Some time ago I wrote a blog post entitled 'When is a Computer Repair Not a Computer Repair?' Norm's Computer Services offers all sorts of computer repairs in Brisbane, and the premise of the post was that in fact I don't define a great deal of what I do as actually being 'computer repairs'. Let me explain.
You may be reading this as a previous or potential client of Norm's Computer Services. Many people find me by typing something into a search engine on their computer or their phone. If this is what you did when something went wrong with your computer, I wonder what you typed into Google or Bing when you wanted to find someone to resolve the issue.
Using Google Search Console, I can view the actual search terms typed in by people, which have resulted in my website being displayed in the search results. The top three search terms by far are 'computer repairs', 'computer repairs brisbane' and 'computer repair'. Other popular searches include 'computer repairs near me' and 'computer repair near me'. It seems that, for most people, a computer problem requires a computer repair.
Of course this is absolutely fine. Whether I call myself a computer repair professional, a computer technician, or an IT support pro, it doesn't really matter. What matters is that I'm able to address your issue so that, whatever your computer is doing wrong, I can resolve the problem.
On one of the days last week, I was with a client in Daisy Hill whose computer had a number of issues, not least the fact that it was rather slow. As I began to work on it and run a malware and virus scan, we started to chat about how much it would cost for this lady to purchase a new laptop. She was really only using her computer for the internet and to read her emails. I told her that it would be possible for her to upgrade her existing laptop, although it was old, which would be much cheaper than the cost of her buying a new one. We decided to go ahead and upgrade the laptop there and then.
This particular computer was an old Toshiba laptop and it was still running Windows 7. I removed the hard drive, replaced it with a Solid State Drive (SSD) and installed Windows 10. Upon booting into Windows 10 for the first time, the speed improvement was remarkable. I then reinstalled the programs she required, copied her files into the laptop from the old hard drive, made sure her printer was printing and scanning, and configured Windows 10 Mail for her emails. I also set up her emails in a free third party email client called em Client so that she would have a choice as to her preferred interface. Not only that, but I provided her with a third option which was to read her emails directly on the Outlook website.
Apart from the issues with the computer itself, one of this lady's problems had been that she wasn't receiving all her emails. This was the case whether she viewed them on her laptop, her iPad, or her phone. I checked her email settings in Outlook to see if any rules had been set to block certain emails, or whether there was any other obvious reason for the issue. The upshot was that there was nothing wrong with her settings. We ended up having a lengthy chat with Microsoft as the issue was that certain emails just weren't being delivered at all.
The previous day I worked with a very frustrated client in Rochedale South. She was frustrated because she'd been trying to upload videos to Facebook and was continually receiving a message that the format of the videos wasn't supported. This was in spite of the fact that the videos were MP4, a format which is certainly supported by Facebook and which she'd been using for years.
After some pretty intensive troubleshooting, and hitting plenty of dead-ends, we found a solution for the issue. It was an unusual solution. In order to upload the videos successfully, we had to change the file extension of each video from upper case MP4 to lower case mp4. Normally this should have no bearing on Facebook's ability to recognise the format of a video as the file extension isn't case sensitive. For some reason, in this case, this was what was preventing Facebook from recognising the format of the videos.
Both of these jobs involved resolving computer issues, more so than actual carrying out computer repairs. However, for you as a client, if something goes wrong with your computer then that is something which requires a computer repair. It could be an internal hardware issue with the computer, such as a failed power supply, or it could be a software issue such as corruption of the Windows operating system. These are entirely different issues, requiring a totally different approach and solution. In fact, sometimes it's not immediately clear as to whether a particular issue is hardware or software-related.
I actually find it remarkable how often I come across computer problems which are completely new to me. In fact, the issue I've just described with the MP4 files was a first time issue for me. Often the first port of call with a problem we haven't seen before is to Google for a solution and learn from other people's experiences. You can tell it's an unusual problem if Googling for a solution provides no insights at all. Such was the case with this one.
I've been sorting out computer issues for five years now and worked on hundreds and hundreds of computers. Sometimes it's an issue I've seen many times before. Other times it's a bit of a head-scratcher. But I do love the challenge of getting to the bottom of whatever is going on.
Norm's Computer Services is on hand to help you with computer repairs in Brisbane, and throughout the City of Ipswich, Logan City and the Redlands. Whatever issue you're having, please don't hesitate to get in touch. I'm here to help.