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17 Useful Windows Phone Tools For Computer Technicians

December 15, 2011 by Rick

Authors: Guest Writer

Guest Post by Ric Chapman.

I think I’m somewhat safe in saying that Windows Phone 7 arrived late to the game and is still very much the underdog in today’s smartphone market. But whilst Microsoft are busy playing catch up their hard work is slowly paying off as it starts to carve its place among the Android, iPhone and Blackberry competition. Its ease of use and excellent integration into the Microsoft ecosystem is what’s starting to make it popular among home, business and now the technical community alike.
Having said that there’s still a bumpy ride ahead, at the time of this writing there are only 45,000 apps in the market place compared to Apple’s 500,000! When the phone was released, Technician apps were practically non-existent. I know, I was there, eagerly looking for what I could use out in the field. I didn’t find much, and what I did find didn’t work.. at all. But thankfully today is a much different story and I bring you the apps that I’m using on an almost daily basis as a Computer Technician.

17 Useful Windows Phone Tools For Computer Technicians

Lync 2010

Lync 2010 arrives on time as promised and is an excellent app for staying in touch with colleagues, clients and family whilst on the move. Although it integrates nicely with the OS it would have been nice to see something similar to the Messenger integration deployed with Mango, but I’m just nit-picking. It’s a great app and although the app is free, you do require access to a Lync server. Mine comes courtesy of Office365, it just works and works well.
Price: FREE – Lync server required
Link

My Home Server

I absolutely love this app and is a must for anyone who owns their own or installs and maintains home servers for their clients. You can connect to any Home Server whilst you’re on the move allowing you to check important notifications, disk space, access files and manage user accounts including user creation and password resets. If your clients are happy for you to have access you can monitor and provide basic support from wherever you are at a touch of a button.
Price: FREE
Link

My Business Server

Almost identical to the My Home Server app with a focus on Microsoft Small Business Server Essentials only, would have been nice to have seen this for the SBS Standard but perhaps something will arrive later down the line. The SBS Essentials edition is the server of choice for my small business clients and as a support app is indispensable. The Live Tile only adds to my excitement by providing an instant indication of available disk space and the number of important / critical alerts you have pending right on the phones home screen.
Price: FREE
Link

Sky Wallet

Sky Wallet is a powerful password management app and I would be lost without it especially as clients are increasingly becoming reliant on their support techs for remembering their account details. Where Sky Wallet shines is its integration with SkyDrive, your details are synced and encrypted on your SkyDrive storage. If you need to reset your phone, you needn’t worry about losing the data. Secondly there’s a desktop companion app which comes included with this app allowing you to access your passwords directly from your PC avoiding the need to move back and forth between your desktop and phone.
Price: £2.99 / $3.99
Trial Available: Yes
Link

Flashlight 7

The flashlight tool is a very easily overlooked app and I’ve simply lost count on how much I’ve used this, I often find myself under a dimly lit desk or a dark comms cupboard. As I’m always carrying my phone, it makes sense not to be carrying a torch. There is a large array of flashlight apps which offer a variety of features so do shop around.
Price: FREE
Link

Subnet Calculator

Any technician working with medium and larger businesses should already know how to do this sort of thing without a calculator. But who would want to? We all work to a schedule and unless you can do this sort of thing in your head in less than 10 seconds then you might as well reach for your pocket. There are plenty of calculators out there, this one works great and has the added bonus of being free.
Price: FREE
Link

Connect Anything

The title of the app can be a little misleading and is simply a reference tool. I specifically use it for the Ethernet Pinout information when making up my own network cables.
Price: FREE
Link

Remote Desktop

Whilst there are plenty of remote desktop tools out there this is by far my favourite, not the cheapest but the one I generally get the best performance from overall. Most of these apps come with free trials and I’d recommend you try them before making a final decision.
Price: £4.99 / $5.99
Link

Amazon Kindle

Being a Kindle fan I downloaded this app the moment it became available and whilst I do read for pleasure, a lot of my reading also involves tech or reference books. Whilst not strictly a technical tool it can be a great informational tool avoiding the need carry the large books that plague most students and technicians. A quick and easy EBook reader on the go.
Price: FREE
Link

Network Tools

0 0A small collection of network connectivity tools providing ping tests, tcp port connection tests, http and https connectivity tests as well as the ability to save a selection of URI’s for periodic checking, useful if you’re wanting to check the health of multiple web sites quickly. It’s absolutely free if you don’t mind the adverts which are not intrusive.
Price: FREE with ads or £2.29/$2.99 for the ad free version
Link

The SSH Client

1 1A very simple and free SSH client that works brilliantly, the paid version comes with telnet support and a ton of customisation and configuration settings.
Price: FREE or £2.49/$3.49 for the PRO version
Link

IP Camera Viewer

2 2I find these are quite popular tools among the tech community so I’ve included my favourite, originally acquired to keep an eye on my home office as I struggled to find anything that I was certain I had left on my desk. Turns out wife likes to clean my desk …. a lot. IP based cameras provide an excellent option for security and this app extends their use allowing you to keep an eye on things whilst on the move.
Price: FREE
Link

As mentioned previously, the Windows Phone integration with Bing and the Live services are what helps this phone stand out among its peers and may play a large part in its future success. The following items are not apps but integrated features within the OS that work exceptionally well and can prove invaluable whilst out in the field.

Office Hub

The Office hub provides excellent mobile office apps including Word, Excel, PowerPoint and the ever popular OneNote. I live in OneNote and much prefer this to carrying around a notebook and pencil, an excellent note taking app regardless of your situation.

Maps

Finding new addresses is always a daunting task but Bing Maps makes the whole process a lot easier, I did have concerns about how it would stand up against Google Maps on other smartphones but I needn’t have worried. If you have a phone holder in the car it even serves well as (very temporary) sat-nav replacement provided that there is decent data coverage of course. Mileage is presented to the user but is not recorded so I use OneNote to take down mileage and the phones multi-tasking features make it easy to flick between the two apps.

Office 365

Microsofts cloud based service Office 365 was made for Windows Phone, whether you need an Exchange based email service, SharePoint file access then you simply cannot go wrong. Email access is powerful and SharePoint makes easy work of file collaboration with colleagues and clients. Office 365 is beyond the scope of this article but I do urge you to check it out.

SkyDrive

Cloud based file access with SkyDrive is simple and easy and was a missing key feature in the original release. I now store all my client notes and access them from the cloud whilst onsite where necessary using the free SkyDrive service.

Bing – Local Scout

Nowhere near home or the office? Need that coffee to see you through the next appointment? Then the local scout integrated with the Bing Search app is what you need. Food/Drink located and mapped in a couple of moments … a true techy life saver.

45,000 apps compared to 500,000 is quite a small number and Microsoft has some way to go before it’s covering all our technical needs. There’s no news on an official DropBox app (although there are plenty of alternative third party DropBox apps available) and presently there’s no word on how Skype will integrate with the phone. But I sense these things and other much needed apps are not too far away. 45,000 whilst comparatively small is still too large for one tech to cover so if there’s anything I’ve missed that you feel deserves a mention then please comment and let us know.

Guest Post by Ric Chapman: Ric has been in the IT support business for 12 years driven by his love of tech and passion to help others. Ric carries several certifications from both Microsoft and CompTIA and worked in a myriad of support environments, that experience he now puts into developing his own IT consultancy business.

© Technibble – A Resource for Computer Technicians to start or improve their Computer Business
To get started with your own computer business, check out our Computer Business Kit. 17 Useful Windows Phone Tools For Computer Technicians

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OnForce Mobile App for Pros – Now available for iPhone!

December 13, 2011 by Rick

Authors: gabe

I’m having a great day here at OnForce today — why, you ask? Our iPhone app for OnForce Pros just hit the app store! The app is designed to be a hyper-efficient way for OnForce Pros to access OnForce while on-the-go, and it fully supports all the activities needed to review and accept new work […]

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3 Ways for Computer Technicians to take Advantage of the Mass Adoption of Tablets

December 11, 2011 by Rick

Authors: Bryce Whitty

The computer market is constantly changing and one of the big changes in recent times was the introduction of cheap netbooks like the Asus EEEPC. Now we are seeing the mass adoption of tablets like the Apple iPad and in both cases, some computer technicians have expressed fear that this will reduce the amount of desktops and laptops we have to repair.

It is quite possible that they will change the computer repair scene but I don’t see it as a problem, I see it as an opportunity. Most industries are constantly evolving and the repair work we do needs to be slightly altered to keep up.

In this article, I’ll show you three ways to take advantage of mass adoption of tablets.

Setup & Syncronization

We all know that tablets can be used for watching movies and playing some games, but the real power comes from when they are hooked up to other devices and services. It could be connected to the internet so clients can download their emails, stay current with the news, watch their stocks and know what the weather is going to be today.

You would think that if a client was this well connected that they would probably know how to set all of this up themselves, but with the simplicity of the Apple iPad, there is a huge generation of people entering the digital realm that previously wouldnt go anywhere near it. As intuitive as these modern devices are, they still need someone to enter their POP and SMTP settings, they still need to hook it up to their wireless (if they have one at all) and still need to setup an account with the App store.

A good example of this is one of my clients who has an iMac, iPhone, iPad and she would be an intermediate user who knows how to use most of the functions. When I was called out there was a few problems she wanted me to look at but one of them was that she wanted her emails to appear on all three devices because with the current setup, if the iMac opened it first it would not appear on the other two devices.

All I had to do was turn on the “leave a copy on server for X days” option in her iMacs email application. It is simple work for you and I, but there are so many people who dont know there is even an option like this. Apple claims that the devices “just work” and stand alone they are pretty good, but they dont always play nice with other software which means there is plenty of work in this area.

Education

As intuitive as tablet operating systems are, plenty of people still dont know how to use the device. They are well aware of what it is capable of thanks to the commercials but have no idea how to actually do it. In my personal experience with iPad clients, most people wanted to be able to check their email, check the weather and maybe play some music.

I would show them how to download an application if their device needed it to use those features (after setting up their app store accounts), showed them that there is now an icon on the home screen, press this and then that. I billed many hours this way and the clients loved me for it because their children and grandchildren would either go through it all too quickly for them to learn or get frustrated trying to teach them.

Hardware Repairs

Last but not least, tablets are portable and they will get damaged so there is an opportunity in repairing them. There are many resources out there to learn how to repair tablets but one of the best I have found is the iFixit.com tablet section. They have instructions for repairing Apple iPads, Nooks, Dell Tablets, HP Tablets, Motorola Tablets, RIM Tablets, Amazon Kindle Fires and the original Amazon Kindle. They do have a parts link on the right hand side where you purchase parts, but eBay has far better prices.

Of course, you shouldn’t learn the basics on your clients expensive devices. Instead, buy some broken devices and spare parts on eBay for dirt cheap, fix them and learn along the way. You can even sell the fixed device afterwards and make money from your education.

I don’t see the mass adoption of tablets as a threat to our industry, just an opportunity. They dont replace Desktops and Laptops, but work along side them and actually pulls people further into our world with a heavier reliance on technology.

© Technibble – A Resource for Computer Technicians to start or improve their Computer Business
To get started with your own computer business, check out our Computer Business Kit. 3 Ways for Computer Technicians to take Advantage of the Mass Adoption of Tablets

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Inside an Apple Technicians Toolkit

November 28, 2011 by Rick

Authors: Bryce Whitty

Guest Post by Marco Rodi: Marco Rodi owns an IT Engineering university degree. He has his own computer repair business (OrdiRodi) that mainly does Apple Support.
There are a few articles here on Technibble about what is in a PC technicians toolkit. However, when you are an Apple Tech your bag is not quite the same. Whenever a client calls me for an emergency, these are the tools I always carry in my Apple technician toolkit, no matter what the problem is.

Lion/Snow Leopard Boot USB

Usually, when your client’s computer won’t boot into the OS the CD drive won’t work. Either a CD will be stuck inside and you can’t eject it, or you can’t insert a new CD as the system won’t recognize it. This is why I always bring a Bootable USB drive with either Snow Leopard of Lion on it. When you insert it in your client’s computer, you can hold the “Option” key (ALT key if you are using a non-Apple keyboard) while you boot the Mac and select your USB drive. To create this USB Key, you need your original Lion installation file or your Snow Leopard CD and use the Disk Utility application on your Mac. (http://www.cultofmac.com/105527/how-to-make-a-bootable-install-disk-of-mac-os-x-lion/)

Snow Leopard CD

I always bring the Snow Leopard CD. Sometimes you won’t need a USB drive as CD Drive will work just fine. If you install this version on your client’s Mac, you do not need a serial number.

Dust Blower

No matter what I do on my client’s computers, I always use the Dust Blower at the end of the job. It adds a professional touch to it and usually the client has never removed the dust. Here in Montreal, I always buy the DustOff Original Duster. You can buy a 10 pack of those for just $12.99.

Knopixx CD

Incredible tool that lets you boot in a complete Unix environment directly on the CD. You can access the hard drive and backup files. This is really helpful if the OS does not boot and you want to backup your client’s files. You simply need to insert this CD and an external drive to backup everything. (http://www.knoppix.net/)

Universal Drive Adapter

This will let you repair your client hard drive directly from your computer. You remove the hard drive from your client’s computer, plug it into this device, and access it via usb from your machine. This tool is good to repair disk permissions, backup files and to completely clear a hard drive. It works perfectly on both Mac and Pc. You can buy this one here: http://www.ifixit.com/Apple-Parts/Universal-Drive-Adapter/IF107-108

ProTech Base Tool

When you try to open your client’s Apple Computer and either change the RAM, remove the hard drive or change the motherboard, you will always have to deal with an unusual screw. Apple does it on purpose so nobody can open/fix their machine except them. You really need to bring all the tools necessary to remove all the pieces for your needs. I use this set of tool created by ifixit: http://www.ifixit.com/Tools/Pro-Tech-Base-Toolkit/IF145-072
It has everything you need to repair iMacs, Macbooks, MacPros, iPhone, iPod Touch etc.

RAM Memory

Sometimes, when you try to boot the computer and you hear one or two beeps, the RAM failed. I always bring extra RAM to test this issue and to sell it to my clients if this is the problem.

External USB Hard drive

I bring my pocket 1TB external hard drive for backup. (model no. WDBACZ0010BBK-NESN). Usually your client won’t have another drive to back up his files. I like this HP drive because it is Mac/PC compatible and it supports USB 3.

USB Key

I bring my 4gb USB key that includes all the free software Mac offers. I always install all of them on my client’s computer. I know this is personal but up until now, my clients love it! This usb key includes:

Suction Cups

The iMac is the most difficult machine in the world to change its hard drive. Why? Because you have to remove the huge front glass. The only way of doing it is with suction cups. I only bring those if my clients have a problem with an iMac. http://www.ifixit.com/Tools/Heavy-duty-Suction-Cups-Pair/IF145-023

Magnifying glass

I usually use this on Macbook’s problems. When you have to change the trackpad, keyboard, motherboard etc. http://www.ifixit.com/Tools/Helping-Hands/IF145-082

Kensington Contour Pro 17″ Nylon Laptop Case

I can easily fit all of those things in this bag. I also always bring my 15” Macbook pro in it. http://www.futureshop.ca/en-CA/product/kensington-contour-pro-17-nylon-laptop-case/10040886.aspx?path=28ee4468307abdf19cb8fdcfbaa5cd56en02

These are my main tools that usually cover everything I need. Whats in your Mac technician bag?

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6 Reasons Why You Should Consider Remote Support

November 23, 2011 by Rick

Authors: Bryce Whitty

Have you ever considered expanding your computer repair business by doing remote support? While it is unlikely to replace your physical computer repair work, it does allow you to save time with your current work and expand your service area. Here are some of the benefits of remote support that are worth considering.

6 Reasons Why You Should Consider Remote Support

Billable Hours

Many people scoff at the fact that a Computer Technician will charge in the range of $100 hour. Especially when a 9 to 5 office job will only earn in the range of $20-40 per hour. What these people dont understand is as business owners, we have to these charge prices because there is a large amount of unbillable hours where we still have to work, but cannot directly charge for. One of the biggest contributors to unbillable time is driving time (I know some techs DO charge for driving time/distance though).
With remote support, you can often cut out the driving time. In fact, you can pretty much start the moment you get the call.
If you are an onsite computer technician, think about how much time you spend driving around on a typical day. In my business, it was easily 3-5 hours depending on how many jobs I had lined up in the day.

Profit

On the topic of driving time, while you are running around town all day you are consuming fuel and slowly devaluing your vehicle as you rack up the miles/kilometers on the odometer. Of course, these are normal business expenses that you factor in but with remote support you can reduce these. Resulting in more overall profit.

Efficiency

Remote Support also allows you to work more efficiently. We all know about “loading bar time” where we cant do much more other than but sit there and watch the loading/installing bar slowly reach 100%. If you were working on a machine where you had to wait like this via remote support, you could use that time to work on another persons computer or do an in-office task – making better use of your time.

Access To Resources

We computer technicians cannot know what every single error message means and how to fix it, so we occasionally need to turn to the almighty Google. There is no shame in referring to Google but it doesnt always look good doing so in front of customers. With remote support, you have access to one of your own machines where you can research the clients problems and have access to a range of applications.

Geographic Location

This is an obvious benefit. Most onsite technicians have a “service area” where they limit the maximum distance they are willing to drive. With remote support, the geographics dont really matter anymore as long as the client has a good enough internet connection. Even with my own business, I look after my clients in my home city of Melbourne Australia even though I am currently living in London UK. Even though my clients are half a world away, the speeds are actually pretty good.

Proactive System Maintenance

If you are a computer technician who has maintenance contracts with their clients, keeping an eye on your clients systems is made much easier and more effective with remote support. For example, you can log into their systems and check the usual Windows/Antivirus updates and hardware statuses once every 2 weeks, and visit the clients physical location quarterly to check the physical state of the computer. Again, this saves you time driving around all the time to support your maintenance contracts.

Getting Started

If you are interested getting into remote support, I recommend you check out Lisa Hendricksons guide “Call That Girls Guide To Remote Support” which is now in its second edition.
Lisas book is not a technicial manual on how to do remote support but rather a remote support business operations manual. It includes setting your remote support rates, getting a ticketing system setup, marketing your remote support services, accepting payments remotely and up-selling.
It also talks about what to do if the clients internet doesnt work, dealing with issues you cannot fix remotely and how to deal with issues that make working remotely difficult.

Lisa’s guide is currently selling for $79 until December 24th, comes with a free copy of her “Computer Business Manual of Operations” and comes with a full refund policy if you find its not for you, so its completely risk free. You can check out the guide and what is in it by CLICKING HERE.

If you are looking for remote support software, ScreenConnect is picking up a lot of popularity on the Technibble forums. Their concurrent licenses start at $275 and once you purchase it you can use it forever. The software is self hosted giving you a bit more control over your product.
It comes with all the features you would expect from a good remote support package such as being crossplatform, has a Android/iOS app and is brandable. You can check out ScreenConnect HERE.

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System Restore Explorer – View, Delete and Browse Inside System Restore Points

November 18, 2011 by Rick

Authors: Bryce Whitty

System Restore Explorer is small, freeware tool that allows you to view and delete specific Windows system restore points. This is a handy way to clear up some disk space without wiping out all of the restore points since previously the only built in option we had was either all or none.

However, the best feature is that it allows browse and copy individual files inside the system restore points, without performing a full system restore.

When you install System Restore Explorer, you see a list of all the available system restore points including the time and date of when they were taken. You can right click on any of these and you
have the option to Mount, Unmount or Delete that specific restore point. If you Mount that restore point, it will show you the files inside that restore point in your standard Windows Explorer interface allowing you to manage the files inside it like you would any other file on your system.

This application only works in Windows Vista and Windows 7.

Screenshots

Viewing the list of available restore points to Mount or Delete.

Browsing inside a mounted restore point.

Download

Download from Official Site (search for “download it here”) – 840kb

Special thanks to the forum member Galdorf for recommending this one.

© Technibble – A Resource for Computer Technicians to start or improve their Computer Business
To get started with your own computer business, check out our Computer Business Kit. System Restore Explorer – View, Delete and Browse Inside System Restore Points

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Chief Counsel Praises the Repeal of Three Percent Withholding Requirement on Contractors

November 15, 2011 by Rick

Authors: Mitalis

How To Perform a Perfect BackUp Reinstall with Apple Time Machine

November 14, 2011 by Rick

Authors: Bryce Whitty

Guest Post by Marco Rodi: Marco Rodi owns an IT Engineering university degree. He has his own computer repair business (OrdiRodi) that mainly does Apple Support.

So you receive a call from a client saying “My hard drive just crashed!!” or “I just bought a new Mac and I need to transfer all my information” or even “I want to clear my hard drive and do a clean installation”.

As a professional, you need to know exactly what to do to perform a perfect backup and reinstall. You don’t want to lose a client’s files or preferences. The client wants to have the exact same thing as before: their beautiful Mac, up and running again. They do not want to call you back and say: “Hey! I don’t have my music in my iTunes anymore!”, “Where are my bookmarks?” or “How come my icons are smaller?”.

Here are the steps to perform a perfect backup and reinstall on OSX using Time Machine.

First of all, you need to backup everything. With Apple it’s easy.
There is a built in application called Time Machine and you simply need to plug an empty external drive into the computer (Yes, it must be empty because it will wipe everything on it), and activate Time Machine.

To activate Time Machine, simply open your System Preferences. And click on the Time Machine icon.

Click on “Select Disk”.

Choose your external drive and click on “Use Backup Disk”.

Time Machine will copy everything (OS, Software, Files, and Preferences) to the external hard drive. So when you will reinstall the OS, you can restore everything from that backup.

Once everything is backed up, we need to clear and format the new hard drive. To do so, you need to have a copy of the OS that you need to install (Snow Leopard or Lion). It can be on either CD or USB, it does not matter.

Shutdown the computer and insert your bootable device into the client’s Mac.

Boot the Mac while holding the “Option” key (ALT key if you are using a non-Apple keyboard). You will arrive on a window where you can choose a bootable device. Please choose your OS Installation (Either CD or USB).

You will then arrive at this window. Choose the language you want and press enter.

Click on Utilities and choose Disk Utility.

Select the drive you want to format to the left.

On the Erase Tab, use the “Format” Dropdown and choose “Mac OS Extended (Journaled)”.

Name your Hard Drive

Click the Erase Button.

It will then take some time to format the hard drive.

Once this is completed, you can close the Disk Utility window and start the installation. It will install the OS on your new hard drive.

Once the installation is complete, it will reboot and it will start from your newly installed OS.

At the beginning, it will ask you if you want to transfer your information.

Plug your external device with the Time Machine backup and select “from a Time Machine backup” at the “Do You Already Own a Mac?” stage.

It will transfer all the files and settings that Time Machine made a backup of back onto the Mac.

So that is it. You can let your client test the computer and confirm that everything is back to normal.

© Technibble – A Resource for Computer Technicians to start or improve their Computer Business
To get started with your own computer business, check out our Computer Business Kit. How To Perform a Perfect BackUp & Reinstall with Apple Time Machine

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Google+ Pages for Computer Businesses – What You Need To Know

November 10, 2011 by Rick

Authors: Bryce Whitty

There is no doubt that social networking is here to stay. While some Computer Technicians may consider it just a new buzz word, other technicians are using it as their primary source of advertising. Google+ is newest major player in the social network game.

After several months, Google finally announced Google+ pages for local businesses, groups, brands and organisations. If you are familiar with Facebook pages, this is basically the Google+ equivalent. In this article, I’ll tell you why you should look into Google+ Pages and what you need to know before you claim your page.

Why You Should Care

Google+ Pages, like Facebook Pages allows you to have a two way conversation with your clients. If they follow your page, your updates appear in their stream. This is an incredibly cheap way to advertise your business through discounts, specials and generally being on the front of your clients mind.

What If You Already Have a Google+ Account For Your Business?

I know of many Computer Businesses who have already have Google+ accounts for their business. However, it is actually against Google+’s terms to have a Google+ profile for a business. The account must be for an individual. The Google team will suspend accounts that break this rule.

From the Google+ Help Pages:
Your profile and name must represent one individual.
Google+ does not support profiles for couples or groups of people. Additionally, you cannot create a profile for a non-person entity such as a pet or business.

Violation examples: Jones Family, Jeremy & Mel Mason, Vegas the Dog, Brooklyn Bagels, Northern California Conservation Society

Google does plan to allow Google+ Business Profiles in time, but don’t hold your breath plus your account could get banned in the mean time.
If you have already done this, you can change your businesses Google+ account back to an individual (typically yourself). You can do this by going to your Google+ profile, click the “Edit Profile” button that is on the top right. Click on the name displayed up the top of the profile page. From there, you can type in a legitimate first name and last name. Then press save.

What You Need to Know Before You Claim Your Google+ Page

Contests, Sweepstakes, Offers, Coupons and Other Promotions From Your Page
In Google+’s content and promotion policies page, it disallows you from running contests, sweepstakes, offers, coupons and other promotions DIRECTLY on your Google+ page. You may however, link to a separate site (such as your actual businesses site or blog) that contains the promotion.

You may not run contests, sweepstakes, offers, coupons or other such promotions (“Promotion”) directly on your Google+ Page. You may display a link on your Google+ Page to a separate site where your Promotion is hosted so long as you (and not Google) are solely responsible for your Promotion and for compliance with all applicable federal, state and local laws, rules and regulations in the jurisdiction(s) where your Promotion is offered or promoted. Your Promotion must not be run or conducted in a way which conflicts with the +1 Button Policies, Google+ Privacy Policy or Google+ Pages Additional Terms of Service. Google has the right to remove your Promotion content from Google+ Page for any reason.
Linking your Personal Account To Your Business Page
When you visit the Create Page link and create a page, the page will be associated with the account that is currently logged in. To access your page from your account, there will be a drop down next to your name saying “1 Page”. Make sure you are logged into the account you want to associate the page with. Unlike Facebook pages, you cannot currently add any additional administrators to your account.
Be Careful When Switching Between Linked Accounts
When using a Google+ account or page, it is not always obvious which one you are currently using. You will want to double check every time you are about to post something as you will probably not want to send a personal message out to all your clients and vice versa.

Beautify Your G+ URL

Once you create a G+ page, you will find that its URL is pretty long. For example, Technibbles G+ page URL is: https://plus.google.com/b/111951375001480014041/
Obviously, you don’t want to have write that long URL on any advertising so you can shorten it with a G+ specific URL shortner. I recommend gplus.to

Using gplus.to, I can change Technibbles page URL to http://gplus.to/technibble

So What Now?

If you are new to Google Plus, you can signup here (under your own, non-business name): https://plus.google.com
Once you have done that, you can create a page for your business here: https://plus.google.com/pages/create
If you like, add Technibble’s page to your Circles: http://gplus.to/technibble

© Technibble – A Resource for Computer Technicians to start or improve their Computer Business
To get started with your own computer business, check out our Computer Business Kit. Google+ Pages for Computer Businesses – What You Need To Know

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Computer Technicians Guide To The Apple Mac Boot Shortcuts

November 7, 2011 by Rick

Authors: Bryce Whitty

Guest Post by Marco Rodi: Marco Rodi owns an IT Engineering university degree. He has his own computer repair business (OrdiRodi) that mainly does Apple Support.

In this article you will learn all the most important boot shortcuts on a Mac. We’ve all been there. The client is there, you boot their computer and the screen just hangs there. No OS. You sometimes see the grey apple logo, sometimes it’s all white and sometimes you see nothing at all. You absolutely need to know which key to press in order to repair the Mac. Enter the Apple Mac boot shortcuts.

Computer Technicians Guide To The Apple Mac Boot Shortcuts

First of all, you don’t have to use an Apple Keyboard to do these. Any regular USB PC keyboard will work as long as you keep in mind the following:
Option = ALT Key
Command = Windows Key

To make these boot shortcuts work, the computer needs to be shutdown and you need to press/hold these keys while booting the computer.

C

Sometimes, the Mac is not programmed to automatically boot from a CD. This allows you to boot directly from the CD.

Option

By far, the most useful shortcut that will tell if the computer has a hard drive failure or a motherboard corruption. When you hold option at start, it will detect all the bootable devices in the Mac such as the CD, Hard Drive, External USB and External FireWire. You can then choose which devices you want to boot from. This is perfect if you want to boot from an external USB/FireWire.

D

All Apple Computers come with an Hardware Test CD. When you hold D, the cd needs to be already inserted. It will boot Apple Hardware Test which is an incredible powerful tool that will make a precise diagnostic on your client’s computer about any form of hardware failure: RAM, hard drive, motherboard etc.

Option – Command – P – R

This combination will reset the NVRAM and PRAM of your client’s computer. What does it mean? It will reset all the default settings on the motherboard or built in features including: Serial Port Configuration, Clock, Volume, Double-Click time, Virtual Memory, RAM disk, Mouse Speed, Application Font, Alarm Clock, Monitor Color Depth, Startup Disk and Serial Printer location. This is often done if your client’s machine boots into a weird pink color. To do this NVRAM/PRAM reset, your need to hold the keys when you boot your client’s Mac. Hold down the keys until the computer restarts with the startup sound the second time.

Hold the mouse or trackpad button

This will eject all the removable media plugged to your Mac. (Cd, USB, Firewire etc.) This is perfect if the CD is stuck inside and the keyboard is not working or if the Mac tries to boot from an unknown external device.

Command-S

This will boot the machine in Single-User mode. It is a UNIX-like interface where you can enter many simple commands to troubleshoot the machine. This is mainly popular with the use of “fsck ” to check the computer disk permission.

Command-V

This starts the Mac in Verbose Mode. You will see all the descriptive text of all the boot steps, similar to Windows’s Safe Mode. If the computer freezes on startup, you can see where it will freeze.

T

This puts the Mac in Target Mode. It will transform the Mac into a giant Firewire external drive. You can access the files from another computer. Perfect if you need to repair a corrupted hard drive or backup files.

Shift

This will start the Mac on a safe boot. It will disable all the login items, all the non-default fonts, disable all the cache and it will force a directory check.

If you are still unable to enter the system or at least see the grey Apple logo at the beginning after using these shortcuts, the problem is most likely going to be a motherboard corruption.

Guest Post by Marco Rodi: Marco Rodi owns an IT Engineering university degree. He has his own computer repair business that mainly does Apple Support (OrdiRodi – http://www.ordirodi.com) located in Montreal. He works for Transat as an application support Engineer where he has to maintain all the software that makes the airplanes fly. He’s also an active bassist. (http://www.marcorodi.com)

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