he’s in Toronto as well as Vancouver like Okay, oh, let’s say Ontario and British Columbia. But you’re able to service of course, any other province remotely if they need to.
Well, for that matter, anywhere in the world by room Yeah,
anywhere in the world anywhere
in the world. And it’s www dot computer age service n t.com. And our eat my email addresses info at computer age service n t.com. And our local Vancouver number is 604-435-8254.
I’m gonna put these details guys below when the podcast is published so that you can copy you can get in touch with Edward, thank you very much and hope everybody has good health for themselves as well as their computers.
And thank you very much and Have a great day. Thank you You too. Thank you Amr
