I've been answering questions on Fixya, Amazon Askville and Yahoo Answers lately... Google had something like Yahoo Answers as well but it is now closed down. Looks like there's one more called http://Uclue.com, it's a paid answer service I think I'll check out. These are great resources, I like to see free things that are actually useful!



I actually started my own site some time ago and wanted to make it a free forum where you could post questions about anyting digital and people could help you with problems or questions. It was to be a free site where I would have some small Google AdSense banners and if I made a couple bucks a month that would be just fine. I just wanted a place where I could help people fix stuff instead of throwing it in the trash. Problem is I don't have the funds to pay for somebody to develop it and maintain it. I'm just one guy with a couple employees trying to do the best he can.

Fixya was purchased by Best Buy, now it's 'Geek Squad Fixya' .... sigh... It's SAD that people still fall for the whole 'Geek Squad' thing. Geek Squad was formed here in Minneapolis and USED to mean something. The guys were real computer geeks and knew their stuff! They were quite expensive and charged flat rate fees for the job. I did use them years ago before I knew much of anything about fixing computers and kinda regretted it because of the cost, but overall they did a decent job on my old tower.

Geek Squad now is nothing more than the SAME OLD $7/hr part timers that Best Buy used to have but now they have fancy shirts, a large fleet of EXPENSIVE custom cars and they are called Geeks. Sounds good to me! What is Best Buys yearly advertising expenditure? $20 million? More? Where does that money come from? Where do the GS cars etc. come from and who pays for it all? YOU DO, that's who.

Think Geek Squad is going to offer to fix your camera or computer for a reasonable price? How could they with all that stuff to pay for?

I have been making my living fixing that which the GS cannot for several years... since 2003 I think it was when we started.

BB (and pretty much every other retail store for that matter) takes all the stuff you return to the store and the stuff that GS can't fix and the manifest it and then auction it off by the 53' truckload. To be more accurate, BB gathers everything from a certain area and manifests it all together so you may in fact be bidding on several truckloads worth several hundred thousand dollars retail. The loads are labled as "cities" so if you are bidding on "Bloomington" you are actually bidding on everything from MN, WI, ND, SD and IA. We used to buy truckloads, sort it, repair it and resell it on eBay. My friend and the guy who got me into all this mess still does it and he's doing great.

Please don't email me and tell me "Store X doesn't do that, they return it to the manufacturer". First, I don't know what EVERY store does, and second most stores do NOT return items to the manufacturer even if they tell you in the store that they do. Go to BB and ask an employee what happens to an item you return; they have NO IDEA so they will tell you it's returned to the manufacturer. It is a matter of pure fact that they don't.

For example: Your laptop that stopped working and you returned to the store used to be sold to guys like me and I would fix it and have access to your hard drive exactly as it was the day it stopped working!! The stores were SUED becuase personal information was found on a hard drive, and I'm not 100% sure, but the person with the customers information may have used it for illegal purposes. Don't quote me on that though!

Now they drill holes in all the hard drives before they sell them. It sucks for guys like me that are honest and would reformat the drive and reinstall Windows as we now have to buy all new hard drives for any laptops we repair. I hate how a few bad people can ruin things for the rest of us.

Anyway... I try and help people on Fixya as much as I can. Fixya Terms of Use prohibit me posting a link to anywhere outside of Fixya that would help somebody fix whatever it is they need help with. Think about that for a minute. I know they don't want me spamming for FREE advertising, but I can't post a link to anything that will help you!

Fixya actually cancelled my first account and deleted all my posts... several hundred fo them in fact. I would give people advice regarding their damaged cameras including: "1- Send it in for warranty repair if it's less than a year old, 2- Buy a defective camera for parts online and fix one from the two, 3- If you can't do those or fix it yourself maybe we can help, 4- If we can't help feel free to ask us questions, we are here to help." I was told that what I was doing was "illegal" (actual quote!) and I should give people "general advice" about how to fix their item.

Yahoo Answers is free, and so is Fixya but Fixya does have a pay for help option. On Yahoo Answers you can ask anything about anything, but I have been sticking to cameras for the most part. There are so many people asking so many questions it's crazy! I like Yahoo Answers because I can post links to wherever I want and if all you do is spam people vote you down and you lose rating points. It's like a negative on eBay... they do that on Fixya too, nobody wants a negative.

So that's my Geek Squad rant for today... hopefully there was also some useful information in there as well.

Thomas Drayton