In the ever-evolving wireless industry, cell phones are becoming more and more intelligent and jam-packed with cool features. There are more and more apps that hold sensitive information – such as online banking account numbers – and hackers are lurking in the wireless world’s water, seeking their prey.

What is more disconcerting is the fact that the wireless industry is currently faced with even more security challenges, especially now that organizations are demanding more open networks on their devices, applications and content. With that in mind, wireless network carriers are still working hard to protect their consumers. When and if wireless security breaks wide open, it will be totally up to the consumer to protect his/her own data from spam, viruses and other threats.

What spyware does is what the name says; it “spies”. Data can be collected and extracted from text or instant messages, e-mails or contact lists. Software physically embedded on cell phones can be used to eavesdrop and can even be utilized as a GPS tracking tool that can remotely monitor the cell phone owner’s location.

“Although the wireless industry does try hard to protect consumer’s confidential information, it can only go so far,” said Jeff Gasner, owner of CPR – Chicago Cell Phone Repair. “To protect your phone from spyware, make sure you know where your phone is at all times, meaning don’t lend your phone to anyone or leave it unmonitored. This gives someone a chance to tamper with it. Also think about password protecting your phone.”

Other types of malware, on the other hand, are data extraction tools that collect data for unscrupulous companies or persons that use it for identity theft purposes. Viruses can be also be distributed through websites and e-mail attachments.

“If you think your cell phone has a virus, take it to your wireless network service provider or to an independent cell phone repair shop like CPR,” Gasner said.

To learn more visit:  http://www.chicagocellrepair.com

Smart phones are noted more for their sleek design than their durability. That’s why, as most s smart phone users can attest, all it takes is one drop and the thing goes kaput. One way to keep from damaging the smart phone’s sensitive body is instead opt in on purchasing one of those military-certified handset phones that are practically water proof, shock proof, and bypass all the cool apps and features of smart phones.

The BlackBerry smart phones, for instance, have had been noted for trackball issues. The newer BlackBerry models boast new track pads to answer the old trackball malfunctions. However, there have been reports that some of the newer BlackBerry track pad models seem to be very sketchy and flighty. Some users find their own way of dealing with the issues, such as balancing on one foot and applying the right kind of pressure with one finger in order for it work just so.

So, what is a wireless consumer to do when his or her high-tech smart phone decides to go south just when it is needed most? For one, the consumer can take it to the wireless service provider, hope that it came with a good replacement insurance plan, or shell out more money for another phone. There is, however, another option.

“You can simply bring it to us!” said Jeff Gasner, owner of CPR – Chicago Cell Phone Repair. “We are an independent cell phone repair store that can help you with most of your cell phone woes, we can also in most cases, retrieve your lost data for you, even when your phone is non-responsive.”

Chicago Cell Phone Repair can also help with broken BlackBerry trackballs or track pads, broken BlackBerry camera lenses, broken Blackberry screens or keyboards and damaged housing, to name a few.

So before any poor owner of a broken BlackBerry phone chucks it or digs deeper in his or her pocket for a new phone, perform CPR on it – bring it to a qualified CPR – Chicago Cell Phone Repair Specialist, that is—and let them fix it.

To learn more visit:  http://www.chicagocellrepair.com

One of the most common and costly incidents that cell phone owners suffer is water damage. The experience of dropping a phone in water – whether it’s the toilet or pool or some other bizarre location – can break even the most indestructible of phones. Water damage more often than not deems a cell phone inoperable.

There are some things people can do to help revive their cell phones from water damage, but they must be done fast. It helps to immediately turn off the cell phone and remove the battery and SIM card before removing excess water with a towel. Using a hair dryer or any heating element on the cell phone or its battery is a bad idea as it can damage the internal elements. After drying the cell phone off, the cell phone should be set out to dry. This process can take up to three days.

People can save themselves some time by going straight to an independent cell phone repair shop like CPR – Chicago Cell Phone Repair instead of doing it themselves and waiting three long days and praying that it will come back to life. Cell phone repair technicians might have to actually repair the exposed parts, which would be near impossible for consumers to do on their own.

“There are a lot of cell phone repair tips out there to save your cell phone from water damage,” said Jeffrey H. Gassner of CPR – Chicago Cell Phone Repair. “One thing that you have to remember is that they don’t always work. When your cell phone doesn’t respond, you should bring it to us and let our qualified technicians fix it for you and save you the headache.”

To learn more visit:  http://www.chicagocellrepair.com

Consumers are constantly going out with the old and getting on with the new with their cell phones. Many don’t know that they have the option of recycling it.

A new program called “Wireless…The New Recyclable” hopes to change this. It is a voluntary recycling program that the wireless industry established to help assist environmentally sound practices among carriers and manufacturers. The program helps encourage consumers to recycle their wireless devices. Participating members include ALLTEL Wireless, Nokia, AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile. A much more comprehensive list is available at http://www.recyclewirelessphones.com/. Consumers can recycle old wireless devices and accessories to any of the participating companies to take a proactive stance toward helping the environment.

“Although we are recycling site also, some of these recycling programs help provide recycled phones to domestic violence victims with matching airtime. Not only will you recycle your old phone but you will be helping out a good cause.” Said CPR – Chicago Cell Phone Repair owner Jeffrey H. Gassner.

Gassner from CPR – Chicago Cell Phone Repair is referring to programs such as “Call to Protect” and Verizon Wireless’s “Call2Recycle”. T-Mobile’s program helps children with single parents in need and Motorola has a “Race to Recycle Program” where the proceeds go to raise funds for K-12 schools. Proceeds from the Sprint Project Connect go to “4NetSafety” program, which helps kids be safer on the Internet. Many other programs such as Nokia, BlueGrass Cellular and Kyocera are helping to reduce waste and support global environmental sustainability.

Before people turn in phones to any of these companies, there are three things to remember to do. The person must first terminate service. Second, he or she should clear the phone’s memory of all the information such as contacts, pictures, phone numbers, etc. The next step is to remove the SIM card.

People can recycle the phone battery with the phone. They can also recycle accessories including cables, headsets, earpieces, cases, clips and cradles, as well as wireless devices like PDAs.

To learn more visit:  http://www.chicagocellrepair.com

Our online stores are here. CPR Cell Phone Repair is proud to announce the most ambitiously omnipresent aspect of its sales and marketing persona. Now you can switch on your personal computer and do more than Google the local zoo, no matter how much you enjoy giraffes, pink flamingos and the occasional odd roaming wildebeest. The day has arrived where CPR Cell Phone Repair is able to offer you the same excellent service found in our retail outlets, but online.

“We knew it would happen someday,” said Ralph, a certified technical support employee in one of CPR’s busy retail shops. “We just knew.”

Ralph grew up as a geek in a remote part of Chicagoland, tinkering to his heart’s content. He’s still tinkering, but now his expertise is available in the ether of cyberspace.

Ralph finds himself almost giddy with the possibilities. “Our online store stocks hundreds of cell phone parts from the most popular manufacturers,” he said. “We also carry name brand covers, chargers, batteries and even the occasional wildebeest-themed cellphone. If it’s cell phone-related, you will find it here.”

Ralph rattled off a few of the menagerie of items available online. “We have in stock, right at this moment, don’t know about a moment from now as they’re going fast – the LG VU CU920 Digitizer touchscreen, a whole bin full of battery covers for the very popular iPhone 3G, a pride of iPhone 4GB & 8GB LCD screens with touchscreen digitizers, a flock of Naztech edge Blackberry bold (9000) rubberized gel skin, and a herd of Blackberry 8300 Series silicone covers and that’s not all,” he said.

Ralph was no doubt referring to a family of smartphones, including cell phones (all phones and PDAs blessed with 6-month extended manufacturer’s warranties), a nifty selection of refurbished and used game systems and games for less, and last but not least, accessories. “Why not accessorize your electronics at CPR, receive our lifetime warranty, and do it with the convenience of being online?” asked Ralph.

Agreed, why not?

To learn more visit:  http://www.chicagocellrepair.com

CPR franchises have been selling like cell phones, with more than 10 dozen already sold. “CPR has reached over 120 stores sold as a franchise, and we’re just getting started,” said Jeff Gasner, entrepreneur and CPR co-owner.

Why would someone want to invest in a franchise opportunity? The answers may surprise you, especially while other economic sectors continue to struggle.

“To begin with, CPR has name recognition,” Gasner said. “Our name, which is a registered trademark, is the oldest, most firmly established, widely-known and respected brand name in the cell phone repair industry.”

Nearly everyone owns a cell phone in today’s society, and nearly everyone breaks one at one time or another. The cell phone repair industry is here to stay and there is no better way to tap into this highly lucrative market than with a CPR franchise.

Just as the auto repair industry grew rapidly in proportion to the number of cars being manufactured, the growth rate of cell phones and the cellular repair industry is following the same pattern. The market for cell phone repairs is still in the early growth stages, and it will take many years for the expansion of this market to approach saturation. Owning a CPR franchise is still a ground-floor business opportunity in terms of startup cost and earnings potential.

As a franchisee, according to Gasner, investors can become a member of a real helping profession. “You’ll be able to offer a full range of cellular repair services to your customers with a brand name they’ve come to trust and respect,” Gasner said. “If that’s not helping, I don’t know what is.”

But there’s more. Potential investors won’t have to go it alone. “Best of all, you’ll get the full support of the CPR team – a group that is committed to providing you with the training, equipment and resources you need to make your CPR store a successful, well-established business.

“Recession? What recession? Is there a recession?” asked Gasner, only partly in jest. “When you own a CPR franchise, current economic conditions might even improve your business.”

In addition to “old-fashioned” cell phones, CPR stores specialize in repairing smartphones, iPods, gaming systems, computers, GPS units and a lot more.

To learn more visit:  http://www.chicagocellrepair.com

Consumers don’t always hold their iPhone4 devices properly. Such mishandling, while not initially careless, can lead to dropped calls. While some consumers might not realize that their fancy devices can be used as a phone, and remain captivated by the multitude of available apps, such a realization, once it hits, can lead to frustration and rage.

“I’ve heard of owners deliberately breaking their iPhone4 after undergoing such an experience,” asserts Rick Roland Roberts, a certified CPR service technician, when the question was recently broached. “Afterwards, they’re remorseful, and just want to get their device fixed,” he explains, “So they take it to us.”

A trip to a consumer’s nearest CPR is quite often an excellent idea.

“We’re here to help,” Roberts adds, a geek who might seem like a superhero sometimes, minus the cape and tights.

Roberts is also quite aware of the so-called ‘death-grip’ that’s been going around – an issue brought about by not holding the iPhone4 correctly.

When a call is dropped as a consequence of something so inexplicable, consumers want to know why it happened.

“When you hold it that way, it blocks the antenna’s reception,” the counter geek explained, “It’s a wraparound antenna unique to the iPhone4.”

Sometimes when a dropped call is important, it hurts to lose it, at least emotionally. A sudden surge of rage may result, and an errant iPhone4 might get hurled against the hard ground or the nearest wall. After all, it is supposed to be a reliable phone.

“But the crucial thing to appreciate, that when you take it to CPR, it gets repaired,” Roberts said, “and when someone is presented with their device functioning perfectly again, they tend to calm down.”

But CPR can’t repair a manufacturer’s defect embedded in a device. “It’s a flaw, that’s for sure,” concludes Roberts, “and it has to be pretty annoying when an important call gets dropped just because you don’t happen to be holding the phone in the most conducive way. I can kind of understand how somebody’s temper might get activated at such times.”

CPR’s expert service technicians understand.

To learn more visit: http://www.chicagocellrepair.com

Consumers are beginning to discover the dark side of iPads. More and more owners of the popular gadgets are exploiting their iPads in sensation-crazed ways that would nauseate anyone with a conscience. Paul G. Pontificate, a certified CPR service technician, pontificates thusly, “I have an acquaintance who recently admitted to me that he loves to watch crashes on his iPad. It doesn’t matter what – trains smashing into cars, helicopters flailing like gyroscopes with its passengers screaming on a digitized recording, little boats getting smacked by ocean liners, or something even more atrocious pulled from YouTube. He should be ashamed.” Such people also like to tell racist jokes and the gorier the better.

Sometimes the dark side of iPad leads to extremes. Consumers drop them. Desensitizing images might make them careless toward their own device. In addition, these same desensitized consumers lose respect for their iPads and begin to nitpick about its flaws – “I hate my iPad, it can’t multi-task; my freaking iPad doesn’t have a camera or flash; my iPad is too big to flush down the toilet.”

As a consequence of such attitudes, expert service technicians at CPR are beginning to see a lot of damaged iPads. “People damage their iPads in incredible ways,” asserts CPR’s Pontificate, “They drop them and smash them – perhaps emulating some of the desensitizing images they’ve been watching for weeks and weeks. But the good news is that we can usually fix them.”

After their nurturing and positive experience at their nearest CPR, a typical consumer is more contrite. “Once their iPad is fixed, they tend to become all smiley and nice and less likely to head immediately for the dark, visually pornographic apps,” Pontificate blithely pontificates, “I’ve even seem them asking about religious apps and nature scene apps and pleasant tune apps and wondering where to find them.

Pontificate is often asked about his unusual name. “It’s Italian and pronounced ‘Pont-i-fi-ca-tay” he says proudly, pointing to his heritage. “I think that one of the Popes had the same surname if I’m not mistaken.” Unfortunately, he is mistaken – but not about CPR’s proven expertise when it comes to fixing iPads.

To learn more visit: http://www.chicagocellrepair.com

Before they’d been off the shelves for an entire day, reports of iPads being damaged by consumers started to pour in. “I’m not sure what it is. Are people just being careless or are they real klutzes that should have ‘I’m stupid’ branded as painfully as possible into their foreheads?” said iPad chief pundit Kid L. Vicious. Vicious reported that most of the damaged iPads had been dropped, some from great heights. “One was dropped from the North Rim of the Grand Canyon by a consumer who was moonlighting as a tourist,” Vicious explained, “People who climb around precipices while holding an iPad just sicken me,” he said, in his characteristic raspy voice well-known to residents of Bayonne, New Jersey, where Vicious was born and raised. “Right behind one of the big oil tanks,” he remembers fondly, “We used to play in our kid street gangs on top of the things and hope one of us wasn’t pushed off.”

Typically when an iPad is dropped, the glass digitizer panel gets cracked. “Some of these consumers are so stupid they can get cut with the broken glass shards,” Vicious explains, “One guy I know got his cornea scratched that way, and he was howling in pain. It was sort of funny.”

The lack of human decency and compassion displayed by Kid L. Vicious notwithstanding, reports of dropped iPads are increasing. Other common repair problems occurring with the iPads involve the port at the bottom. Some consumers have reported issues when plugging their iPads into a computer application such as Windows 7, getting messages such as “device wasn’t recognized” or were simply unable to connect their iPads to a computer. Some consumers were unable to get their iPads charged. They’d plug it into a socket and nothing would happen.

Although Kid L. Vicious would probably recommend something less helpful or even something unprintable, a more prudent course of action is simply to go to your nearest independent repair shop – but please remember to take your broken iPad with you. If you don’t bring it, it can’t be repaired. At the independent repair shop, a certified service technician will be eager to help.

Jeff Gasner is with CPR-Cell Phone repair. The leader in Cell Phone Repair and iPod Repair offering cell phone repair services nationwide. Visit http://www.chicagocellrepair.comThe post Broken iPads Becoming Common first appeared on SEONewsWire.net.]]> http://www.seonewswire.net/2010/08/the-iphone4-has-a-curious-flaw/ Thu, 05 Aug 2010 19:20:14 +0000 http://www.seonewswire.net/?p=4188 Now that consumers have learned to their chagrin that simply holding their iPhone4 wonder toys can lead to dropped calls, they may wish to really drop them – if only for a fateful second. If that should happen, it’s nice…

Where have all the smart phones gone? This question was asked of a CPR service technician the other day. His name is Bobby. Bobby used to be called Robert, but customers, especially those with a broken cell phone in need of fixing, would rather be on familiar terms with this guy to get on his good side. Lest we digress, he answered the question. He didn’t evade it because he definitely knew the answer. “Where,” replied Bobby, “to CPR. The smart consumers bring them here.”

There are a lot of smart phones out these days. Various iPhones sent by Apple instead of a doctor, and there’s also a new android on the block. An android phone simply made into a brevity called DROID may be inhabiting your hand right now. It can sure fit there, this plastic thing-a-ming perhaps about to sing.

“I coined that phrase, ‘thing-a-ming,’ and it’s real,” Bobby admits. He is also one of CPR’s more clever employees, a top-notch certified service technician. But what about this android called DROID? It’s not huge. The thing-a-ming weighs 4.59 ounces (130 grams) so it’s not that heavy, even if it did once belong to your brother. It’s almost 5 inches tall (4.63 inches), and 2.3 inches wide. What makes the thing-a-ming so breakable is its diameter – only 0.47 inches. With so little depth, the thing-a-ming is downright thin.
“It’s downright thin,” agrees Bobby, putting it in his own words. It’s a nice smart phone, this DROID, “don’t get me wrong,” asserts Bobby. He hates it when people get him wrong, “But there are a thousand ways to break it.”

Consumers who own a new DROID somehow discover most of them. “I know a guy who broke his DROID by cracking it between his teeth,” Bobby asserts, “He noticed that he’d cracked several canines too, but by then it was way too late.” Often it is. Bobby recalls an elderly woman who brought her DROID in for repair, and incredibly, had forgotten how she’d broken it. “I couldn’t believe her story,” Bobby recalled, “Nobody forgets something like that.” He just wants people to remember that the place to bring in your DROID if it breaks, is your nearest CPR.

To learn more visit: http://www.chicagocellrepair.com

There are a whole lot of smart phones out there. There are so many in fact, that veterinarians are increasingly seeing patients who have been outsmarted by their pet smartphones. Symptoms include a sense of humiliation, mingled with a smidgen of shock and awe. But Apple has brought out its share to market, a species of smart phone that resembles you – and by proxy, I – so much, that it’s even called an iPhone. It appears that Steve Jobs, the great McIntosh himself, is encouraging you to make these gizmolian creatures that didn’t exist a few years ago into something so intimately yours, that the iPhone4, for instance, can be mistaken for you, or at least from the miniature version of you that happens to be engineered from an aluminosilicate glass, the kind that is used in high speed trains and helicopters, which, but the way, you’re also beginning to resemble. You might be estranged from your lovers, and your parents, and your siblings, and even from your grandparents – but never from your iPhone.

Jimmy works at CPR as an expert service technician. Like an iPhone4, he’s there for you. Unlike an iPhone4 when it’s broken, he’s there for you. “We can fix any iPhone here at CPR,” he says, “I’ve seen them come in shattered, those phones who think they’re so smart, and they can no longer function. It’s temporarily sad. Like the Titanic wasn’t supposed to sink in 1912, these iPhones, especially that newfangled iPhone4, are supposed to be indestructible. Well, let me tell you, they’re not.”
What do you mean by temporarily sad, I asked Jimmy, CPR service technician deluxe. “We fix them,” he said matter-of-factly, “just about all the time.” Once he rescued an iPhone4 from a pit bull terrier’s jaws. “The iPhone4 or its owner was screaming its LCD screen off, I’m not sure which,” he said, “The iPhone4 was terrified. I could smell the fear in every pixel.” Although Jimmy came very close to having his hand amputated at the wrist, he managed to wrestle the iPhone4 away from the vicious dog and get it safely onto a convenient workbench. That’s what CPR’s technicians are – heroes, and heroines if they are women.

To learn more visit: http://www.chicagocellrepair.com

It will seemingly be able to do it all. It will be able to record in high-definition video at 720 pixels for 30 frames per second. It will come standard with a front-facing camera that will be a “must-have” for video chats, especially considering the recently upgraded Skype app along with Apple’s new Face Time feature, even though it won’t be until December at the earliest when Face Time will function between two iPhone4’s and even then only over Wi-Fi. In addition to the front-facing camera, the iPhone4 will come standard with a 5-megapixel camera on the back – complete with a LED flash. Images will be able to be focused by tap, while photos and videos will be geotagged, in other words, digital data arriving with the image will include the location of where the image or video was taken. They’ll also be an iMovie app for the phone — a mobile editing tool which will be just the thing for aspiring filmmakers, even kids quick on the uptake.

It will be Apple’s newest smartphone, Steve Job’s iPhone4 that will set up with almost anything. In fact, the one feature that wasn’t included was a deal with a new wireless carrier. The deal wasn’t landed because there are already dozens of Android phones already out. That said, the new iPhone4 will be engineered with aluminosilicate glass, the same stuff used in high speed trains and helicopters, designed to be 20 times stiffer and 30 times stronger than plastic. So this new iPhone will have incredible curb appeal, right? With a diameter of just 0.47 inches it will also be thinner than any smart phone already on the market, and that means, breakable. Who will fix it if your iPhone4 should break? Your friendly geeks at your nearest independent repair shop will know exactly what to do. They aren’t certified service technicians for their looks, at least not usually. (Ladies, a guy’s handsomeness is subjective, especially when they are very smart, and can fix your smart phone.)

Jeff Gasner is with CPR-Cell Phone repair. The leader in Cell Phone Repair and iPod Repair offering cell phone repair services nationwide. Visit http://www.chicagocellrepair.com.

The new iPhone 4 contains features that surpass the DROID Incredible, if only by virtue of the proprietary Apple software and hardware involved. That said, think ditto in reverse for the DROID Incredible. If you want to compare both with the HTC EVO 4G don’t even go there. But if it’s Apple’s and a DROID that float your boat, know that the iPhone4 will be sold with a stainless steel band that will be almost X-rated while coupling; this band will be 4 times stronger than steel and allow for the iPhone4’s extra thin and rigid design. Both the front and the back of the newest iPhone will be made with engineered aluminosilicate glass which is the same thing that’s used in high speed trains and helicopters. The stuff is 20 times stiffer and 30 times stronger than plastic. Very durable indeed, you say. The DROID incredible is incredibly made out of plastic. So Apple is already bragging about the iPhone4’s “curb appeal.” Will that mean it will be indestructible? Think about it. The gizmo will weigh a mere 4.8 ounces (137 grams), be only 4.5 inches tall, 2.31 inches wide, and 0.37 inches in diameter. What respectable human monster couldn’t break something that size, no matter what it’s made of? The DROID Incredible weighs 4.59 ounces (130 grams), measures 4.63 inches tall by 2.3 inches wide by 0.47 inches in diameter. How breakable is that? It’s made of freaking plastic, you figure it out. One reason why the supposedly indestructible iPhone4 is so very breakable might have to do with its depth: The iPhone4 is considerably thinner than the DROID Incredible.

Before it’s inevitably broken, the iPhone4 will offer a stultifying 7 hours of talk time on 3G and 14 hours on 2G with standby time of up to 300 hours. The Droid Incredible offers a semblance of Apple’s yak-yak prowess, but only a semblance.
Okay, now let’s assume the worst. Your iPhone4 and your DROID Incredible are both broken simultaneously. For a host of reasons, and you’re not a parasite, taking either back to the manufacturer is not an option. You’re out dollars. What to do? Don’t panic, take one or both phones to your nearest independent repair shop. Certified service technicians there – in a word, resident geeks, should be able to get either gizmo going again.

Jeff Gasner is with CPR-Cell Phone repair. The leader in Cell Phone Repair and iPod Repair offering cell phone repair services nationwide. Visit http://www.chicagocellrepair.com.

Gorfna Papufna, a 76-year-old retired teacher, has never been especially enamored with every new tech gadget that comes along. But there the ugly old woman was at the Apple store, a forbidding presence in her own right, looking rather incongruous, although she’d just been playing with her grandson’s iPad and suddenly she wanted one. “I want your iPad Tommy,” she said, “Give it to me.” The boy, a nerdy 14-year-old, felt a flush of horror. “No,” he said simply. He didn’t really like his grandma much. She was from the old country and he wasn’t even sure what country that was.

But Grandma Gorfna was not to be denied. She began thrashing with the teenager, and surprised him enough that he released his hold on the precious iPad and Grandma Possession became nine-tenths of the law. Her hand was like a claw from one of those monster movies. He glared at his grandma, showing disrespect.

Over the next several days, Grandma returned home with Tommy’s family, an arrangement made in Hell, and to her small apartment in the basement. Grandma Gorfna went everywhere in their house with “her” iPad. But one day she wasn’t careful enough, and dropped it, and broke it. The LCD screen was cracked. “It can’t be fixed,” the old embittered woman declared. She was filled with a kind of woe which reminded her of rabid dogs fighting for scraps in the old country – wherever that was.

But Tommy knew what could be done. He was a streetwise kid and knew the score. He knew the secret. He knew that he could take the iPad to CPR. They’d fix it for sure. He was just waiting her out.

Finally one day, he took the iPad that had once been his to the CPR shop. The boy knew about the in-house geeks – expert service technicians proficient in the repair of iPads. Those canny geeks fixed the boy’s device while he waited. He brought it home. When Grandma Gorfna saw it again, she thought it was magic when she noticed Tommy playing with it. Being too superstitious for her own good, she snatched it from her very surprised grandson once again. Raised it above her head, and smashed it on the cement floor. “It was broken,” she said, “and now it works again. It has to be a demon’s spell.”

“Grandma,” said Tommy, “It wasn’t a demon. I took it to CPR and they fixed it.”

So the old woman learned the secret too.

To learn more visit: http://www.chicagocellrepair.com

The post IPad Is Attractive to Seniors first appeared on SEONewsWire.net.]]> http://www.seonewswire.net/2010/06/cpr-will-repair-cannibalized-apple-ipads/ Tue, 08 Jun 2010 18:45:53 +0000 http://www.seonewswire.net/?p=3787 It is in the realm of possibility for iPads to cannibalize iPod Touch devices, but what do you do if your iPad is cannibalized? If it is still intact enough to be repaired, take it to your nearest CPR. I…

Starting May 28, 2010, Apple has announced that its amazingly popular iPad will be available in nine international markets, with preordering beginning on May 10. In July, additional launches will bring the iPad to countries like Belgium and Hong Kong. More than a million iPads have been sold since the gadget first came out on April 3.

As of May 28, iPads will be available in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain, Switzerland, and the UK. Earlier, the iPad had sold in amazing fashion in the United States, a place where only centenarians are snapping them up at a slightly slower pace. July will take the iPad market to more countries, including Austria (birthplace of Adolf Hitler), Belgium, Hong Kong (not the birthplace of King Kong), Ireland, Luxembourg, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, and Singapore. Release dates for an additional nine countries beyond those are currently in the works. Who knows? Maybe Togo and Andorra are on that list. Apple is looking to make $62.6 billion in profit by the end of May – almost like Exxon.

But what happens when someone in some far-off place brings back their tattered, broken iPad into a friendly country – such as the United States – and suddenly wishes to see their device become whole again? Hello. Does an iPad get fixed when you want to use it again? Manufacturer’s warranties with distributors are often not available – like they were with the first Smartphones. Where do you take one of these things to be repaired, once you’ve dropped it into the swimming pool or off your sun roof? Who is able to fix your iPad that you figured was tatered? The answer may be staring you in the face, depending upon where you are of course. Think Indy, as in independent repair shop. At places like that, where they used to just fix cell phones, their in-house geeks, expert service technicians all, can repair your iPad good as new – even if it originally came from Andorra, as in the very near future – it very well might.

Jeff Gasner is with CPR-Cell Phone repair. The leader in Cell Phone Repair and iPod Repair offering cell phone repair services nationwide. Visit http://www.chicagocellrepair.com.

It’s been reported that many iPad owners have been experiencing issues with the gadget’s wireless connection – typically bad reception and slow speeds. According to one disgruntled iPad owner, “I would have done better with a pencil and a napkin.” Since the first week of April, no fooling, Apple has been offering troubleshooting tips to help owners who have moved beyond exasperation to find a tiny bit of solace.

There’s a Knowledge Base article for general iPad wireless issues that’s been circulating for awhile, but now Apple has generated a piece from their in-house geeks that is geared to problems, specifically that the device is not reconnecting to wireless networks.  At least that single issue has received some attention, albeit scant. Praise the Apple, kneel and praise the Apple.

If your iPad isn’t reconnecting to your network, and you’re using a dual-band router, Apple wants you to rename your wireless networks. I can help there. If your wireless network is nicknamed “Bill,” instead you can call it Tom, or even Pat, especially if you don’t mind risking gender confusion.  Actually, Apple’s suggestions are a lot more helpful, and these problems can at least be more easily resolved than they could, say – back in March.

But what if your iPad really breaks? You just dropped it on the concrete, or into the crapper, or some unknown household pet has been chewing it. Where will Apple be then? In fact, if you can’t depend on Apple for the real repairs, especially if you don’t want to be without your iPad for like – months – your next destination should be an independent repair shop – for instance, the one nearest you.  Places like this have their own geeks, expert service technicians, who know how to repair iPads, even yours. They don’t particularly care if your pet happens to be a rambunctious something or other with very sharp teeth, even fangs, as long as you don’t bring your pet into the shop when you’re getting the broken iPad repaired. While devices like iPads perhaps used to be a mystery to such folks, nowadays …

Jeff Gasner is with CPR-Cell Phone repair. The leader in Cell Phone Repair and iPod Repair offering cell phone repair services nationwide. Visit http://www.chicagocellrepair.com.

There’s a teaser video about the Slate that shows you what you’d be getting. It’s going to give the iPad a run for its money, which is figurative when you’re talking tablets. HP has stepped up to the plate, and R & D means something again. The Slate’s built-in camera has a 3MP lens in back and a front-facing VGA camera for video conferencing. There’s a single USB 2.0 port, an SD card reader, a “conventional” SIM tray for 3G networking, and HDMI-out video capabilities and 1080p playback via the Slate’s proprietary dock connector.The pixel display is state-of-the-art (although it’s slightly smaller and lower res than the iPad), and its 1.6GHz Intel Atom processor is something your grandfather didn’t find under his hood. The Slate is a tad taller, narrower, and thicker than the iPad, and also a tad lighter – it weighs only 1.49 pounds instead of 1.5 pounds. Its Windows 7 is a full-on, multitasking, desktop-caliber OS, and if it comes with a SIM tray the Slate will be about $80 cheaper – at $549.

You are really going to love this device, so when it’s available, go out and buy one. You have my permission. You’re really going to love your new toy, utterly and completely. Look at everything it can do – until suddenly it can’t. You’ve accidently dropped it into the toilet bowl when Herbie, your 8-year-old’s no longer beloved parakeet started singing – and you were so angry you strangled it – there was a startled parrot squawk in miniature, a last one, a dénouement. Your 8-year-old shrieked when she saw what you did, to the parakeet and to the Slate, and you gave her the dead little bird, promising to bury it in the backyard, as you ran out of the house with the Slate in hand, wet, and no longer functioning. Your destination was CPR, the nearest one, as this was an emergency, and you garbled something about murdering your daughter’s beloved pet, and not meaning to, although you did mean to, and the expert service technician examined your Slate, and uttered the magic words, “Calm down sir … We can fix this. Yes we can. You’re at CPR.”

To learn more visit: Chicagocellrepair.com.

It’s coming. Hewlett Packard’s much anticipated Slate, a potential iPad killer in the marketplace, a tablet powered by Windows 7 that made its sneak peak back in January 2010 at Microsoft’s CES keynote when your cockroach was just a baby. Now, it’s April, the reappearance of Tiger Woods has come and gone, there’s a leaked teaser on Engadget and Slate has features that the iPad doesn’t, like a built-in camera, a genuine USB port, not a mere adapter, and an SD card slot. The Slate will be keen for video conferencing and the pixel display (8.9 inch, 1024-by-600 pixel display), a 1.6GHz Intel Atom processor under the hood, up to 64 GB of built-in flash storage that’s expandable via its card slot and Windows 7. So let the tablet wars commence, and when they do, perhaps a million Slates will fly through the air beholden only to Sir Gravity, and his pull, quite compelling I’m told, are sure to smash a few so that CPR might have to fix them; as is usual, CPR will be the independent repair shop to take them. What will our expert service technicians hear from frustrated or disheartened consumers who have inexplicably wrecked their new Slates? To be honest, they are liable to hear a multitude of expressions, some of them quaint or archaic, which don’t happen to be printable. But that’s not what this article is about. It’s about service and about loyalty to our customers, and to consumers who may be trying out CPR for the first time ever.

My cat ate my Slate, it’s made by HP, and burped it up, she thought it was a chirping bird because of the app that was playing, I don’t blame Little Hellfire, my tabby, but now nothing works on the thing … there are strange blips on the audio and it smells worse than cat food, can you fix it? Consumers who own their damaged slates are liable to say things that they wish they could take back, but our expert service technicians at CPR have heard it all before. Can you fix it? Can you fix my Slate?

To learn more visit: Chicagocellrepair.com

Back in 2000, when your thirteen-year-old was just a baby, there was a great commotion about the Samsung Uproar. The first MP3 phone; it was the rage. Its storage capacity was a whopping 64 MB, you could talk on the thing for more than two hours (its battery life allowed 130 minutes of talk time), although it didn’t have a camera, or WiFi, or GPS, and you had to dial in your voice commands, had no apps stored or available and cost $399, you didn’t care. You wanted one, because in 2000, 1 out of 10 people in the world, including some of those you knew and envied, owned one.

Fast forward to the year 2009, why don’t you? Your 13-year-old is now 12, as it’s last year. You just bought an Apple IPhone 3GS for Nimrod, your greedy not-so-little one. Nimrod’s toy has a storage capacity of 16 GB, which is a lot more than 64 MB. The IPhone’s battery life allows Nimrod to talk to his friend for 5 hours straight, a privilege that your loquacious 12-year-old is more than capable of, primarily due to his lung capacity, which is decent because your son doesn’t smoke, like you used to. His phone does have a camera, 3.0 megapixel, with full video recording and editing capabilities, it does WiFi, it has turn by turn GPS and digital compass; Nimrod can do voice commands with full voice control, yes he can talk Obama, and he merrily accesses the iTunes app store and can easily get 100,000+ apps, yes he can. You purchased this device last year for only $199.00. Last year, when you bought it, the thing worked, now, Nimrod managed to break it: Dad, I got to have my IPhone back, 6 out of 10 people in the world have one, please dad, pretty please with peanut butter on top?

Thank God you know of an independent repair shop down the street where expert service technicians are behind the counter ready to serve you … and especially young Nimrod. Time waits for no one; he’s a teenager now, no longer a tweener.

Jeff Gasner is with CPR-Cell Phone repair. The leader in Cell Phone Repair and iPod Repair offering cell phone repair services nationwide. Visit Chicagocellrepair.com.

Mobile phones come in all shapes, sizes and colors, even pink. If Microsoft was going to launch a truly pink smartphone for the marketplace, it would target women over men, and probably gay over straight, although a lot of people probably are fond of pink that don’t fit a particular demographic or stereotype. Such strategies can be left to the marketing gurus. Since Microsoft’s new line of mobile phones will only be code-named ‘Pink,’ and are not actually pink, the point is moot. In fact, these new ‘Pink’ phones will be available to everyone when they appear in the U.S., and will be targeted to younger people due to their social-networking capabilities.

There are so many smartphones these days. Will this new smartphone be the envy of those consumers sporting iPhones or a nifty Google Nexus or perhaps a Motorola Droid that happens to be pink? Who could say, except for the Great Oz who once saw Dorothy’s Droid close up and lived to tell about it? Answers to such questions are known only by the likes of Esmeralda the Great Squirrel, a being comparable to the ancient Greek oracles on the island of Delphi before they had WiFi.

The only certainty in this world, an equalizer common to any of these devices, including the Microsoft ‘Pinkie,’ is that they are going one day to be placed in the careless hands of clueless consumers one of these days – and when that happens, the device will surely break. It could be dropped or crash against a concrete wall, or it might get wet. It might be eaten by a whale like Jonah was and regurgitated smooth as sheep intestines in the manner of bat puke. It might go hurtling under the embrace of gravity when Grandma trips on a crack in the cement when she’s not paying attention. Lots of bad things can happen to a smartphone when the person holding it isn’t very smart, at least for an instant when an accident happens. If THE smartphone that you care about most in the world should suffer an untimely mishap, you should scurry like Esmeralda would to the nearest independent repair shop where expert technicians can help. Go to the shop now, go with your Pink code smartphone.

Jeff Gasner is with CPR-Cell Phone repair. The leader in Cell Phone Repair and iPod Repair offering cell phone repair services nationwide. Visit Chicagocellrepair.com.

Everybody, when you’re talking ‘bout corporate has had their own droid, except for AT&T. While the iPhone is practically ancient (since 2007), AT&T’s spectrum of mobile devices – feature phones, BlackBerry devices, and smartphones have all primarily relied on the Windows Mobile platform, and that’s been iPhone turf. Even Verizon has come to promote the Motorola Droid – while not so subtly lambasting the iPhone’s shortcomings. But now via the Motorola Backflip, AT&T will have its own Droid. CPR is waiting in the wings.
The iPhones fail. They break, are thrown into swimming pools or land on cement walkways, and the truth is, no matter how smart your phone is, and how many apps it eats, or in the case of AT&T’s newest Android – how many revolutions it can make in the air when it’s doing a backflip – gravity sets in and when these devices break – they inevitably fail.

A day can be envisioned when CPR’s expert service technicians will be waiting for AT&T’s new Android to come damaged into their repair shop – it will need to have all of its apps restored to functionality, and they will fix it, yes they will. Will a CPR expert service technician dare to perform a backflip in exultation when the first AT&T Android is successfully repaired? Probably this won’t happen. Even so, it’s a smartphone, isn’t it? We already know the answer to that one. Yes it is. Why should a Backflip be much different than a Droid? CPR has been fixing smartphones for years now, and the number of smartphones repaired is an astounding number, said by the Wise CPR guru to exceed a gazillion. These broken smartphones, including Androids, have been made whole again, after being broken in numerous and sundry ways. It’s nice that the iPhone will have a little brother brought to you by AT&T, and even if you want to do a backflip with a Backflip – you should know that it can be fixed. If you take it to your nearest CPR, it will be fixed.

To learn more about Cell phone repair, ipod repair, cell repair services, visit Chicagocellrepair.com.

Something I could not say fifty years ago, “The iPads for Wi-Fi will be available in the United States.” These particular iPads will be available on April 3, 2010, and other models equipped for Wi-Fi plus 3G will become available perhaps by the ides of April – if there is such an ides. As a small child, I was iPad-deprived. Yes, I’m going to admit it. It’s not easy to confess to such a thing, not once you’re past fifty. But even for geezers like me – I resemble a well-preserved centenarian – these Wi-Fi iPads – oh my – will include a pricey (~ $500) 16GB model, a pricier (~$600) 32GB device and a priciest (~$700) model with 64GB. The iPads (all of them) weigh 1.5 pounds and are ½ inch thick. Retail stores have just added 12 new applications (some people call them “apps”) and the “tablets” will run most, if not all, of the estimated 150,000 apps that exist in the Apps Universe. Which apps aren’t supported? I don’t know. Remember, I resemble a well-preserved centenarian.For those who like to do their reading via apps, according to Apple, the new iBooks app for iPad, including the iBookstore, will be available as a free download from the Apps store on April 3. I couldn’t say any of that as a child either – oh, maybe I could have, but no one would have known what I was talking about. We live in marvelous times, full of techno-wizardry and apps. Apps are everywhere. There are probably as many apps as there are squirrels. That said, squirrels don’t break – although they do die except for Immortal Squirrel – but iPads do. What should you do if you lose all your apps because you dropped your iPad and became very iSad?

Don’t fret, unless you’re a musician adept at stringed instruments too. Even this well-preserved centenarian knows that if you take your injured device to the nearest independent repair shop, that their expert service technicians will be able to make you iGlad in a nifty jiffy and you won’t have to wait fifty – years that is.

Jeff Gasner is with CPR-Cell Phone repair. The leader in Cell Phone Repair and iPod repair offering cell phone repair services nationwide. To learn more about Cell phone repair, ipod repair, cell repair services, visit Chicagocellrepair.com.

The buzz was in Barcelona because the Androids were coming. Not in the sense of humanoid robots set to conquer the Spanish city – but instead like high-tech Conquistadors in reverse. This incarnation is the newest techno-rage – a blitz of Android phones, appliances, and applications at the ready to invade world consumer markets. Stars were featured, things yes, but akin to human celebrities being showcased at the Golden Globe awards. Chipsets such as the BCM4760 for personal navigation or perhaps Broadcom’s BCM4329 chip that is integral to Google’s Nexus One. Think of Android handsets from Huawei, or Motorola’s new Droid smartphone.

Android means new features for smartphones and smart feature phones. Despite occasional malware that is able to sneak in to the open architecture like the proverbial Trojan horse, new vistas are being conquered and you don’t even have to peer through Windows to find them.

Smartphones and their cousins will continue to make a splash in market share pools, and the Android architecture is only making them more ubiquitous. But what happens when your expensive Android smartphone or smart feature phone makes a real splash in an Olympic-sized swimming pool, and there’s not a Trojan to be seen? What happens when it lands and cracks on a cement walkway (and there are several of these in the world now that cement is no longer a novelty)? While its open architecture won’t help it, an independent repair shop very well might.

At independent repair shops, the Conquistadors are expert service techs trained in the functioning of cellphone innards, ready to fix anything – even an Android smartphone – that is walked into the convenient shop by its owner, usually a consumer. What tale of woe that is related by the human, or perhaps by the telltale Android if it’s sophisticated enough – is of little consequence. “My pet crocodile crunched my phone,” a customer might assert. Without judgment regarding the wisdom of keeping such exotic pets, a canny service tech will know how to fix your broken gizmo – assuming that magic or an act of God is not the downlow. Such service techs can be found at independent repair shops – you bet they can.

Jeff Gasner is with CPR-Cell Phone repair. The leader in Cell Phone Repair and iPod repair offering cell phone repair services nationwide. To learn more about Cell phone repair, ipod repair, cell repair services, visit Chicagocellrepair.com.

New solar cells can convert sunlight to energy, in much the same way that leaves use chlorophyll to begin photosynthesis. The key is a photosensitive dye expressed by miniature solar panels that can assume as many shapes as the humanoid “shape shifters,” a species of extraterrestrial alien once featured on a Star Trek spinoff television series. E-book readers will stitch the thin, flexible panels into the reader’s cover. New lines of backpacks and sports bags already have the solar cells housed inside their fabric to recharge cell phones and music players.

The only prerequisite is light, either full direct sunshine for best results, or dappled and ambient light, such as fluorescent bulbs used indoors, for acceptable results.

The newest technological twist is the dye. Until this innovation, photovoltaic cells consisted of silicon or related inorganic materials, not dyes.

The dye-sensitized cells have become increasingly efficient at converting sunlight and other ambient light into electricity. It works like this: Within the solar cell, the dye is painted in a thin layer on a porous titanium dioxide scaffold to collect light, and in a series of steps, to create power.

All well and good, but fast forward a year or two, when solar cells have become commonplace to charge waning cell phones. The very employment of this technology is likely to mean less dependence on cell phone manufacturers as conventional chargers become passé.

Manufacturer warranties will also become increasingly passé as consumer independence becomes the rule, instead of the exception. Cell phones, even smartphones, which will by then no doubt approach genius level, will no longer need battery chargers. But humans being what they are, these devices will still be subject to human error, and BREAK. With all this extra autonomy for consumers, what then? What options for repair will still exist? Not to fret, not yet. Independent repair shops are likely to be more prevalent in this brave new solar-charged world, not less.

Cell phones and their cousins are likely to be cracked and smashed, or damaged by water, or even get infiltrated into their delicate mechanisms by such prosaic invaders such as a dash of eggnog. But skilled service technicians will know what to do then, just as they do now.

Jeff Gasner is with CPR-Cell Phone repair. The leader in Cell Phone Repair and iPod repair offering cell phone repair services nationwide. To learn more about Cell phone repair, ipod repair, cell repair services, visit Chicagocellrepair.com.

The iPhone has become ubiquitous around the world. More than four billion of “them Apples” have been distributed to eager consumers. Penrod L. Pennywise finally bought one, and became the hundred millionth person to do so in 2009. Distantly related to Mr. Scrooge and The Grinch, they each had purchased several by the ides of January in 2010. “Everybody has one by now,” reported The Gabby iPhone, a newsletter that would be widely circulated if it wasn’t also fictitious.

In England, iPhones are sometimes accessed with tea and crumpets. In Scotland, iPhones are worn as an accessory with bagpipes and kilts. Perhaps, according to The Gabby iPhone, Vodafone is to blame for such innovations on the other side of the pond.

Wither what may; the ubiquitous iPhone may break in a myriad of ways. A tale is told about an iPhone in Yemen that was hurled like a bomb from a passing car window and actually exploded. This particular device, according to The Gabby iPhone, was sent by postal mail to a CPR shop not far from Cicero, and was somehow able to be pieced together. Another tale from Tiberia involved a frozen iPhone that made its way to be thawed in a CPR shop after arriving Siberia. Another iPhone, according to the same never reliable source, had been mauled by an Angora from Andorra. The bottom line is that any iPhone is accepted no matter their nation of origin – if the device can be fixed at all, CPR’s expert service technicians will “give it a go” as sometimes is said by United Kingdomers visiting our side of the pond.

Where can an iPhone come from? The answer is often a function of air travel as much as “how the crow flies.” Returning to that certain source again for information about lost and found iPhones, in the sense of their being repaired, is the legend about an iPhone that was dropped by a crow from a height of a three-story building – a perfect gravity-induced travel – right onto a CPR customer counter. That particular iPhone, according to the rumor, was hardly even broken.

To learn more about Cell phone repair, ipod repair, cell repair services, visit Chicagocellrepair.com.

2010 is not the start of a new decade. We’ll have to wait another year for that. But as the last year of the 21st Century’s first decade, one of a smartphone consumer’s biggest worries is security. There are a whole lot of threats out there. So many viral worms now exist, that they now have their own condo community with its singular zip code starting with 666. Cloud breaches no longer pertain to hailstones falling through a cumulonimbus. We’ve recently seen Heartland Payment Systems’ ugly invasion and been confounded by the Conficker worm – which renowned journalist Tom Wicker had nothing to do with. In fact, the saying “There’s nothing sicker than Conficker” may soon be surpassed by the next botnet, phishing scam, or fake anti-virus software to sleaze along. What’s especially ominous to some consumers is that smartphones like the Apple iPhone and Google’s Nexus One are already within the sights of bad people who do bad things to good smartphones, increasingly the way PC desktops were just a few years ago.

The newest threat may be malware attacks against “jailbroken” iPhones – iPhones whose owners have deliberately disabled Apple controls so that they can free themselves from an onerous carrier or migrate on their own to a different operating system. With low-level access thus sabotaged by the consumer, the manufacturer is in effect, “locked out” of providing software anti-viral remedies that can be anywhere close to current.

An increasingly popular option for protecting smartphones from being hacked is to take your apps-loaded little phone machine to your nearest CPR. Here in this hacker-whacker environment, the possibility for your phone to remain compromised by some malignant force drops practically to zero within hours, or a day or two in the shop at most. While creating a jailbroken iPhone may not have been the most prudent idea to begin with – it doesn’t have to mean a trip to a smartphone morgue. You should still shy away with any zip code starting with 666 and phishing is pronounced “fishing,” when you bring a pole, and if you swallow a botnet you should spit it out immediately – but everything gets better even for slackers if not hackers if you simply be smart and take your phone to CPR.

To learn more about Cell phone repair, ipod repair, cell repair services, visit Chicagocellrepair.com.

Kids in this day and age have easier access to technology, gadgets, games and information than ever before. Many kids believe this is the greatest benefit to growing up in this century, while parents and authority figures have argued that with the rapid rate of evolution, kids don’t even have to leave home for danger to find them.

Sprint has entered into a partnership with a group of leading child-education and protection organizations to create a security system called 4NetSafety.This will ensure that all phones, computers and even video game systems that can access the Internet will have every conceivable safety precaution on-board before they are used by kids. The best news about this partnership: It’s free to use.

4NetSafety teaches parents and kids about how to protect you and your family while surfing the web. Some features include animated videos, safety tips such as selecting gender-neutral screen names, not putting any personal information in e-mail addresses or online profiles, and what could be the most important tip: Never meet in person someone you first met online.
Now that your kids are safe from online predation, what can you do to make your technology safe from them? Supervision is usually a good start to protecting fragile electronics but you can’t always keep your eye on both your kids and your gadgets. What if you happen to leave your iPhone in the bathroom and your 3-year-old has to go potty. You think she is big enough to go by herself. She does but didn’t get her pants off in time and knocked your phone on the floor right into the puddle of piddle. This wouldn’t have been such a big deal if the screen hadn’t also cracked upon impact.

What do you do when situations like this occur? A savvy consumer would start by cleaning up the puddle and the kid. The next step is almost a no-brainer in the sense that a kid could have thought of it: Head for the nearest independent repair shop. If they have expert service technicians on-site, they can dry out your phone, replace your screen, and fix whatever else needs fixing. But still, to make your gadgets truly safe from your kids, you might need an assist from God, or at least some extraterrestrial in authority.

Jeff Gasner is with CPR-Cell Phone repair. The leader in Cell Phone Repair and iPod repair offering cell phone repair services nationwide. To learn more about Cell phone repair, ipod repair, cell repair services, visit Chicagocellrepair.com.

Google is getting greedy. They weren’t satisfied to have a proprietary Android mobile operating system in the forefront of gadget-tech. Its new smartphone means an aggressive juggernaut for Androids everywhere and we’re not talking about Data, the now ancient android from a defunct TV show that once saturated TV land literally – not the cable channel. Google’s Nexus isn’t alone, it has a cousin that’s a Motorola Droid and available on Verizon’s network, but it is now smartly in the smartphone game.

Already, the Nexus has advantages over the competing Droid. It’s not trapped in a shortsighted exclusivity deal and will be available not only from Verizon, but from AT & T, Sprint, and T-Mobile or any other wireless carrier preferred by consumers. Google once envisioned an open source mobile platform which would theoretically allow a so-called “free” cell phone that would not be bound fast to any particular carrier. Such a carrier-agnostic product line would also free carriers “once and for all” from ongoing maintenance concerns if the thing were to break. While technical issues such as CDMA-network related concerns might prove problematic in this regard, at least in the short term, Google’s smartphone is bound to make an impact, even if the marketplace is already glutted to the point of ubiquitous saturation.

But if it’s assumed that carrier-agnostic is a “go” and the Google experiment doesn’t end up as a monstrous Goofle, what will be the best options for consumers if the Nexus One breaks? If its LCD screen cracks; if its apps morph into gaps; if it suddenly won’t perform cherished functions; if it suddenly refused to help rescue your grandfather from a dial-up connection; if, as Rudyard Kipling once titled his famous poem, your Nexus loses its nexus, so to speak, what can a savvy consumer do?

The only option that will be preferred by consumers who might be atheists, agnostics, or even devout, will be to run, not walk, preferably after suitable transportation has been arranged, to your nearest independent repair shop populated by Nexus-savvy service technicians.

Jeff Gasner is with CPR-Cell Phone repair. The leader in Cell Phone Repair and iPod repair offering cell phone repair services nationwide. To learn more about Cell phone repair, ipod repair, cell repair services, visit Chicagocellrepair.com.

If you’ve ever seen a bushel of blackberries smashed on a sidewalk, or even blueberries or raspberries for that matter, you probably know enough that salvaging such a fruity mess is a lost cause. You might be able to eat a few, or bake a sorry pie, but any grand plans you might have had for your berries is probably past-tense. Before you’d heard of CPR repair shops, you might have despaired of any repair even for your BlackBerries, including the BlackBerry Curve 8520. But let’s get one thing straight from the get go – you can take your BlackBerry, even your Curve 8520, into your nearest CPR repair shop, and if it’s not a real berry, our expert service technicians are going to be able to fix it – if it’s repairable.

Please ignore those reports of BlackBerries not being smartphones at all – but genuine berries. Yes, you might have “picked” your BlackBerry, but think back. Did it come off a bush? Chances are that it didn’t. Did you try to eat it after sprinkling bits of broken BlackBerry all over your breakfast cereal? Let’s hope you didn’t, or you’ll need your stomach pumped out mighty fast, cheerio!

In fact, the BlackBerry smartphones should never be placed atop your cereal, it says so right in the warranty if you still happen to have one. These smartphones are not edible. Eating them is seldom, if ever, advisable. If someone has taken a bite out of yours, believing erroneously the rumors that have been circulating, it’s your patriotic duty to take it to be fixed, or else restored to a relatively pristine condition, and if that warranty has expired or else can’t be found, your destination should be to your nearest CPR shop where one of our expert service technicians is waiting to serve you.

A smartphone with a piece of its LCD screen bitten off can be dealt with. Don’t get hysterical. Control yourself. The crime dog was talking about taking a bite out of crime in that radio spot, not a bite out of your BlackBerry. Isn’t it a crime that your device has been bitten? It may well be. But these things happen. It’s time to move on, and at CPR you can make your BlackBerry Curve 8520 whole again.

To learn more about Cell phone repair, ipod repair, cell repair services, visit Chicagocellrepair.com.

Palm invented not only the Seuss-ish Pre, which rhymes with the Japanese sushi, but also conceived and delivered as in prenatal an entire category of Web-surfing pocket-computer phones when Treo burst onto the scene in 2002. But Palm’s rivals attacked real-world market complexities and the Pre, in a post-Pre world, has become something of an anomaly. While Sprint’s network still features the Pre, Palm has also moved on to the less expensive Pixi, which appears to be a genuine Palm post-Pre reaction.

While the Pre and the Pixi are easy to use and great for Internet surfing, both can break – even when they’re not accidently smashed with a mallet or vanish down a rabbit hole, only to reappear broken with a sad-eyed Dr. Seuss looking like his famous cat in a hat, or eating an odious chunk of leftover green eggs and ham.
Owners of damaged Pre or Pixi smartphones should not despair. CPR’s expert technicians DO speak webOS, which is the favorite tongue of Lord Palm, who is by the way, the Lord of the Things.

The Pixi is becoming more common because it costs less than most Android phones, and because people own it, just like those ancient Pre devices, they are breaking in many ways – but if you head down to your nearest CPR independent repair shop, clop and clip, clip and clop, our expert technicians will repair your Pre without odious preconditions, or fix that Pixi – without whistling Dixie. Unless such a nonsensical whistle is pre-requested, after first being suggested, we just won’t whistle. We don’t need to – ask Dr. Seuss.

To learn more about Cell phone repair, ipod repair, cell repair services, visit Chicagocellrepair.com.

Hong Kong’s ZTE is getting into the act. Everybody’s making smartphones these days. The new ZTE phone, as of yet remaining nameless, might as well be called the Bingo. ZTE is hoping that whatever the thing is called, it might add an incredible 50 million handsets to its overall shipping inventory of 60 million handsets and mobile broadband data cards if its newest Google-based unit saturates the mobile phone segment with worldwide distribution. Distributors are already lining up, with the Bingo’s potential suitors including such industry heavyweights as Vodaphone Group PLC, Verizon Wireless, France Telecom SA’s Orange, and T-Mobile vowing to supply ZTE’s smartphones to every corner of the known Earth, including wherever possible in the midst of the great oceans. Smartphones are flexible, ZTE’s spokespersons say, allowing consumers to send e-mails and conduct a myriad of multimedia applications — once the exclusive domain of personal computers. ZTE used to be content to be a vendor of low-cost telecom equipment, and that stuff seldom made it out of Asia, but in those not-so-long ago days, smartphones weren’t so smart – or so commonplace. One can’t really blame ZTE. The company just wants to pad its gross margin with a slice of the pie.

But it’s becoming like that ancient Star Trek episode featuring a guy named Mudd. If the show was still going, this one might be called “The Trouble with Smartphones.” Although they don’t multiply in the same manner as rabbits, hamsters, or tribbles, they might as well.

Still, consumers are coming to depend upon these contraptions a little more each year. There’s a contest for units capable of accessing the most applications, often referred to these days as “apps,” and they are already beginning to break in a multitude of ways as consumers are becoming increasingly careless … and some of the latest smartphone warranties aren’t worth the paper they’re printed on. What’s a consumer to do?

The answer is right there, as plain to see as … the simplest app. Independent repair shops for smartphones and their cousins are popping up like oases in the tech-laden deserts. They’ll fix ‘em for you.

Jeff Gasner is with CPR-Cell Phone repair. The leader in Cell Phone Repair and iPod repair offering cell phone repair services nationwide. To learn more about Cell phone repair, ipod repair, cell repair services, visit Chicagocellrepair.com.

Some thought the day would never come. But ring around the Dell – is finally entering the smartphone market. China has already seen their first Dell units, but so far their availability in that country has yet to experience worldwide scrutiny. Before 2009 runs its course, Brazil will be added to the availability mix. But what the traditional personal computer brand has revealed about features to Western consumers, including Americans, has been sketchy indeed.

It has received a name, presumably for marketing purposes. Akin to “Mini-me,” the famous character in a medley of Mike Myers’ flicks, Dell’s new gadget is the Mini 3.

In a smartphone market dominated by the likes of Apple’s iPhone and Research in Motion’s BlackBerry, it’s not likely to make much of an immediate impression, but let’s not be afraid to fantasize. Since we don’t really know the features of the new Mini 3, let’s assume that it’s round, tiny, not much larger than a dime, and comes with more bells and whistles than anything so far conceived. Perhaps it’s programmed to communicate with immediate voice translations– for instance, Urdu to Mandarin to English in less than a second. It might be able to scan your Bible for references to Gomorrah instantaneously – akin to some kind of warped Kindle. The fact is, whatever this new thing might be able to do, it will break. It will inevitably shatter its LCD screen when you drop it on a cement road surface, like a sidewalk. Sidewalks exist even in Brazil or China, but when the Mini 3 appears someday in Peoria or Dallas or Chicago, sidewalks are not likely to be less ubiquitous. What if the very tiny keyboard button on your Dell is worn down by constant use, but you never knew it because you can’t even see it, what then?

If such eventualities should occur, and your Mini 3 warranty has expired or somehow vanished too, your only possible option might well be to run, not walk, to your nearest independent repair shop, and please, watch where you’re going, for if you should trip …

Jeff Gasner is with CPR-Cell Phone repair. The leader in Cell Phone Repair and iPod repair offering cell phone repair services nationwide. To learn more about Cell phone repair, ipod repair, cell repair services, visit Chicagocellrepair.com.

Many Americans aren’t really aware that Nokia phones are manufactured in Finland, or that Nokia introduced its initial flip phones more than five years ago. Time flies, especially when it comes to flip phones. Once a trendsetter in cellular handsets, this strategic move had allowed Nokia, the telecom pride of Scandinavia — to avert a nasty finish that had seemed all but inevitable. Clamshell models, Nokia’s bread and butter, had become less nifty. Nokia did regain a large chunk of market share, but more than five years later, many of these surviving flips are now in dire need of repair.

The models being introduced were quite exciting, beginning with their own third generation phone, their 6630, billed as the world’s smallest 3G. It weighed a mere 4.5 ounces, featured a 1.2 megapixel camera, an MP3 player and promised extremely fast Internet transmission – up to forty times that of any U.S. or Chinese competitor – but unfortunately failed to deliver.

A second high-end model, a clamshell 6260 with a swiveling flip, incorporated a video recorder, Web browser, email and VPN within its configuration, and came with a Bluetooth network and an optional wireless keyboard.

Bells & whistles even populated the low-end of these Norseland Nokias. For instance, the 2600 came standard with a full-color display and a handfree speaker – the latter being an excellent choice for safety-conscious consumers but largely ignored, as safety with cell phones never made decent hype in those days.

Enter CPR. “We’re getting a lot of these old Nokia flips in,” says CPR expert service technician Sven Svardd. “I blooming hate the things,” says the blonde Great Dane. At nearly seven feet tall, he looks like a Viking about to lead a band of marauders, and if reincarnated admits to a predilection for pillaging, but also possesses a Jack O’ Lantern grin that can be endearing to certain women. Although he hates the things and prefers newer model smartphones, “practically anything that you don’t have to plug in,” he explains, “They are extremely simple to fix,” he admits. He might add, especially if you take your smartphones down to your nearest CPR.

To learn more about Cell phone repair, ipod repair, cell repair services, visit Chicagocellrepair.com.

The iPhone is swiftly becoming the eBook reader of choice for many people. Last year, the iPhone and iPod Touch claimed the handheld gaming market for the first time. Now, due to new support features, it’s no wonder that book applications for iPhones have begun to exceed the popularity of gaming apps. One out of every five new apps introduced to the App Store during October were book apps. With 57 million iPhone and iPod Touch users worldwide, Apple’s touchscreen devices are far more ubiquitous than is Kindle; so despite the fact that iPhone screens are a lot smaller than Amazon’s six-inch Kindle, they remain a much more feasible(and lucrative) gateway for book publishers . Although their screens are tiny by comparison, loyal iPhone and iPod touch users don’t really mind now that iPhone apps exist to support Amazon’s Kindle eBook reader. In fact, because iPhones and iPods are a heck of a lot more popular than the more practical Kindle due to its more effective marketing blitzes, iPhones are swiftly becoming “preferred” as eBook readers, even if Kindle is still numero uno for the moment. Industry analysts are predicting that Kindle will consistently lose market share as the Christmas buying season looms. Reading books on your iPhone and iPod make these popular gadgets more than mere platforms for handheld gaming.

So what if you’re on Page 223 of Frank Herbert’s Dune Trilogy and your iPhone breaks? Even the peskiest of malfunctions can take that engrossing momentum and personal satisfaction that you can only get from entering an imaginary world of your own choosing and appreciating it in a nouveau setting. There is a way to “get reading” again, the CPR way. CPR’s expert service technicians like to read too — so let them empathize. “I hate it when I’m reading my favorite copy of War and Peace and my iPhone gets tossed onto the concrete by my girlfriend Estelle,” says expert CPR service technician Leroy McVeigh, “I can fix it fast and all that, but if she keeps doing that, I’ll never make it past the third chapter.”

To learn more about Cell phone repair, ipod repair, cell repair services, visit Chicagocellrepair.com.

It’s new. It runs Windows XP and blends in PC features within the palm of your hand. But is it really useful to have a smartphone so small? The pocket-sized XPPhone blends smartphone, PC and mobile Internet device into a do-all. Microsoft’s Windows XP Operating System never had it so good. Or maybe not, you techno Dr. Know it all.

In the middle of the bug-sized device is a Geode LX chip, running at 533MHz and drawing less than a single watt of power as if it were Picasso in a Spanish outhouse.

Enthusiasts proclaim that a demand exists for devices smaller than netbooks that can deliver the functionality of a much larger PC. Smartphones are changing into Internet surfers and readers of Word documents. This thing may be pushing a similar “one-box” envelope. But is it too laden with resources for such a Lilliputian contraption?

Some experts are daring to ask the fifty-cent question: “Why would anyone want a phone that runs XP?” How often will you have to replace its batteries? I’m thinking a mechanical version of Flomax on steroids might be an apt comparison of what we’re dealing with here. Also, personal computers have had their own issues running XP. Why make a mechanical mini-me vulnerable to the same family of problems? The blue screen of death comes to mind; only it buzzes and stings in a peculiar annoying way because it’s so freaking little. Try to load Microsoft Office on it if you’d like your own immediate cardiovascular event as a way to put frosting on frustration. Add some of the other components of the Windows arsenal and you might just be asking for a convulsion.

There’s also a follow-up fifty-cent question. What if it breaks? Isn’t any repairing a questionable proposition if the unit’s functionality is questionable in the first place? Makeshift repairs might accomplish more harm than good. How can you tell what “works” if you can barely see it? What about warranties? It seems that an independent repair shop might be your only solution, but make certain that the techno-nerds employed as service technicians there have their magnifying tools handy.

Jeff Gasner is with CPR-Cell Phone repair. The leader in Cell Phone Repair and iPod repair offering cell phone repair services nationwide. To learn more about Cell phone repair, ipod repair, cell repair services, visit Chicagocellrepair.com.

On its first day of availability in the United Kingdom, the mobile phone company Orange sold 30,000 iPhones. Most were sold within hours. Such volume would have been unheard of a decade ago.

Considering what was being sold, it’s not that surprising. It’s the fastest iPhone ever, twice as quick as its predecessor the 3G. It’s amazing how quickly you can launch apps, render Web pages, or view email attachments. The nifty little gadget can also shoot, edit, and share video – in premium quality VGA portrait or landscape perspectives. Not enough for you? You can also trim your footage by adjusting start and end points with reckless abandon. Take that same instantaneous video and share it in an email, post it to your MobileMe gallery, publish it on YouTube, or sync back to your Mac or PC using the ubiquitous iTunes.

Apple’s 3GS also comes equipped with a 3-megapixel camera that also takes still photos and has a built-in autofocus. A voice control learns the names in your contacts and the music on your iPhone. It comes with a built-in digital compass, so that you might reorient a map to match the direction you’re facing – which is ideal for lost elves at Christmas. Apple’s smartest of phones also can cut, copy, or paste with the best gadgets ever imagined, provide additional typing room with a landscape keyboard, send messages with text, videos, photos, audio, locations, and contact information. An extraordinary feature called “Internet tethering” allows you to surf the Web from practically anywhere.

But there are so many features that can fail – given the slightest accident to befall your treasured little creature of state-of-the-art techno prowess. The merest accident, and suddenly, a precious feature is lost, maybe two, or three, or maybe it’s all dead suddenly and about as useful as a rock.

That’s when the “what ifs” begin to kick in. What if the warranty has expired and your rock is starting to gather dust? What if your little machine has sentimental value or is broken and the person who gave it to you as a gift doesn’t know yet that one or more of the features is broken? Your option is clear. Run, don’t walk, down to your nearest independent repair shop. Don’t drop your iPhone. Don’t you dare drop it.

Jeff Gasner is with CPR-Cell Phone repair. The leader in Cell Phone Repair and iPod repair offering cell phone repair services nationwide. To learn more about Cell phone repair, ipod repair, cell repair services, visit Chicagocellrepair.com.

About a month ago Apple introduced an updated iPhone OS 3.1. This smartphone-related software debuted with a plethora of new features, including a Genius system to recommend new apps, new ways to organize your apps, and the ability to download ringtones wirelessly.

On October 8, 2009, Apple released another update for the iPhone OS. This most recent upgrade is 3.1.2. In the grand scheme, it’s just a minor update as updates go, but the update’s introduction has resolved issues that have arisen since 3.1. According to Apple, the latest update fixes a bug that might cause an occasional crash while streaming videos, resolves sporadic issues that may cause your iPhone to continue sleeping even after you try to wake it up, and further resolves intermittent issues with cellular network services being interrupted. This update is not only for all iPhone models, but also applies to the iPod Touch.

But what happens if your operating system is functioning fine and dandy, and your iPhone is still an itty-bitty clunker? Unless a new “cash for clunkers” program is brought onto the tables to reward you, as you so richly deserve to be rewarded, your best option is to run, don’t walk, to your nearest retail emporium with the CPR logo prominently displayed.

Claude C. Claude, a skilled CPR technician, was recently brought onboard to handle such matters, has this to say about moribund smartphones and streaming videos that show up stillborn. “I’m thrilled to be working at CPR, where my skills for fixing the smartest of the smartphones are appreciated, and where I’m beloved by both colleagues and inanimate objects. Can I, or somebody who looks like me, repair your smartphone if the thing stops working? Let me tell you this. I repaired one the other day that the customer had given up for dead, placing it in an unmarked grave in his backyard before bringing it to me. Is this a Halloween prank I asked? But the customer is always right, even when he stares back at me like a zombie.

To learn more about Cell phone repair, ipod repair, cell repair services, visit Chicagocellrepair.com.

So many smartphones have Wi-Fi capability now; the feature has almost become standard. If you’re shopping for such a phone, you might compare. For instance, the Apple iPhone 3GS is probably the most expensive; it does boast a battery-life that rivals the Great Bunny, and of course has Wi-Fi capability. The Palm Pre, a Sprint novelty, is a lot cheaper, going for about half the price of an iPhone 3GS, also has Wi-Fi. Verizon’s entry into the Wi-Fi capable extravaganza is the HTC Ozone, and it’s even cheaper. Blackberries like the RIM Curve 8900 don’t close like certain smartphones, but they’re convenient in the sense of Wi-Fi too. Another smartphone, the Nokia N97, not only is Wi-Fi capable, but is unlocked – able to be used with any mobile carrier. The Nokia’s downside is that its operating system apparently first came out prior to the GEICO caveman. T-Mobile MyTouch 3G also is Wi-Fi capable – providing you don’t touch it. That’s the problem with smartphones and their Wi-Fi abilities, akin to telekinesis. If your phone is prone to glitches, or else it actually breaks, the first capability to become extinct is Wi-Fi.

This can be more inconvenient than sin. You’re hoping to download photos and find a good restaurant to take your significant other for sushi and pasta. You have your smartphone; you’re in a Wi-Fi hot zone, but … it WON’T WORK!

That’s when you need CPR. The skilled service technicians at America’s leading independent repair shop franchise can make your Wi-Fi function again. It doesn’t matter what brand of smartphone that’s failed, we can fix it so that your Wi-Fi becomes standard again, not a capability that has become extinct.

Says CPR’s service technician Malcolm R. Middel, a true geek if there ever was one, “I hate it when the Wi-Fi fails. That is not good, not good at all.”

To learn more about Cell phone repair, ipod repair, cell repair services, visit Chicagocellrepair.com.

Who names these things? If you incorporate an 8 MP camera with LED flash and enough video editing software to have a party in your handset, what do you call it? If you guessed an LG Viewty Smart GC900, you have rocks in your head, but you’re right. What is this thing really? It’s a phone.

This beauty of a Viewty comes equipped with a standard S-Class interface and a touchscreen that looks suspiciously like a refugee from LG, and despite its light weight of 102 grams, the stocking stuffer is extraordinary for its uncanny metallic feel, though some might perceive this wonder of 2009 as being a tad delicate. It doesn’t have a 3.5 mm headphone port (what do you want, blood?), so there’s an adaptor in the box with or without a jack, but it isn’t the only phone blessed with a socket.

Yes, but did I mention that it is a tad delicate? Your little Viewty, unfortunately named, is bound to break. What do you do then with your not-so-smart-phone?

Since it is a stocking stuffer, you might consider asking Santa’s elves to fix it. Santa often marvels at their prowess; he has been looking on approvingly as they pound away with their little tools in Santa’s workshop since the year 647 A.D. Those particular elves are dead now; no longer busy in our realm, but their replacements might be ready and eager to fix your broken beauty of a Viewty. But there are at least two reasons why Santa’s elves, even the contemporary versions, may not be able to fix your delicate and now mangled smart phone. There’s also a bigger reason why even if they could repair your Viewty, you wouldn’t let them. The elves are based at the North Pole!

Elves also tend to be techno-challenged, although if it was built prior to the 9th Century, they can fix anything. But if an elf isn’t your solution, how can you get your LG Viewty Smart GC900 repaired in a timely manner? The answer is right there, in plain Viewty. Take your unit to your nearest independent repair shop. If you have to remove it from your Christmas stocking, so be it.

Jeff Gasner is with CPR-Cell Phone repair. The leader in Cell Phone Repair and iPod repair offering cell phone repair services nationwide. To learn more about Cell phone repair, ipod repair, cell repair services, visit Chicagocellrepair.com.

Sony’s PlayStation Portable with a slide-screen gamepad added, but without its disc drive, and what have you got? You have a PSP Go. For $250, you get a PlayStation with a retooled grip, Bluetooth support, and internal flash memory to the tune of 16 GB. This expensive handheld weighs a svelte 5.6 ounces, lighter than the PSP-Slim or the original PSP-1000, but there are compromises that had to be made. For instance, the pixels in the LCD (it’s still a widescreen configuration, 480-by-272) now occupy less physical space, as the diagonal span has shrunk ½ an inch from 4.3 inches to 3.8 inches. The consequences of this varies by game, but to paraphrase the legendary Jerry Lee Lewis – there’s a whole lot more squinting going on when you try reading the on-screen text. Your plans for the future should now include learning Braille.

While you can still see, you might notice that your PSP Go looks nice. It’s an elegant black rectangle nestled between glossy, beveled half-moons. You can buy it in “piano black” or “pearl white.” Fingerprints can show up ugly on the black surface, but there is a way to get around that flaw: just don’t touch it with your fingers. Certain people have learned to make their PSP Go units function quite admirably employing only tactile toes, especially their index toes combined with the uncanny dexterity embodied within their large toes, avoiding fingerprints entirely. This takes a lot of practice, but can be worth the gargantuan effort, especially for those consumers who might find a coating of unsightly finger smears objectionable.

If you are less agile with your feet than you’d hoped to be, apparent disaster can unexpectedly occur. Enough “manhandling” with your toes can cause your PSP Go to simply stop. And remember, explicit stupidity is often not adequately covered in manufacturer’s warranties – if such symptoms are even covered at all. What do you do with a PSP Go which is sure no Energizer Bunny? Well, don’t be a dumb bunny and take that broken PSP Go to your nearest independent repair shop.

Jeff Gasner is with CPR-Cell Phone repair. The leader in Cell Phone Repair and iPod repair offering cell phone repair services nationwide. To learn more about Cell phone repair, ipod repair, cell repair services, visit Chicagocellrepair.com.

Motorola, based in Schaumburg, Illinois, is a long way from the spaceship Enterprise. But their newest entry into the retail consumer market may just be the ticket to resuscitate the company’s gasping handset division. Remember “Data,” the peculiar humanoid android character on Star Trek who was one of the crew but never quite fit in? Motorola’s new Android-based handset doesn’t look much like Data, instead it resembles a smartphone, and has a different name, Cliq.

The Cliq comes with a lot of standard features, and even quasi-innovations. It has its touch screen and QWERTY keyboard, in this instance the QWERTY slides out from the side. Its five megapixel camera is said to produce sharper images than most other phones like Apple’s iPhone, which only manages three-megapixel resolution.

This widget is versatile, more so than any fictional character no matter how well-scripted. Motorola is attempting to lure away Blackberry loyalists from their arch-competitor. It’s a stab at the smartphone market worth taking, that’s for sure. But warranties? It’s unlikely that if it breaks, Motorola’s struggling handset division is going to want to “be there” for its own.

CPR will be there though. Your most trusted name in independent repair shops for electronic devices is not going to leave Motorola’s Cliq lost in space. “I remember watching that show as a kid,” says CPR expert service technician Manfred Manifold, “It starred June Lockhart and Billy Mumy.” About saving DATA, and more recent science fiction-like technological innovations such as the Motorola’s Cliq, Manifold is much more succinct. “We salvage hundreds of Blackberries every day,” he says with a kind of charismatic robotic expression etched onto his Midwestern yet other-worldly features, “I don’t see why we can’t make those Cliqs start clucking if they’ve become a dummied-down smartphone all of a sudden.”

What would happen if your Cliq’s touch screen becomes untouchable? “I’d take it to CPR before I’d use a phaser on it,” Mr. Manifold concludes. An alternative theory may just be that certain CPR expert service technicians watch too much sci-fi on TV when they’re not working. As for android-based smartphones like Motorola’s Cliq, it might be wisest to search for the nearest CPR shop so you don’t lose any megapixels.

To learn more about Cell phone repair, ipod repair, cell repair services, visit Chicagocellrepair.com.

Great-grandfather hesitated when it was time to sell the horse and buy a car. Outfitting your rural home with indoor plumbing was no doubt frightening to those who preferred an outdoor privy in back. We still don’t know how electricity works – only that it does. Many physicians prefer to write scripts in barely legible cursive handwriting, and overwhelm their patient and dedicated staffs with mountains of files, each easily misplaced folder containing a patient record. They hold on to this preference often out of whimsy, an attachment to the familiar sometimes referred to as “it’s just the way we’ve always done it.”

Physicians can be like any of us, a recalcitrant lot. Change can be painful and expensive. Long-term benefits of change can seem like a distant horizon, especially if medical school is fading into memory as it gives way to the grueling rigors of an everyday practice.

But we are entering, together if not hand-in-hand, a different world. It is already 2009. While the former Bush Administration made motions toward the digital age and began to strategize in that inevitable direction, the Obama Administration is full steam ahead. Stimulus monies, reimbursements for those fortunate physicians wishing to take advantage of EMR software opportunities while the getting is good, will begin to be disbursed as of January 1, 2011. What participation in the digital revolution that is now optional will become mandatory for physicians and hospitals by 2015. It is not the time to balk like great-grandfather did when it was time to sell the horse. Procrastination is as unsanitary today as it was when indoor plumbing was perceived as “unnatural” by those who were soothed by the privacy of their outdoor privies. Waiting too long to go digital might allow competitors to pass one by. Fox Meadows Software has been in the business of helping physicians in 20+ specialties longer than almost anyone else. We want to help. It’s okay to wait, to make the best choice for your situation, to get precisely the right EMR package that is destined to serve you well. Just know that the clock is ticking, and that the choosing is inevitable, as inevitable as turning on a light once was.

To learn more about electronic medical records, emr software, medical billing software visit Foxmeadows.com.

President Obama has been keeping up the pressure to reform the U.S. Healthcare System, with a centerpiece of his new juggernaut of change focused clearly on EMR software packages. General Electric has also opened May with a reflexive big corporate marketing push called Healthymagination. It too promises to help move us closer to digital patient recordkeeping in every sense. But the $787 billion economic stimulus package, with a healthy chunk of those funds directed at EMR modernizing, remains the boulder that’s been rolled down the hill. Poised to benefit from these Obama-era free market tidings is Fox Meadows software, and the platform of extremely relevant packages they now support.

It isn’t as if Fox Meadows is a new kid on the digital EMR block. For years we’ve been providing efficacious solutions while serving thousands of physicians in 20+ specialties nationwide. But with all that’s suddenly going on, and with that giant boulder of healthcare reform suddenly picking up speed as it rolls down that glorious hill that some like to call “the future,” a new urgency is entering the mix. Always a learning curve exists for physicians embracing change and trying a software package that is optional now, but in just a few years, will become mandatory. The curve to reach an 80% efficiency ratio typically takes three to six months – even under the best of circumstances. The 80% threshold doesn’t mean a whole lot now, but come January 1, 2011, it will become a crucial factor determining reimbursement for stimulus-related purchases of EMR software packages. If the threshold fails to be met by a physician no matter how well intentioned – he or she will be sent to the back of the line as any reimbursement check will be delayed. Thoughts of selecting the right package are legitimate and necessary too, but if the trigger is not pulled in time …

Fox Meadows is available to assist any physician seeking to stay ahead of the curve. It takes courage to make decisions that entail considerable expense on the front end, decisions that can launch a physician’s office into a brave new digital world. We want to help while there’s still time. There is still time. But soon it will be 2010. As the day declaring “zero hour” nears, more physician’s offices and hospitals will be deciding. It’s like a thriller, only medical care reform is much better than any movie.

To learn more about electronic medical records, emr software, medical billing software visit Foxmeadows.com.

It was additional reinforcement for his pro-EMR position as if any was needed. In his remarks of May 11, 2009, he emphasized once again how essential healthcare reform is to America. Like Franklin D. Roosevelt three generations before him, President Obama’s plans are ambitious, but necessary, not only to right an ailing economy, but to establish a foundation of stability for the future. The President recognized a clear, indisputable fact: When it comes to healthcare spending, “we are on an unsustainable course that threatens the financial stability of families, businesses, and government itself.” Prior to making his timely remarks, the President had just concluded an “extraordinarily productive” meeting with organizations that “are going to be essential to the work of healthcare reform in this country.” But what he had to say about EMR software solutions was perhaps most telling.

“We are computerizing medical records in a way that will protect our privacy.” In that single sentence is a pronouncement for a more sustainable future. If EMR solutions can become pervasive enough to become the rule rather than the exception at U.S. hospitals and at tens of thousands of physician offices nationwide, his ambitious plan just may work.

It won’t be magical. Between now and January 1, 2011, when the floodgates to accept EMR reimbursement stimulus funds will officially open up, an unprecedented opportunity exists for physicians and hospitals to realign their mindsets and embrace a digital way of thinking. While a certain comfort level might exist in the tangible nature of paper trail-fed patient records, and in writing prescriptions with a scrawled and often illegible script, it is no longer feasible to rely on such outmoded, costly methods. User-friendly digital recordkeeping becoming ubiquitous will make a huge difference. But procrastination is not in order. If physicians choose to delay implementation of EMR software packages by putting off their selection processes, the stresses of a learning curve made essential by long overdue healthcare reform may well become untenable. This kind of stress is avoidable. Physicians, it’s time to act. Digital recordkeeping is inevitable. The time to select and implement your EMR software solution is not yesterday, it is today.

David York is with Fox Meadows, a provider of electronic medical records software, EMR Software, and medical billing software. To learn more about electronic medical records, emr software, medical billing software visit Foxmeadows.com.

So far, the new Obama Administration has brought us a stimulus plan that included a healthy healthcare component with EMR mandates giving it teeth. An ingredient that seemed to be missing for producing concerted action among U.S. physicians was a big corporate response to Obama’s initiative. Now, perhaps it is here.

May 7, 2009, should be inserted into your calendar as a day of “smart” bandwagon leaping. It’s the day when General Electric launched “Healthymagination,” a generous commitment of $6 billion “to enable better healthcare focusing on cost, access, and quality.” Of this total, half (about $3 billion) is pledged by 2015 to foster healthcare innovation, delivering better patient care at lower cost, with EMR software packages for the public and private sectors becoming an integral part of the mix. With EMR packages in place to a much greater extent than currently, GE targets to improve healthcare access are likely to be met.

In fact, among the critical need areas outlined by Healthymagination is “accelerating healthcare information technology,” a bullet point that implies proliferating EMR software and could well be the key. GE Chairman and CEO Jeff Immelt had this to say, “Healthcare needs new solutions. We must innovate with smarter processes and technologies that help doctors and hospitals deliver better healthcare to people at lower cost.”

Immelt seems to be echoing President Obama and his federal administrators as they’ve discussed the $787 billion stimulus with its billions set aside for EMR-related innovations. Mandates are now in place to “come onboard” with necessary modifications to the way we do healthcare in the U.S., including the January 1, 2011, starting point to begin receiving stimulus funds designated for EMR purposes. With that firm deadline looming for physicians and hospitals to bring the “paperless” revolution to their own offices and patient records, the race to beat the rush has begun as 2009 ticks down. But impetus is added when big corporate joins the bandwagon as GE has done. Former U.S. Senator Tom Daschle, a member of GE’s Healthymagination advisory board asserts, “We can only find real solutions in healthcare when business, government, and their partners work together.” How correct he is.

David York is with Fox Meadows, a provider of electronic medical records software, EMR Software, and medical billing software. To learn more about electronic medical records, emr software, medical billing software visit Foxmeadows.com.

On April 14, 2009, in an important table-setting address given at Georgetown University in our nation’s capital, President Barack Obama provided a measure of hope as a recession continued. His sense of hope was buttressed by a Biblical allusion from the Sermon of the Mount in an earlier address given by Jesus the Christ more than two millennia ago. President Obama compared our current economic miasma to “shifting sands,” and offered to replace our current underpinning with something firmer, something made of a substance used figuratively and literally to support the weight of our new realities. “We cannot rebuild this economy on the same pile of sand. We must build our house upon a rock,” Mr. Obama said, as if offering a parable. This new foundation buttressed by a rock – hopefully one like Gibraltar – will itself be supported by five pillars, especially one which enacts the President’s health care reforms to lower costs for families and businesses.

To learn more about electronic medical records, emr software, medical billing software visit Foxmeadows.com.

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) is off and running. President Obama’s bold federal initiative, in response to our current economic meltdown of 2008-2009, has met congressional approval to the tune of $787 billion. A sizable chunk of that stimulus money, close to $20 billion (currently budgeted at $17.2 billion) is “earmarked,” to use that much maligned term (with apologies in advance to Senator John McCain) for EMR software packages. Intended is more like it, but the meaning is clear: a lot of federal dollars is set to reimburse physicians and hospitals for their soon-to-be-mandated purchases of federally compliant Electronic Medical Records software systems. For many, the transition will be too costly to undertake without the rebates. But if physicians in their offices can move into the 21st century with a certain aplomb, overcoming their natural distrust of change (it’s human nature), Fox Meadows will be there for them.

In the past several years, the prestigious South Carolina-based firm has made its mark in thousands of offices nationwide, amassing a proven track record of diagnostic and treatment efficacy. Our EMR solutions have helped thousands of physicians participating in more than 20 specialties to not only accept technological advances of great magnitude, but to expect an intuitive functionality that makes essential patient information instantly available at the point of care. To many patients who are used to old-fashioned disordered chaos at the mercy of paper, this paperless trend is nothing short of miraculous. In many instances, direct patient care becomes possible if not probable when it was unlikely before. Physicians are being freed up to experience something they might never have dared to imagine – that clinical encounters can be pleasant for the physician and patient alike.

It’s certain that EMR solutions from Fox Meadows will be compliant to newly established federal guidelines when the time comes. But January 1, 2011, is the day when the money gods will officially open the floodgates to reimbursement for compliant packages. A significant date for you may well be now, today, in 2009, so that the learning curve for transition post-purchase (three-to-six months is typical for most new users) doesn’t sneak up on your office or facility, and the 80% usage requirement (a prerequisite for reimbursement) becomes a smoother reality. Let Fox Meadows provide you with the right EMR solution to help you get there. Don’t procrastinate when your future is waiting.

To learn more about electronic medical records, emr software, medical billing software visit Foxmeadows.com.

On Tuesday, April 14 2009, President Barack Obama offered a message of hope at Georgetown University. He did warn of a period of future economic hardship for Americans, but also praised “signs of hope” in the national economy which were the result, in large measure, of his administration’s $787-billion economic stimulus legislation, which has already “spurred consumer demand” and partially restored the flow of credit so crucial to businesses. “By no means are we out of the woods just yet. But from where we stand, for the very first time, we are beginning to see glimmers of hope,” Obama said, “And beyond that, way off in the distance, we can see a vision of America’s future that is far different than our troubled economic past.” Obama’s vision won’t be established on the shifting sands of Clinton & Bush-era deregulatory fiscal policies, but instead be anchored on something firmer. He alluded to Jesus and the deity’s Sermon on the Mount, found in the Bible. “We cannot rebuild this economy on the same pile of sand. We must build our house upon a rock,” Obama said, and he wasn’t necessarily referring to the first Pope. The rock-buttressed foundation the President referred to will have “five pillars.” One of them is especially pertinent: Enacting his health care reforms to lower costs for families and businesses.

U.S. health care remains beset with problems. Spiraling costs have removed the safety net of health insurance from forty-eight million Americans, while millions more are left in a gray category of “under-insured,” a precarious predicament that leaves patients in sometimes equally dire straits. Those who are insured may receive care, but it’s often compromised. Inefficient and potentially lethal in itself, without the reassuring presence of state-of-the-art EMR software systems, antiquated systems of record-keeping and data collection hold sway – likely placing additional millions at risk while contributing mightily to cost increases that seem to never quit. President Obama’s health care reform package promises big changes for the better in its mandate: U.S. physicians must begin using EMR systems to process their patient data by 2014. In fact, January 1, 2011, is the day essential and long-overdue reform truly begins – as stimulus reimbursement for EMR package purchases kicks off on that super day. But the timing is urgent. It’s now, in 2009, that proactive physicians and hospitals will begin the “gold rush” toward cost savings and efficiency in ever increasing numbers, despite a persistent recession. There’s also the 80% usage rate to consider, and it’s prudent to remember that the mandate calls for this viable percentage to be a fixture and to be in effect – learning curve windows on EMR packages are conservatively 3-6 months. So yes, as another Easter passes there is hope for the U.S. health care industry – perhaps more than a mere glimmer.

David York is with Fox Meadows, a provider of electronic medical records software, EMR Software, and medical billing software. To learn more about electronic medical records, emr software, medical billing software visit Foxmeadows.com.