Iarfhlaith Kelly - Code agus Craic

Niels Bohr once famously said that an expert is “a person who has made all the mistakes that can be made in a very narrow field”. Baring this in mind, it’s fair to say that in the last week I’ve become an ‘expert’ in HP laptop repairs.

Here’s what happened:

Monday morning, back from holidays. Within five minutes of turning my laptop on for the first time in two weeks, it suddenly shut down. There was no life out of it whatsoever. No lights, no noise, no laptop. Panic hadn’t yet set in but it was on its way. After about 10 minutes of frantically hitting the ‘on’ button the internal fan kicked in and a couple of LCD lights started to flash. I thought I was getting somewhere. I figured maybe it was just a temporary problem that had managed to fix itself somehow.

I couldn’t have been more wrong.

Thirty seconds after the fan kicked in, a puff of black smoke came out the side air vent followed by the dreaded smell of burning silicon. It was toast. My treasured laptop had become nothing more then an expensive paper weight in the space of about 15 seconds. At this point, panic had properly set in and I was seriously worried.

Out of Warranty

The first thing I thought of doing was ringing HP. I’ve used their support in the past and they’ve been really helpful. But after a quick check, they told me my laptop was out of warranty (only just) and that it would cost €90 to assess the laptop so they could give me a quote for the repair. I didn’t need to spend €90 to know that my motherboard was toast, the smell was all over the office. So I had a decision to make. Would I fork out the money and let HP fix it for me or would I try doing it myself, save some money and learn something new in the process? For me, that’s a no brainer. I would try it myself.

Dismantling the Laptop

Before ordering a new motherboard, I wanted to take apart the laptop to make sure that’s what the problem was.

Have you ever taken apart a laptop? It’s not as easy as you might think. At first I tried it without a guide. I managed to take out over 20 screws but I still couldn’t open it up. I decided I needed some help, so after a little Googling I discovered that all HP laptops have their own service manual which explains step by step how to replace any component, and the order in which they need to be replaced.

Here’s the document I used as a guide: HP nx7300 Service Document (PDF - 4.2Mb). Without this I had no chance.

Turns out that before the motherboard can be removed, you also have to remove:

• Hard Drive
• Optical Drive
• Bluetooth Module
• Keyboard
• Thermal Plate
• Fan
• Heat Sink
• RTC Battery
• Switch Cover
• Display Assembly
• Top Cover

Over the next two hours I slowly worked my way through the guide, dismantling the laptop piece by piece. There were over 70 screws (15 different types) and 25 components that needed to be removed before I could get the motherboard out. It was painstakingly slow. Here’s a quick photo of what it looked like fully dismantled:

Finding the Damaged Chip

Once the motherboard had been removed it was pretty easy to see what had happened. One of the microchips on the board had been completely destroyed. I could even see where the flame had scorched the casing on the pc card slot. Have a quick look at this image to see what happened:

At first, I considered trying to replace just the chip rather then the entire motherboard. I mean, it seemed a shame to have to replace the entire board when only a tiny portion of it was damaged. But after some more thought I decided it would probably be best the replace the whole thing. I didn’t know what else had been damaged and my skills with a soldering iron are clunky at best.

The Replacement Motherboard

I used the HP parts website to price a new board which cost €266 plus VAT and included all taxes and delivery charges. They had the board in stock and said delivery would take 3-4 days.

So, 3-4 days later I received a shiny new motherboard in the post, ready to replace the damaged one.

Here’s a couple of shots taken while I unboxed it:

Fitting the New Board

To fit the new motherboard, I just reversed the steps taken to dismantle the laptop. Each part went in, one after the other. It was a little harder putting it all back together because I had to make sure I was using the right screws each time (there were more then 15 different types), and that I left nothing out. Having to fit it all together is pretty tricky, but by following the service guide I managed to get it all back in without too many issues.

During the reassembly, I had a second laptop (same model) which I used to read through the different steps and make sure I got it all right. Here’s a few shots of the reassembly. If you look closely you should be able to see the corresponding manual page on the screen at the right side of each photo.

The Components Explained

While working on something like this, you really get an appreciation for just how well designed these things are. Everything has been thought of. All the components fit perfectly together. It’s like a jigsaw, only much more elegant.

Here’s a quick top down view of the different components in the laptop:

The Final Test

After the last screw was tightened and the last component was clicked in, I finally had the laptop back in one piece. All I needed to do now, was turn it on.

So, I held my breath and clicked the ‘on’ button.

The fan kicked in, the screen flashed on, and I could hear the wonderful sound of a hard disk being accessed.

It had worked.

My laptop was whirring quietly away as if nothing had ever happened.

I was thrilled. My gamble had paid off, and I’d learned a lot along the way.

The Benefit of Hindsight

I think the cause of the problem was dust and overheating. Not surprisingly, the damaged chip was located very close to the main processor, which generates a huge amount of heat. It was also very close to the fan and heat sink, where dust can build up.

I have a habit of using my laptop in bed, and surrounding the laptop’s air vents in a duvet. This, I now know, leads to overheating and ultimately, component damage.

To extend the life of my laptop and the new motherboard I’m going to do two things:

1. Clean it regularly using compressed air (this stuff is awesome and you can get in Maplins).
2. Stop using it in bed.

I think these two small changes should keep my laptop in good shape for a good few years to come.

Since starting my blog in March, the amount of time I have spent online has exploded. I’ve become addicted to news and am a fully signed up member of the blogosphere. I twitter, I blog, I comment, I am LinkedIn to business colleagues and I Facebook my friends. I’m constantly reading new sources of information relating to all aspects of the web game. To put it mildly, I’m hooked.

Sound familiar?

If you’re nodding your head, I know how you feel.

Taking an active role in the online community is now an absolute necessity for anyone involved in any kind of web based business. It’s also very enjoyable.

Despite it’s importance however, it’s not without its draw backs:

1. It is very time consuming
2. It influences my judgement and opinion
3. It does not help me reach my goals
4. I use it as an excuse to postpone the really important things (I’ll just read one more blog post)

To be honest though, these are only mildly frustrating issues and nothing that some self discipline and a good dollop of time management couldn’t handle. However, there’s one more problem that all this information consumption causes and I believe that for entrepreneurs it’s the most serious. It stifles original thought.

True Innovation is Revolutionary

It took me a couple of months to confirm my suspicions but after reading the 4 Hour Work Week (kindly sent to me by Gordon Murray) I firmly believe that knowing too much information in your area of business will have a fiercely negative affect on your ability to think outside the box whilst trying to be innovative.

I started blogging with the belief that if I connected with the online community and engaged in interesting conversation while also keeping up to date on the latest news from the web industry that I would be perfectly positioned to invent the next best thing.

After 5 months of exactly this sort of activity I am happy to say I no longer believe this to be true.

Knowing the state of the art will not help you define it in the future.

This is not a new idea, it’s been discussed before:

“Reading, after a certain age, diverts the mind too much from its creative pursuits. Any man who reads too much and uses his own brain too little falls into lazy habits of thinking”

- Albert Einstein

I can’t help wonder how the great man would have fared had he been glued to his feed reader for two or three hours a night.

Thinking Outside The Box

I have come to the conclusion that the only way to think outside the box is to forget what’s inside it.

If I am constantly updating my knowledge on the state of the art then I am playing a game of perpetual catchup. One that I will never win. What I really need to do is blur the lines, think outside the box and take my own approach.

Do you think that Steve Jobs spends his morning on Twitter micro blogging to his followers? Or that Richard Branson loads up his feed reader for an hour before bed every night? I doubt it. True innovation comes from independent thought and great execution.

Question The Status Quo

I constantly read news on new web startups, social media tools, data aggregators, web services, data portability, and other similar topics, but have found despite how interesting and compelling I may find all this information, that it has a large influence on my efforts at original thought.

Does my new killer app really have to integrate with the Twitter API? Probably not. Must it use open data standards? That’s probably overkill. Do I really need to leverage it’s viral potential? If it’s a genuinely great tool it won’t need to. And does it really need to integrate with my desktop calender? Maybe in version two.

Much of the ideas that I produce during a brain storming session are evolutionary not revolutionary. They build on existing technologies and use adopted standards within the web development community. Shame on me for not being more original.

So, what am I going to do about this problem? Simple. I’m going on a low information diet. I’m going to cut out as much noise as possible to help me focus on my real goals.

The Low Information Diet

In an effort to fight this constant stream of influential news and commentary I’m going to cull large portions of my subscribed feeds. I’m going to shut out as much of it as I can and cut myself off from the constant flow of information that sways my decisions both consciously and subconsciously.

By dramatically reducing the amount of news I consume on a daily basis I hope to become more productive, more efficient, more innovative and more original. As for the news that will undoubtedly pass me by, I’ll just have to live with it.

If it’s really that important, I’m sure I’ll hear about it one way or the other.

As part of the Tuesday Push series, Damien has picked Derek Organ’s time tracking application for this weeks community effort.

A Different View

Rather then just tell you what 1Time is (lots of people have already done that) I’d like to take a slightly different approach and show you why an application like 1Time and other’s like it are the future of software.

1Time is great because it’s:

1. Web Based - The Internet is becoming the de facto way to deliver software to customers. It can be accessed anywhere with an Internet connection.
2. Multi Tenant - Hosted software that’s centrally managed makes it easier to update and fix bugs because there’s only one running instance of the source code.
3. Multi User - The software supports different access levels so managers, workers and clients can all use it to see information suitable for them.
4. Multi Interface - A web based application needn’t be restricted to the web browser. RSS updates, email alerts, and an API help data to be accessed in new ways across multiple devices.
5. Usage Based - You only pay for what you use and you can cancel any time. It’s a low risk billing model perfect for businesses of any size.
6. Exportable - Paradoxically, allowing your customers to leave actually encourages them to sign up. Nobody likes to get locked in to a particular piece of software, so providing this option makes your software more appealing.

There are lots more reasons why 1Time and other SaaS based software have the edge over their desktop bound counterparts. Maybe you could think of a few more?

The best of luck to Derek and his team. Find out more on the 1Time website.

Locking in your customers doesn’t work. People use what they want to use. If they’re not happy with your service they’re going to leave whether you want them to or not. So opening up your service and giving your customers the choice helps your company look honest and encourages people to trust you.

Earlier today I had a run in with a company that clearly doesn’t get this concept.

Last week I needed to send a fax in a hurry. I didn’t have a fax machine in the office and the faxing service that’s offered in the main building hadn’t opened yet. I was running out of options. So I decided to look online for a faxing service that could send the fax for me. After a short search I found eFax which were offering a 30 day free trial. This sounded perfect because I only needed to send this one fax, after which I could close the account and avoid being charged.

A Decent Online Fax Service

First impressions were good. The sign up process was easy and once logged in, finding my way around the system was fairly intuitive. The eFax system works by assigning your account with a unique local phone number which you can use to send and receive electronic faxes as if they were normal paper faxes. It’s not a new idea, or a new company, but I hadn’t used anything like it before and was pretty impressed by it all. (Actually, any service that helps to break down the barriers between the offline and online worlds usually impresses me.)

Anyway, I sent my fax and I was happy. Crisis averted.

All I had to do now was cancel my eFax account. Unfortunately it wasn’t as easy as I had expected. In fact it was downright difficult. Here’s what happened:

There Was No Cancel Button

As part of the sign up I had to hand over my credit card details. eFax charge a minimum monthly fee of about €7 but with the free trial you get the first 30 days for free. I was keen to cancel my account before this subscription fee kicked in but was disappointed to find that you couldn’t cancel from within the service. There was no cancellation button to be found anywhere.

Online Help - Was Not So Helpful

I decided to try their FAQ section to see if there was any tips on removing or cancelling an account there. But just like in their logged in service, there was no mention of it.

Live Chat Was Like Talking To A Robot

Having given up on the FAQ section I decided to use their live chat facility to manually request that they remove my account. After a short wait, I was through to one of the operators. I quickly explained that I wanted to cancel my account but received a stream of unhelpful, pre-written replies that could just as easily have been delivered by a robot.

Eventually I discovered that I was using the wrong live chat service (sales only) and that eFax had a special dedicated chat line for people who want to cancel their account. It’s also hidden and unadvertised. So here’s the link: https://www.efax.com/en/efax/twa/page/chat

Clearly, they don’t advertise this link on their site to make it even more difficult to cancel an account.

Queue Position 8  - Not Good Enough

Once I managed to get the second live chat up and running (it doesn’t work in Firefox) I was greeted by the message that I was number eight in the queue and that I would have to wait approximately 20 minutes before someone could chat to me about cancelling my account.

The frustration was starting to get the better of me.

After 16 minutes of waiting and a fresh cup of tea I got talking to a support monkey who was eventually able to cancel my account. But that wasn’t before he tried to convince me to stay on until the end of the 30 day trial or before he asked me to fill out a questionnaire on why I wanted to cancel my account.

Lesson of the Day: Trust and Openness Matters Online

I left the chat with a sour taste in my mouth and a severe dislike for the underhanded way in which eFax have designed their ‘free trial’ service.

Let’s not forget, I was happy with the service up until the point where I decided to close my account. Yes, I was cancelling it but there was every chance that I might reopen it in the future and also recommend it to others. But now, after the way that eFax tried to lock me into their service I will never use them again and I won’t be referring them to anyone.

New ideas are great. For me, they’re like the adrenalin you feel going through the first big loop on a roller coaster. Ever been on Air at Alton Towers? It’s just like that. The buzz you get from that initial bright spark and the subsequent rush of unlimited possibilities is something that every entrepreneur thrives on. It’s what keeps us going. The only problem is staying focused.

I’ve been tempted in the past to drop one project half way through only to pick up another one that I thought to be more exciting. And, if I’m honest with myself, I’ve been guilty of that more than a few times.

The number of unfinished projects that are gathering dust in some remote folder on my computer is reaching an embarrassing level. I bet some of you are in exactly the same boat. You know what I’m talking about. How did the project that began as a world changing idea somehow fall out of favour and eventually become forgotten about and abandoned?

Well, I’ve been putting some thought into this very problem and I’ve come up with a few ideas that identify the causes of ‘project abandonment’ in the hopes that it’ll help to curb this tendency in the future:

Confidence of Success - Having doubt on the possible success of the current project often makes new ideas look more appealing, simply because they’re new and unexplored.

Negative Feedback - Receiving negative feedback is never easy, even if you’ve asked for it. Having people tell you your idea isn’t as good as you thought it was can be a hard pill to take.

New Competitors - Throughout the development of a project it can be very disheartening to see new entrants to the market with a similar project launch themselves directly at your target market.

Lack of Strategic Focus - Having a plan with realistic, achievable milestones takes a lot of work. Keeping to them takes even more effort and a new project lets you avoid that (at least for a while).

Code Soup - As a project gets more and more complicated, so does it’s source code. No system has a perfect architecture and despite best efforts, I sometimes take short cuts which I pay for later!

A New Big Idea - Having a new idea can put pressure on your ability to focus on what’s in font of you. We can only do so much at the same time and we need to acknowledge that.

This last point is different from the rest in that it is in no way related to the state of the current project. What you’re working on right now might be going perfectly and success with it could be just around the corner, but simply because this next idea for a project is ‘new’, it can appeal on this one point alone.

A Vow To Stay Focused on Existing Projects

Clearly, I’m struggling with this so I’m going to make a little pact with myself. I’m going to vow to complete all of the projects I’m working on large and small before taking on any more. Everything else will just have to be put on hold for another day, because despite how tempting they may look, it’s better to have two finished projects then four unfinished ones.