Here is a screenshot of the Blue version:

Once you have settled on the color scheme that you like the most, Steve shows you how to edit the graphics using a great piece of open-source software. About 10 of the videos are dedicated to editing the various graphics on the website but it’s not just about using the software, he also talks about the design and business choices on why the website has been setup this way.

For example, in the video where he is showing you how to edit the prices on the website, he mentions that showing your prices front and centre is more attractive to a customer who is just passing by. They don’t need to contact you to ask for the prices, they don’t need to go deeper into your website to find them, it is right in their face. Steve understands the web design rule that if a user cannot find what they want in about in 7 seconds, they will leave – and has designed the site accordingly.

Once Steve finishes covering the graphics part of the package, he moves onto editing the HTML code using another great piece of open-source software. However, you don’t need to get into the nitty gritty of it all since that is already done for you. Instead he shows you how to change the title, keyword and description tags to suit your business.

Once the website has been customized to your liking, Steve suggests a good hosting company to go with and shows you how to get your website online.
Of course, there is no point putting up a website unless you get traffic to it and getting traffic can take time. This is why paying for Google Adwords is a good option since it puts you up the top of the searches for a price. Steve dedicates 5 videos to creating an Adwords account, setting it up, maintaining it, pausing it and making changes to it. Steve even provides a keyword list that you can start with.

Alright, let’s look at the pros and cons:

Pros

• Really simple and straight forward. Someone with no web development skills would be able to use this.
• Covers the business side of things every now and then such as why you should put your prices on the front page and the cost of gaining clients via Adwords.
• Allows you to start getting clients pretty much straight away thanks to the Adwords guides
• Cross browser compatible, meaning that the webpage looks the same in all the top browsers.

Cons

• If you are good at creating professional looking webpage’s, then this may be too simple for you
• The web developer in me would have liked to see a table-less CSS layout and a little less graphics. I asked Steve about this and he said he wanted to keep it as simple as possible so it’s easier for his customers to follow.

Conclusion
In conclusion, if you know your stuff with web pages you might want to give it a miss because it may be too basic for you. However, if you need help with setting up a professional looking computer business website then this package is for you. Steve has really gone a lot of trouble to guide you through the whole process.
The price for this package for anyone else is $97 USD. However, I managed to get Technibble readers a 15% off discount which brings it down to $82.45 if you use this discount link.
You only need to get one or two jobs through your website for this to pay for itself. Check it out.

© Technibble - A Resource for Computer Technicians to start or improve their computer business
To get started with your own computer business, check out our Computer Business Kit. If you want to learn how to repair laptops, check out these narrated, high definition videos. These would pay for themselves in 1 repair job.

Podnutz Computer Repair Tech Website Builder Review

In this article I will be reviewing some remote support software called “Instant Housecall”. Instant Housecall aims to be a complete support package for computer techs who provide remote support.


In this review, I used the Professional Edition trial which allows you to try all of the options for 15 days.
To test the product, I installed Instant Housecall’s “Specialist” software that sits in the technicians system tray awaiting a client to “call in”. From there, I can access the admin area that allows me to set my account preferences such as a branded splash screen that my clients see, my support pages logo, a webpage that loads after the help session (for feedback, surveys, promotions etc..), my Paypal email address so I can be paid, manage my specialists, change default system behaviors such as auto-reconnect if I get disconnected and display reports of the work that has been done and how much I earned.

Once this has all been setup, you can either used a support page created by Instant Housecall that you can send your customer with a URL like “ABCTech.instanthousecall.com” or you can set up a direct download link from your current website so they never see the Instant Housecall domain. This is what my test page looks like:

I would direct my client to this page, they press “Download Now” and the client-side support software would install. Something worth pointing out is that Instant Housecall has gone to a lot of trouble to make sure that it is as easy as possible for the clients to set up the client-side software. There are no pin codes that they have to enter or read out to you (unlike Crossloop or LogMeIn Rescue), the client doesn’t have the usual three “Open, Save and Cancel” options when downloading the software, it only has Run and Cancel. Basically, the less opportunities for a client to click the wrong thing the better and Instant Housecall has gone to extremes to prevent this which is great.

Instant Housecall also works in Safe Mode (with networking enabled) and with Vistas UAC so you dont have to tell the client to switch UAC off or “Run as Administrator” since you can press “Allow” button yourself.

There are two versions of the client-side support software, one is what they call the “Hotline” which is an executable installer and the other is a temporary applet. The advantage of having both is that the applet can be run on locked down or administrator restricted machine and the “Hotline” application has more custom branding options with the ability to let the client allow unattended remote access to their computer.

To make sure there are no connectivity issues, the system tries to make peer-to-peer connections where possible. If it cant, the system will use Instant Housecalls secured server.

For this review, I loaded up a virtual machine, visited my support page and downloaded my support program. Once it was installed it asked me for a little bit of information such as my name, phone number and a reason for the support call (this is for the technicians records but this can be switched off if you dont like it). I also had the option to choose different specialists if I had a preference and there was more than one working for me.

Once I filled out the details on the client-side, the Specialist software on my main computer popped up with this message:

I accepted the call and the remote control software started. Once I had looked around in the remote control window, I noticed some interesting features such as File Transfer, IM Chat, Record Session Video, Take Screenshot, Send Ctrl-Alt-Del to remote computer, Reconnect after Reboot, Accept Payment and Blank Remote Monitor. There is also a little box informing the client that the computer is being controlled by me which moves around the screen if you put the mouse which is handy if its covering something you need access to.

Here is a picture of the remote control software from the technicians end:

If the client allowed me remote access or I was watching over many machines inside my corporation, I would see something like this that allows me to choose which unattended computer I would like to log into.

Now, lets talk about getting paid for our hard work. Once I was finished testing I pressed “Accept Payment” menu option which took me a little while to find until I read the manual. The “Accept Payment” drop down not being in an obvious location is one of my very few gripes about this software, otherwise I really like it. The other gripe is that the client presses F10 to chat to you and F11 to disconnect you. I can foresee my clients accidentally disconnecting me since F10 and F11 are right next to each other. Buttons like F9 and F12 or something similar with a few buffer keys in between would probably have been a little better.

Anyway, once the Accept Payment option was pressed the client is presented with this:

Once they press OK they are taken to a page where they can pay for your services. In this example, I used Paypal but apparently it can work with just about any shopping cart. Of course, you can also do this at the start of the session before any work is done if you are less trusting of the end user.

Once everything has been paid for and you are finished with the client, your reports area is updated displaying how much you earned per session/client including any notes made during the repair.

If a client activates the Instant Housecall on software on their end and you are not at the computer to answer it or you have the Specialist application closed, Instant Housecall can SMS you notifications such as missed calls, calls in queue and messages left for you by your customers (Professional version only). I can see this being really useful for one man businesses who cant sit at a computer all day in case a Instant Housecall comes through.

Last but not least, to test the transfer speeds I used Instant Housecall to remote into friends computer who believed they were infected with a trojan. The speeds were on par with other big names in remote support which was good considering my friend was using a wireless connection on their end. Also, during the 40 minutes or so I was connected to their computer, it didnt disconnect once which was great.

So how much does it cost? Instant Housecall has different pricing for 3 different versions depending on your needs:

• The Free Edition which allows you unlimited sessions but only 3 customers.
• The Express Edition costs $49 USD per month or a lifetime license of $899 which allows you unlimited sessions and unlimited customers.
• The Professional Edition (the version I reviewed) is similar to the Express Edition but for $89 USD per month or $1699 lifetime it allows you to help up to 10 people at once (Express only allows 1 at a time), allows you to brand the software with your own logos, alerts you via pager or SMS if you miss a clients support call, the ability to record screen sessions, remotely access unattended workstations and more.

Instant Housecall is much cheaper than other remote support software like LogMeIn Rescue per month/year and LogMeIn Rescue doesn’t even have a lifetime option. If you used the professional edition of Instant Housecall over LogMeIn Rescue for two years you are already ahead by $677 and will remain ahead since you don’t have to pay an extra $1188 USD per year if you went with LogMeIn Rescue.

Instant Housecall is a complete package for support technicians managing branding, payments and reporting. They also make things as easy as possible for the customers to get help with little opportunity for them to click the wrong button which is obviously a good thing.

It is definitely worth giving the 15 day trial a shot yourself which you can do using the following download link: http://www.instanthousecall.com/tn/SetupSpecialistSign-in.exe

I managed to secure us a discount as well which gives Technibble readers 2 months free on any subscription or a 10% discount on any lifetime licence purchased before August 30, 2009 if you mention “technibble” .

© Technibble - A Resource for Computer Technicians to start or improve their computer business
To get started with your own computer business, check out our Computer Business Kit. If you want to learn how to repair laptops, check out these narrated, high definition videos. These would pay for themselves in 1 repair job.

Instant Housecall Review

I was recently called by a business named “Commit” to check out their software called CommitCRM. I already know that there is a good amount of the technicians reading this already know what CommitCRM is since the Technibble forum members usually mention CommitCRM this when the topic of client management software comes up. However, for those of you who don’t know what it is; CommitCRM is a client relationship manager, service management and billing solution that is aimed at the ongoing needs of small to mid-sized computer service businesses who do the following:

• Provide maintenance services
• Handle customer support calls and on-site visits
• Perform local repairs
• Manage Service Contracts and need full control over their status
• Provide outsourcing of IT support services
• Manage IT projects
• Sell hardware and off-the-shelf software
• Provide managed services (MSP)
• Track Customers’ Assets – Equipment, Software, Subscriptions
• Bill customers for labor, expenses, products and parts

I believe this would be pretty much most of the Technibble readers.

While I was on the phone to one of their representatives I noticed something interesting. This person was very passionate about the product and really believes in what they are doing. I get marketing calls all the time but this one was different as it wasn’t marketing spiel or paid happiness, this was real. You don’t see that much now days and I believe that says a lot about a company.

Anyway, to begin the review of the product. I downloaded a 30 day, fully functional free trial from their download page and installed it. The setup of the software is fairly straight forward where you create the admin username and password for the software, enter a few details about your business, select the correct regional settings and choose which Quickbooks package you are using if you have it (since CommitCRM has the ability to export accounting data to Quickbooks if you purchase their Quickbooks addon).

Once I had finished the initial setup, the first thing I noticed was that the home screen layout is very Quickbooks like which makes it easy to know what order things should be done in. The second thing I noticed is that it appears very finished and refined. Down the left hand side there are 15 sections and I’ll briefly explain what each of them does.

Accounts – This is where you enter your clients details and keep track of what type of contract/assets the client has with you. It can also show all your past history with them such as support the tickets they have filed in the past, amounts owing etc..

Tickets – This is the ticketing system where you enter in problems that the client has reported and can view any currently open tickets. From here, you can assign that job to one of your own techs who will receive a message that they have been assigned a job in the internal messaging system. When the job has been complete you can assign a charge to that client for a particular ticket and that will automatically add to that clients amount owing or subtract from their time if they purchased a block of support time from you.

Dispatcher – The Dispatcher is a calendar system that looks a lot like Outlooks calendar system. In here, it will show you each of your staff members (technicians, consultants etc.) calendars and what they have assigned to them for that time. This would make it much easier to make the most of your staffs time since the technicians always know where they need to go next and the person doing the dispatching doesn’t double-book them.

Charges – Charges is fairly simple, it will show you the current charges that have been billed (or not billed) to clients. You can filter these by the client, which employee charged them, date ranges, labor, expenses and parts.

Items – Items is items you define things like expenses, labor, products and parts. You can define how much they are and how they are charged.

Contracts – Contracts lists the contracts that you currently have (or had) with various clients. It will tell you the name of the contract, the client, what type it is (time period, block of time, block of money or block of tickets), when the contract ends etc.. What is great about this contracting system is when one of your own technicians or consultants uses up time helping a client or closes a ticket, it is automatically subtracted from the contract you have with the client.

Documents – This section holds various templates that your business uses so you can easily print them off like special work orders, wireless settings, backup checklists etc..

Assets – This section allows you to easily track and manage customer equipment, PC inventory and software licenses/subscriptions. There are areas to enter license keys, hardware serial numbers, dates that warranties finish and more.

Opportunities – In this section you can track business opportunities, store detailed information about prospective customers and contacts, track all the past interactions for each customer up to the sale point (phone calls, meetings, tasks, events, information requests, etc.), pursue sales opportunities and track the status of each opportunity, forecast potential revenue, measure the effectiveness of sales efforts, and more.

Messages – This is an internal email-like messaging system. This is where technicians can see tickets assigned to them and other relevant information. Messages sent though this system can also be emailed so technicians who are already on-site can receive information.

History – The history section is simply a log of all the changes that have occurred within the CommitCRM system such as messages sent, charges applied, tickets closed etc.. It has the ability to filter this information by date, which employee did it and by type.

Knowledge Base – This section allows you to create your own knowledge base where each article is assigned a title, problem description, and solution. The Knowledge Base can be expanded with an additional add-on to help your technicians solve issues when on-site and also allow customers to access articles from a web interface, so they can resolve issues on their own.

Calendar – Same as Dispatcher

Employees – This is where you keep information about your employees. It has the usual contact information that you would expect in such a section but you can also assign other useful information such as their rate per hour. The ticketing system makes use of this information so that if their rate is specified as $50 per hour and that technician spent 3 hours onsite, the customer will be charged $150.

Reports – This allows to view reports on from just about any part of the business such as contacts list, accounts, history, tickets, charges reports etc.

Some other features worth mentioning is that CommitCRM synchronizes nicely with Outlook. If you have a Smartphone that synchronizes with Outlook (which most Smartphones do) you can take much of the data around with you such as your calendar. You can push its integration and synchronization abilities even further with featured called “Online Services” where you can take variables from the application and use them somewhere else like creating a Google Maps link of the clients address to send to your onsite technicians phone.

There are tons of other little features such as a little timer that you can use while working on a clients support ticket. Once you stop the timer, that time is applied to the clients account and based on what type of contract they have with you, it either charges their account or subtracts time if they prepurchased time from you. There are many more features like this but it would take far too long to describe them all.

Stability and Ease of Use
After playing with the application for a few hours I found it to be rock solid. It didn’t crash or do anything unexpected. It took me about 10-20 minutes to learn how to use the programs main features and I also noticed that on just about every page in the application there is a help link with text documentation and even demonstration videos. Commit has spent a lot of time making sure that their customers know how to use the application. They also provide free support which is available to both paying members and those who are still on the free trial.

Pricing
CommitCRM’s pricing changes depending on how many active employees will be using the system. The base price is $249 USD which includes the actual software and one active employee license. If you need to add another employee to the system at a later stage it costs $149 USD per employee. However, you can also purchase “value packs” where you can get discounts if you add 3 or 10 employees at once.

Pros and Cons
The Pros of this application is everything I have listed above part from pricing. I really enjoyed using this application and the only Con I could find was the pricing. The base price is $249 which is a good price for a 1 man operation but if you need to add many employees can get a little steep ($499 for a 3 employee license). Of course, if your business is at the point where you have 3 or more employees on the books then $499 isn’t going to break the bank. Other than the pay-per-employee system, CommitCRM is very flexible with their licensing. You can install it on as many computers as you like regardless of the amount of employee accounts you have purchased and you can reassign these paid employee accounts to other employees at any time.

Conclusion
I do believe you get what you pay for with this. It may cost a little more than some other CRM software, but the application is highly refined and does much more than other CRM’s. If a CRM the central point of your business you will want the support and stability that CommitCRM provides.

Of course, you don’t have to take my word for it. There are plenty of technicians on the Technibble forums who are already using it and mentioned that they really like it when the topic of CRM’s come up. Check them out: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.

To check out the CommitCRM website: Click Here

To download the 30 day trial: Click Here

© Technibble - A Resource for Computer Technicians to start or improve their computer business
To get started with your own computer business, check out our Computer Business Kit. If you want to learn how to repair laptops, check out these narrated, high definition videos. These would pay for themselves in 1 repair job.

CommitCRM – Service Management, CRM and Billing Software Review

GFI LANguard is a network scanner designed to make the jobs of network administrators easier. Basically, GFI LANguard will search a network for any computers (both Windows and Linux) and then scan them for any vulnerabilities like missing Windows updates, lack of administrator passwords and unauthorized application installs.

Once it has finished scanning, it will create a report for each computer and rate how vulnerable each machine is. In this report, it will list the problems with the computer such as a missing Windows updates and list the solution (such as installing that update). What makes this application particularly nice is if you right click on a certain problem like the missing Windows update, it allows you to download that patch and deploy it remotely. As you would expect with an application like this, it is quite scalable allowing you to fix all security issues it found across all detected computers (that you have the correct permissions to of course) with just a few clicks. With the ability to do local scans, network scans and create custom scans, the software was quite flexible throughout my testing.

Just recently, GFI LANguard has been released as a freeware version for up to 5 IP addresses so it wouldn’t be a bad choice for watching over a small business. Of course, if you want to use it on more than 5 IP addresses you will have to use the paid version. The application has a “This is a 10 day Trial” message when you load it but after 10 days it will switch to the fully functional 5 IP adress freeware version. Personally, I believe that the 5 IP address limitation for the free version is a little low since its not too hard to manage 5 computers manually. I think 10 would have been a nicer number.

Anyway, if its your job to baby-sit a handful of computers, this application is worth checking out. You can download the free version here: http://www.gfi.com/lannetscan/free-network-security-scanner

© Technibble - A Resource for Computer Technicians to start or improve their computer business
To get started with your own computer business, check out our Computer Business Kit. If you want to learn how to repair laptops, check out these narrated, high definition videos. These would pay for themselves in 1 repair job.

GFI LANguard Review

PaidSupport.com is a web platform that connects computer experts like us to customers who are in need of phone support. As a technician, you can supplement your existing income by signing up and listing the areas you specialize in like computer repair, hardware, software, wireless and PDAs. You then set the hours you are available to receive a call and then enter your real phone number. PaidSupport.com will give you a 800 number with an extension so people can call you directly. The PaidSupport.com website will list your details and will show you as available for help if its between the hours you set. If the customer calls while you are unavailable or outside your set hours, they have the option to schedule a future appointment with you.

As for getting paid, you can specify a flat rate, a per minute rate or a combination like $10 for the first 5 minutes and $1 for every following minute.

PaidSupport.com handles all the billing involved because the customers have to specify a credit card during signup and when you finish helping the customer, the fee will be transferred to your account minus PaidSupports cut of 30% profit (30% if they supplied you the customer, 20% if you supplied the customer from your own site) and $0.10 per call minute. It appears that PaidSupport have allowed for the ability to introduce other plans so you may be able to lower those figures if you pay extra outright or something. On the 25th of each month you’ll receive your choice of a check or direct deposit as payment for your previous months earnings.

If you don’t have your own means to accept payment per minute for support calls, you can also use your special unbranded number and place a special button on your site supplied by PaidSupport if you are willing to let PaidSupport take their 20% cut.

From a customer perspective, when the client needs some phone support, they go to the site and are shown a list of computer experts that are currently available to take a call. If they need an answer to a very specific problem like a Microsoft Excel problem, they can choose that topic and be shown a list of technicians who have marked themselves as Microsoft Excel experts. Once they have settled on a technician they can press start call, it initiates the call and once the call has finished the client is charged appropriately.

Another feature that is interesting is PaidSupports Affiliate Program that allows you to earn a 10% ongoing commission from every support call on all referred members. Basically, that means if a client calls your current business with a problem outside your scope, refer them to PaidSupport and you’ll make 10% of the profit if they use the service. If they use the again at a later time, you’ll get 10% of the profit again for as long as they keep calling. Not a bad way to cash in on clients you would have turned away without making a cent.

PaidSupport.com is a very new site (earliest press release I could find was dated April 20th 2009) so don’t expect your phone to be ringing off the hook as soon as you sign up but as they increase in popularity you can expect more calls.

If you would like to supplement your income, check out PaidSupport.com. If telephone support isnt your thing, check out the affiliate program anyway to cash in on clients you would usually just turn away.

© Technibble - A Resource for Computer Technicians to start or improve their computer business
To get started with your own computer business, check out our Computer Business Kit. If you want to learn how to repair laptops, check out these narrated, high definition videos. These would pay for themselves in 1 repair job.

PaidSupport.com Review

The folks over at HandyRecovery.com sent me a copy of their software “Handy Recovery 4.0″ to play with and review.
I will begin by talking about what it is. Handy Recovery is data recovery software designed to restore files that have been accidentally deleted or where damaged by virus attacks, software faults or from deleted/formatted partitions.

It works under 9x/Me/NT/2000/XP/2003/Vista (has earned the certified for Vista logo). It supports all Windows file systems and hard/floppy drives and unlike much of the recovery software out there, it can recover from CompactFlash, SmartMedia, Multimedia and SD Cards. It can also recover from compressed and encrypted files on NTFS drives.

Now, onto my review of the software.

Handy Recovery has a Explorer like interface with the folder list down the left hand side and the files down the right hand side. Its easy to use because everything behaves very Windows-esque. You have some icons up the top, the [+] buttons expand the folder tree and if you right click on a file there you get some more options.

I tested this application by scanning one of my drives (a 20gig partition) which is working fine and took 23 seconds to scan. I wasn’t looking for anything in particular during this scan, here are the results:

It shows the folder tree and the files on the drive. Each folder with a red plus on it means that there is deleted file that is recoverable inside that folder. When I navigate down into these folders, it shows me which one is recoverable and its probability of a successful restoration. All the folders without the red plus are my normal, working files and folders.

What I really like about this application is that it manages to keep the original folder structure and names unlike many other recovery applications. However, sometimes the folder structure isn’t recoverable so it placed in folders below the directory tree on the left hand side.

Like any good commercial recovery software, it has the ability to recover information of lost partitions. Just set the data ranges you want to search and the file system it is, and press Start.

A certain feature that is done really well in Handy Recovery is the ability to search for certain types of files. Sure, other recovery software allows you to set wildcards like *.jpg, but this goes a little beyond that. It allows you to search for all types of images or all types of mail files and more. This is especially handy if you don’t know what extension a certain program uses. Here is a screenshot of that feature.

One last feature I will talk about that I don’t think I have seen in any other recovery software is the ability to preview a file before you recover it. If its an image it will display the image. If its text based it will show you the text. If its something it doesn’t know, it will usually try text based.
As you can imagine, this would be especially useful if you were trying to recover a specific picture off a camera memory card since the file names are always non-descriptive (eg. IMG00054.JPG).

I tried my luck with some old 3.5 inch floppies which have since become corrupted. When I try to open them in Windows Explorer, I either get the error message “Please insert disk into drive A:” or “This disk is not formatted”. If I try and open them under Handy Recovery it can see the files and recover most of them.
While working with the floppy disks I hit the only gripe that I have with this software, it hung a few times while trying to read some of the corrupted floppies. Most disks were fine, but there were just a few bad ones it couldn’t deal with. However, it could list what files were on those bad disks which was interesting.

This software comes as a trial which allows you to recover 1 file per day for 30 days, beyond that it costs $49 USD for the full version. For a commercial piece of software with the capabilities and easy-to-use interface that Handy Recovery has, its not a bad deal at all.

Pros:

• Can read camera memory cards
• Works 9x/Me/NT/2000/XP/2003/Vista
• Great interface
• Powerful capabilities

Cons:

• The application hung a few times while trying to read corrupted 3.5 inch floppy disks

You can download the trial version at: http://www.HandyRecovery.com

© Technibble - A Resource for Computer Technicians to start or improve their computer business
To get started with your own computer business, check out our Computer Business Kit. If you want to learn how to repair laptops, check out these narrated, high definition videos. These would pay for themselves in 1 repair job.

Handy Recovery 4.0 Review