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NASA has released this image, which is one of Saturn’s moons and its surface. As you can see the infrared image that they scanned of the moon, shows a similarity to Pac-Man. Pretty unusual but still very cool looking.

Shown at PAX East was the first footage for Dead Space 2, which is now available on YouTube in HD as seen here. Dead Space 2 will be released in 2011 for Xbox 360, Playstation 3, and Windows PC.

Starting your own computer repair business at home can be a great way to earn some extra income or if you are unemployed, to just earn income. These days with businesses shutting down and others not hiring people, it is very hard to find a job and earn a decent living. The good thing is, if you are knowledgeable in computer repair, networking, or building custom computers, then you could turn your knowledge into cash. Well that sounds good, but you may not know where to even start with creating an at home computer repair business. It is actually pretty easy to do, but requires a lot of time, hard work, and a little bit of money to get started. I will go through the basics that will teach you how to get started and what you will need.

Creating a name and logo

First of all, you can choose to use just your name if you do not want to create a catchy business name. The only thing is that when advertising, you will not seem like a business and it may not look as professional. Sometimes business names appeal more to customers. If you decide to create a name (example: Cool Cats Computer Repair), then you will need to register for a DBA (doing business as). Registering a DBA for your business name makes it so that you legally have that exact name in your area and so that someone else cannot take the name. It is also helpful for when you want to open a business savings/checking account and want to use your registered name. This way when a customer wants to pay you, they can write their check payable to your business name. A DBA is very cheap and doesn’t take long at all to get. I paid $15 for mine, filled out a 1 page form, and it was done the first day. Easy and very well worth the $15. Plus “Cool Cats Computer Repair” sounds better than saying “John Smith”.

A logo isn’t required but is great to have for when you decide to make business cards. Something simple, clean, and creative to give your business name an image. Once it gets passed around enough, people will recognize your business just by the logo. You can either create your own logo or have someone do it for a small cost. There are a lot of logo design websites online that work very well, but if you can do it yourself then I would recommend that. Free is always better.

Equipment and materials needed

When it comes to computer repair, there are a few essential tools that you will need. Not just tools for putting things together, but software tools and business forms. Here is a list of some of the things you should have.

• Forms – for legal purposes, organizing, providing receipts, and keeping track of your customers. Forms such as maintenance logs, receipts, contracts, etc. will be needed so that you can keep track of your work and provide a copy to the customer of what has been done. Contracts are a great way to stay legally safe when it comes to repairing or building computers. You do not want to be at fault for damages you didn’t even cause. You can choose to type up a variety of forms yourself, get ideas from others online and make your own, or purchase kits. I chose to purchase the Computer Business Kit from Technibble because it includes every form you need, saves you a TON of time, and is priced reasonably at $49.
• Tool kit – these are necessary for removing and adding hardware and other various parts within a computer. There is a wide variety of tool kits, and they all are about the same except for some include more tools. So depending on how in depth you are going to go with computer repair, the kits will vary. They all include a nice carrying case to make it portable. Computer Tool Kits start out at around $10 on Amazon. Great investment for any computer repair business.
• Business cards – you will need business cards to hand out to your customers and to use for advertising purposes. Be sure to include your business name, brief description, contact number, website, e-mail, and any other information you think would be useful for the customer. This is where your logo is needed. Make sure you add it to the business card. I prefer Vista Print for making business cards online because it saves you the time, paper, and ink. Plus the prices are reasonable and you will receive them in the mail quickly.
• Software – when showing up to a customer’s house, you cannot go unprepared because it will kill your business quickly. What I recommend is to create a CD that includes software tools used for fixing problems and other helpful files. Put these on a CD-R and NOT a DVD-R disc because you never know if the customer has an old computer without a DVD drive. Keep the files on the CD organized so that you can quickly find what you are looking for. I create different folders for the types of tools, such as Anti-Spyware, Anti-Virus, etc. Be sure that your tools are legal and are compatible with all Windows Operating Systems. Tools that will be useful are Anti-Virus, Anti-Spyware, System Utilities, Registry Cleaners, Drivers, Windows Service Packs, and any other helpful software. You can go to Downloads.com and browse through the categories to find freeware you want to use.
• Optional but handy tools – Laptop computer for storing all of your software, customer information, and forms. Although a laptop isn’t required, it is useful if you need to get on the internet to download drivers/software or if you need information/files off it. External drive/USB drive will be useful to transfer files between computers, or you can use these to store software and tools. Blank CDs/DVDs , just in case you need to burn some files and give them to a customer.

Advertising

Advertising is one of the most important steps when it comes to starting a computer repair business. You need to get customers but at the same time you need to save on spending, so these are the best and cheapest ways to advertise.

• Local newspaper – you can put an ad in your local newspaper and have it run for a few days or a few weeks. Prices vary depending on the newspaper, but some of them will work out a deal with you if you advertise for a long time period. I have seen ads start at $10 a day but go up to $30 per day. Call your local newspapers and get some price quotes. Keep your ad short, descriptive, and DON’T forget your phone number.
• Craigslist.org is a great free classifieds website that gets large amounts of visits per day. Place your ad in the Services/Computers section and explain what you are doing, the price rates, and how to be contacted.
• Local bulletin boards – place fliers or business cards at bulletin boards in your local towns/cities. These boards can usually be found at town halls, grocery stores, gas stations, post offices, laundry mats, and lots of other places.
• Hand out business cards – carry business cards in your wallet so that every time you meet a potential customer you can just pull one out and hand it to them. Leave a business card with your customer after the job is done, and tell them if they’ve found your services helpful to please recommend you to their friends/family.
• Word of mouth – the best way to get your name out there is to tell everyone you know. Tell your friends, family, facebook friends, and anyone else you know so that they will spread the word around for you. You will be surprised as to how many customers you can get just by word of mouth and not spending a single penny.

A few extra tips

The basics have pretty much been covered but there are a few more helpful tips that I would use if you are interested in starting a computer repair business.

• Know your competition and do some research on your local computer repair businesses if there are some already in your area. Check out their prices, services, return policies, and everything else. This will give you an idea as to what you should charge (keep it below the competition’s prices) and what you should offer your customers. Plus you may think of ways to improve your business just by looking at their website.
• Creating a website will give you a professional look, provide you with more customers, give you more advertising opportunities, and make it easier for customers to get information on your business and prices.
• If your area already has a lot of repair businesses, then it will be harder for you to generate customers. That doesn’t mean it is impossible and you shouldn’t at least try. Make your business stand out from the others by creating an attractive name, affordable prices, more services, and a better personal experience for your customers.
• Remember that it is about your customers and making them happy. If you treat your customers badly or simply just want money and do not give them a friendly experience, then you will lose those customers. Be yourself but professional so that the customer feels comfortable with having you work on their computer. Without happy customers, you will have a business going nowhere soon.
• Stay in control, organized, and treat this as if you were running a large business because some day it may turn into one.

I will be posting more guides and tips for starting/running your own computer repair business. If you have found this post helpful, please share it with others!

Netflix announced their plans to release streaming movies to Wii consoles back in January, but today they have started to ship out instant-streaming discs to Nintendo Wii owners.

The discs were shipped out to customers who requested them and should be received Friday. This is part of the final steps of the full launch for Netflix. The people who are getting these discs are pretty much the beta testers for the upcoming release because Netflix plans to use their feedback to improve the service.

Netflix, which is already offered on the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3, will now be available on every console. Sounds like they are expanding their business quite well.

An official announcement hasn’t been made yet, but it will be soon. Users who own a Wii will need to sign up for one of the unlimited plans, which start at $8.99 a month. Once complete, they can request a free streaming disc. If you would like to be notified when this is released, check out the official site.

Global Outage (cooling failure and DNS)

Posted by mark @ wikimedia on March 24th, 2010

Due to an overheating problem in our European data center many of our servers turned off to protect themselves. As this impacted all Wikipedia and other projects access from European users, we were forced to move all user traffic to our Florida cluster, for which we have a standard quick failover procedure in place, that changes our DNS entries.

However, shortly after we did this failover switch, it turned out that this failover mechanism was now broken, causing the DNS resolution of Wikimedia sites to stop working globally. This problem was quickly resolved, but unfortunately it may take up to an hour before access is restored for everyone, due to caching effects.

We apologize for the inconvenience this has caused

.

Microsoft finally released the Game Room for Xbox 360 consoles, but unfortunately it wasn’t loading games properly.

Microsoft’s Larry Hryb said in a Twitter post “Game Room is available for download, but there appears to be some problems with loading games,” “It’s being investigated.”

The Game Room which is available for download, allows gamers to create their own virtual arcade of classic games. The service is suppose to launch with about 30 titles, including games from Atari, Intellivision, and Konami. Microsoft said to expect five to seven new games each week.

The bug has been said to be fixed by various gamers. No official announcement has been made by Microsoft.

Microsoft has released a newer and larger hard drive for Xbox 360 consoles. This new 250GB drive will allow gamers to store more saved games, music, movies, and all of their goodies!

The new hard drive will cost $129.99 through Microsoft while the previous 120GB model has dropped to $99.99.

If you are looking to upgrade to the 250GB model but want to save a few bucks, Amazon is offering an off brand that is compatible with Xbox 360s and is brand new for only $100. If you are interested in this one, 250GB Hard Drive compatible with Xbox 360 check it out!

Lol I was bored today and decided to create a Facebook group in celebration of the new health care bill that was passed. I know it has nothing to do with technology and this blog, well besides it relating to Facebook but I thought I would share. I am trying to spread the word and get people to join the group. Just a fun thing to do, it isn’t serious thing about health care, so do not get offended and give a lecture.

If you would like to join the new Facebook group called “I’d Rather Buy Beer Instead Of Government Health Insurance”, please do and invite all your friends. Let’s get this thing spread around the internet! 

SanDisk announced Monday that they were releasing a new 32GB MicroSD card, which is double the maximum capacity of most smartphone memory chips.

The 32GB card will hold roughly 7,000 songs or 10 hours of uncompressed HD video. Can you say “all the music you can eat”? I doubt the chip would taste good, so I don’t actually recommend eating it =P.

SanDisk said that the card will be available to purchase on their website next month and will have a price tag of about $200.

When it comes to having your own blog/website, probably the second most important thing is the name of your domain (first would be content). Why is it so important to have a good domain name and how do you choose one? Well I will explain here with a few tips.

Choosing The Domain Name

The name of your website domain is very important because it is what visitors see when coming to your blog/website, and if it is something they can easily remember then it will be more effective. Having a good domain name will grab the attention of your visitors and they will be able to share it easily with friends or other sites. Here are a few good basic tips when picking out a name.

• Try to keep your domain name short, usually two or three words
• Make sure the words are spelled correctly
• Abbreviations work great if they are available
• If possible try not to use “z” to replace “s”, because it can confuse people and they may end up typing the wrong name
• If your domain choice is unavailable, try to place a “-” in between a word. This can help if the name is short, but can get confusing if the name is long. Try to stick with one “-”
• Keep the name related to your blog/website. You don’t want to have a name called “dogs.com” when you write about cats.

.Com vs .Net

When choosing a domain name, does it really matter if it is a .com or a .net? Well there are a few ups and downs to having a .net. Most internet users associate .com with websites so it just clicks in their head and is easy to remember, but if you choose a .net domain be sure to advertise your blog/website as the full name. For example my blog here at TechSlip.net, when I tell others about this blog or I write an article then I will say TechSlip.net instead of TechSlip because some people may just assume it is .com.

Having a .net can be good since it is different than the same old .com names and stands out. Just make sure people realize it is .net and you always put it when advertising. You do not want to send visitors to your competition’s website from making a simple mistake.

So I would recommend getting a .net domain if your choice for a .com is taken, but if a .com is available then grab it quickly and use it.

Price and Where To Buy

You can purchase domains on a few different websites but the most popular ones are 1and1.com and GoDaddy.com. Both sites are reliable and I use both of their services.

Prices for a domain are very reasonable. You can purchase a domain for under $10 per year.

I hope this little guide will help you out when it comes to choosing a domain name. Please share this post if you find it helpful.