I just want to take a second to outline a chat transcript between MinuteFix Certified Technician Mark and a customer. It is full of quality responses, suggestions and tools. It satisfies our basic requirements of Customer Service and Tech Support and is just a good, strong read.

Visitor: harry
Operator: Mark
Started: 27 May 2008 18:24:27
Finished: 27 May 2008 19:28:13

* Your chat request has been answered by Mark.

Mark: Hi Harry, how can I help you today? (Solid intro. here)
harry: i guess i cant really ask you any sollutions here
harry: but the problem is the computer has just gone completely screwed
Mark: Are you having a specific technology problem?
harry: yea, in a very big way
harry: basically…
harry: all .exe file types are trying to run through utorrent… which is a downloading programme and like, the literal ‘E-data security’ like BIG programme that runs all of the important software now doesnt run
Mark: Ok, we’d be happy to help you. (Invitational Language)
harry: the computer no longer recognises anything to do with windows
Mark: Ok, is this another machine you are typing from? (Recognition of hardware)
harry: error boxes keep popping up and you litterally cant click ANYTHING to do with
harry: …hang on
harry: no we were able to make firefox work somehow
harry: through a short cut
Mark: Do you have an antivirus program installed?
harry: the big problem is ALLOT, if not ALL of the really important programmes can no longer run
harry: nothing is actually running because the computer cant recognise the file type its supposed to run the programmes with
harry: we have norton
harry: but its not working, like everything else
Mark: A couple of questions:
harry: ok
Mark: How is the problem being initiating. Does it run on its own (meaning virus) or does it happen when you click on something?
Mark: What operating system are you using? (SO IMPORTANT)
Mark: Do you have a phone?
harry: neither… whats happened is, ALL the .exe files on the computer (basically meaning ALL programmes - the whole software basis) was innitially changed to run through a programme called ‘u-torrent’. and as that programme isnt designed to run as that part of the computer no programmes could then run, an error box kept popping up saying ‘u torrent doesnt support this file type’
harry: thats when you clicked a programme anywhere on the computer, all it does is open u torrent with that error message
Mark: Windows XP?
Mark: Can you unistall utorrent?
harry: we then moved u-torrent to the recycle bin (not deleted incase that messes it up even more), now the computer brings up that box saying ‘which programme do you want to use to run this programme’
harry: when you click anything… so its forgotten how to run all programmes
harry: or something like that
harry: we’re on vista
harry: as you can see its a wierd problem
Mark: Can you uninstall utorrent?
harry: no we dont have a phone line
Mark: ok
harry: would u sujjest we do that?, i mean, we’ve effectively done that already, now programmes still wont work because when you click anything it asks what programme we would like to use to run it
harry: meaning nothing is set to what they are supposed to be set to to run normally
harry: *we’ve moved u-torrent to the recycle bin
Mark: Ok, we actually need to unistall utorrent (Initial Diagnosis)
Mark: Not move it to the recycle bin.
harry: and we dont have a resore point , as thats not even working, its giving us the same error message
harry: ok i’ll uninstall u’torrent now hang on
Mark: Ok.
harry: ok, id actually uninstalled it when i moved it to the recycle bin, it said it has already been uninstalled
harry: but all file types are still u-torrent
Mark: Putting it in the recycle bin is not really unistalling it
Mark: Did you go to the control panel?
harry: yea
Mark: To uninstall?
harry: should i empty recycle bin too?
harry: yea, its been uninstalled
Mark: The recycle bin doesn’t work.
Mark: Doesn’t do anything
Mark: The recycle bin is only for files not programs.
harry: but its done nothing… the problem is, allot of important programmes that boot on start up havn’t since it happened…
Mark: yes, we’re looking into it
harry: whats happened is the file types for all programmes have been wiped, so the computer doesnt know how to run any programme
harry: some work, some dont which is wierd
Mark: Can you open a windows explorer window by typing the windows key and the “W”
Mark: Sorry, Windows + E
Mark: That should open a window
harry: anything to do with vista hasnt loaded atall, the whole security center, norton hasnt loaded… basically ALL essential programmes are not running as the computer hasnt got a file type to read on any of the programmes because….
harry: yep
harry: takes me to the main computer pannel with the c: drive e.t.c.
Mark: ok, that’s great, please stay there for a moment.
harry: thank you so much for this
Mark: go to the Tools option on the upper menu of the windows
Mark: Select Folder Options
harry: ok
Mark: you should see a tab named “File Types”
Mark: Click on the “New” button
harry: got general view and search
Mark: Ok, one moment
harry: we’re using vista home premium
Mark: Do you not have the option Tools > Folder Options?
harry: yea
harry: the tabs at the top of the folder options box are: general, view and search
Mark: Ok, one moment, thanks
harry: thankyou
Mark: Ok, we’re going to help you, onemoment.
harry: i cant thank you enough Mark: No worries.
Mark: We’re still here
harry: lol
harry: us too
Mark: Ok Harry, are you still with me?
harry: yup
Mark: I’ve been doing a little research
harry: ok
harry: thanks
Mark: and you’re re not the only one with this problem (Building customer confidence)
harry: ooo
harry: i’de hopes as much
harry: hoped*
Mark: I’d like to refer you to this page -
http://blog.jtbworld.com/2007/03/have-you-lost-your-exe-file-extension.html
harry: ok
Mark: It’s rather self explanatory
Mark: There are four registry fixes which you can download. Each one is progressively more complete.
harry: sweet
harry: and that should fix the problem?
Mark: Try downloading the first to your desktop and then double clicking it. Vista will ask you to allow it. Go ahead and do so. I’ve studied the registry entries in each option and I’ve seen no risk in each.
Mark: That’s the idea!
harry: erm, ok, i’ll do that now
harry: will i have to go through each programme individually and re-open it through the registry fixer?
Mark: After you run the 1st one then try running a couple of .exe’s that you have installed. If you see the problem persists then try the 2nd option.
harry: because that may be difficult as some of the programmes are built to start on bootup
harry: hang on though i’ll d-load it
Mark: Not at all, these are system-wide fixes. In a nutshell you somehow ended up with uTorrent associated to deal with the .exe extension. An association is how operating systems know what to do with a file. It’s why if you rename a PDF to .doc Word won’t be able to display it. The info is still there, it just doesn’t know how to handle it.
harry: yea haha thats EXACTLY what happened… in a nutshell
Mark: So what we’re doing with this fix is going into Vista at the lowest level and telling it that anything with a .exe extension needs to be treated as a Vista application and the operating system itself should handle it, rather than one of the applications you installed later. (Solid explanation)
harry: ok sweet! so basically its reset the file extention alteration
Mark: And to answer your earlier question: You do not need to do this for each application. This is a fix with system-wide reach because it’s really just one problem affecting your machine even though all your .exe’s are affected.
Mark: Not basically, you explained like it a pro!
harry: and the things that should start on bootup, like the desktop widgets e.t.c., and more important ACER! lol, should start on bootup now
Mark: Couldn’t have said it more concisely myself.
harry: haha, thanks
Mark: Well as I said, it’s important to test a few .exe. *Do Not Reboot* until you see them working.
Mark: Have you tried the first fix yet?
harry: well, you’ll be happy to hear, things are loading up now their clicked, on a side note though, the icons are still u-torrent (the look like
u-torrent icons) will that change after a reset?
harry: yea, it seems to have worked so far
Mark: Not as happy as you evidently
harry: dude… i owe you a drink! lol
Mark: Icons should reset to the original icons packaged with each application by its manufacturer barring any additional unforeseen problems.
Mark: Do you run an antivirus?
harry: yea, all .exe file types are now showing a ‘blank sheet thing’… but i guess it doesnt matter, its just an icon image
harry: yea
harry: nortons back up and running, first thing i checked!
Mark: I’d recommend you run a full system scan and then reboot. If you know how to run a boot-time scan then I would do that. If not, check the help file that came with Norton and search for “boot time scan (or check)” and follow those instructions.
harry: what would that do?, oh yea, viruses
harry: true
Mark: I personally run XP so I’m somewhat baffled as to how this problem occurred. And while it seems that it’s a generic and widespread Vista issue it’s always safe to do a full check just to rule out any sort of virus or trojan.
harry: i’ll deff do that.
Mark: A boot time scan, in simplest terms analyzes your hard drive before Windows boots. This way it doesn’t encounter any issues with locked files, especially those infected ones. It kills them before they can execute.
harry: ok, that sounds like a good idea for sure
harry: and its a simple case of instructing norton to do that, i guess by an option in the norton interface right?
Mark: I’m glad that it’s working now. Go ahead and run your antivirus now, and then the boot time scan. Should be good as new.
harry: i’ll get to it in a minute
harry: sweet man
Mark: I don’t have Norton installed on my machine so I can’t be certain. But their docs should have it front and center. It’s one of the main
features of any AV.
harry: well i must thank you from the bottom of my heart, i was way over my head there and you really helped
Mark: Is there anything else I can help you with? (Giving the customer more opportunity to work with a Tech)
Mark: It was my pleasure
harry: no man, you’v done more than enough, and i’ll be recommending this site to everyone! lol
harry: mine too
Mark: Well we appreciate that very much. Thanks for counting on MinuteFix and be sure to visit us any time you need a hand. (Building reputation and customer base)
harry: its being bookmarked! lol, for sure man. have a really good day… and week… and yea! lol
Mark: It was my pleasure.
Mark: Have a good evening.
harry: you too

I have spent a couple of nights behind the “velvet rope” waiting for access into an exclusive club or two. Never so much as when I had just turned 21 and was living in Miami. It seemed like a rite of passage almost. There just something so special about that VIP status. Perhaps it is the exclusivity of it and the ability to be one of the “chosen”. Well, my friends in the Tech world we have been given than VIP status.

Our friend at Skype, Peter Kalmström, has invited us to test out the yet-to-be-released Skype Toolbar that boasts a new feature to be included in the next version of the Skype Web add-ons. The new feature shows your Skype online status everywhere on the web. In other words, if I am browsing a web page and your name should happen to be on that page and you are one of my Skype contacts, your name will be a quicklink that when clicked will immediately engage my Skype to call you. How cool is that?

I encourage you to read Peter’s blogpost here as well as downloading the Skype toolbar here. Please note, however, that you are looking for the download at the bottom of the page. It should be SkypeIEPlugin.2.3.0.9.PamFax.exe

If you have any questions for Peter or you just want to tell him how awesome it is to be working with Skype in this capacity or really anything else, you can find him on our Ning community.

Living in the land of mass transit I am constantly reminded of the need for personal entertainment. Our society cannot just be expected to sit in silence or engage strangers in small talk. Rather we travel the ‘city of strangers’ with tunes blaring from our ear buds, our fingers constantly on the dog ear of the latest non-fiction or our minds fully engaged in an otherwise boring game of cell phone Tetris. If there is one thing I can count on though it is the amount of people dressed in their corporate uniform staring intently at the morning headlines in the Times or the Post or even the Journal (depending on their social status and obvious need for a sports page). But that may soon be about to change.

Not too long ago Amazon released the Amazon Kindle (retail $399) - an electronic reader that uses electronic ink to do for literature what the iPod did for CDs and their accompanying jewel cases.

The unit itself displays enormous potential and is even easy to read. I know, I checked one out yesterday. It has a sort of ambient light rather than a projecting light. The immediate problem is that it is thereby limited to nothing brighter than a dingy grey; not the bright, vivid colors we have come to expect from our gadgets. But I am not here to review the product. Rather, I am here to ask a few questions about what this means for us as humans and as Technicians.

Eco-friendly attitudes notwithstanding, where do devices like the Kindle leave the book industry? I personally love the smell of ink on never-before read pages as well as that crisp, cutting sound that comes from breaking the spine of a new hardback. I like the weathered look of a favorite paperback and the sense of accomplishment I get knowing I have plowed through its literary offerings. If the manuscript of old is replaced by electronic readers will the print media industry fall apart? Everyone from typesetters to pressman (yes, these jobs do still exist) right down to the graphic designers that are constantly working on new, more legible typefaces will be effected. And my gosh! As technicians, if we are asked to help someone fix their computer because they cannot get it to turn on, how in the world can we expect them to read the manual. The manual will now be on another, separate electronic device that they may not be able to work correctly.

It really just seems to open up a can of worms and I am interested to know if I am the only one who has thought about this or the only one who even cares. In the meantime, I am going to go hug my first edition “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance“ one more time.

In my life I have always found that I learn best from the mistakes of others as well as mistakes I personally have made. To this day when I find customer service to be deplorable or lacking in some way I google the experiences of others to see what their potential issues were. From that I find out all sorts of things that annoy mankind about customer service. But why do I bring this up?

Lately I have been having a lot of trouble with IKEA in regards to a sofa I purchased for my new place. I purchased the couch right at a month ago and issued my first complaint two days later. And so now on week four I am left with a couch that is still unfinished and two separate case numbers still being “processed” with IKEA. This whole situation has me googling all over to hear if I am alone in this situation. Apparently NOT.

You can see by this blog that others feel as passionate about IKEA as I. (warning: NSFW language on the post). I would love to hear your experiences with companies or what you have learned or how you deal with the frustration.

Last night proved highly successful as Liz Strauss and her Successful and Outstanding Blog(gers) site hosted an Open Comment Night for MinuteFix. With over 300 comments streaming back and forth, technicians were able to address topics ranging from Linksys wireless PC card trouble to choosing the right chat platform on Macs to how to maintain your PC by defragging.

Thank you everyone who showed up to ask questions and answer them alike.

As a Mac user and an employee of a company that currently services Windows exclusively, I have become quite familiar with the Parallels application. I am sure there are other users out there as well and we may even run into some as Technicians. It’s important then to know our options in terms of dual booting and running parallel operating systems. You can imagine my delight then to see the first update to Parallels that I am aware of in the last year. In fact, the newest version of Parallels supports Vista SP1, XP SP3.

Parallels, Inc. recently released a new version of its namesake application Parallels Desktop (3.0.5600), which includes support for Windows Vista SP1 and Windows XP SP3. It also fixes some kernel panic issues, unusually high CPU usage, and provides improvements to Shared Folders. For those of you who don’t use Parallels, I can attest to the frustration of the overwhelming CPU usage as I have had to reboot on several occasions just trying to start Parallels. I would get a frozen app and a “not responding” error in the Windows…well, window.The point of Parallels is so that Mac users with Intel processors can run Windows apps alongside Mac apps. It works rather smoothly and has saved me on a number of occasions.

If you should run into this problem with a friend or a family member or even a customer, the update is free for existing Parallels 3 users, and is available as a 88 MB DMG package.

This just in, my friends. Successful and Outstanding Blog(gers) with Liz Strauss just posted an interview with Diego conducted by Phil Gerbyshak. It is a great read and gives some really good insight to Diego’s vision for MinuteFix and what this new one-click technology is all about in terms of customer service and tech support.

This is a great preface to Tuesday night when the entire MinuteFix community will be available to answer tech questions and talk more about MinuteFix.

The tshirt slogan has been chosen. Our MinuteFix tshirts will say

What can YOU do in a minute?

The winning slogan was submitted by Emilia Hallquist, a Brooklyn resident and Facebook friend of MinuteFix. Originally from Virginia Beach, VA, Emilia is a longtime resident of New York and works as a Project Manager for a well established audio/video company. She is a graduate of The Catholic University of America and maintains her sanity with equal parts yoga and knitting.

For submitting the winning tag Emilia will receive two free t-shirts and a spot in the MinuteFix Hall of Fame (when one is established, of course.) Thank you so much Emilia for the awesome entry!

Please forgive me but I got two separate occasions mixed up.

The interview with Diego and Phil (a prelude) to the Open Comment Night will commence on Sunday night. The actual Open Comment will be Tuesday night. Please accept my apologies and mark your calendar. I will also send out an email on Saturday evening or Sunday morning to remind us all. Thank you for taking note.

It is our great privilege to have been invited by Liz Strauss, one of America’s most popular bloggers, to participate in an Open Comment Night on her blog, Successful and Outstanding Blog(gers) this coming Sunday night. For those of you who have never read any of Liz’s posts or seen her at her wildly popular brainchild SOBcon, I encourage you to check it out and join us in a few days. Each MinuteFix Certified Technician is invited to be part of this virtual panel and answer a host of tech questions from her listening and viewing public. But first, a bit more about Liz.

Liz believes “Relationships are everyone’s business, and every business is relationships.”

According to EatonWeb, “Liz Strauss is perhaps the most influential relational blogger on the Internet.” Her blog –Liz Strauss at Successful Blog — has been called both a destination and an event. Open Comment Nights, a Blog-to-Blog Conversation, a Blogger’s Cafe, single questions, and on-the-blog strategy sessions keep readers returning to conversations that often last for days. Her blog has tens of thousands of comments.

Liz understands and can translate how people perceive a blog, a product, and an experience — how the head and heart engage to make a fiercely loyal customer.

Having worked over 20 years in print, software, and online publishing, and strategized with publishers in Europe, Australia, the UK, and Ireland, Liz has worked with entrepreneurs, small businesses, companies in crisis, and corporate giants.

But How Does It Work
Open comment night is like any rambling conversation. We shouldn’t try to read it all. As Technicians our job is to represent MinuteFix and support Diego and Phil, the on-air voices of the evening. If you can’t make it right at 7pm CST just show up when you can. There will be plenty to comment on. Just go to the end and start talking. EVERYONE is WELCOME. Liz’s rules are simple — be nice. (Why is everyone staring at me now?)

I have read the transcripts of a couple of these night and there seems to always be first timers and new things to talk about. It rather strikes me as something between a live video game, live TV and a bunch of kids with a BIG imagination. The nights usually draw around 300 comments. The record is over 450. Our goal is 500!

I hope to see each of you there and in full form. Take a look at her blog the next couple of days and be prepared to build relationships with potential customers and each other. I think it is a going to be a very successful and outstanding night!

And so it goes that last night at 11:59pm the Tshirt Contest officially ended. Within the next few days Diego and I as well as our customer service guru Phil, will be getting together to choose the winner. While ALL the entries were outstanding a showed a true understanding and creativity towards the MinuteFix product, we must choose one that goes above and beyond the marketing call. I want to personally thank each entrant as we received some great options from Technicians, customers, Facebook friends and even some of our staff. As soon as a winner is chosen we will be posting the name and slogan and proceeding with the printing of t-shirts. In the meantime, if you are interested in purchasing a t-shirt at wholesale (this printing is not to make money but rather to spread the MF message) please comment below and let us know so we will have a good idea of how many to print. Thank you so much for you participation!

I do not own a Dell. I have never owned a Dell. I have, however, worked for companies that exclusively run Dell computers and have had to contact customer support on one too many occasions. Each one of those help sessions was, without a doubt, less than pleasurable. In fact, out of the six calls I remember, five of them were downright painful. Between the language barrier between myself and the tech, the lack of basic computer knowledge and the infinite collection of ‘hold muzak’, I would rather buy a new computer than deal with their customer support. Apparently I am not the only one. I gleaned this info from the interweb just today.

Dell is actually hoping that customers will pay more money to speak to an American about their tech problems.

The computer maker recently put out a press release announcing “new premium support service.” The plan is this: For a fee, people get the right to talk to “the same dedicated team each time they have an issue” with a Dell product. The kicker: The service will be provided by “an advanced support team in North America.” Sounds like Dell is going to tap into MinuteFix anyday now!

So the question begs to be asked. Is Dell finally admitting that their regular, FREE customer service is lack luster? And furthermore is a sad excuse to tap into American sentiment and patriotism in order to sell a product?

According to a Dell spokesman, “We try to do the best we can for all of our customers all the time. That said, we want to be able to provide options for customers.”

It will be interesting to see the adoption rate of this pay-for-service and even more interesting to see the people that choose alternative companies such as MinuteFix.