|
Appliantology Newsletter: Reefer Madness Issue!
Leave a reply
Category Archives: Website Updates
Another killa podcast: Untangling the Samurai’s Websites
Join Samurai Appliance Repair Man and Mrs. Samurai for another action-packed, adrenaline-gushing episode of their award-winning podcast as they talk you through the Samurai Suite of DIY appliance repair websites and explain why they are the way they are. This podcast episode was inspired by and is dedicated to Samurai Apprentice and supporter, Bill D.
Bill writes:
No real problem, Sensei. Just a note to say thanks–I love your site. I donated $10 to the Beer Fund this morning.
I will say that I had to open a new account on Appliantology.org (xxxx) because my old applianceguru.com account (xxxx) doesn’t seem to let me log in or send me a password reset even though my e-mail account is registered there. Not a big deal, just letting you know. I used my work e-mail for the second account, which is fine I guess. I would rather use the account with my home e-mail address, but I seem to be locked out or something. Every time I use your site (once per year?) I have to re-learn where the real repair forum is. I totally do not understand the difference between fixitnow.com, applianceguru.com, and appliantology.org. And they don’t seem to have the same membership login info. I doubt that I am the only idiot who is confused by this. Why not unify everything and use redirects to get all sites pointed to the same place?
Click the play button below to listen!
How to start a new topic in the Appliantology appliance repair forums and get free help
Oscar writes:
Don’t know how to post a question.
Hi Oscar,
Well, lucky for you Mrs. Samurai has made a couple of screencasts on exactly this topic– getting started in the Appliantology Academy. Check ’em out…
You can find whatever appliance part you need through the parts search box here at www.Fixitnow.com. No harm in buying and trying with our 365-day, no-hassle return policy, even on electrical parts that were installed!
Subscribe to our FREE, award-winning newsletter, Appliantology: The Oracle of Appliance Enlightenment ==> http://newsletter.fixitnow.com and download your free report on appliance brand recommendations! Every issue is jam-packed with appliance repair tips and inside information direct from the Samurai’s fingertips to your engorged and tingling eyeballs.
Samurai Appliance Repair Man
The Appliantology Academy
http://appliantology.org
Using the Gallery Section at the Appliantology Academy
Here’s a quick run-through on how to use the Gallery section at the Appliantology Academy; creating albums and uploading photos.
Apprenticeships at the Appliantology Academy [Screencast]
The Appliantology Academy is the place to get free, interactive appliance repair help from internationally-renown Master Appliantologists. Just create a free account and you’re good to go as a Grasshopper.
But to unleash the real power of the Academy, become an Apprentice to get repair manuals and lots of other goodies. This screencast explains the benefits of Apprenticeship, how to become one, and how to get repair manuals at the site.
Appliantology Newsletter: Burnin’ Down the House!
|
Appliantology Newsletter, February 2012: Screencasts, Blog Morph
Another steamy issue of *Appliantology* comes streaking across the Internet like skid marks across the sky and explodes into your inbox! Konnichiwa, my friends, Samurai Appliance Repair Man here bringing you yet more pearls of appliantological wisdom. Let us attend!
First, I want to tell you about an exciting change in our newsletter: we’re gonna be sending ’em out more often. Up ’till now, I’ve been sending out issues of *Appliantology* about quarterly. But there’s just so much going on over at the Appliantology Academy, www.Appliantology.org– more on that in a minute– that we thought we really needed to send out more frequent issues of our newsletter, *Appliantology*, if it was going to still be worthy of being called a newsletter. So we’re looking to send out two issues of *Appliantology* per month, about every other week. They’ll be in this format: all text, mobile-friendly, featuring news and links to recent content at the site that we think you’d want to know about.
In case you’re not already familiar with the Appliantology Academy (or even if you are), come take a guided tour of the Academy campus grounds with Mrs. Samurai in her debut rock opera screencast ==> http://goo.gl/SucQb (I’m using the Google URL shortener because it’s a long, hairy link that looks really ugly and takes up way too much screen space on a mobile phone. But the links all go to various pages and sections at www.Appliantology.org – no weird stuff, I promise).
We’ve made five screencasts so far with plans to make many more. Here are a couple of our latest that may be especially interesting to you:
How to use the Downloads section at the Appliantology Academy ==> http://goo.gl/m7fGM
Learn how to create an account at the Appliantology Academy ==> http://goo.gl/M6FZZ
We’ll post new episodes to our screencast page ==> http://goo.gl/VXtuh
Changing gears here… If you’ve been following my long-time blog, Fixitnow.com, you may have noticed that I haven’t posted there since December. Well, there’s a very good reason for that: I’ve moved my blogging efforts over to the Appliantology Academy where I’ve been having far too much fun for the past few months!
Appliantology.org is a huge site with lots of different areas to explore. Whereas Fixitnow.com is a single blog, Appliantology.org is a bustling campus featuring active repair forums, an illustrative photo gallery, Master’s chat room, service manual file sharing, and multiple blogs!
Yours so very truly and Mrs. Samurai each keep very active blogs at the Appliantology Academy. My blog is mostly about– surprise!– appliance repair but with other stuff thrown in. Mrs. Samurai’s blog is about lifestyle, food, and health-related issues. Here are the links to each of our blogs:
Samurai’s blog ==> http://appliantology.org/blog/1-samurais-blog/
and Mrs. Samurai has her own web address ‘cuz she’s little miss fancy-pants ==> http://MrsSamurai.com – that link takes you right to her blog at Appliantology.org.
Kanpai!
Samurai Appliance Repair Man
http://www.Appliantology.org
Appliantology Newsletter, Winter 2011
Appliantology Newsletter, Winter 2011
0. Introduction
1. It’s the exciting dishwasher issue!
2. Uncommonly delicious parts return policy
3. New merit apprenticeship program
4. Samurai News®
5. Mrs. Samurai’s dojo
6. Story time
7. Hillstomping update
8. Domo!
### ### ### ###
0. Introduction
From deep within the bowels of frozen Yankeeland, in the foothills of the White Mountains and finally dug out from under 13 feet of fresh, pristine global warming, it’s another steamy issue of Appliantology. Movin’ on…
### ### ### ###
1. It’s the exciting dishwasher issue!
This is the issue you’ve all been laying awake at night for, checking the inbox on your iPhone every hour, suffering irritability with your spouse and fatigue at work. Now, the wait is over. Yes, my brothers and sisters, just in time for that visit from your mother-in-law, I bring you _Appliantology: The Dishwasher Issue_.
Here are some recent pearls of dishwasher wisdom I’ve cast since the last issue of Appliantology:
Cheat sheet for whupping up on the “Clean light blinking 7 times” problem in Whirlpool and Kitchenaid dishwashers – http://fixitnow.com/?p=5842
Putting a GE Monogram dishwasher with membrane control pad into Test Mode – http://fixitnow.com/?p=5834
GE Profile dishwasher making a high-pitched squealing noise from control board – http://fixitnow.com/?p=5826
Special repair trick for LG dishwashers with slow or no drain problem – http://fixitnow.com/?p=5654
Maytag dishwasher MDBH955AWB: He’s dead, Jim – http://fixitnow.com/?p=5579
KitchenAid Dishwasher KUDI24SE — No power – http://fixitnow.com/?p=5568
Dishwashers and hard water: getting the best possible results – http://fixitnow.com/?p=5536
A fantastic photo essay detailing the disassembly of the motor-pump on the new Bosch Ascenta dishwashers, an Internet premiere exclusive! – http://fixitnow.com/?p=5403
All dishwasher repair posts – http://fixitnow.com/category/appliance-repair-posts/dishwasher-repair/
### ### ### ###
2. Uncommonly delicious parts return policy
OMG, so you know my crazy parts partner has finally gone off the deep end. Yeah, they’re like teutally giving a 365-day, no-hassle return policy on ALL appliance parts, even electronic parts that have already been installed! Is that nuts? Ya sure, ya betcha! So they’re like teutally taking the risk out of DIY appliance repair.
Look, I can help you troubleshoot your appliance and I can usually get you right to the problem. But the fact is that you’re out there somewhere and and I’m up here in Yankeeland; it just ain’t the same thing as being right there at the appliance, listening to it, smelling it, feeling it, tasting it… yes, appliance repair is a full contact sport!
Well, to level the playing field, my crazy parts partner is offering an unheard of return policy: return parts for a full year with no hassle. Just use the parts search box in the sidebar at Fixitnow.com ( http://fixitnow.com ) or the parts search box at the top of Appliantology.org ( http://appliantology.org ) or any of the appliance parts banners or links on those sites to buy parts.
Read more about this insane return policy here: http://fixitnow.com/?p=5777
### ### ### ###
3. New merit apprenticeship program
Here at Samurai International Headquarters, we are impassioned supporters of meritocracy. Any meritocracy. As far as we’re concerned, the more the meritier… or something like that. As someone who speaks 17 self-invented languages fluently, it is difficult gearing down to this guttural gum-smacking that you Ameedeekans call “Engrish.”
So, anyone who contributes good repair content can earn an upgrade from Grasshopper to Merit Apprentice in the repair forums.
Apprentices at the Samurai School of Appliantology ( www.appliantology.org ) enjoy many perks over Grasshoppers:
– request service manuals in the Appliance Service Manual Request forum;
– access the other forums besides just the Kitchen and Laundry forums;
– edit your own posts;
– send and receive private messages (PMs) which can include links to service manuals;
– download/upload/view the thousands of illustrative and illuminating attachments;
– post replies to other topics that you didn’t start.
To be an Apprentice, you can either subscribe to one of the Apprenticeship programs (Basic, Annual, or Permapprenticehip) or you can earn it. Yep, all of us here at Samurai International Headquarters are tickled to the point of incontinence to announce our new Merit Apprenticeship program where you can earn your apprenticeship through a quid pro quo kind of a deal. It made a big splash. (Sorry, I couldn’t help myself.)
Here’s the deal: if you contribute original repair material suitable enough to be featured on Fixitnow.com you will be awarded a Merit Apprenticeship. An example of this would be a series of photos of an appliance repair you did with captions that explain what’s going on. The common way a Grasshopper will earn his (or her) Merit Apprenticeship is by posting photos of his craftsmanship in the Samurai School ( www.appliantology.org ) as the culmination of their forum topic, kind of like a Master’s thesis. The criteria is this: could another Grasshopper come along later and gain crucial insight into doing the repair from your original photos and commentary? If yes, then *ding-ding-ding!* you win the Golden Calf. But since a grumpy old dude with a shiny face melted down our last golden calf, you’ll have to settle for a Merit Apprenticeship.
### ### ### ###
4. Samurai News®
>> I’ve been experimenting with offering help via texting. It’s been great for answering quickie questions, helping folks find information at my site, and resolving site log-in problems. Because of the limiting and kludgy nature of texting, if someone needs more detailed troubleshooting and repair help, I’ll refer them to the Samurai School. But texting can be a good way to get started. Or maybe you just wanna reach out and say, “Konnichiwa, Samurai-san! Anata wa buto des, na?” Bring it: 603-505-8460.
>> The new home of the Samurai appliance repair forums, a.k.a., the Samurai School of Appliantology ( www.appliantology.org ), is rockin’ along. Stop by and say hey. If you’re a professional appliance repair tech, email me and let me know, tell me a little about your background, and you’ll get upgraded to Master Appliantologist at the forums.
>> Well, after being on Flickr for over five years, I’m being evicted. Seems that someone complained to Flickr about some of my appliance repair photos having the text, “Buy appliance parts at parts.fixitnow.com” imprinted on them. They thought it was too commercial on how-to appliance repair photos and diagrams that I was giving away for FREE. Yep, some people will even complain about something when it’s free. And Flickr agreed with them.
So I’ve moved all my photos to Smugmug.com ( http://appliantology.smugmug.com/ ) which, as it turns out, is a superior image hosting service anyway and they don’t have a neo-marxist hangup about someone promoting their website or bidness through their photos. But it also means I need to change the photo links embedded in over 400 posts at my blog, Fixitnow.com, from Flickr to Smugmug. Oy!
BTW, if you want to try out Smugmug, here’s my referral link to signup for a free trial: https://secure.smugmug.com/signup.mg?Coupon=wA98wSm1iMAKM . If you do decide you like ’em and sign up for a permanent account, I’ll earn a $10 referral credit to use toward my account renewal. Domo!
### ### ### ###
5. Mrs. Samurai’s dojo
Take a little respite from your appliance repair concerns in Mrs. Samurai’s dojo. Come on in and make yourself at home, and I’ll serve up some tasty tidbits on other aspects of home living, such as some of the Samurai’s favorite recipes.
Everybody from Popeye to your mama has been telling you to eat more greens because they’re so good for you. But the leafy greens aren’t always popular with folks, especially kids, because they think they are gross in some way. Here is an awesome recipe either for the greens nay-sayers, or those who just want a different way to cook ‘em than what they’ve been doing. My kids fight over these.
Krispy Kale
What you’ll need:
Kale – either one really big bunch or two smaller (see note)
Extra-virgin olive oil
sea salt
large bowl
a couple of large baking sheets
2 wire cooling racks that fit on top of the baking sheets (see note)
What to do:
Preheat your oven to 350 deg.
Tear the kale leaves off of their stems. They should be torn roughly the size of tortilla chips. Rinse and dry them as much as possible (a salad spinner works perfectly).
In a large bowl, toss the kale with a pretty good-size drizzle of olive oil and some salt, then spread it evenly on the wire racks placed on top of the baking sheets. Bake for about 15 minutes until nice and crispy. The leaves will darken somewhat. Enjoy right away!
Serves about 4-6 as a side dish.
Note: this recipe only seems to work with kale and its curly leaves. Any of the flat-leaved greens don’t crisp up properly. Also, be sure to use the wire racks – if you put the kale directly on the baking sheets, you would have to turn all the pieces halfway through the cooking to avoid sogginess – tedious!
### ### ### ###
6. Story time
Lance DeMoi and the Blood Wand
A short story by Stephen Brown
[Lance DeMoi, the top agent of the Department of Paranormal Investigation and Research, is sent on a mission in England where a mysterious group of vampires have threatened to use an ancient artifact against the living. Lance must venture through a dark and menacing forest to stop them, where he will meet both new friends and new enemies. If he does not find and destroy the relic in time, then all of the UK could fall under a vampiric shadow. But will Lance be able to defeat the chief vampire before it is too late?]
Lance DeMoi leaned against a bulkhead in the plane; he could feel the vibrations of the engines on his back. DPIR agents milled about the plane, carrying out different tasks. Lance’s handler, Agent Grey, walked over to where he was sitting.
“DeMoi, you know the mission, you know who to kill, and to retrieve the Blood Wand. You’ll be dropped in this forest,” Grey pulled out a map. “Here, a few miles south of London, the vampire colony is nested here, in some ruins of a faerie fort. We need you to execute this quickly DeMoi – we believe they are on some ceremonial schedule – get the Wand before sunrise.”
Lance nodded sleepily; it was 11:30 PM. He had drunk two cups of coffee, but he was still tired.
“Getting fatigued in my old age,” Lance mumbled.
“Oh please,” Grey sighed as he walked away.
The plane reached London, a great sea of lights in the early morning darkness. Lance pulled on his parachute and proceeded to the hatch. Grey ambled over.
“Parachute?” The handler asked.
“Check.”
“Headset?”
“Check.”
“Extra headset?”
(krk)”Check. Over.”(krk).
“Array of stakes?”
Lance slapped his belt, jangling the stakes together.
“Revolver with silver bullets?”
“Shiny.” Lance pulled out his revolver and cocked it.
“All right, Jason open the hatch,” said Grey. The agent by the door opened it; a blast of cold, morning air smacked Lance in the face, and his ears were filled with the roaring of the engine and the wind. He braced himself against the doorway, his face turning slightly green; heights had always bothered him.
“Afraid of heights? Even after all these years?” Grey smirked as he started to walk away.
“Aren’t you going to wish me luck?”
Grey grunted.
“I’m so lucky to have you as my handler.” And with that, he jumped from the plane, into the night and the forest below.
Read the rest of Part 1 of this story here:
http://dpirfiles.blogspot.com/2011/02/lance-demoi-and-blood-wand-part-1.html
### ### ### ###
7. Hillstomping update
An Appliantology newsletter just wouldn’t be complete without a hillstomping update. Thankfully, all this global warming has brought tremendous amounts of snowfall and record cold temps, so the winter hiking in the White Mountains has been outstanding this year. The best one so far, though, was the recent hike the Oz Man (my semper fi canine hiking partner) and I did up Mts. Methodius and Elijah in the Northern Saints range (some people still call these by their old political names of Mts. Madison and Adams in the northern presidential range).
Turn your speakers up and click full screen mode to get the full effect of the slideshow. Kick back and enjoy!
http://albums.phanfare.com/slideshow.aspx?i=1&db=1&pw=obuTyVFB&a_id=5027731
### ### ### ###
8. Domo!
Finally, I want to shout out a big fat “DOMO!” to all the fine Master Appliantologists who help answer questions in the repair forums. We learn from each other and we freely share our knowledge with all seekers as a totally free-will, voluntary love-offering to you. If one of these fine Masters helped you with your repair and saved you some coin, let ’em know!
ACtechGUY
appl.tech.29501
BrntToast
Budget Appliance Repair
certified tech group 51
denrayr
DIAMOND GAZZA
dkpd1581
DurhamAppliance
john63
kdog
KurtiusInterupptus
LLAMBERT
Moostafa
nickfixit
RegUS_PatOff
ROBBYRIG
SANTA
Southern Appliance
Strathy
Toranaga
Tronicsmasta
Trying to help
~~~fini~~~
Samurai Appliance Repair Man
Parts==> http://parts.fixitnow.com
Forums==> http://appliantology.org
Facebook==> http://facebook.com/fixitnowsamurai
Twitter==> http://twitter.com/fixitnowsamurai
Newsletter==> http://newsletter.fixitnow.com
SMS==> 603-505-8460
Blessed Nativity and God be with us all in 2011! – The Samurai School of Appliantology
A joyous Nativity Feast of Our Lord from the Samurai clan to you!
Resized to 76% (was 663 x 1023) – Click image to enlarge
A Christmas haiku for you!
Economy: bad.
Drown ye not in worldly cares,
for God is with us!
The original Christmas tree:
Resized to 66% (was 762 x 1023) – Click image to enlarge
(original icon from Fr. Andrew Tregubov, www.tregubovstudios.com)
My two Samurai spudlets and I are taking off December 29 on a spiritual pilgrimage to the Holy Mountain, Mt. Athos, in Greece. We’ll celebrate Old Calendar (Julian) Nativity and New Year’s with the brothers at Vatopedi Monastery where we’ll be staying for nine days. If you’re curious, you can read more about Mt. Athos and Vatopedi monastery where we’ll be staying.
My hope and plan is to do frequent updates about the trip at a Posterous site I set up just for this pilgrimage: mountathos.posterous.com. There’s nothing posted there yet but soon will be once the journey gets underway. Bookmark it and check in with it if you wanna keep up with what’s happening. You can also subscribe to it so that new posts get emailed to you.
Hopefully, I’ll be able to check in periodically while on pilgrimage. In any event, you’ll be in good hands with RegUS_PatOff, the Samurai School of Appliantology Super Moderator and Grand Master Funk.
Are you a Master Appliantologist? A special offer for Brethren in The Craft
Do you repair appliances for a living? If so, you could get a complimentary upgrade to Master Appliantologist at the world-famous Samurai School of Appliantology! Just drop me an email (samurai _AT_ appliantology.org) and let me know something about your background in The Craft: years of experience, companies worked for, brands trained on– don’t go crazy, just give me enough info so it’s obvious that you’re a professional appliance repair tech. I’ll give you a complimentary upgrade to Master Appliantologist which gives you all the perks of being an Apprentice Appliantologist plus access to tech-only forums.
Kanpai!
Samurai Appliance Repair Man
Parts==> http://parts.fixitnow.com
Forums==> http://appliantology.org
Facebook==> http://facebook.com/fixitnowsamurai
Twitter==> http://twitter.com/fixitnowsamurai
Newsletter==> http://newsletter.fixitnow.com
SMS==> 603-505-8460
The Samurai School of Appliantology, www.appliantology.org
Konnichiwa!
Hope you had a nice Thanksgiving holiday with friends and family. In between mouthfuls of turkey and beer, I was busy morphing the Samurai Appliance Repair Forums into our shiny new Samurai School of Appliantology at http://appliantology.org — add this to your bookmarks and all those other presents under your Christmas tree.
The new School has been running for about three weeks now. The Great Forum Migration (GFM) consisted of taking the old forum’s humongous database and converting it to run under the new forum software. Almost all the old topics and accounts crossed the Red Sea unscathed and made it to the Promised Land.
As with any big migration and conversion, I knew there’d be plenty of bugzillas scurrying about so I wanted to debug and delouse as much as possible before sending out this announcement.
A known problem is that about 30 Chief Apprentice Appliantologists got water logged and transferred over as Grasshoppers. If you’re one of these soggy Chiefs, please let me know and I’ll fix it mo’scratchie. Other than that, the only bugs you’ll see in the Samurai School are Grasshoppahs. 🙂
Looking for a unique gift for that special-ed someone? Give the gift of appliance enlightenment and buy them an apprenticeship at the Samurai School of Appliantology. Makes a great inbox stuffer, too! http://appliantology.org
You’re probably familiar with our old repair forums at http://applianceguru.com. They ran on an outdated forum software package that had limited capabilities compared to the spiffy stuff that’s out there today. The old forums are still open but for archival, read-only use– no new topics or registrations.
You should be able to log in to the the new Samurai School at http://appliantology.org with your old login credentials. You can also log in using Facebook or Twitter. If you have an existing account at the old forums, you’ll have the option of connecting your FB/Twitter login to your new account at the Samurai School; if you are creating a new account at the School, you can log in with FB/Twitter and bypass the verification.
On behalf of all the faculty and staff at the Samurai School of Appliantology, we wish you a Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Kwazy Kwanza, Freaky Festivus or whatever other kind of holiday you celebrate this season.
Samurai Appliance Repair Man
Fermented Grand Master
The Samurai School of Appliantology
http://appliantology.org
Big changes are coming to the Samurai Appliance Repair Forums!
It’s a triple header: we’re changing server, forum software, and domain name.
The fun all starts Monday morning, November 22. I’ll put the forum into maintenance mode so instead of seeing the forums, you’ll see a warm and heartfelt message from yours ever so truly.
The forum database will be converted to run on the new forum software. We’re currently running UltraBB forum software but are converting it run on Invision Power Board. There are lots of technical reasons for doing this but they all boil down to, “it’s more better-er.” If you’re interested, you can check out the IPB forum to get an idea of the “look and feel” of the new forum==> http://community.invisionpower.com/
The new forum will have a different domain name, too: Appliantology.org. I’m still setting things up so there’s not much to see. Don’t bother registering there because it’s all going to get overwritten by the database conversion on Monday. Your account and user information at ApplianceGuru.com will be included in the conversion to the new forum at Appliantology.org. You will probably have to set up a new password but that should all be a simple and self-explanatory process.
With any conversion there are glitches and I’m expecting there to be some with this one, too. The new forum probably won’t be open until late Monday and maybe even into Tuesday. I’m not exactly sure at this point what to expect but I’ll be posting updates on my Twitter page, follow me on Twitter or check in with my Twitter page to keep up with what’s going on==> http://twitter.com/fixitnowsamurai
So, what’s going to happen with ApplianceGuru.com? Great question, thanks for asking! ApplianceGuru.com will remain an UltraBB forum but will become an archive, read-only forum. Additionally, I’m moving it to a different server. So when ApplianceGuru.com reopens after Monday morning, it’ll be read-only and on a whole different server.
Why didn’t I just make the new forum ApplianceGuru.com? Because ApplianceGuru.com has lots of links from search engines and Fixitnow.com already pointing to various topics in the forum. Those links would have a different structure under Invision Board and so they would become broken links. Das bad, das reeeal bad. And besides, I had this cool domain name, Appliantology.org, that I’ve been itching to use. 😉
Grand Opening of our new Carbon-neutral Samurai Appliance Repair Facility
We’re proud of our carbon-neutral policy of hike in-only access and we’ve invested millions of Federal Reserve Notes in our new appliance repair facility. We’re green, we’re crunchy, do bidness with us!
Hope to see you here at our brand new carbon-neutral appliance repair facility! Samurai Appliance Repair Manhttp://fixitnow.com Parts==> http://parts.fixitnow.com
Forum==> http://applianceguru.com
Facebook==> http://facebook.com/FixitnowSamurai
Twitter==> http://twitter.com/FixitnowSamurai Sent from my iPhone
Appliance repair help via text messages
In keeping with the mobile chat theme that I talked about here, I’ve gone one bettah and taken it to 11. Gone is the hassle of having to download and install a free app from the iTunes app store! Now, if you can simply send an SMS text message, you can get appliance repair help. Just text your burning appliance repair questions to 603-505-8640 and I’ll get ’em on my iPhone. I don’t charge anything for this service but you’ll pay your normal per-message SMS charge to your carrier. You can even text your gushing adulation and admiration for me. Just sayin’. 8)
Latest appliance repair chat help experiment at Fixitnow.com
I’ve been experimenting with various chat formats at Fixitnow.com for appliance repair help. If you’re a regular to the site, you’ve seen several different chat implementations come and go. Well, let’s add one more to that list.
The newest chat incarnation I’m trying out is using an iPhone/iPad app called textPlus. I made a text-based chat room called APPLIANTOLOGY using the app.
To use it, you have to download the textPlus app from the iTunes store (it’s free). You can download it here for iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad: http://www.textPlus.com/download/
Then, within the app, look for the chat room APPLIANTOLOGY and post your most intimate and private appliance repair question for all the world to see. It gives a new but constructive meaning to the saying, “Hanging your dirty laundry out for all to see.”
New posts to the APPLIANTOLOGY chat room are pushed to my iPhone. If I’m available, I’ll answer right away. Sometimes, I’m not in signal or am simply not able to answer. But the beauty of it being a chat room is that *anyone* can answer and help out! Grasshoppers helping grasshoppers– it’s a beautiful thing!
Why am I going the mobile chat route? Good question, thanks for asking!
All of the previous chat implementations that I’ve tried were based on using your desktop computer. “Okay,” you’re saying, “so what’s wrong with that?”
Well, I’ll tell you. Some folks don’t understand chat and would try to use it as a forum. So they would post long, detailed questions, expecting step-by-step disassembly help, real-time on chat, happily oblivious to the fact that this monopolizes my time and ties me up so that I’m unable to help others.
So what’s the difference between chat and the forum?
The repair forums, www.applianceguru.com, are exactly the right place to get into detailed disassembly instructions or detailed troubleshooting of electrical circuits. Myself and other Master Appliantologists can post photos and diagrams that explain instantly what thousands of pecks on the keyboard cannot. And you can post photos and videos to help us better understand the problem. The entire conversation is permanently stored as a web page and is available to help other people who come along in the future with the same problem. It’s collaborative content creation. The Greeks call it synergia.
Chat, OTOH, is for quick questions and answers or for directing you to resources at the site that can help answer your question. I may well have a silver bullet answer to your appliance question and if I do, I’ll tell you. But if I don’t, I can direct you to other resources at the site that can help you. This could be a post I’ve written previously or I may direct you to the forums. There’s no harm in asking, just don’t cuss me out if you don’t like the answer (yes, I’ve had people do that).
So, back to the mobile thing. My thinking is that by going to a mobile-only chat format, it’ll help folks intuitively understand what I’ve just explained. In chat, the key word is brevity. The mobile venue encourages brevity; brevity encourages clarity of thought because you can’t waste words. As the ancient Romans might have said, “E brevitas, claritas.”
BTW, I encourage people to contact me through Twitter for the same reason; you get 140 characters to explain your problem and ask your question. That’s been working out really well. More on that here==> http://fixitnow.com/wp/2010/10/13/free-appliance-repair-help-via-twitter/
For more info on the textPlus app, go to http://www.textPlus.com
Samurai Appliance Repair Man
Parts==> http://parts.fixitnow.com
Forum==> http://applianceguru.com
Facebook==> http://facebook.com/FixitnowSamurai
Twitter==> http://twitter.com/FixitnowSamurai
– Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone