In case you’re wondering why I haven’t been posting much lately, it’s because I’ve been busy setting up the new dojo for the repair forum, also known as the Samurai School of Appliantology.

Until recently, the forum was hosted at MSN Groups. I was becoming increasingly disgusted with MSN’s crude forum features: no search for the forum, couldn’t edit your own posts, and couldn’t tell who was the last to reply in a thread. Consequently, many followup questions in a thread would go unanswered as they got pushed down the list by the avalanche of new questions.

I finally got so fed up with the crude forum features and glitches at MSN Groups that I sat down on my duff and did something about it. I installed the WoWBB software on my server and have been busy setting up the new school. The new forum has been online for just over a week and it already has critical mass.

Among some of the many nice features available at the new forum are:

• As a registered user, you can edit your own posts.
• You can send private messages to other members of the board.
• You can keep track of the topics you are interested in, and receive e-mail notifications when someone posts to one of those topics.
• You can receive daily e-mail digests of posts in forums you are interested in.
• You can have avatars (small pictures to represent yourself on the board).

To take advantage of all the features of the new forum, you’ll need to register. But this process is much less intrusive and byzantine that the Microslop .NET crap. It’s a much more pleasant place in which to hold class for do-it-yourself appliance repair. Come on, check it out.

www.applianceguru.com

If you’re a regular to this site, you know that one of the features I offered was a Toll-Free Appliance Repair Hotline. I decided to pull the plug on the Hotline. The reason for having it in the first place was to help grasshoppers find the appliance repair help they needed here at Fixitnow.com. Turns out most people weren’t interested in finding information so they could help themselves; they wanted live appliance repair help, on the phone, real-time, with the Grand Master of Appliantology. And they wanted all that for free. Amazingly, some people would actually cop a ‘tood with me on the phone when I’d refer them to the forum or live help for detailed, personalized instruction in repairing their appliance.

Let’s pause for a reality check.

There are more than 1,000 pages of appliance repair help at Fixitnow.com, all free for the reading. But, that’s the problem: you gotta read. One thing I learned about my users is that most of them are the Great Unwashed Illiterati, also known as Boobus Americanus; they see the computer monitor as another form of TV and so look for a talking head to tell them what to do and think. (If you’re reading this then congratulations! You’ve evolved beyond Boobus to Surfus Americanus.)

In addition to the vast repository of appliance wisdom contained in the pages of Fixitnow.com, I offer personalized and interactive help for free in the Appliantology Group. Only trouble is that now, in addition to having to read, Boobus must compose a coherent message describing his appliance dilemma. D’OH!

The other reason for dropping the Hotline is that we’ve completely redesigned the main table on the home page to make it easier for users to find what they need when they first visit the site. This new design should obviate the need for the Hotline. If you have any comments or suggestions on the new main table, let me know by using the comment link at the bottom of this post.

Surprisingly, I just don’t make enough money running a free appliance repair website to be able to offer live, real-time consultations at no charge. However, live appliance repair help is available as a subscription service, albeit a for a subscription fee that’s so ridiculously low that it might as well be free. But, even with such a modest fee, it keeps the live help work load manageable and provides some compensation for my time.

Ok, I have to get back to my day job: licking urinals at the Texaco. Happy fixing!

Somehow, almost two months worth of posts were deleted from the repair forum at the Appliantology Group. This is an extremely active forum with dozens of posts per day. You’ll notice that the most recent post (after the current ones) are dated 11-30-2004. I have no idea how all those posts got deleted but I do know that neither myself nor any of the group assistant managers deleted all those posts. As incredible as it sounds that a Microsoft product might have a glitch, I can only assume that this is exactly what happened in this case. I’ve sent an email to MSN Groups help and am optimistic that I’ll get a reply soon, maybe even within the next 12 months. I’ll keep you posted.

The more insidious possibility is that the group was hacked. Even though this is a free repair forum where other techs and I donate our time and expertise to help people fix their own appliances without charging a dime, I will not tolerate this kind of vandalism– if indeed it is. So I am putting up my own money as a reward to help nail one of these hacker punks.

If you have personal knowledge that the Appliantology Group was hacked, I am offering a cash reward of $1,000 if you can provide the proof that will allow me to prosecute and convict the dirtbag perpetrator.

Thanks for your help.

As you Appliantology groupies may have noticed, there’s been an increase in spam postings in the repair forum recently. Because of this, I’ve had to change the group membership setting from open, meaning anyone can join without needing my approval, to restricted, meaning I have to approve all new members before they can post in the forum. I hate having to do this because 1) I like the group to be completely open and 2) it means more work for me– never a good thing. But, from experience, I know this is an effective deterent to spammers because they’re easy to spot. They always use nonsensical usernames like, ngkhj876, or they give some vague reason for wanting to join that makes no reference to appliance repair such as, “I really like your group!”

Unfortunately, it also means a slight delay before a new, prospective member can get help in the forum. But, while I’m laid up recovering from the microchip implant in my spine, I can check in with the forum more frequently and approve pending members. So, the inconvenience for the new member would be equivalent to, say, running out of toilet paper while on the john and waiting for their spouse to bring a new roll. Or something like that. You get the idea.

Anyway, this will all hopefully be only temporary until this wave of spammers passes us by. In the meantime, I invite you to join me in singing a rousing round of Popeye the Sailor Man.

Today’s Affirmation for Effective Appliance Repair: All of me is beautiful and valuable, even the ugly, stupid, and disgusting parts.

The Samurai School of Appliantology boasts students from all over the globe. I have talked many frustrated grasshoppers through all types of appliance problems, ranging from the mundane to the bizarre. Today, I received this email from one of my students:

Randall Frank wrote:

The $$ I spent on “tuition” is among the best $$ I’ve spent in my life. Over the first 6 months it’s probably saved me over $1,000 in service calls, not to mention hours of waiting at home for repair persons who will be there “sometime between 8am and noon”. He even told me how to fix a dishwasher circuit board (that I’m sure a repair person would have simply replaced) by re-soldering a cold connection, including the precise location of the connection that was “cold” (saved cost: $300). He has a 1000 batting average in picking the failed part based simply on a phone description of the problem! The repair manual library is invaluable for fix-it-yourselfers. This is an amazing service!

Randy Frank
Weston, MA

The Samurai School of Appliantology is now accepting new students. Learn more more about the Samurai School of Appliantology here.

Due to time constraints, I’ve been unable to return calls on the Toll-Free Appliance Repair Hotline for the past several days. Consequently, so many messages had piled up that there was no way I was going to be able to return them. So I had to delete them and start fresh. Hey, whaddya want for nothin’? R-r-r-r-r-rubbah biscuits?

Anyway, I’m back and available to take hotline calls. If you called the Hotline in the past several days and still need help with your appliance problem, go ahead and call the Toll-Free Appliance Repair Hotline again. Of course, first-time callers are also welcome to call.

Talk to you later.

For over two years now, The Appliantology Group has been hosted at MSN Groups. Despite some minor limitations, it has proven to be a popular and salubrious format for the AG. The lack of a site search, however, is a glaring shortcoming. As posts have been added and answered at the repair forum, it has turned into a colossal database of appliance repair information with no way to search it…until now. I’ve found a way to search the group using Google. Here’s how to do it:

• Go to Google’s homepage.
• Enter in your search term followed by site:groups.msn.com appliantology, all on the same line.
• You’ll be presented with pages of your search results, all from within the AG.

Let’s take a ezzample. S’ppose I have a problem with my Whirlpool gas dryer. I might use a search term such as Whirlpool gas dryer no heat. To search the AG, I’d go to Google and enter the following search term: Whirlpool gas dryer no heat site:groups.msn.com appliantology. That search gives 21 results, shown here.

Seek and ye shall find!

NEWS FLASH — FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

By popular demand, the world-famous Appliantology repair forum will be closed down at its current location at ezBoard and moved to its new home. This change is effective immediately.

The spokeswoman for Fixitnow.com, Kujira Mifune, reports that loyal Appliantology Grasshoppers from all over the globe have flooded the Samurai International Headquarters in New London, New Hampshire, with emails, letters, faxes, and origami asking that the repair forum be moved back to its old home at MSN Groups. Samurai Appliance Repair Man called a meeting of the Fixitnow.com board of directors to consider the matter. The Board unanimously decided to move the repair forum back to MSN Groups as requested and to shut down the repair forum at ezBoard. Sanjuro Takimashe, CFO, noted that ezBoard charges a bandwidth-based fee to host the forum which costs hundreds of dollars annually whereas the extra storage fee for photo hosting at MSN Groups is only $30 per year.

Summary: The Appliantology repair forum has been moved to here.

Add to My Yahoo

Some people like to read novels; others read the news. The Great Unwashed Illiterati prefer to just “read” the pictures in Hustler and other such pillars of contemporary culture.

The Samurai has more philosophical tastes in his reading preferences. I like to read about that great elixir of life, Beer. Especially Cheap Beer.

Many folks don’t realize that America has a rich and colorful history of Cheap Beer, mostly centered around Milwaukee, the Mecca of Cheap Beer. And now it’s conveniently documented in The Cheap Beer Diaries. (Best viewed with a fohty of Old Milwaukee.)

Don’t you hate those impersonal, faceless websites? Even the websites that are out there to help you in some way try to hide behind some impersonal website identity. That sucks! If the internet isn’t about bringing people together tête-à-tête, then it’s simply another way for us to build walls between each other. Well I say, “Mr. Internet, tear down these walls!” And we’re doing ezzacly that here at Fixitnow.com Samurai Appliance Repair Man.

Just like the name says, this website is run by an appliance repair man: ME (with lots of help and understanding from my lovely wife, uhh, What’s-her-name). And the Samurai makes himself easily accessible to his grasshoppers. I do this through frequent updates to this blog (that’s geek-speak for weblog–this page you’re reading now is a blog), dishing out repair advice in The Appliantology Group, yakking with folks on the Toll-Free Appliance Repair Hotline, and in chat on Yahoo Messenger and Live Person.

Well, now we’ve done one bettah.

Several months ago, I decided we needed a Site Hostess (SiteHo for short) to help establish a personal connection with our visitors. So, I formed an internet-based focus group to test the idea. Unfortunately, I was so busy pulling hair outta the drains, or scraping dirt out from under my fingernails, or something, that I never got a chance to talk to anyone in the group. But I think they concluded that adding a SiteHo would be a great thing to do. And so began the great SiteHo search!

I spent literally minutes scouring all the cyber geisha houses I could find looking for that special lady to greet our valued visitors and let them know about some of the many repair resources available to them here at this colossus of appliance repair help, Fixitnow.com Samurai Appliance Repair Man. But they were all so damned expensive! Finally, we found Kujira–sweet, cheap Kujira.

Yeah, we got Kujira at a fire-sale price because she suffers from a hormonal condition. You see, when she entered puberty, Kujira was afflicted with a rare hormonal imbalance which caused her voice to deepen so much that it sounded like a man’s voice. The condition is called Basso Feminino Exclaima, which is the Latin medical term meaning, “Dayyam! She sounds like a guy!”

With her prospects as an internet geisha girl dimmed by her affliction, Kujira jumped at the opportunity I offered her. So, if you haven’t already, scroll up to the top of page and say konichiwa to our new SiteHo, Kujira. She’d love to talk with you.

A couple of weeks ago, I switched over to a new appliance repair hotline system. The original hotline was strictly voicemail. The new hotline has the added feature of calling me directly. If I’m available, we’ll talk right then and there. If I’m not available, you can leave voicemail. And, of course, it’s still absotootly free.

Well, now it’s one bettah–it’s even free-er!

Yes! Now the appliance repair hotline has a toll-free number! Go ahead, try it out. All your other friends are doing it.

To All My Dear Grasshoppers and Esteemed Fellow Appliantologists:

Since announcing yesterday that I intended to delete the Appliantology Group repair forum, I have been flooded by hundreds of emails and phone calls from forum participants urging me to reconsider. After much soul-searching and careful deliberation, I have decided that deleting the Appliantology Group forum would be too rash an action. So, the existing content in the forum shall remain there, undeleted, as an eternal electronic monument to the selfless efforts of the many fine Appliantologists who have freely shared so much of their hard-earned wisdom with those Grasshoppers seeking answers to their appliance problems.

However, the Appliantology Group forum, as an interactive method of help, ended at midnight and new topics or replies can no longer be posted.

For several months now, I have been increasingly dissatisfied with the forum capabilities provided by MSN Groups. The most recent complaints galvanized me into finally ending this forum. Let me list some of its more onerous shortcomings:

• Posts cannot be edited by the original author or anyone else (yes, including me) for content, typos, whatever. Consequently, many posts, including my own, contain an embarrassing number of typos, sentence fragments, incorrect links, and other problems that either place a burden on the readers or, in cases of more grievous errors, require a followup post by the author to address the shortcomings in his original post.
• There is not a clear and concise way for forum readers to keep track of posts they have or have not read. Consequently, many posts get shoved down the list by newer posts and go unanswered–a frustrating situation for both the Grasshopper seeking information and Appliantologists seeking to provide that information.
• The forum has no means of searching for threads of interest. The best I could do was try to keep up a Forum Index of momentous threads. But this was a tedious task and soon became unmanageable. And since this is all done in my free time, when a task becomes tedious, I’ll always find something better to do, such as laying on the couch, drinking Bud and watching Gilligan.
• The forum often has an annoying tendancy to just hang, displaying only the top banner ad and nothing else for several minutes. This again becomes tedious and, once more, I’m back on the couch, drinking Bud and watching Gilligan.
• In general, the forum lacks many features and functions that are commonly expected in a forum environment: post icons, personal icons, signatures, etc.

I know, the bells do indeed toll for yet another free appliance repair resource that bites the dust yet I … wait, what’s that over there? Could it be? Why, yes! Great Emperor! Ladies and Gentlemen, Grasshoppers and Gurus, Boyz and Beans, er, nevermind that last, let me introduce you to my long-time friend, Moostafa Hakkahallah!

Moostafa runs the finest appliance repair forum this side of Mecca. I approached Moostafa several weeks ago and asked him if he would consider taking over the forum portion of the Appliantology Group. After much negotiations and graft, Moostafa has graciously agreed. Now, lest you go away shaking your head and thinking he’s just another towelhead with a smelly left hand, hoooooold on there, Bubbalouie, and let me introduce you to our dear, dear friend, Moostafa.

Moostafa comes to us from Jalalabad, Afghanistan, where he leads a quiet life in his desert tent with his four wives and 17 children, tending his camels and yaks. When he’s not pleasing one of his wives or running his world-famous appliance repair forum, Moostafa keeps himself busy with various hobbies such as picking through rubble, searching for water, growing his beard, wrapping towels around his head, avoiding eating with his left hand, and praying to Allah that the Ameedicans, er, I mean, Americans will hurry up and build that damn pipeline through his country so he can finally get a job and feed his four wives and 17 children something other than camel leather and semen of yak.

I know, you’re probably wondering how Moostafa can possibly run an appliance repair forum if he lives in a tent in the middle of some God-forsaken desert without even rudimentary sanitary facilities, let alone electricity or internet access. Ahh, this is what makes our dear friend, Moostafa, very special indeed.

Moostafa powers his iMac off a camel dung and lime juice battery that he designed himself and connects to the internet via an old Soviet military satellite uplink system that he acquired while he was a Mujahadeen in his youth. It’s exactly that kind of Afghani know-how that makes Moostafa such a valuable appliance guru. So, come, kick off your sandals and gather ’round the carpet with the Ayatollah and learn how to wage Holy War on your infidel appliances.

Welcome to our new Repair Forum!