Cell phones these days are becoming more and more like mini computers every time they appear on the shelf. Everyone knows about the iPhone. It was the one that revolutionized the cell world. Most people have used one or played with one in the store if they don’t have one for their own personal use. The touch screen is made of glass, actual glass that is just as fragile as any other pane of glass. I think I actually like the glass touch screen. It feels nice on the fingers, not to mention that it doesn’t easily scratch or mar and cleans up well. My own phone is an HTC Touch Pro2 with T-Mobile. It has the standard plastic touch screen which works well, but it’s not glass. I chose the TP2 because it has a full slide out keyboard, touch screen, WiFi, Bluetooth and runs Windows Mobile 6.1. It’s basically a computer in the palm of my hand.

The glass touch screen is what I have been seeing a lot of. People call me up asking about iPhone repair when their phone looks like this: the Sad iPhone

to this: The Happy iPhone

There are tutorials all over the web about how to replace an iphone screen, and really it’s not a hard process. All it takes is a little patience, technical know-how, all the right pieces and about an hour of time.

There are many places to buy the glass and digitizer online. Some places actually sell just the glass with no digitizer. Those who buy the glass only soon find out that the digitizer can not be separated from the glass without damaging it and reattaching it to a new glass must be almost impossible. I’ve never tried that and don’t think I ever will.

These are the tools necessary to replace the glass and digitizer:

All the stops in between the sad iPhone and the happy iPhone go something like these.

First it is opened.

The screen is removed.

The glass is removed.

And more glass is removed…

Once glass and old adhesive free, new adhesive is applied

and new glass is adhered and pressed firmly into place.

The end result is a happy iPhone and owner.

Filed under: General, Hardware, iPhone, broken, cracked, digitizer, glass, iPhone, screen | Post a comment

We have created a new company logo, thanks to tata, who has helped me with my business.

Originally it was created in Adobe Photoshop, but the background was not transparent. This posed a problem when using the image for shirt printing because there was this large white rectangle for a background. So I learned to use Adobe Illustrator – very limited use, I might ad - which creates vector graphics. These can be scaled up without loosing much, if any quality. Neat program, that.

There is also the new business card on the home page. That will be the design that I will soon be giving to those of you whom I serve.

Filed under: Uncategorized | Post a comment

Not Just any pen, but 5 special pens and the base/pen holder.

One of my clients, whose wife who is a sales rep for a major laptop manufacturer, has confirmed the existence of the pen computer. This computer is actually 5 pens and a stand to hold them. This website gives a breakdown of each pens’ function. They are CPU, coms, display, keyboard and camera with the base being the charger and storage. All pens communicate via wireless signal. No information as to when or if it will be on the market, but I did read somewhere that it cost $30,000 to make. Quite a price tag for a computer. Their capabilities are unkonwn at present.

Filed under: Hardware, computer, pen | 1 Comment

My contact phone number has been turned off by Sprint twice now. First because they wanted payment for $500 worth of ring tones that were not downloaded. Who pays $9.99 each for 50 ring tones?? $499.98 was the exact total. After haggling with them and insisting that those charges were fradulent, my phone was turned on for a week, and they finally agreed and were not going to hold me to the charges. So why is my phone off now? I’m tired of Sprint any way. I live in the city, and every time i walk into my kitchen while on the phone the call is lost. Some service. I have acquired a new phone that is not Sprint but have to wait until Monday to have my number ported over to the new service. Until then I wait.

Filed under: General, cell, phone, Sprint | Post a comment

I have added my web site to my Technorati account, my Facebook account and my Linkedin account.
Linkedin Profile
Technorati Profile
Facebook Page

Filed under: General, back, facebook, link, linkedin, technorati | Post a comment

I returned from a clients home, last week,  with his laptop. It would not power on or charge the battery. I put my multimeter on the AC adapter before I left, and saw it was putting out the correct voltage. He agreed to let me take it with me to explore the possibility that the DC jack was malfunctioning.  Well, after I got it back to my “shop” and removed the many screws in the bottom, and top, and sides, I was able to reach the leads from the DC jack and determine power was indeed getting to the motherboard. I noticed a little discoloration.

The discoloration inside the red circle was not noticed on first inspection. This little area was hiding under a some accumulated dust. I looked around for the fuses and found 2. The multimeter revealed  none of them were blown. Having already removed the keyboard, I continued to remove screws from the top of the bottom, some other small plastic parts, the screws around the PCMCIA slots, and anywhere else that was needed. I was going for the motherboard. As I leaned in for a closer look I noticed the distinct smell of burnt electronics.


Now that all the necessary screws and pieces have been removed, I could lift out the motherboard to investigate the burnt smell. Take a look at what I found.

Here is what the motherboard looked like from the bottom. No wonder I was smelling burnt electronics.

And the bottom of the case underneath the motherboard.

Upon further investigation I discovered streak marks on the case bottom, indicative of something having been spilled and dried, which was obviously the reason for the short and burning.



The laptop is an older P4 1.9 single core IBM T30. Replacing the motherboard and possible the daughter board that had all the rear ports attached would have cost more that the laptop was worth. Sadly this is the case with most laptop damage. People I implore you! Please be careful with liquids of any kind around a laptop. It does not take much, and the laptop does not even have to be on. If anything is spilled on it or into it, the best thing is to take it remove the battery immediately, disassemble and clean the laptop to avoid damage. Yes, it will take the untrained hand all day, but it could very well save you having to replace your computer.

Filed under: Hardware, computer repair | Post a comment

I recently had another run-in with that flavor of malware that disables your antivirus, blocks any antivirus web sites and Windows Update web site, and tries to take you to some ad site so you can get more viruses on your computer. This time I was victorious. I have no doubt there are many different variations of this type of insufferable programing made by many different delinquents, but I beat this one.

I knew there was something wonky going on because I was getting pop-ups that were about how my computer was infected and did I want protection. The DEAD GIVEAWAY to pop-ups is your mouse. It will change to the little pointer finger when it is over a link. That is a sure sign that it is a web link and not a legitimate windows message; that and the task bar will show a browser window open.

The first thing I did was to remove the non-functioning Norton AV and install AVG. I had prepared for not being able to update the AVG and brought the latest updates with me on my flash drive. When I tried to run AVG I got errors and it shut down. I rebooted into safe mode and did a complete scan from there which uncovered 3 viruses and promptly whisked them away to the virus vault. Returning to normal Windows mode I discovered that my problem was not resolved. I still could not navigate to Windows Update or any major antivirus web site. I did some searching online and found Trojan Remover which was said to be able to repair this redirect problem. I downloaded and installed the trial version, which is fully functional for 30 days and it found the TDSS trojan and made quick work of it. Within 5 minuets I was updating AVG and Windows. Problem solved.

Here is a little snippet from the log file of Trojan Remover, showing what it found and what it did. listed are the actual registry keys removed.

HKLM\SOFTWARE\TDSS - key (and subkeys) deleted
HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\tdssdata - key (and subkeys) deleted
HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Enum\Root\LEGACY_TDSSSERV.SYS - key (and subkeys) deleted

Vóila! The TDSS trojan installs itself in rootkit fashion and is not detected by AVG free. The last time I encountered something of this nature I couldn’t find it and had to reformat. Now I have a solution.

This wicked little trojan allows for other malware, like popups, ads and other garbage to sneak into your computer and could possible lead to other unwanted consequences. Here the description the bug compliments Sunbelt Research.

Filed under: Software, computer repair | Post a comment

My brother-in-law stumbled me this page a few days ago. He called me to tell me about it before I could look for myself.

SDXC expands SD into Terabyte territory

Many years ago, I said SD was the memory card that would be the best one to use and apparently I was right. Later this year Panasonic will have a standard for a 2TB SD card. That’s 2 terabytes or 2000GB. WOW. Yes, you read that right, 2000GB. My current storage is 1TB and it is at 60% with all my years of pictures, music and other acquired files. 2TB is mind-boggling in a flash card. I could carry around every file I ever downloaded in my pocket!

What will be the price I wonder…

Filed under: Peripherals/Accessories, computers, technology | Post a comment

Last night I gutted both of my main computers, the AMD and the Pentium-M machines and put them back in their original cases. I also reversed the fan in the power supply and the case fan so they will draw in air to create a positively pressurized environment. The idea is to install filters to keep out as much of the dust and other airborne particles so the hardware will not need to be cleaned as often, maybe not ever again. This also will help with heat dispersement since I have so much crammed into a smaller case. However the airflow has to be sufficient. I have a fan that pushes a lot of air but it is very loud and I’m not using it at the moment. Filters generally slow the flow of air, so the trick is to use a filter medium that will give the ideal balance between air flow and particulate removal.

Filed under: Hardware, air flow, reduce dust | Post a comment

Such a simple device - a flat iron. You plug it in, turn it on, it gets hot, right? Right. But wrong also.

My brother-in-law gave me one to fix for his daughter and not claiming to be an electronics repair man I said I’d look at it. So I open it up and to my supprise there is circuitry inside. Huh. Wasn’t expecting that! I used to tinker with eletronics all the time when I was younger, so I pulled out my multimeter, set it to ohms and put it to all the components. Resisters, diods, capasiters, transistors, even the fuse was good. What I did find was the thermal fuse under one of the heating elements was blown. There were 2 wires with clear insolation going into one side of the iron and 2 clear and 2 black going into the other side. I pulled out the black pair and there was the thermal fuse. That thermal fuse is rated to blow at 240ºC/464ºF. The maximum setting on the dial is 425ºF. Curious. I wonder how long it was left on for it to get that hot?

I ordered the part from DigiKey which arrived on the 2nd day. WOW. I was quit impressed. I will be ordering from DigiKey If ever I need more compoents. So I fixed the flat iron, and my niece will be happy.

Filed under: Appliances, electronics repair | Post a comment