Peanuts to Profits With Thor Schrock
Peanuts to Profits With Thor Schrock

Schrock Innovations has some mind-blowing deals this Friday in all three Service Centers and the best part is you can sleep in and still get in on the action! On Black Friday (November 25th) Schrock will be open at 10:00 – normal business hours – which emans you can sleep off that Thanksgiving Turkey while […]

I was featured in an article in last Sunday’s Omaha World Herald about how the massive flooding in Thailand is impacting the local market for computers and computer repair. The long and the short of the situation is that the prices of wholesale hard drives have tripled in the past three weeks.  The increased prices […]

Anyone who has experienced data loss knows that awful feeling you get in the pit of your stomach when you realize your important information is gone forever.

People invest hundreds of dollars in backup hard drives, online backup services and DVD-R disks to try to prevent the loss of irreplaceable information. Despite everyone’s best efforts data loss still strikes because backup schedules are only as good as the people who run them – or forget to run them.

Introducing the Safe & Stored Backup System from Schrock Innovations

For the first time ever you do not need to back up your computer to an external hard drive or DVDs because your backup drive is built right into your computer.

The Safe and Stored Backup System backs up your computer’s main hard drive to a secondary hard drive right inside your computer.

There are no drives to hook up, no disks to maintain and no schedules to set.

How Does Safe and Stored Work?

Once every week (or more often if you would like) the Safe and Stored Backup System takes a complete image of your hard drive including your programs and Operating System files.

If your hard drive ever crashes, a mirror-image of your data can be restored to a new drive. All of your programs, settings, files, and devices will automatically work just like they used to.

How Does Safe and Stored Compare to Online Backup?

Online Backup with services like Mozy or Carbonite are great if you need an offsite backup of your data files.

However, many people don’t realize that these online services don’t backup video files or files over 2 GB in size unless you specifically include each file individually in your backup. Also, in the event of a drive failure it can take over three days to download your recovered files!

The Secure Updater is a complete backup of your entire drive. Because it is stored right inside your computer it is faster to restore you have complete control over your data at all times.

Call Schrock Innovations or stop in to see the Safe and Stored Backup System in action today!

Just in time for the holiday season the recent Thailand monsoon is threatening the stability of notebook and laptop prices.

Some parts of Thailand received as much as 140% of their seasonal Monsoon rainfall in a matter of hours. 40% of the world’s hard drives are produced in Thailand, and the massive flooding conditions are making this spring’s Missouri river flooding look like a kiddie pool. Think Katrina only across an entire country.

Extreme Shortages Coming

Analysts expect hard drives to go into extreme shortage almost immediately. Western Digital will bear the brunt of the blow. Company executives are reporting they expect a 60% decline in their sales due to producti0n shortages. All of their Thailand factories were flooded.

Seagate’s factories were spared, but their component supplies were not.

Online retailer Tiger Direct currently has no hard drives at all available for order at any price. Their competitor, Newegg has remaining inventory thanks in large part to establishing strict quantity limitations of one drive per customer per 48 hour period.

Computer Makers to Run Out of Drives by end of November

Even PC maker Asusteq is reporting that it will run out of desktop and laptop hard drives entirely by the end of November.

This situation is posing a unique challenge for OEM computer makers, including Schrock Innovations.

In fact, Schrock Innovations is incurring strict quantity limitations and lack of availability on many hard drives used in our Modular computers.

In response we have been buying every hard drive we can get our hands on as news pours in that shortages will be with us through at least March of 2012 and as long as December of 2012.

Every computer you have ever owned has slowed down over time.

Some of the slow down is the result of normal use, but the majority of performance erosion is the result of evolving software that demands more and more of your computer’s limited resources.

As you receive updates for Windows or the latest and greatest hew hardware devices, the software that powers them taxes your computers’ resources and results in slower performance.

Computer Hardware Speed vs. Software Demands

Over the past few years computer memory and computer processors have become exponentially faster. These gains have allowed computers to run more and more complex programs

The only component in your computer that has not seen a significant performance boost is your rotating disk hard drive. The 7200 RPM hard drive has been around in various flavors since 2003.

Solid state hard drives offer near-instant boot times and lightning fast speed – but at a significant cost. Solid state drives offer small storage capacities at a cost six to eight times more than the older rotating disk models.

Schrock Innovations’ Adaptive Intelligence Technology give your computer the best of both worlds at a budget friendly price.

Solid State Performance at Rotating Disk Price

Some of Schrock Innovations’ latest Modular PCs are equipped with 500 GB Adaptive Intelligence Hard Drives.

These cutting-edge hard drives are a regular-old 7200-RPM hard drive equipped with a 4 GB solid state partition.

As you use your computer, the hard drive monitors which files you access most often. The drive then saves a copy of those files to the solid state partition for faster access.

As your computing habits change, the solid state partition automatically updates with the files that will give you the best user experience.

All of the calculations are done by the drive’s firmware which means file cataloging and usage computations are all done on the drive itself. Adaptive Intelligence Technology doesn’t slow down your computer’s memory or processor, but does provide up to a 1000% hard drive access speed increase.

Improved Reliability

Solid State drives are the holy grail of data storage performance, but their lightning fast performance also comes with a down side.

In the event of a drive failure, data recover, while expensive, is possible on rotating disk drives. Solid state hard drives have no moving parts and are comprised of a number of memory chips.

A solid state drive failure usually results in a complete loss of data.

Because drives equipped with Adaptive Intelligence Technology save copies of commonly used files on the solid state partition, in the event of a drive failure standard data recovery techniques can be used to recover your important information from the rotating disks.

Only Available at Schrock Innovations

Adaptive Intelligence Technology is only available in Schrock Innovations’ Modular PCs and modified notebook computers.

Certain models come with the technology included, but can be added to any computer purchased at Schrock Innovations. Contact Schrock for more information about a computer equipped with Adaptive Intelligence Technology today!

Scaling from one computer repair service center at Schrock Innovations to two was a logistical challenge, but for the most part it involved duplicating systems we already had in place. Now that Schrock is adding a third Service Center in Papillion, NE we are finding that simply doing what has worked in the past will […]

Schrock Innovations’ new Papillion, NE Service Center is coming along, so I thought I would post a construction update.

Things have been busy lately, so these pictures are about a week old. Since they were taken electrical and data wiring is in place, the bathroom is complete (very important!) and Carberry Construction is starting on the floors.

The front desk is in place. Carberry fabricated the desk and topped it with black granite. We implemented a new feature in the front desk of the Papillion Service Center. Notice the lowered section of the front desk. We need the front counter to be tall enough for check writing and service, but sometimes it is tough for our customers to lift their computers up there.

The new lowered section is an experiment to see if we can get the best of both worlds.

The walls have been painted and the hanging electrical drops are in place.

We are just waiting on the floors to begin bench installation, inventory shelf delivery, and utility hook up.

Then the real fun begins!

If everything goes well, we are planning the grand opening for the weekend of October 8th.

The #1 computer question of 2011 is “How can I keep my computer, my identity and my data safe on the Internet.”

As more users have moved to Windows 7 and installed reputable security programs like Norton 360, the number of virus infections has stabilized in the US.

The bad news is that “stable” level means that the average computer in the US has 12 documented vulnerabilities created primarily by three different programs on your computer that you NEED to have if you want to enjoy the Internet.

The unfortunate truth is that having good anti-virus is not enough to keep you safe online anymore. You need to have the most recent versions of 5 common programs installed to keep you identity and your data safe online.

Schrock Announces the Secure Updater Utility

In response to increasing demand from our customers and radio show listeners, Schrock Innovations has developed a new utility that fills the gaps left by your anti-virus software.

The Secure Updater is a small utility that runs in the background and checks to make sure the five most attacked applications on your computer are running the most recent versions available.

The Secure Updater downloads updated software patches and revisions from the Schrock Innovations data center for the following programs:

• Mozilla Firefox
• Adobe Reader
• Adobe Flash 32-bit
• Adobe Flash 64-bit
• Java

When an updated version is detected the utility downloads the update and silently installs it on your computer with out any annoying prompts, warnings, or instructions.

With the Secure Updater you can have confidence that your computer’s software is fully patched, limiting the number of entry points your anti-virus software needs to cover.

How Can I Get the Secure Updater on my Computer?

The Secure Updater is in final testing now and should be available in the next four weeks to a limited number of customers in our testing pool.

150 subscribers who pre-order the software will be the first to receive the fully tested final release that is expected on or before October 1, 2011.

In addition, customer who pre-order will qualify for free installation assistance by Schrock’s technicians over the Schrock Desk if they require help.

Only 150 subscriptions are available for the test group. Once our server is load balanced and ready for additional volume, the software will become publicly available.

How Can I Pre-Order?

The Secure Updater is $49.99 initially and then $24.99 per year afterwards. At this time we are not offering a multi-PC license.

Please click the Buy Now button below to place your pre-order. This is an extremely limited initial release and will sell out quickly based on interest from our customers.

After your purchase your order will be forwarded to our Service Center and we will contact you via email when the software is available for download. If you need installation assistance, please contact the Service Center closest to you and we will be happy to help.

Compatibility

Please not that the Secure Updater is compatible with Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7 only.

It’s been over a month since my last post – inexcusable in the world of blogging. I feel a little guilty about the extended absence so I wanted to write a post that explains the work that has kept me away from the keyboard.

Businesses make profits by selling products and services. Over time, customers’ needs change and products and services that applied at one time become stale if they do not adapt.

Adapt or Die

For example, Arm and Hammer Baking Soda has been around for over 100 years. 100 years ago people did a LOT more baking than they do today. 100 years ago if you wanted bread, you baked it. Baked goods requie baking soda in many cases, and a LOT of boxes of baking soda were sold as a result.

But in the last 100 years the living standard in the US has increased so sharply that people now buy most of their baked goods at the grocery store. Most people who still make their own bread do so with pre-packaged mixes and bread machines. There is not a lot of call these days the use of baking soda for baking.

Yet Arm and Hammer baking soda can be found in every supermarket isle and if you looked in your house, you will probably have a box somewhere. Their product is still alive today because they INNOVATED and found new applications for baking soda in a modern lifestyle.

Arm and Hammer realized that baking soda absorbed foul odors in the ice boxes and refrigerators. As a result, more than 100 years later they are selling just as many boxes and you probably have one in your house today.

Changing, improving and finding more applications for your products is critical if you want to remain relevant in a changing world.

Computer Repair Transitioning to the Digital World

Schrock Innovations’ products and services are no different. Over the past 2 years we have worked to keep our products relevant to our customers’ changing needs.

We introduced the Schrock Desk Remote Online Support Service
We retooled our Preventative Maintenance Checkup to predicts and minimize repair costs
We offered new electronics recycling services to help our customers dispose of their old computers
We brought our Website Development division in-house to lay the groundwork for new digital products
Schrock started compartmentalizing product responsibilities to specific teams to improve service levels

Meanwhile, we have seen two of our competitors close their doors in an economy that only promises to become more challenging.

The driving motivation for Schrock Innovations over the next 2 years will be to increase the VALUE we are passing to our customers without increasing prices unnecessarily.

This is not a drive that is unique to Schrock Innovations. For example, while many of Netflix’s customers are upset about a price increase in their service, if you look into the business mechanics of why they did what they did you will see that that price increase will allow them to deliver more than 2x the content they deliver right now at FASTER streaming speeds. If Google+ is the Facebook killer, Netflix wants to become the cable TV killer.

The Next Generation of Schrock Innovations

With all of that said, Schrock is going to leverage what we are good at – local service and support – and apply our competitive advantage to new products and services. Our customers are primarily concerned with:

Keeping their technology running properly
Staying malware and virus free
Preventing data loss
Buying computers for their VALUE rather than their specifications

The reason Schrock is doing well while some of our competitors are not boils down to one simple difference – innovation. If a computer repair company’s objective is to fix computers that break or become infected they might do well for a while, but eventually there are only so many broken computers to fix. Consumers NEED their computer repair company to create new solutions that solve – or prevent – problems.

I have been quiet for a while for a couple reasons: First, I can’t keep my mouth shut when I am excited about a new product or service. Second, the amount of planning and execution required to do what Schrock is planning on doing has soaked a TON of my time.

Over the next couple weeks I will let you know what is going on. Our customers will LOVE it and our competitors will probably hate it 🙂

Last weekend Schrock Innovations held its first ever electronics recycling event. No one really knew what to expect because this was the first time anyone had held a recycling event restricted to old computers and old cell phones.

All of Schrock’s employees were on staff that weekend and the original plan was to document the number of pieces coming in as they arrived. In the first 15 minutes that plan went out the window.

While I was on the air doing the KFOR Compute This radio show, Schrock had taken in more than 500 pieces of e-waste in Lincoln and 200 in Omaha.

After the 2-day event ended on Sunday we had collected approximately 1.5 75-foot tractor trailers full of monitors, printers, scanners, towers, cell phones, cords and accessories.

Take a look at the pictures of the event on our Facebook page!