As you may have read in an earlier post, we have recently implemented a new device management system called ‘millihub’, and the results of all our hard work are starting to pay off. Providing timely updates via email has never been so automate for our employees, and it has never been so good for our customers.

Customers appreciate the notification when their device arrives, when it gets evaluated and we have determined what parts are needed, when we repair the device, when the device passes testing, and when the iPhone or iPod or iPad ships out, as evidenced by this recent review we received of milliamp.com:

milliamp.com_Reviews_01

And then a few days later, this one:

milliamp.com_Reviews_02

And a few days after that one, this one:

milliamp.com-reviews_3

Like anything we do, we know there is always room for improvement. Customers may want to have these updates texted to them instead of emailed, or maybe even tweeted to them. Other customers may want pictures or perhaps even video of their in-progress repair as it happens. iPhone app, anyone? All doable, for sure, with millihub.

Anthony Magnabosco, Owner
milliamp.com

We get lots of email each day, and you would not believe some of the stories we hear from our customers about exactly how their precious iPhone or iPod or iPad became damaged.

Well, we received an email from the curator of The CPU Shack Museum the other day, and he was looking to increase his collection of processors, specifically, iPhone processors. We were happy to oblige, and combed our shop for a few spare, broken iPhone motherboards. Shipped ‘em off today, in fact, just to help this worthy cause.

So if you want to learn more about microchips and the central processing unit of your favorite computer, pda, or other electronic gizmo, you need to head to one of the most comprehensive, if not quirky, sites, The CPU Shack Museum.

This website has gobs of information and interesting pictures of chips and sexy silicon, and even some pretty gutsy claims ([and I am paraphrasing:] “8-bit microcontrollers will not be replaced with their newer 16 and 32-bit bretheren for decades.” – the nerve! )

This pictures shows you some of the packages that rolled into the museum while its’ curator was out for a few days:

the-cpu-shack

Have a great weekend, everybody. I am off to Canun, Mexico with my family this coming week, but will still be checking email if you need to reach me. And of course, my crack staff is at the ready (210-568-7473) to help you out.

Will most definately try to get a blog post or two posted up here about our trip during that time.

Regards,

Anthony Magnabosco, Owner
milliamp.com

Thinking back to my childhood, several things pop into my head. Basically, it revolves around school, field trips, snacks, nap time and the library. I realize I went to the library quite often with my mom when I was a kiddo, but unfortunately, that habit didn’t exactly carry over when I blossomed into–eek–an adult! Recently, it dawned on me that I was missing out on a great local library system in San Antonio which offered copious amounts of books for my leisurely reading at no cost made me feel terrible because I could have saved so much much from not having to buy something I was going to read once.

Since that revelation, I’ve since requested a library card, so all I need to do is drop by my local library (one street away from my house) and finish up that process. Then, it’s a long future of checking out books for me! Is it nerdy of me to be excited for this? Nah, I didn’t think so.

By the way, apparently the San Antonio Public Library has started gettin’ with the times and has now started offering free e-book, audiobook, music and video downloads…all without having to leave your house. Whoa. Meaning, I can download them onto my iPod or new, snazzy iPhone 4 and get my read on. Oh yeahhhh.

Alas, my new adventures to come are contingent upon whether or not I pick up that library card, so I’ve got to hop over there pretty soon. Man, how could I have possibly almost forgotten about one of my favorite places in the world?

If you have kids and have never really taken them to the library, I really recommend doing that. I especially recommend taking them to one of those huge gigantor libraries like the Central Library here in San Antonio. Memories of being completely mystified by this are still fresh and lingering to this day…

As you may have read in a past blog post, we take the old, used iPod batteries we collect and send them off to be disposed of properly. We also try to consume the left-over packaging that our customers used to send their iPhones and iPads to us when we find ourselves shipping things out – all of these efforts help the environment.

Another thing we have been doing (for almost two years now) is using plastic bins for storing the devices we repair as iPods, iPhones, and iPads are routed from area to area within our service shop. The bins are durable, brightly-colored, stackable, and easy to hang on a tech bench rack, wall rack, or shelf.

But one of the best things about our little bins is that we can write the order number on the front with a black grease marker, and when the device is repaired and shipped out, we toss the empty bin in a large red trash can. When we have a chance, we just wipe off the markings, and they can be used again and again and again. Definately low tech, but stickers cost money and consume paper, toner and glue; we have found that the “keep-it-simple” and “keep-it-green” mantras often go hand in hand.

Bins Ready for Cleaning and Re-Use

It may not be a well-known fact, but we have been encouraging our customers to (if they purchased one of our do-it-yourself battery replacement kits) to send back their old, original, stock battery when they have compleed the repair so that we can dispose of it properly for five years now.

And if we perform the battery replacement here in our shop, we take care of that chore for our customers immediately.

We Can Dispose Of Your Old Battery - The Proper Way

We have a long-standing partnership with Call2Recycle, which is this great outfit that sends us a sturdy box that we dutifully fill up with old batteries, and ship it back to them when it is filled. They can then properly dispose of our old iPod batteries, iPhone batteries, and iPad batteries so they are not clogging up some landfill in San Antonio.

call-to-recycle

We do not charge our customers anything extra for this service – we WANT to do this, and it is the right thing to do. So the next time you purchase a kit from our site, or send in your device to us for a new battery or other repair, you can rest assured knowing that we not only have YOUR best interests in mind, but that of the environment as well.

Heck, that’s the main reason why we have a green leaf in our logo!

Best regards,

Anthony Magnabosco, Owner
Milliamp LTD

Let Us Recycle Those Old iPod Batteries for You

One of the great new features of our millihub system is it’s ability to “auto-magically” generate emails to our customers as a device moves from each stage of the iPhone repair process. We have complete control over what apppears in the subject line and body of these emails, and pack them full of useful information (for example, the results of the tests we performed right after your iPod was removed from its’ packaging and received into our system).

Well, one of the most important parts of our job is to set customers’ expectations – to let you know exactly what is going on and what is likely to occur next. If we can do this effectively, we reduce phone calls, emails, and frustration from both parties.

millihub-breadcrumbs

One feature we plan on adding soon (um, Mark, um, hello?? [said like Dane Cook]) to our email notifications is actually something we noticed while purchasing a device from Apple a while back: provide a “breadcrumb trail” to show you where you have been and where you are heading next in the proces. In the case of our iPhone evaluation and iPod repair business, we can show you where you have been, where you are currently at, and where you are likely to head next.

We expect that something as simple as this will alleviate a tremendous amount of confusion and help set expectations, and that is undboutedly half the battle.

next-steps

Anthony Magnabosco, Owner
milliamp.com

“WRITERS BLOCK – A usually temporary psychological inability to begin or continue work on a piece of writing.”

Yep. Thats what I have. Big Time. It isnt very temporary though. Which isnt very good considering I have 4 songs that I need to finish writing. Not to mention this blog. :-/  So what causes our minds to go blank?! Im assuming its the lack of inspiration. Ive been so busy with fixing/evaluating your ipod/iphone, that I havent been able to do anything cool. WAIT!!!!

Inspiration has hit me.  So awhile back I saw this movie with Mel Gibson, “the edge of darkness”. I think thats what it’s called. Anyways, the whole thing was about revenge. Trying to get someone back for pain that they have caused you. For years now, ive been wanting to write a song about revenge, but ive never had that feeling. Sure ive been mad at people, but ive never wanted to cause harm to anyone. Then I got some inspiration. 3 weeks after christmas, my house was broken into. DVDs, iPods, Jewlery, and my brothers brand new Playstion 3 were stolen. Ive never felt soooo much anger before. I wanted these people to feel the pain that they caused my family. Then I saw that movie. The whole time I was like, “yea!”. haha, but then I realized, causing the bad guys pain wasnt going to bring back his daughter. (sorry if I ruined the movie there) So as the movie was coming to an end, I  got this little melody in my head. Then I started putting some lyrics to it. I kept thinking, ” i have to get home to my guitar, or else im gonna lose this.” Then I remembered that I have the best tool for music on the go……my iPHONE!!! As im walking out of the theater I pulled out my phone, went into the voice notes app and sang the lyrics to the melody I came up with. As soon as I got home, I went straight to my guitar and started writing the song. “Revenge”. Its probably my favorite song that i’ve written. Still needs a little more work though.

Im sorry this blog went a little all over the place….but thats something I like. Spontaneous writing. I never know what Im gonna write till my fingers hit the keys.

Well thats it for me folks. Spring Break starts next week, please be safe.

(I dont know if I need to do this, but im not gonna take any chances)

I found the definition on this site: http://www.thefreedictionary.com/writer%27s+block

and this is what they had at the bottom : The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition copyright ©2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

Kyn Sparks Blows the Follow-Through with iGarageFloor.com

When we shelled out big bucks for our stunning new flooring at our iPhone and iPod (and soon to be iPad repair shop), we thought it would be durable and last the test of time. But the iGarageFloor.com (aka PolymerGarage.com) flooring couldn’t hold up to a simple office chair with plastic wheels, as evidenced by this video:

Click here to view the embedded video.

We can understand it when unexpected things happen – heck, we see it in our business every once in a while – a part fails suddenly and a customer will call us on it. But we stand up and fix the issue. Kyn Sparks, despite numerous attempts to get him to fix the worn-out section of flooring with a new polymer coating, has ignored several attempts to resolve the situation.

This demonstrates to me that iGarageFloor.com (or now known as PolymerGarage.com) is more concerned about scoring new jobs than taking care of their previous customers. The importance of follow-through has apparently been lost on Kyn Sparks, and that’s a sad thing, as I believe taking care of your existing customer base is equally if not more important that efforts to find new customers.

So if you are hunting around for a new polymer garage floor in San Antonio, make sure that the company you select will be there before, during, and especially after to job is complete. If you don’t, you might just have a constant reminder staring you in the face that some people just don’t care.

Anthony Magnabosco, Owner
Milliamp LTD

We are continuously looking for ways to improve things here at Milliamp, like our infamous laser pointers, and recently focused our attention to the telephone greeting that people first hear when they call in to us.

We get a lot of phone calls each day – a LOT (just ask Marian).

Therefore, we wanted to make our greeting simplier and to the point, and help people get to the correct department quickly and painlessly. We also added a quick shout-out in our greeting to the iPad repairs that we will be offering very soon to the masses.

Curious and don’t want to call in to hear it? Take a listen here:

New iPhone Repair Greeting

Speaking of iPad repair shout-outs, we also recently updated the signature line on our emails, to help spread the word that we have yet another Apple device to add to our list of devices that we can repair here at Milliamp.

iPad Repairs Signature Line

Have a great Friday, safe weekend, and let us know when you are ready to get your iPod or iPhone fixed!!

Anthony Magnabosco, Owner
milliamp.com

First Looks: iPad's Internal Metal Frame

www.ipad-repair.com

Photographs of the iPad’s Internal Frame have been widely circulated on the internet, but no one has really taken the time to closely examine these pictures…until now.

Follow the musings of our iPod and iPhone (and soon to be iPad) -fixing technicians as we pour over every photographic-inch of the internal frame that will allegedly be inside Apple’s iPad. We will give you our thoughts on iPad design and functionality at our new IPAD Repair website. This website will eventually contain everything related to this amazing new device, as well as photographs of the new iPad parts that surface between now and iPad Launch Day.

When you are done reading about our conclusions on the internal iPad frame, head back to this specific blog entry to post your comments.

Best regards,

Anthony Magnabosco, Owner
milliamp.com

http://twitter.com/milliamp