Weare introducing guest bloggers to our blog, to make sure you get a variety of information from different sources. It also gives you an opportunity to ask questionsto a wide variety of industry people, and more importantly gives you a chance to tell us who you want to hear from. If you have any ideas of interesting people involved with phones that you would like to see write on our blog, let us know. To start us off, I’m pleased to introduce Lee Williams from troubleshooter aficionados Geek Squad:
I’m Lee and have been with the Geek Squad since February 2007. I work as a double agent mostly visiting homes to kill all your spyware, and make computers do what you want them too. My specialties lie in Macs and Mobile Phones so as my first blog post I have given you a quick run through some of the steps you can go through if your phone misbehaves. Hopefully it will be a help to some of you!
Its amazing how many people have problems with phones and do not know basic steps to follow on how to fix them, especially when you consider how importantly mobile phones feature in people’s lives. What I am going to tell you about now are the steps I go through to fix a problem:
1. Turn the phone on and off
It may sound obvious but whenever I get someone who cannot make a call, cannot text or even some keys do not work the first thing I ask them is, have you tried turning your phone on and off. We refer to it as a power cycle and it can fixa lot of problems, a customer will often ask me why should they have to do that. You must bear in mind that most mobiles are on 24/7 there are not many electrical devices that have the same demands put upon them. By performing a power cycle you are giving the phone a breather.
2. If the problem still exists try a master reset
This is like a super power cycle if you will, a phone may look pretty basic from the menu you see but there are thousands of processes running in the background that determine how your phone run. So if one of those processes is not working correctly it is very difficult to diagnose and also even more difficult to change. The best thing to do is a factory reset, it is often found in settings and should be relatively easy to find. It will change your ringtone and wallpaper and any other customization your have made but will not delete your pictures or any other data, (be careful with Sony Ericsson handsets though there is an option which does do this, just pay particular attention to what it says on the screen).
3. Still Broken
If these are both unsuccessful you should check your phone for water damage, there is usually an indicator on your battery which should be a white dot or small square, if it is any other colour then I am afraid you are in trouble. Water damage does not always manifest itself immediately so that time you thought you got away with using it in the rain 3 months ago could easily only now just be affecting your phone, if this is the case your phone insurance should cover you for a replacement.
Other than that the phone could simply have a bug, the phone manufacturers are under such pressure to release new handsets the quickest, the testing time before release is getting shorter and shorter this is why they entitle you to free software upgrades throughout your entire first year of ownership so you can make sure you have the fastest most feature packed experience possible with your handset. This is done by either sending your phone to the manufacturer (usually 28 days) or the easier option is to take it to a Carphone Warehouse where on occasion they can fix it on site if they can, failing that they send it to a central location where the turnaround time is around 14 days.
4. If all else fails….
Try finding people with the same problem. If your problem is on a Nokia n95 and you are having trouble sending texts type “nokia n95 text problem forum” into the Googleand you will be granted access to a world where people are having the same problem where most of the time someone else has done the hard work and found a solution already that you can apply. If this is fruitless you can always appeal for help by crating your own topic, the Nokia forum is especially helpful with the engineers themselves often posting solutions.
So these are the steps that I follow myself and also when I am charged with the task of fixing other phones too. Hopefully if you follow them to it will help you out. Always remember to back up your photos and numbers either on a computer or extra memory card. If this all sounds a bit confusing and not worth your time, you can get us to do it instead. Call 0800 049 4335 and a geek squad agent will be on hand to advise you of the best solution. If you would rather e-mail send your problem to contact@geeksquad.co.uk and chances are I will deal with you myself.
Lee Williams | Agent 5235
Geek Squad Europe | London
The first image of the upcoming Skypephone, to be launched on Three at the beginning of November, is now available.
With this phone all calls to other Three Skypephones and all calls to Skype users are free of charge. Just log into your Skype account as you do on a PC, access contacts, check their status, make a call or send an instant message. The handset has a dedicated Skype key so calls can be made instantly.
The 3Skypephone comes with some great features:
2 Megapixel camera
Photo editing and effects function
Video capture
MP3 player
Inbuilt equalizer which enhances reproduction delivering great bass
Simple navigation for browsing the library
Calls on the 3 Sypephone are truly free, there are no calling charges, no data charges and no need to buy an extra add-on. It’s FREE calls at anytime.
The 3Skypephone comes in 3 great colours and will also be the only phone available on the new 12 Mix and Match 100 tariff which offers 100 minutes or texts or any mix of the two.
More than 100 million text messages are sent across mobile networks, every day in the UK. With the networks offering more and more text bundles with their tariffs, such as the Orange unlimited text bundle on Dolphin 35 tariffs, those figures are just likely to grow and grow.
The increase in popularity of text messaging has had some unfortunate side effects, however. As you can see from the picture, some mobile keypads are not as strong as others. The pictured phone belongs to a colleague here at mobiles.co.uk and she has only had it for 9 months!
So, with this in mind, here are Mobiles.co.uk top three tips for increasing the life of your mobile phone keypad:
Actor Val Kilmer commissioned artist Roderick Romero to build a treehouse on the side of his property. Click here for more pictures.
Kilmer's hideaway is tucked away from the prying eyes of the paparazzi, and it also has a great view of the Pecos River[via USAToday]
According to "babblin5", this video tutorial will show you "a quick, [and] easy way to hack your USB headset, allowing users to plug in their guitar, bass, keyboards or better microphones." Continue reading to watch.
Spiral Island is basically "a floating artificial island in a lagoon near Puerto Aventuras, on the Caribbean coast of Mexico south of Cancun." Video after the jump. Click here for more pictures.
The island sported a two-story house, a solar oven, a self-composting toilet, and three beaches. He used some 250,000 bottles for the 66ft (20 m) by 54 ft (16 m) structure. The mangroves were planted to help keep the island cool, and some of them rose up to 15 ft (5 m) high[via Spluch]
In this GT interview, pro gamer "Jonathan 'Fatl1ty' Wendel talks about his experience at the first ever E for All event." Video after the break.
GT provides us with an in-depth look at TimeShift -- available on the Xbox 360 / PC / PlayStation 3 -- which is slated for release on October 30th. Video after the break.
TimeShift empowers players with the gift of time manipulation, including the ability to slow down, stop and rewind the world around them, allowing them to move freely while opponents and game objects are frozen in time[via IGN]
Remember when calculator watches were the cool "thing" to have, back in the 80's? Well, the first one was released in 1975 -- called the "Calcron". Click here for more pictures.
Copper isn't just good for making pennies, as modder Blake proves. This computer case was crafted entirely from copper piping, and is great for keeping the hardware components cool. Click here for more pictures.
(Thanks, Jessica)
