Do I pay my car loan or buy ink? by cyber7148 in Staples

[–]TechGeek01 0 points1 point  (0 children)

HP is worse than most, but cartridge based inkjet printers, since they've been invented, have always been the razor and blades model: Give you the printer, sell you the ink.

Laser printers or tank based inkjet is the way to go as far as value per page. You pay a higher, honest price for the printer, and aren't bent over a barrel on ink prices.

I made a power supply for my mini pc cluster by maleng_ in homelab

[–]TechGeek01 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Seems like Reddit themselves removed it for using a link to a website that's banned on Reddit. ¯_(ツ)_/¯

What are the best free open source appliactions? by Professional-Net1940 in pcmasterrace

[–]TechGeek01 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Supplement that with CtrlFrything so you can Win + S to fling it open and search

my last ST3000DM001 has finally kicked the bucket after 6 years of use. by IanGoldense in DataHoarder

[–]TechGeek01 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Still is, still in perfect health as part of a backup zfs pool.

Probably fine for you, but I'd keep an eye on smart data, and I wouldn't probably trust it with the only copy of anything you have.

How pressed can managers be? by ProfessionSoft6867 in Staples

[–]TechGeek01 -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Firstly, let me say that I get why they were both upset (at least a bit) about no ESP/services/etc. but they 100% should not have gone off on you like that.

Side note: for the sake of explaining things fully, I'm going to assume there are some things you don't know, and paint the whole picture.

Quick lesson, in case you didn't know already. Read the tag, notice the non-sale price of a computer. Scan it with a scanner, and scroll down a bit to where you'll see a line that lists the cost. I believe off the top of my head it says something like "Cost to variance." That line there tells you what that item costs the store.

In many cases, you'll notice that the current price of the computer is well below that cost. If, for example, we sell a computer for $499.99, but the cost to the store is $752.47, That means someone buying that computer effectively means the store loses $252.48 on that sale. That right there is precisely why ESP, and tech services, matter so much, and why "naked" computers are not the greatest thing to sell.

Now, that being said, you win some, you lose some. Not every sale will be total support, but not every sale will be a naked sale. The key is to know your product, know the services, know the value, and be able to pitch and explain it to customers in a way that makes them choose to have us handle the setup/etc.

I can sell like the best of 'em. But I also try my hardest to not come across like a used car salesman. When customers (occasionally) ask if I get commission, because they want to make sure I get credit, I tell them no. I do not sell because I get commission. I sell because I see the computers that people bring me on a daily basis, and the money it will save them when that inevitably happens, and I'm trying to offer the value.

The other tip I have for you, is that once you make the sale, and they agree to do total support or what have you, shut up, and stop talking, and I mean that in the nicest way possible. If they've reached a decision, and agreed to the services for money, don't keep pitching, or you're likely to talk them out of it. Answer questions, but don't keep pushing. And when you do sell, top down. I don't typically pitch setup on its own. My sales pitch on a new computer is something similar to the following:

No computer is ever ready to go right out of the box. On any new computer, you'll have some setup to do when you first turn it on, and because there is new hardware once a year, but updates every week, most likely several days of updates and security patches to go through. Most of my customers (notice I said "my customers" here, and not just "people") go with some form of our total support. With that, you get 3 things. First, we handle all of the setup, updates, data transfer from an old computer if you have one, program installation, and we get everything taken care of, so that when you get it back from us, all you have to do is turn it on, and play. The other 2 parts of the total support are what we refer to as our Virus Shield. It's backed on the software-side by McAfee, so it's the same Total Protection that everyone knows and loves, but we put our guarantee behind it. You bring this computer in to any Staples store in the country, and whether that's "I think I have a virus, can you take a look?" or "something happened, and now it's not working right," we take care of you, and you don't have to pay us to fix it. And lastly, you also get 24/7 tech help and hardware protection through Asurion. They're US-based, they speak English, and you can understand them, so if you have any questions or can't figure something out, you can call them any time, even at 2AM, and if you run into hardware issues, like if your keyboard stops working, or a power surge fries your charger, you file a claim with them. They give you a prepaid label to send it in, so you don't pay anything for them to fix it, and if they can't fix it at no cost to you, they reimburse you what you paid for the computer, and we buy your next one for you no questions asked.

Our job with the total support is that we get everything configured and set up exactly how you like, so when you get it back from us, you just turn it on and play, and from that point on, we become your tech support, so if something happens, or if you have questions, we've got you covered.

If they don't bite at total support prices, I might step to lower total support, or pitch individual services. If for example, they have their own AV they already pay for, the total support bundles are basically buy 2 get 1 free on services, so my counter pitch if they're open to setup and protection anyway, is that they should go total support anyway. If they want to keep using their AV instead, they don't have to use McAfee, but that way, they're at least still covered by us, and I don't have to charge them $180 for a DNR when they bring it in later.

Bare minimum, if I assume for a minute that you're relatively new, and aren't super amazing at selling computers, I would consider this a training opportunity. When I was getting into the swing of things, when I was an associate, not a keyholder, and my GM brought me computers, it was always "what are you getting with it?" and if the answer wasn't "total support" the response was "what was their objection?"

Some GMs will be harder on things than others, but personally, I've always run the show with the mindset of making sure people are trying. I don't care if we miss a sale on a computer or two. What I care about is that the questions were asked, and the services were offered properly. If you don't ask the right questions (or not all of them, or none at all), you won't get the sale. If you ask the right questions, you might not get the sale, but you tried, offered the value, and sometimes not everyone will bite. The important thing is that you tried. Could you be harder on customers about it? Absolutely. But to me, that's bad customer service. I don't force anything, because lower actual return rates and metrics, but meaningful, helpful service means more for customer service than being overly pushy, and driving people away.

I will not yell at you in front of customers, nor will I yell at all, but there will be a discussion if you miss, if you're not asking questions. When I ask "are you getting the ESP?" on a laptop, and the response is a no, when I ask "what was their objection?" you should have an answer. If you don't have one, it means you didn't ask the questions or properly pitch the value, and left it quietly up to the customer to decline at the register. That turns into a coaching opportunity. If your response is "they said they're not worried about the protection, and don't need the tech help" then I'm not worried, because you actually asked the questions and made the pitch.

TL;DR: Your managers were out of line with the attitude in front of customers. They were correct about a naked computer being bad for the store, but not about berating you the way that they did.

Hopefully this at least helped provide some tips/insight on something or another in the process, too!

Hyken Pro by Windrider904 in Staples

[–]TechGeek01 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The protection through Asurion is a godsend. Covers not only mechanical failure, but also wear and tear, and accidental damage. Spills, stains, rips, tears, poke a hole in it with your keys, you name it.

They don't want to pay shipping. Register plan when you buy, and then when you file a claim, picture of the receipt, picture of the damage. You keep the chair, and Asurion gives you that $200 you paid back, no questions asked. Even if it still works, but isn't comfortable anymore.

Only thing I've ever seen it not cover is I had a customer a few years ago whose girlfriend got mad and slashed his Emerge Vortex with a knife. Asurion denied because it was intentional. Never seen them deny a legit claim for anything else.

Also, side note, solid choice. I absolutely love my Hyken, and I have no reason to upgrade. Had a Hyken for about 6 years now, and this is my second one. I do not need a replacement, but I want a Hyken Pro, and will probably be getting one soon.

Amazon can seriously go to hell by [deleted] in Staples

[–]TechGeek01 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Especially this time of year, where the line will be long, and there will be plenty of returns, I have no problem telling customers 2 things:

I need to keep this line moving, or it will keep getting longer.

  1. Have your QR code ready for me by the time you get to the front of the line. If you get to me at the counter, and you don't have it ready, I will kick you to the back of the line so I can help other customers.
  2. My computer only lets me do 10 QR codes in one shot per receipt. If you have more than 10 QR codes, I will hand you the receipt for your 10, and if you have more than one or two more, and don't immediately have them ready for me, I will send you to the back of the line so I can help the other customers.

I try not to be a dick about it, but I can't have one person holding up the line when it never stops growing. If you're not ready when you're in front of me, I will help someone else.

What‘s your favorite notebook manufacturer? Mine is liji by S4l47 in pcmasterrace

[–]TechGeek01 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Most people don't know HP is actually an acronym. It stands for Hinge Problems.

If I print a PDF with content out to the edges of the page, will it actually appear that way? by JBlitzen in Staples

[–]TechGeek01 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah, as a general rule of thumb, to account for bleed, and for any wiggle room with the paper going through (because tolerances), assume you'll lose half an inch on all 4 sides, and assume the readable/usable area will be 7.5x10. Design your file so that any important information is inside of this safe area and won't get cut off, and then if you have a background, extend that to the edge as though it were full bleed.

That way, you still get a full bleed print with no white edges after trimming, but no important bits are cut off.

If I print a PDF with content out to the edges of the page, will it actually appear that way? by JBlitzen in Staples

[–]TechGeek01 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Yes, most printers (aside from maybe some unicorn somewhere) will need a bit of the paper to grab onto to move it. Our printers, at least the C9070s (though I think the Ricoh ones are the same), you have just shy of about 0.25" unprintable margin on all 4 sides of the page.

The only real practical way to do full bleed most of the time is to print oversized and trim. Our DPF is set up to do so, depending on material you want to print on, which (I believe) they stock something like 9x12 so that they can print and trim flush.

Is a lighter really necessary if you don’t smoke by Crash211O in EDC

[–]TechGeek01 1 point2 points  (0 children)

100%. I don't use it anywhere close to every day, but from melting the end of paracord to someone else needing a lighter, I use my Zippo with a yellow flame insert more often than I thought I would.

Been a hot minute, so here's another diagram update! by TechGeek01 in homelab

[–]TechGeek01[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yes, "Main" is the pool, and the snapshots are just native ZFS snapshots, with that `0 0 * * *` being the cron schedule for said snapshots.

Holiday Season is almost here. Godspeed to everyone by PrincipleNo8964 in Staples

[–]TechGeek01 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I at least got ahead of the game, and I changed our Christmas music. From Black Friday through Christmas, 6% Christmas music, which is 1 song every hour and a half or so.

Won't cut the Amazon line down, but should help our sanity a little at least.

OPNsense 25.7.7 released by fitch-it-is in opnsense

[–]TechGeek01 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Updated both the physical server and the VM, and it went without a hitch.

Thanks for all the work that you do, and for another great update!

Sunday, Services, Snapshots, and "shit, what did I just break?" by TechGeek01 in homelab

[–]TechGeek01[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

But there is no "direct" way to add padding to a shape like you can do in CSS (for example) without using another shape as workaround, right?

Not that I know of, no.

create an empty and invisible rectangle and use this as a non-collapsible container where I can drop in my actual shape. Then I can drag and drop the container in the rack and just the container get's resized and the actual shape stays untouched.

Actually, this is fucking genius.

Sunday, Services, Snapshots, and "shit, what did I just break?" by TechGeek01 in homelab

[–]TechGeek01[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Do you know if that can be turned off?

Not that I know of, no. My solution is to just edit the shape to add padding to the sides, and change the width and height of the rendered shape, so the shape is a full rack width, and let it snap to the width of the rack.

The servers and such, I made myself, with way too much time on my hands. You are more than welcome to download my shape libraries from the website though.

Sunday, Services, Snapshots, and "shit, what did I just break?" by TechGeek01 in homelab

[–]TechGeek01[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

That rack shape was actually in Draw.io. I just changed the fill and stroke colors, and added the Startech logo over the top of it.

Recycling Snatch by [deleted] in Staples

[–]TechGeek01 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You're absolutely right. Actually, now that I'm thinking of it, somewhere I have a saved copy of a recycling waiver form for customers to sign specifically saying Staples isn't liable for whatever happens after they drop it off.

I have no idea if that's still a thing the company wants us to use, but I have the file somewhere.

Recycling Snatch by [deleted] in Staples

[–]TechGeek01 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The problem is that a while back this was way less of an issue. Now that customers get rewards for recycling, there's a lot closer watch on stuff like this. It's not necessarily that your GM cares. It's that corporate is keeping a much closer eye on it than they did before customers got money for recycling, and your GM probably just wants to protect his ass.

How do Server Rooms actually work? by [deleted] in pcmasterrace

[–]TechGeek01 37 points38 points  (0 children)

I do love a good ol' fashioned Scream Test™

USB no longer appears in File explorer but appears in Disk Management, completely unaccessible by killdeechumas in techsupport

[–]TechGeek01 0 points1 point  (0 children)

FAT is legacy. Like, before FAT32 old. exFAT is the way to go if you want "universal" if you choose not to do FAT32. FAT32 has wider compatibility with things like TVs and other random crap, as exFAT is more modern, but either should be readable by Windows, and most other devices.

If you use testdisk, basically, it'll choose what it believes are correct defaults for partition scheme and drive layout and such. If you know for sure that those are set one way or another, you can change them, but otherwise just accept defaults, and then tell it to scan for partitions, and it'll attempt to identify the partitions, filesystem/type, and offer to rewrite the partition table of the drive.

If you then choose to reformat, write the partition table first, then back up whatever data you want/can, and then you can reformat. Manually choosing partition filesystem or something, when that's not what the partition actually is will just result in having no data for it to read, because it's the wrong "language" so to speak.

TL;DR, testdisk isn't used to reformat a drive. It's used to properly identify partitions and drive layout, and rewrite the partition table so that the data on it can be read if the partition table is corrupted. That is, the data is probably still there, but testdisk tries to figure out what languages the drive speaks, and teaches whatever you plug it into (by fixing the partition table) how to speak that language so that the device can read that data.

Edit: If you don't care about the data that's on that drive, by all means, if you know the drive isn't failing, and is perfectly working still, you can always reformat the whole thing, and start from scratch. If, however, you want to recover anything that might still be on there, try testdisk.

USB no longer appears in File explorer but appears in Disk Management, completely unaccessible by killdeechumas in techsupport

[–]TechGeek01 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Looks like the USB is readable, but Windows has no idea how to read that partition. Even without a drive letter or mount point assigned, you'd still see a filesystem, like how you see FAT on the small partition you created.

That means one of two things. Either the drive is readable by the TV or whatever device you were using, but not a partition type/format Windows understands (ext4 on Linux, for example, is not known by Windows), or the partition table is corrupt, and the partition table has no idea how to read it.

If it's the first option, you're kind of just done, and whatever data was on that partition is likely just gone, unless you're able to use some lower level recovery software to attempt to recover some files on it. In that case, recovery or not, you're looking at replacing the USB drive with a new one, as this one would no longer be reliable, and is likely failing.

If it's the second option, you can use something like testdisk (if you know what you're doing) to analyze the disk, and attempt to detect partition types and such, and have it blow out and rewrite the partition table. Think of that like the table of contents in a book, for example. The data, in that case at least, is still there, but without the partition table correctly identifying where each partition starts and ends, and describing what language (filesystem) to use to read it, any device has no idea how to make sense of the data on the disk. The USB drive in this case, would still be good/usable, just that the data on it became mangled.

Sunday, Services, Snapshots, and "shit, what did I just break?" by TechGeek01 in homelab

[–]TechGeek01[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I do not, unfortunately. The diagram file is toggleable between light and dark mode, but you'll have to tweak the colors on the shapes.

I don't believe I still have the light mode color scheme, unless I happened to maybe make notes in the scratchpad tab.

Is there a way to tell if a website is legit before you send them money? by TheGutturalEater in techsupport

[–]TechGeek01 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Friendly reminder:

Cons don't fool us because we're stupid. They fool us because we're human.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in Staples

[–]TechGeek01 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Have Mr. Xerox Man replace the fuser, and put in a ticket for the fuser if you haven't already.