Endeavors One Computer Consultants

Tomorrow is Christmas and we here at Endeavors One would like to wish you and yours a very Merry and Happy Christmas. Be safe, enjoy your family and friends and we will see you all soon!

We have some new updates to our website at www.e1cc.com where we have a blog that you can join in on! Feel free to come over and share your thoughts!

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It has been far too long since I last posted to the page, so please accept my apologies. Things have been a bit hectic to say the least, but, I had a thought come to mind about an interaction that I had some years ago that I thought I would share with all of you.

I had wanted to have some vinyl lettering created so that I could put it on my vehicle for advertising. So, I reached out to a business one day that specializes in this and I was kind of shocked by their response. I wanted some small lettering for the rear side windows and when I told them what I had wanted, I was told that it was too small of a quantity and size and that it was not worth their time.

Not worth their time? You mean instead of making something for a business that is small today but could potentially lead to more business in the future is not worth their time? Which leads me to the reason for this post. Whether the work is big or small, work is work, and what may be small today could lead to larger business later, so you should not snub your nose at what may be small because you never know where that might lead you.

In this situation, here I am sharing with you that another business felt that what I needed at the time was too small for them to consider working on, so why bother? Well, if anything, one of the reasons they should have bothered is because now instead of a customer that could have potentially brought them more business in the future for our business, but also suggest them to others is now out of the question. Instead, here I am sharing that they felt what I needed was not significant enough to warrant their time, so instead of bringing in more business they are potentially losing business, which is not a sound idea at all.

So, though a customer may call and their job is small, the bottom line is that their job or need is important to them. Now, I am not going to share the name of the business that felt my need was not worthy of their time, but, it does give me pause to think there are businesses like this out there.

So, as we come to the close of yet another year, I thought I would share some thoughts about something that has been rattling around in my head for a while now. Not a week goes by that I am not contacted either by email or phone or sometimes both by a vendor wanting me to buy or more often than not, sell a product they have. I will listen to them, hear them out and decide whether or not I am interested in finding out more about their product, if not, I will tell them that, most often saying that I am not interested and appreciate their time.

But the biggest thing for me as a business owner in providing a service or a product is believing fully in that product or service. Does the product or service meet a need that our customers have or could have in the future? If so, does this product or service meet that need in a timely and, perhaps most important, cost effective manner?

The reason I am mentioning this is because there is a vendor that has been contacting me for years now, and in the past I have entertained the idea of their product, wanting to find out more about the product and how it could potentially meet the needs of our customers. The problem? They were hesitant to tell me the cost of the product until I had to push them on it and once they finally did and gave me the specs of the product itself, I had to say no to the product because, truth be told, they were charging well over 5 times the actual cost of a similarly priced piece of hardware with far better specs, then they added in a monthly service fee to boot.

The product? Well, I will never be specific about the company itself, I will however tell you that the product itself is a computer that automatically backs up your computer and in the event of system failure, the product can be used to replicate your system to allow you to continue working while you repair or replace the failed system. The biggest problem is that the product they were trying to sell and have monthly fees on is hardware that is several generations old, not to mention that you can get a much more powerful system with far better specs for less money and, here's the kicker, the software that does the backing up and allowing you to operate is freely available, so why would I push something like that on customers?

I wish I could say that this is the only company like this, but, there are countless companies just like them, and yes, they contact me, too! So, I will continue to do what I do and help customers do the things they need to get done without breaking their bank accounts in the process!

It has been a while since we last posted to the group, however, we have had a family issue that took priority over most things and we simply did not have the time to create any messages here. Our apologies.

I am reaching out to all of you to ask for your help in our creation of YouTube videos, most notably asking YOU, our customers, friends and relatives alike, what YOU would like to see us do or share? We are looking to see what kind of content ALL of YOU would like rather than us just doing random content, though I am sure we will be doing random content as things come up and should be addressed or shared.

For those who have never done a YouTube channel or just videos to be shared or posted, it is not always an easy thing to do to say the least. Being in front of a camera and conveying a message, thought or idea sounds easy in theory, yet is not so easy when you actually sit down to try and create the content, so, bare with us as we get our footing and see what works and what doesn't work.

The main idea of the videos that we are going to create is that we will kind of take you "behind the scenes" of what it is that we actually do, some of which might surprise you, while other aspects will probably be obvious to a great many of you. We want to tear back the curtain and let you see things and hopefully enlighten you about the technology that is all around us that we sometimes take for granted.

Some of the content ideas that we have come up with are what to do with an old cell phone, how do you keep your computer clean of dust and debris, the tools of the trade and what you can use to make things easier and what software works. These are just a few ideas that we are working on the content for, but, with your input, we can make this a group effort and create content that hopefully answers those questions that you have, all while adding in our own spin on a great many things!

So, feel free to reach out to us and give us your ideas, questions or thoughts that you would like to see us discuss and share in videos!

Today I bring you a blast from the past, and by this I mean REALLY far back in history, so buckle up, because this one is interesting!

We use software that checks the health of a hard drive, the temperature that it is operating at and how many days that drive has been in use. As one would expect, a brand new drive should be at 100% health with zero days use.

Well, today we found that a hard drive from a long time ago, perhaps even ancient alien technology, came across our benches.
Upon checking how long the drive had been in operation, it would appear that the drive has been running for 89,478,485 days, which equals 245,146.5342465753 years! Either this is a complete mistake and false report (which is most likely) or that is one hell of a lifespan for a hard drive and predates any computers and technology that we have ever known!

Yup, life at Endeavors One is never dull!

Hello, everyone! Hope this message finds all of you doing well!

I just got done reading an article about inexpensive phone and laptop chargers, and, I have to say, I agree with the writer to a point, while on the other hand, I have to disagree and thought I would share some things with all of you.

You know the old saying of if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is? Well, the writer of the article went onto Ebay and purchased several chargers, including ones for his iPhone, and found where there were issues that, in one situation, could have caused serious shocking of the user if held incorrectly. Does this surprise me?

Not in the least, because the first mistake he made was going on Ebay and buying a charger from a vendor that you typically would not have recourse with if something were to actually happen, so, not only are you out the money for the charger, your device and possibly yourself could be harmed in the process. Look at it like this, would you trust your $1200 cell phone to a cable you bought from the Dollar Tree? Probably not, but, the same quality you might get from the Dollar Tree or even Wish would be the same as what this writer was probably experiencing, so it is no wonder why he found the issues.

So, where can you buy decent chargers that do the job and if something goes wrong you have a way to contact someone for warranty or even damage to your device? Ever hear of Amazon, lol! The interesting thing about sellers on Amazon is that the majority of the time, the sellers on Amazon are the same companies that the manufacturers buy their things from, but, what is the difference?

There are really two fundamental differences. The first being that, in a great many instances, the manufacturer buys their items from these same sellers and then places their own label on the item to be sold. The second, and perhaps the biggest difference, is the price. Where you might buy a charger or battery from the manufacturer for, say, $75.00, you can buy the same charger for $17.00 through the same vendor on Amazon, and that is a big difference to pay for a sticker!

We have bought countless power supplies for laptops and chargers for devices from Amazon with quite literally no problems at all. They were direct fits, worked as expected and money was saved over buying from the manufacturer, so, what is not to like about that?

There is nothing wrong with saving some money, especially in the times that we are seeing. But, at the same time, there is no sense in spending money foolishly by buying something that could potentially do you or your devices harm. As always, if you need advice, we are but a phone call or email away!

With Black Friday deals happening now instead of during the traditionally held time of Thanksgiving night into the following day, now is a good time to discuss backing up your data and items you can buy to help with that!

One of THE most important things you can do is back up your personal documents and data regularly, because after disaster strikes it is too late and your data may not be recoverable. That is why we highly suggest a monthly back up of your personal data either to an external hard drive, DVD or flash drive. But, the big question tends to be which ones to buy and why, so we are here to share some thoughts with all of you!

First and foremost, I am not going to lie, one of the reasons why I am about to suggest the flash drive manufacturer over others is because of my own stupidity that ended up being a great lesson learned. I tend to put flash drives in my pockets and when I put my clothes in the laundry, I do not always make sure that the flash drives are out of my clothing, meaning that they go through the washing machine and dryer before they are usually noticed. That is why I can say without a shadow of a doubt that SanDisk drives are incredibly durable and yes, they withstand the abuse of going through the washer and the dryer MULTIPLE times (yup, it has happened enough where I can say with confidence that I have left them in my pocket a "few" times!) The way I see it, if they can withstand multiple washing and drying cycles and continue to work, then they would be perfectly fine for backing up your data and maybe getting wet during an emergency such as an evacuation during a storm or some other event. They are also not that expensive, beating out a larger hard drive if you do not require the space necessary to store your data.

Now that we have mentioned hard drives, the question falls to which manufacturer is better? Well, that all depends highly on what kind of external drive you want, as there are conventional drives with a conventional hard drive that has a motor inside of it, and then there are solid state drives (SSD) that will cost more for less space, but, there are no moving parts inside of the device, allowing for longer life and usages. In terms of a conventional hard drive, stick with the major manufacturers such as Western Digital and Seagate. Both have incredible support and warranties, so if something goes wrong with them you have great companies that are backing up their products fully. If you are looking for an SSD, then you can go with SanDisk or even Western Digital or Seagate. The benefit of an SSD over a conventional drive is that you do not have to worry about moving parts and the speed to access your data is much faster on an SSD than a conventional drive, so where situations rely upon timing, you cannot beat an SSD for speed at this time!

As for using DVD's as back up media, this is not a bad idea IF your data will fit on a DVD and not be more than that. That is not to say that you cannot use more than one DVD to back up your data, but, with their relatively small overall storage capacity, it might take you several DVD's to back up your documents, and that becomes a tedious task of making sure your data is in fact backed up and not expanded over several discs and you run the risk of losing part of your information if you lose or damage one of those discs. If all of your data can fit on a DVD, do yourself a favor and make more than one disc, that way if one gets damaged you have a backup of your backup!

What's great is that with the Black Friday events going on right now, you might find some great deals and buys on some of these items to help making backing up your information easy!

I thought I would let some of you in on something kind of interesting that surprises even me at times. It has to do with parts for computers, most notably laptops and how much they cost.

One of the most notable parts that surprise me are laptop batteries, especially the ones that come inside some of the newer laptops on the market, the ones that you cannot remove unless you disassemble the entire case to get at it. One might cost, say, $30, while another, sometimes smaller battery with less amperage will cost $75. Honestly, it makes entirely no sense at all, so much so that when a customer asks how much a battery will cost to replace in their computer, I have to tell them I need to look it up before I tell them because you just never know at all what it might cost.

Another perfect example of a part that surprises me is the jack that you plug the power supply into in the computer. On some models, that part might cost about $10, sometimes less, while other models, sometimes even in the same family as the $10 jack, will cost $45. I remember replacing a jack on a Dell laptop a few years back that it cost $46 and I could not believe it cost that much for what I was holding in my hand.

Still another part comes when you need to replace a small board inside of a laptop. Just recently I had to order a part that included a USB jack and the actual micro power switch and it cost $66 plus $7.00 shipping from China, which was the only place to get the part needed to repair a specific model computer. While other times we have picked up similar parts for $12 or less, brand new, sometimes even being an OEM from the manufacturer, while the more expensive parts come from aftermarket vendors.

Sometimes I wonder why this is, but I have yet to figure it out by any means. I order parts all the time, and I can say with complete honesty that going in looking for parts can be a struggle at times, especially now during the pandemic, when it keeps getting harder and harder to find brand new parts, let alone getting a used part that it has become a sellers market where the seller can quite literally make up any price they want and they will more than likely get it because parts have become so scarce.

Well, just thought I would share about this, as most times these are things most people do not think about or consider. Just glad to share and hope it helps!

Endeavors One Computer Consultants updated their info in the about section.

So, I am just about to put together our YouTube channel and I think aside from an introduction video, the first video I am going to do will be about the various scams that are going around, such as getting a phone call saying your Microsoft account is doing things online and you should call, or that your Social Security account has been suspended and you need to call to resolve it. Just yesterday I got two back to back emails from someone trying to claim that my Netflix account could not be processed for payment and that I needed to click on the provided link to log in and add a new payment method.

In the last few weeks, I have had a client who not only had her Amazon account compromised and her system compromised, but, they also accessed her Amazon Echo device and could hear her talking to her daughter on the phone while trying to come up with a new password, so they were able to get into her Amazon account to create four additional bogus accounts and were able to access her bank account. To say that her situation was a nightmare would be an understatement to say the least.

But, this is happening more and more often anymore, and it is not just happening to the elderly or those who are not so tech savvy, it is happening to all kinds of people across the board, with many of the scams being very convincing to say the least. In the YouTube video and on our channel, I will be discussing some of the telltale signs that we see all the time, such as how to tell whether or not the link is legitimate or if it is actually coming from the people that they are claiming to be.

So, once the channel is up and running, we will be sharing the link here so that you can go over and follow us!

So, as I have talked to a few people personally, I thought that I would share something with all of you here to bring you up to speed on a project that we have in the works.

For a while now, we have been kicking around the idea of doing a YouTube channel and/or live streaming videos, but, the biggest hurdle that we have been faced with is what format do we want to take that would be of the most interest to not only our customers, but people in general and as a whole. There are already countless YouTube channels out there catering to a slew of topics related to the computer field, but, the one area that we have felt has been lacking is in the area of basic, every day computers for the common person.

As an example, there are channels that cater to and promote high end gaming computer systems and their builds, however, how many of you are going to be spending $30,000 on a computer to play video games online, unless, of course, that were your business? Then there are channels that cater to building gaming computers as a whole, but, again, how many of you are in the market for that in the first place?

That is not to say that we could not build a high end gaming computer or a gaming computer at all, it just means that time and time again, it feels as though these channels tend to cater to a small target audience that would appreciate these things, while a larger segment is kind of left in the dark, or, if there are videos related to the general person, they tend not to be done in such a way that the average person understands it.

When I was younger, there was a music group called Living Colour, and one of their biggest hits was a song called Cult of Personality. In the beginning of the song, the words of Malcolm X can be heard saying, "We are going to talk, right down to earth, in a language that everybody here can easily understand." Those words have always stuck in my mind and have been something that I have taken quite literally in my approach to how I talk to customers, by taking the technical terms that tend to be spoken and putting them into easy to understand terms that anyone can understand and appreciate.

So it is with that in mind that I want to start a YouTube channel that talks right down to earth in a language that everybody can understand, taking the tech terms that are thrown about that some people may not understand and break them down in a way that is easy and relatable. The next step in this process is to get some feedback from you, our customers, family and friends, as to what you think of this idea and get some ideas of what you might like to see us cover. Feel free to post some comments and share your thoughts with us so that we can make this both educational and interactive! Thanks everyone!

All of us have our own little pet peeves, and one of mine happens to be when people, regardless of industry, work on things they have no business working on. This peeve was irritated recently when I was taking apart a refurbished gaming system, with the business name and number all over a sticker on the unit, only to look inside to see that they had not done things properly, thus leading to the downfall and ultimate demise of the device.

I typically do not share the business name in my posts, but, this particular business has been blasted time and time again by several people on YouTube doing videos on just such things that this business does, or, more to the point, what they do not do. That business is Game Stop, a video game retailer that buys, sells and trades video games and related hardware and merchandise. It is not unknown that they tend to truly lowball customers when they come in to trade in or sell a video game or console, such as offering a couple of dollars for a video game that retailed for $70. Do not get me wrong, I understand that a business must buy low and sell high in order to make money, but more often than not, what Game Stop offers is usually an insult to the person selling or trading their games. A perfect example of their practice is offering literally a penny for a system that cost well over $100 less than a year prior.

But, the reason I am sharing my experience with Game Stop practices right now is that when I took the system apart to do some checking, there were some blatant and obvious mistakes that they had made, most notably with relation to the thermal paste that was applied, or, in this instance, was not applied.

The thermal paste is applied between the processor and the heatsink in order to transfer heat from the processor to the heatsink where it will dissipate and allow the processor to avoid overheating. When the thermal paste is not applied properly, it can and usually will lead to thermal breakdown and the system or device will shut off or simply stop working permanently. This can happen in a gaming console or even a laptop or desktop computer, and the same process is used in any of these devices to properly apply the thermal paste.

Simply put, you remove the heatsink, which is a large piece of metal, usually aluminum, to access the processor. On both the processor and the heatsink there will be residue from the previous installation, which you need to remove and clean off. Once that is done you apply the thermal paste, spread it evenly over the top of the processor, reinstall the heatsink and mount it in place.

It is a simply and easy thing to do, however, that is not what those at Game Stop's refurbish center did. No, they removed the heatsink and only partially cleaned off the old thermal paste that had hardened and caked up. Yes, it does get hard and that makes the process of removing it take longer, but, you need to remove it in order to allow for proper cooling. But, again, that is not what they did, and while keeping some of the original thermal paste on both the heatsink and processor, they then applied new thermal paste to the OUTSIDE of the processor, NOT where it was needed in order to allow for proper cooling and because of their lack of doing their job properly it led to the ultimate demise of the device. However, because this had happened outside of their limited warranty given for the device timeline, it cannot be taken back to them for a refund or exchange.

So, the bottom line here is to be careful of where you buy refurbished items, and that there are plenty of vendors out there that do the work properly to ensure that the device will provide the user with as much life on that device as possible. The pet peeve that I have is that if you do not know what you are doing, look online and find a tutorial so that you can do the job right or simply do not do the job at all if you are not going to do the job right in the first place.

Quite often I am approached by various companies who would like for me to sell their products. In many instances, I see their product and ask myself if it is something that our customers would want to use or buy, if so, how can I become a vendor for these products so that my customers can get a discount on them?

With that thought in mind, a company recently approached me regarding their antivirus program. I will not name names, but, it is a program that we are quite familiar with and it is a sound product, so, I engaged with them in various conversations about the product, implementation, not to mention live meetings online.

Which brings me to the point of this message. I knew about this product prior to them contacting me, had used it a few times and after the first online meeting and being walked through the particulars of the program, I was kind of set in my mind that this may be a product that we offer our customers. Then things happened and, at this point, I am inclined not to work with them at all, and here's why.

One of THE most important things that companies and vendors can do is maintain contact with vendors such as myself, meaning that if I were to contact them for some reason, they should respond within a respectable time frame. We understand that people cannot respond immediately, just as we cannot always respond immediately when we are contacted. That having been said, to not reply to emails after nearly 3 weeks, that is cause for concern about their structure and whether or not if we are using their products and need help, will we actually get it?

Another issue that became a problem was those live meetings online. I would be sent an invitation for a meeting, only to go into the meeting and nobody was there. Or, the meeting would suddenly be rearranged, changed without notification, the list goes on and on. A business such as ours runs on appointments, and if I schedule a time to set aside to have a meeting, then I would expect that time to be when we have our meeting. I heard everything from the technician was unavailable and another jumped on board to at the last minute to talk for a couple of minutes before they had to go and yet another meeting would be scheduled. During the last online meeting we had, it was discussed and agreed that we would have another meeting a week later, but, despite our contacting them to inquire about the meeting, we are now three weeks beyond when that meeting was supposed to happen and we have not heard from them at all.

This is not how business should be conducted. I understand that it is not always possible to respond quickly, we are in the same situation and sometimes have to contact someone a day later, but, to not respond at all nor set up the meeting that we all agreed upon? That was the tipping point for us and we will not be working with them at all.

That having been said, one company like the one I just described happens, and we are thankful to have so many incredible companies that we work with, one that we just came on board with and will be offering their product very soon. This new company that we are engaging with are prompt in their responses to emails or calls and their product is terrific, not to mention that it is priced very reasonably, so keep on the lookout for that!

Recently, I mentioned the war between Intel and AMD, and how the two are battling it out for superiority. AMD has made some serious strides in recent years to make them the "go to" processor for those into gaming. As I also mentioned, this is not the first time that the two giants of the processor industry have gone head to head like this with AMD taking a lead ahead of Intel.

But, one of the metrics that I have been going upon is watching what Apple does with their computers and seeing if they abandon Intel for AMD. In a bit of a strange move by Apple, they have not only begun to move away from Intel, but they are also not going to be using AMD chips, either.

Towards the end of this month, Apple will announce that they are going to move away from using Intel processors and install ARM processors in their systems moving forward. This is in large part due to Apple wanting to make all of their devices mesh on the same platform across the board, allowing their computers, iPads and iPhones work on the same processors. This is both an odd move and one that they have done in the past as well.

During the 90's, Apple used Motorola chips and decided to move away from them because Motorola could not meet the demands that Apple had in terms of supply, so they then moved to Intel processors. Moving away from Intel processors and using ARM processors will mean quite a few changes both in terms of hardware and software, with software developers having to rework their programs to work in the ARM architecture. For many who have already been doing this for both the iPad and iPhone, the change will not be quite as difficult, however, for some other software manufacturers, this will mean basically rewriting their software to work with the ARM processors.

I keep mentioning the ARM processors, but, what exactly are they you might ask? Well, ARM processors work on the RISC architecture, which stands for Reduced Instruction Set Computing. Though this may sound like a "new" concept, the truth is that RISC has been around for quite some time, in fact, many of you have used them and might not have known you were, most notably some older generation video game consoles. The most notable console using the RISC chips was the original PlayStation system.

So, with Apple moving away from Intel, does that mean we are possibly going to see Intel start to fade away? No, it just means that Intel is losing one of their biggest corporate manufacturers that uses their processors, however, the Apple computer market makes up roughly 10% of the overall computer market, so though it means a loss, that does not mean they are losing everything, either. As has been the case in the past, Intel will have to boost their efforts to make a better processor to compete with AMD's Ryzen lineup, though Intel tends to be the processor of choice when it comes to the business segment, while AMD tends to be the processor of choice of the video gaming segment, so we will see if Intel wants to move into that segment or continue as usual.

One thing that just came out regarding the AMD processors is that there are some reliable sources providing information stating that the AMD processors are running hot without being overclocked, and when overclocked they are running so hot that their life expectancy lessens, so, though you are running faster initially and your initial cost is less than had you gone with an Intel processor, because the overall expectancy could be significantly less, you may have to replace that AMD processor sooner than had you gone with an Intel chip, thus costing you more money in the long run. Again, time will tell if this is a problem that AMD can overcome and continue to be an innovator in the CPU segment.