1 Million Unique Blog Visitors ACHIEVED tonight!

Thank you all for reading and being here!

We already have a winner, as the influx of orders came in at the exact moment the Unique Visitor Counter turned over 1,000,000 (there were so many people on the blog, it actually refreshed at 1,000,089!) and per our rules of the giveaway, we had a ton of new orders but there was one that was first. We will be giving away a brand new iPad Air to a loyal blog reader…

I will be announcing that winner tomorrow morning right here in the blog…not by name, but by Order Number. Check back in the morning (Wednesday) and by 11am Central Standard Time and I will announce the winner with instructions on how to claim your new iPad Air. Never fear, I am here to help…I just don’t want to post names here in the blog without your your permission. I am so excited for you, I can’t wait to talk tomorrow.

Until then, have a great night, thanks for reading, I’ll be back soon.

Take care, Ryan

Almost there, I’d give it just a few more minutes!

Good evening,

It’s not often that I write blogs in the wee hours of the evening (this is my special sleeping time on most nights!) but I’m anxiously awaiting our Unique Visitor counter to roll over to 1,000,000!! I wonder if it will do it?

Or will it turn over like a car odometer and go back to 1? Are we Y2K compliant? Yikes, who knows!! If there’s a stock market crash tomorrow, don’t blame the Mission Repair Blog…

At the moment it appears that we just need a few more readers (less than 100!) to view the blog…then I’m giving away a brand new iPad Air. That’s right, you still have time to learn about the giveaway (click here for details!) but I’ll stay up and watch for the winner. I will announce the winner right here tomorrow morning, so come back to see if you’ve won.

I’m rooting for you, thanks for reading, I’ll be right here.

Take care, Ryan

Best of the Mission Repair Blog.

I was going through the insights of my blog tonight as I have been patiently waiting for the 1,000,000 Unique Visitor counter to turn (we need about 200 more at this point), and found that our best blog day was:

Yes, we had over 31,000 views on a day a few years ago (we average much lower than this per day now) and it was a special day. We had received a frame for an iPad 2…long before the iPad 2 was released…and we posted it here on our blog. Here’s the infamous picture:

And a link to the original article here. We talked about the frame itself, how a MacBook camera fit directly into the slot where a camera would most likely be, and posted it for the world to see. Looking at the picture now makes me thing “that got all of that attention?!?” Well it did bring 31,000 views on that memorial day and crashed our wordpress site a few times so it probably would have been even more!

There’s a little known tidbit that I’ve never talked about regarding this picture. Apple called me directly about it and discussed how and why I got the part and asked if I would take the image down. We had a peaceful discussion about it, it never went any further, and the picture and article remain here posted on the Mission Repair blog today.

I’m bringing this up because since that post a while ago, we have had a steady increase in blog readers, subscriptions, followers and re-posts. Sometime in the next few hours we will reach 1,000,000 Unique Visitors, and I’m going to stay awake for that. You don’t need to; unless you’re trying to win that iPad Air that I’ve been talking about. Then you should grab a cup of coffee and keep watching. It’s going to happen very soon to make today another Mission Repair Blog moment in history.

I’ll be right here, Ryan

Who is going to win the BRAND NEW IPAD AIR?

OK, it’s nail biting time.

Less than 500 more unique visitors and we reach 1 million right here on the Mission Repair Blog! This blog has been a lot of fun over the years…

One thing that you might notice is that we do not sell advertising on the blog. There are a lot of companies that do this simply to make money – of course. However I choose not to because I want my pages to load faster and I don’t want to clutter the “user experience” with ads. Have you ever watched Youtube and an ad comes up and says “your video will play in 15 seconds”. I hate that, so I’ve kept my blog ad-free for 8 years.

Could I make some money selling ads? Of course. I’m a purist, and money isn’t everything.

Most of my customers come here to read about the “Mission Repair Happenings”, what’s going on in my life, or to simply read about some tips, tricks or news in the Apple and PC world.

Well today I’m betting you’ll be coming back to see the momentus Millionth Day happen.

Remember that when we reach 1 Million Unique Visitors (you can watch this via the counter on the right (desktop version) or on the bottom (mobile version) and when it does, fireworks will spark at the Mission Repair headquarters!

Also, the next order placed on MissionRepair.com – after we hit the 1 Million Mark – will be announced here and will win a BRAND NEW IPAD AIR! You can read about the details here. No purchase necessary!

Have a great day, it’s getting close!! Ryan

The truth about MacBook Pro Keyboard Repairs.

Hello there friends,

We get calls at Mission Repair constantly for MacBook Pro Repairs; it’s something that we’ve been doing for 8 years, and I’ve been personally working on Macs for about 19 years. I can attest that the newer the Mac, the harder they are becoming to service.

For example:

We replace keyboards on MacBook Pro laptops. If you’ve ever seen one, or ever used one, you may notice the the keyboard is mounted from under the palmrest, which is different than most PC laptops. Most “Windows Machines” have keyboards that are mounted from the top and can simply be replaced with a couple of screw turns and a cable.

Not on some MacBook Pro computers. In fact, here’s the pile of miniature screws that need to be removed just to simply remove the keyboard from the laptop:

Somewhere near 60 screws. Plus, you can only get to it by removing the bottom case, hard drive, optical drive, logic board, battery all related cabling and some brackets. I’ve heard some of my technicians stating that it’s taken them 1.5 hours, but I did it in 47 minutes start to finish. Now, we don’t charge much for this repair and I wanted to share that this is not an easy task, but as a technician “too many screws” just can’t be in our vocabulary! We may think that “this is all screwed up”, or sometimes we might want to say “screw this”, but those are all just jokes!

A bit of advice: don’t spill anything on your keyboard, you can avoid the repair altogether!

Take care, Ryan

It’s almost time. 1 Million Blog Readers, is today the day?

I’ve been talking about it all month!

We are giving away a FREE BRAND NEW iPAD AIR to celebrate our 1 Millionth Blog visitor right here in the Mission Repair Blog! It appears that this might happen today or tomorrow, so now is the time to pay attention to the count. As of this morning:

It’s our Millionth Day Celebration, and it’s starting to happen now!

Here are the details, and you will only find out if you’re the winner right here in this blog. Here are the details:

1. This is our “Millionth Day Giveaway” prize, which consists of (1) One Apple iPad Air, 16gb, Wi-Fi, current model as per Apple’s availability, brand new sealed package, to be given out to one lucky customer.
2. We will all be watching right here in the blog. There is a “Unique Visitor” counter in the right hand column (check it out, see it there? —>). When this counter reaches 1 Million, the next order that is placed on MissionRepair.com (or places an order with one of our customer service representatives either over the phone or in person) will win!
3. There is no purchase necessary, the winner must place an order on MissionRepair.com to be eligible. Our free diagnosis options are eligible, so I’ll reiterate that no purchase is necessary!
4. Once we reach 1 Million unique visitors on the blog, the next new order placed and completed will be announced here on the blog! It may happen at 2am or 10am, it might be a Nationwide order or a walk in order at one of our locations; it doesn’t matter. The order that is placed with us MissionRepair.com immediately after we reach 1 Million unique visitors will win!
5. Orders can be placed directly on our website at MissionRepair.com, or they can be called in at 844-459-0105, or can be placed in person during normal business hours at one of our locations. There is no cash value of the prize through Mission Repair, and substitutions will not be permitted. We’re just going to give you an iPad Air…just in time for Christmas.

Watch the Blog Stats posted here to the right, “unique visitors” is the key. You’re wanting to be the person that places there order on MissionRepair.com the moment it happens! Just look to the right ———> (Assuming that you’re reading the desktop version of our blog. If you read it on a mobile device, please scroll down!)

I hope it’s you, and it’s the beginning of the “Millionth Day” celebrations here at Mission Repair.

Take care, Ryan

Look at what Cigarette Smoke does to electronics!

Hello there friends,

It’s no secret that cigarette smoke is harmful to your health, but recently I was working on a few computers that had multiple symptoms. Running slow, overheating, even causing the trackpad to fail on a Mac Laptop.

Once I opened each, the overwhelming odor was immediately undeniable. But here’s the result:

The above picture is the fan inside of an iMac, that over time, has accumulated tar and caused it to fail. I know it looks like dust maybe…but this is cigarette smoke that has been “sucked into” the iMac and just built up over time. The picture below actually looks like the bottom of this MacBook was filled with sand:

All of those little “dust specks” are the remnants of smoke inhalation by the laptop. Click on these pictures if you want a closeup “gross out”, but in the laptop, the tar has actually been seeping into the unit, warming up, and then “balling up” inside of the unit.

In both cases these devices needed to be completely stripped down and cleaned…and then they worked! In fact the report on the laptop was that the trackpad wasn’t functioning; so I used three different cleaners to strip the surface of the tar buildup (just where you touch the trackpad), and it was working again. It was simply just too dirty for it to work! HINT: Clean your laptop trackpad often!

That’s a good point; maybe I should call Mike Rowe and apply for that hit TV show, “Dirty Jobs”. This qualifies!

I’m going to go wash my hands again 🙂

Take care, Ryan