29
08
2012
First of all peeps, a quick apology about the missed blog yesterday. For those not in the UK, Monday here was a well earned bank holiday so we took the liberty of a day off!
In true social style, I wanted to just let everyone know about the recent break in we had at our sales office space, the Liverpool Business centre office here which houses our admin and sales. We had a number of laptops go missing, our blogging kit went with the camera’s and lights going and a number of smartphones. The rugged demo kit seemed to be unattractive to the robbers although most of that is kept elsewhere, as is our repair centre! So whilst RAM lives on, their has been a lot of disruption to the blog this week and I wanted to just say bear with us and we’ll be back in force by next Monday.
Unfortunately Business first, the liverpool business centre mamagement company prefer to cavort (actually speed really quickly) around in their Ferrari’s and Bentleys rather than help us secure the property but we are working on that oursleves and with other business owners affected here, with the police and a lovely customer who has stepped in to help us secure the building using their security expertise.
Within a few days we’ll be 10 times as secure as we were, no thanks to Business First though!
Will be back blogging on Monday, business however is as usual here and any comments just come to us here or giveus an email/call.
http://www.ruggedandmobile.com
Comments : Leave a Comment »
Tags: Liverpool business centre break ins, liverpool office burglars, Liverpool Office robbery, Liverpool Office Space Security, Liverpool Offices
Categories : News & Communication
22
08
2012
So back to good old rugged PDA’s and today we’re talking about a small “bug” in the Pidion BM170 that can affect the battery quite significantly. It’s to do with the way the UserIdle, Screen Off and Unattended power states are handled which makes you think you’re letting the device turn off, when in fact it’s really on.
The problem
The problem is with the way the Pidion BM170 manages it’s auto power off states. Think of Useridle and Screen off as leaving the device on but just switching the screen and backlight off. This allows things like GPS to work fully in the background whilst saving power on the screen. Unattended mode is similiar as hibernate on a PC. It’s the lowest power state a Windows Mobile device has, other than OFF!
The problem occurs when you set the Screen off timeout to an equal or higher time than the hibernate timeout. Lets see this in action:
Select the Power application from the settings menu in the Pidion BM170
Here you can see the power application. Select this.
Now select the advanced tab and see the time out setting to hibernate.
Now select the advanced tab, you’ll see the timeout value.
- The useridle tab controls the screen off timeout.
Now select the useridle tab and make sure this setting is off or less than the value you just set above in the advanced tab.
The solution
To get round this, simply either:
1. ensure that either you do not check any boxes on the “useridle” tab at all. Most users want the device to go into its hibernate sate, not just switch the screen off anyway and many newer smartphones behave like this anyway. This is what the warning at the bottom of the Useridle tab is going on about.
2. Make sure the value in the UserIdle tab is less than (not equal to) than the value in the Advanced (Hibernate) tab.
Don’t forget that BM170′s have the new Pidion power button handling tool now too which can help hugely with the power on the Pidon BM170 and other Pidion Rugged PDA’s.
If you need any help with your batteries or simply need to have them tested or need new ones then just come to us and we’ll help as a full PidionCare Service centre.
www.ruggedandmobile.com
Comments : Leave a Comment »
Tags: BM170 poor battery life, Pidion BM170 Battery Life, Pidion BM170 Power Problem
Categories : How To, Top Tips
20
08
2012
So, on to the last article in our series giving you our top 5 tips for rugged PDA repair end today with a look at transparency.
Rugged PDA Repair Transparency
We bark on about honesty and transparency all the time here, especially me! Why, because we think good business is not about the money here, but about doing good and giving back as much as we can. So how does this translate into one of the most asked about features we got feedback on for a repair centre?
Repair centre Transparency
Have you ever kissed goodbye to your broken device only to be found chasing up where it is 4 weeks later again 6 weeks and again at 8 weeks, with a big black hole of nothing in between? We one of the most talked about subjects we got when we asked all our customers about repairs was the complete lack of communication of how the repair will work, what the stats are up front and just some kind of decent honest timings for the repair. If we can build olympic stadiums to a rough time and budget then surely we can do the same with a small £200 repair? Add to this you should look for the performance figures of the repair centre, do they publish them? Do they give you a process that explains the process clearly up front and do they give you a process designed to communicate and give you the facts quickly about the repair itself?
Repair centre Honesty
I don’t think you can ask a repair centre for pure honesty, how do you know? But there are a lot of things people told us could be addressed to remove the need to be honest, which in fact is being honest!!
Proper pricing
Loads of people told us how miffed they were with repair centres that just sent out the same quote repeatedly for many different types of failure, seeing it as a blanket cost for anything and basically feeling ripped off. I have to say we’ve experience this here with many manufacturer repair centres.
Proper reporting
Another problem was the sheer lack of depth in any reports given. People wanted to see the problem outlined clearly, what was need to rectify the problem. the cost of this and also any tips or advice or notes to help them in future.
Being up front
Why can’t things be more clear and up front was another well discussed topic. Ask the Repair Centre about their history, their stats, the parts they have in stock, the experience they have. After all if it’s not up to scratch then your device could end up with many issues in the future resulting from the repair.
So, there we have it. Our top 5 tips on what people moaned about when it came to Repair Centre’s. In this world of diminishing resources and rising costs, repairing and mending will become a lot more important than it was in the throw-away era so it’s time to have a really good think about this before you buy your Rugged PDA. Hope this has helped!
www.ruggedandmobile.com
Comments : Leave a Comment »
Tags: Motorola ES400 Repair, PDA Repair, Pidion Repair, Rugged PDA Repair
Categories : Top Tips
17
08
2012
Blame it on the Olympics or my sheer old fashioned patriotism but I’m going to talk about why having a UK-based rugged pda repair centre is perhaps not so great for the supplier, but awesome for the customer. This is part 4 of our top 5 tips on rugged PDA repair.
Rugged PDA Repair UK Loctation
I’ve been involved in some of the largest IT service centres, shucks I was even on the team that put a rather large IT companies in years ago… and I saw it subsequently go out to India, losing 100′s of jobs here. Guess what, whatever the “Managers” tell you in these cases, the service takes a nose dive. So why are we faced with these “Pan European” or off shored call centres and repair centres? Well that’s easy, it saves the supplier money and the 3 people at the top, along with the shareholders get rich, whilst everyone else, including even the customers it seems, toil and struggle!
There I said it, we all knew it anyway, we’ve just been taught to shut up these days, age of ignorance blah, blah, blah!….
It’s nothing to do with Czech’s or Indians, South Africans or Mexican’s being any less skilled, in fact some of the best engineers I have met were when I was in India but the location does make a difference.
Main benefits of UK-based repair centre
In a way being local is the backbone to everything else working to an excellent standard.
Communication - You get spoken to as a person, not a number which means you can help resolve issues the best way, which is the collaborative way. I can’t even speak to engineers of the manufacturer lead service centres, Some are taking 10 weeks to fix kit right now and the Managers don’t even call me back.
Speed of repair - If we have no SLA driven repairs for the day then we repair the warranty kit. Some of this is being done in 24 hours. Local british services don;t tend to work to processes like off shored ones do where the control has been passed on (but not really).
Lower postage costs - Either you post to a UK-based point which then posts your device on, which adds on time, or you have to post to a european country. You can send a rugged PDA next business with £500 insurance for £6.35. Have you tried using an ad hoc courier to Germany recently?
Environmental improvements - Why are we sending kit so far away? Think just how much fuel and CO2 that’s using?
A listening Repair centre - Much more inclined to listen and change. How do you tell a large repair centre that s outsourced to change?
Responsibility – We have to do well because our service depends on it. We’ve not tied you in, we’re not the only place you can go and we like it like that. The better our competition will be, the better customers will be served.
Access to expertise - You need to be able to talk to people who not only have the skills, but are willing to share them. Local repair centres will not be scripted and the ad hoc questions will be catered for far better.
Offshore’s bad rep- I want to live in a world where we don’t group ourselves by geography, it’s coming but we’re not there yet. The fact is non-uk repair centres have a bad rap, they deserve the bad rap and so you immediately have your hackles up when you find out.
British jobs - We need the money to stay in our country if things are going to get better. No-one can a job right now, well, we’re hiring right now. If our service grows, then we make another job.
I could go on, but these were the top areas that we were told by customers.
tomorrow we’ll round this off with a look at transparency and honesty!
http://www.ruggedandmobile.com
