Thor Schrock

If you listen to my radio shows or watch the TV segments I do, you have probably heard me talk about the fall that my dad took at home back in March.

Allen had a slow motion fall from a chair in the kitchen.  He hit his head on the wall and lost consciousness.  when he woke up he was bleeding from his knees, head, mouth, and elbow.  He couldn't get up move or talk.  His arms were asleep from laying on them for about 24 hours.

I was surprised to learn that when people over the age of 65 fall and remain immobile, their muscles begin rapidly breaking down after the first hour.  The condition is called Rhabdomyolysis and it can be deadly as the kidneys shut down from being poisoned by disintegrating muscle tissue.

My dad was able to take care of himself at home before the fall and afterward I was helping him eat and watching occupational therapists help him learn to talk and swallow again.  After the fall, he lost over 50% of his body's muscle mass and fine motor control.  I started playing the "what if" game in my head wondering what I could have done to prevent this.

 Would a Life Alert Pendant Have Helped?

The short answer is no, it wouldn't have.  His fall was too slow to be detected by any accelerometer-based fall detection system.  When he woke up on the floor he wouldn't have been able to push a button.

I thought there must be some technology that could have detected he was in trouble and alerted someone to help him more quickly.  If I could have found him in 4 or 5 hours the damage would have been so much less severe.

The short answer is there is nothing available now that could have detected his situation and called for help.  I decided in that moment I was going to change that.

The Allen Band Idea

Initial Allen Band drawing for factories to determine prototype costs

The idea for the Allen Band is basically that if we can measure motion with devices like the FitBit, why doesn't anyone measure the lack of motion?  It is unusual for even a senior citizen to stay immobile for 4 or more hours at a time.

There are all kinds of wearables that measure all sorts of biometric data, but no one is looking for the LACK of data as an indicator there could be a problem.  If my dad would have been wearing a device like the Allen Band, it would have texted me that he might be in trouble.  I could have called him.  He wouldn't have answered, which would have been strange for him.  I could have gone to his house hours earlier and prevented a lot of the muscle tissue damage.

My idea was to couple heart rate monitoring, body temperature monitoring and inactivity monitoring into a device that could send a message if something was wrong.  That's way too much programming to put into a simple wearable, so some kind of monitoring station was needed.  I don't have any desire to open a Life Alert-style call monitoring center, so I started to wonder if we could monitor the Allen Band with a cloud server and simply send alerts form the server to family members when an "event" was detected.

In fact, by using a computer in place of the call center I found that we could actually monitor the bands for free.  The server costs are that inexpensive.

More Support Than I Could Have Imagined

As I investigated the idea, I found that many seniors don't subscribe to devices like Life Alert because the $41.95/month monitoring cost is too expensive.

I reached out to a few factories and development companies and learned that all of the technology I needed was readily available.  Sprint and other cell carriers offered to make specially priced monitoring plans at $10/month to support the new device.

I have received phone calls and emails offering personal help, financial backing, and over 170 commitments to purchase the Allen Band once it is available.

Moving Forward to Prototype

Given all of the encouragement, I started approaching factories to determine the cost and timeline of building a prototype.  Specifically I was looking for:

• A reputable factory with experience in wearables
• Reasonable prototype costs
• Briefest time from design to prototype
• Ability to create an initial batch of 1,000 devices in a reasonable time frame

I narrowed the list to three factories.  Of those three one stood out as the best in all categories.  Their prototype cost was $22,500 with a six-eight month development timeline.  After that, they needed 30 days to construct 1,000 units.

Gearing up for a Kickstarter Campaign

We are currently working on a much more technical drawing of the Allen Band to begin the prototype process.  We are planning on launching a Kickstarter campaign to crowd-fund the prototype cost, and we could really use your help.

First, if this project resonates with you, please visit The Allen Band Facebook page, like it and share it with your friends.  When you like the Facebook page you will get to see all of the development milestones and stay up to speed with the project.

Secondly, when we launch our Kickstarter campaign we need as many backers as possible on day 1.  You can back the Allen Band for as little as $10 or as much as $1,000.  There will be rewards for backers on every level, but the biggest reward will be developing a product that can help save lives, improve quality of life, and help families take care of their own.

It's been months and months since my last blog post.  Last week on my radio show, Compute This, I mentioned that I hadn't posted in a while and if people wanted to know what I thought about certain topics they could email me and I would start up again.

I received a few phone calls and many emails asking me to do some writing and I gave my word that this week I would post something new.

I thought it would be fitting for me to post a bit about why I stopped blogging in the first place and why I am thinking about starting up again.

The Usual Reasons

This blog was originally designed to be a place where I shared thoughts and information that were loosely related to my businesses, money making ideas and general business advice.  I wish I would have had a business mentor when I started out, so I thought maybe my tips could help some others who were getting started themselves.  Then life hit.

In the past 2 years we had another child, bought another business, launched a bunch of new products at Schrock Innovations, created a new web development division called Schrock Interactive, became a cub scout den leader in my son's homeschool pack, and on and on.

It's been a busy couple of years and writing was just not a priority for me.

The Business Reasons

I am an opinionated guy and sometimes my opinions offend people.  I run a company and I do a lot of TV and radio media.  My objective in that role is to communicate my company's message to as many people as possible and bring in new customers through amazing customer service.  It is hard to deliver amazing service when your customer is focused on the fact that you strongly disagree with President Obama's policies.  In fact, some people might never become customers because of my personal views.

As I am getting older my views on issues are trending more Libertarian than Conservative or Liberal.  I don't really care about gay marriage, I think our government is way too involved in our lives, I think FDR's New Deal was a massive mistake, and if we are not careful I think we are in the beginning stages of a third global war.  As you might imagine, there is no way to talk about these things without alienating someone.

I genuinely believe that people with different views can get along and work together in areas of agreement.  If my computer repair shops have great service and you have a broken computer that's covered in Obama Care stickers, I will fix it, charge you the same fair price I charge everyone else and I am just as concerned with your satisfaction as any other customer.

However, in today's business environment why would I risk turning off a potential customer so I can satisfy my online ego by spouting off on my blog?

The Paranoid Reasons

Given everything we have learned about government surveillance, domestic law enforcement black sites (in Chicago!), and a business environment that almost requires you to do business with public sector organizations to stay in business, the incentives to sit down, shut up and to go along to get along are intense.

Posting videos about Obama being the personification of the Great Pumpkin in the classic Charlie Brown Halloween Special will probably not move the debate in any real way, will draw undue attention to myself from various official sources, and put the livelihoods of my family and employees at risk.

It's easier to keep my opinions to myself and focus on delivering great products and services.  We all make money, we all get what we need, my employees get to keep their jobs and we all go home to our family at night.

So Why Start Blogging Again???

That's a great question.  There are a lot of reasons I want to start blogging again and I am working to find the time to do it.  The bottom line is that I believe that the risks posed by staying silent now outweigh the risks posed by sharing these thoughts.

For My Children

I want to write to leave information for my kids to look back on when they are adults and learn who their dad was and why he believed the things he did.  I always love hearing stories about my parents when they were younger and how my grandparents survived the Great Depression.

Now that my grandparents have passed and my father's health deteriorates, I find myself thinking more and more about who will share those stories with my kids - and their kids.

Aside from those personal reasons I believe we are moving into a period of history that will be looked back on 100 years from now as a pivotal time.  Everything about our world is changing from the way we communicate to the way we think about risk and opportunity.  The decisions we make today as a country - and as individuals - might not make any sense to my grandchildren without some context about how things were "in the old days."  I hope I can provide some of that in my small sphere of influence.

For My Customers

Sometimes computer and technology problems are so big they require more explanation than I can provide in a quick radio tip or a 6-minute TV segment.

My post about how to fix an Asus Laptop that won't power on and my post about how to get a refund from Symantec when you are stuck in anti-virus auto-renew hell are both hugely popular.

These posts solve problems for real people and that is what I started Schrock Innovations to do.  Granted, some of these people will never set foot in one of my Service Centers, but they are still people, they could use some help, and I can give it in a very efficient why.  That's enough reason for me.

For Myself

I read a LOT of news.  I listen to a LOT of audiobooks (I'm in the car a lot), and I have time to think about how things have worked in the past.  While history may not exactly repeat, it certainly does rhyme.

I have some hopes, ideas and concerns that I share with my wife, my family and my coworkers at times.  Some of these things sound absolutely crazy if they are said simply and left to stand without context.

However, with context and supporting documentation some of my crazier ideas and fears sound a LOT more plausible.  My ideas keep me working and feed Schrock's need for continuous innovation.  My fears are about things that I can't control but I can attempt to prepare for.

Sometimes writing helps me hone ideas and at other times writing just allows me to get something off my chest so I can fall asleep that night.  A man can lose his mind worrying about things that he can't control.  I always feel better about things when I believe I know what I am up against, have an idea of what is going to happen, and can plan accordingly.

A New Direction Moving Forward

I know that some aspects of this blog are not working properly.  I am aware that my theme is not responsive, it has no mobile version and that I am prone to spelling errors.  Schrock Interactive is wrapping up a ton of development work for a number of local and national clients right now so maybe these things will get fixed over the course of 2015 - and maybe not.

In previous years this blog has been about the business aspect of what I deal with on a daily basis.  It has offered my customers a glimpse behind the curtain at Schrock, shared my thoughts on online marketing and trends, and has served as an incubator for ideas that may or may not have come to pass.

I will still be writing about some of those same things moving forward, but the overall direction of this blog will no longer be about making money online or going from "Peanuts to Profits."  There are far more important things happening all around us right now every day.

I gave up Twitter years ago and I use my personal Facebook page VERY sparingly.  I feel like I have gone through the worst of the "ego years" of my life and now I am not so concerned about what some people might think about me based on what I write.

My hope is that you will find the things I write entertaining, informative, hopeful, scary, and above all interesting.  If not, you can always leave a comment telling me I am full of crap.

I have been playing around with crypto-currency mining for the past month and one of the things I noticed is that is is still way too technical for the average person to grasp.  I obviously have a technology background and access to some of the best break-fix technicians and facilities in the area, so I was able to figure it out for the most part.

Over the years I built Schrock Innovations Computer Company from the ground up by making technology understandable to the average person whenever possible.

I plan on writing more about my entrance into the crypto mining community, and those posts will have to have technical concepts in them simply because there is no way around it.  I am writing this post to be a central reference point for those technical terms and concepts so that as I write, readers who find these posts have a place to look to understand what in the world I am talking about.

What is a Crypto Currency?

Crypto currency is a digital currency that does not exist in the physical world.  Much in the same way you can spend digital dollars with a credit card that you never held in your hand, crypto currencies like Bitcoin, Litecoin, and Dogecoin can be - to various degrees - exchanged for goods, services, or typical fiat currencies liek US Dollars or Euros.

Crypto currencies are not stored in bank accounts like traditional fiat money.  they are stored in digital wallets that can be save to a computer's hard drive, a flash drive or even printed out on paper.  Just like a real wallet, if your digital wallet is lost or stolen your money is simply gone.

Crypto currencies can be earned by selling goods or services to another party who sends crypto currency from their wallet to your wallet.  It can also be "discovered" or mined by having your computer solve complex math problems over time.

Just like the Federal Reserve can release more dollars on an ongoing basis, mining releases more crypto currency into the marketplace over time as people use their computers to mine for it.

Unlike the Federal Reserve, each time a computer successfully mines some crypto currency, the next batch becomes harder to mine.  This means that as more of a currency is released, it releases at an ever decreasing rate.  Additionally, each crypto currency has a cap on the amount of total currency that will ever be created.

What is Mining and How Does it Work?

Mining is the process by which a computer solves a complex math problem in the hopes of uncovering a new crypto coin.

Anyone can mine with their computer's processor, more advanced graphics cards (GPUs or 'gaming cards'), and specialized hardware (ASIC systems).

The math problems that are solved by mining are so complex that even a top-shelf computer processor (CPU) can't solve them very quickly (think 150+ days to solve one problem that may or may not pay out any crypto currency).

Modern graphics cards actually have much, much more computing power than a computer's processor, so they can solve the problems more quickly (think 15 days to solve one problem that may or may not pay out).

All crypto currencies (the two different types are scrypt and SHA) can be mined with CPUs and GPUs.  ASIC equipment can only mine SHA crypto currencies at this point, and they are orders of magnitude faster than GPUs (think 5 hours to solve a problem that might pay out).

No matter which option you choose to mine with you will need a mining client to look for problems to solve and begin working on them.  The most popular clients are cgminer (for AMD based video cards), cudaminer (for NVIDIA cards), and minerd (for CPU mining).  There re a lot of variables to consider in setting up and configuring your mining system.  This post is an overview so I will cover them in more detail in a later post.

How Can You Make Real (i.e. fiat) Money Through Mining?

Once you set up a computer to solve the complex problems they can earn crypto currencies.  These currencies can then be exchanged for fiat money (USD or EURO) throgh crypto currency exchanges.

Some of the most popular exchanges are www.btc-e.com and bitstamp.com.  You can visit these websites to get current exchange rates for the multitude of crypro currencies that are out there.

When you mine your own currency, it gets deposited into your digital wallet.  You then send the currency from your wallet to the exchange, convert it to whatever currency you desire (USD, Euro, or Ruble) or you can try your hand at day trading between different currencies to multiply (or lose) your earnings.

Once your mined currency has been converted into fiat, you can send it to your bank account through a wire transfer.

 What are the Risks and Costs?

If you want to get serious about mining crypto currencies you will need to invest some start-up capital into higher-end graphics cards or ASIC equipment.

You are going to be mining coins that can have violent swings in their value, or become absolutely worthless in a blink of an eye.

You will be dealing with exchanges in foreign counties that are operating completely without regulation.  If an exchange closes down or just disappears all of your currency (fiat or crypto) can go with it (look at what happened to Mt. Gox).

Aside from equipment and time, your only overhead costs are power and cooling.  Mining equipment uses a LOT of power - as much as 300 Watts per video card and will generate more than enough heat to make a small room uncomfortably hot.  With power running about .10/kWh in Nebraska, you need to keep your power costs in the equation when considering your profitability.

The Natural Resources Committee of the Nebraska State Legislature will be considering LB 454 tomorrow to create a new government bureaucracy to handle the recycling of electronics waste like old computers and televisions.

This is the third attempt in a decade to get this bill on to the floor of the legislature, and like the two before it this one is fatally flawed.  Below is a transcript of the testimony I will be submitting tomorrow at the Legislature.  If you would like to register your opposition to this bill you can do so by emailing a note to the Natural Resources Committee at bkoehlmoos@leg.ne.gov.  You can read LB 454 here.

To whom it may concern:

Schrock Innovations, a local Lincoln computer sales and service company would like to inform the committee that we are in opposition to LB 454 for a number of reasons.

We believe LB 454 will be bad for local businesses, will actually cause a net elimination of private sector jobs, and will not be able to accomplish its stated goals because the fees collected for the tonnage of electronics produced will continually decrease as devices become smaller and lighter while the costs of recycling the existing e-waste in the state will remain constant.

Additionally, LB 454 is completely unnecessary because the private sector is already taking steps to deal with the e-waste problem.

For example, Schrock Innovations already recycles 4 computers for every unit we sell into the marketplace during the course of normal business.  Additionally, we hold annual e-waste collection drives at our own expense, offer trade in value for old systems that have no value to us, and offer free recycling services at all three of our locations.

As you may or may not be aware, there is little margin in new computer sales.  The additional taxes and regulations imposed by LB 454 would force Schrock Innovations to reconsider the local sale of new computers and the seven full-time positions that are required to order components, construct systems, and install them in our customers’ homes could be eliminated.

The aim of LB 454 as we understand it is to shift the economic responsibility of recycling e-waste onto the manufacturers who produce it.  We do not believe that tonnage of electronic devices presently sold in Nebraska would generate sufficient revenue to fund LB 454’s lofty goals and that the recycling program will rapidly become a burden to the state’s general fund.

For example, in 2000 the Metropolitan government of Nashville and Davidson County in Tennessee was force to close down a similar e-waste program because it had exhausted its annual budget in a mere 24 operating hours.  As a result, the government was forced to take direct control of the recycling activities of the program, damaging the local economy even further by eliminating the roles of the existing commercial recyclers.

LB 454 is predicated on the belief that somehow manufacturers are not doing anything to resolve the e-waste problem on their own.  This is incorrect.

Manufacturers, including Schrock Innovations have made strides in recent years to reduce the toxic chemicals in electronic products.  That effort, coupled with a natural drive toward smaller, lighter, and thinner electronic devices is continually reducing the landfill impact of e-waste in states across the country.

LB 454 is at best another example of a vein hope that somehow government will find a way to make an economically bad idea somehow plausible.  E-waste recycling is best left to the private sector without the interference of a government bureaucracy.

It is no secret that businesses will be entering an uncertain year in 2013.  No one rally knows what the tax rates will be, how much health insurance will really cost, or how it will impact consumer spending on everything else.

Smart businesses will get as lean as they can before this period of uncertainty becomes a period of certainty and it is too late to adapt quickly.  One of the things you can cut in 2013 that will save you a bundle of money is your old, outdated Yellow Pages advertising.

Where is Your Phone Book?

Ask yourself a question...  Where is your most recent phone book?  Do you have it?  Do you use it for anything other than a booster seat at Thanksgiving dinner?

If you do have a recent phone book, when is the last time you genuinely used it to find anything important?

The truth is that the Internet is so widely available on such a wide assortment of devices it is actually faster to Google your local Pizza Hut on your smartphone, tablet, or laptop than it is to locate the phone book and look them up.

Like the buggy whip, the typewriter, the floppy disk and the Polaroid camera, the Yellow Pages was huge in its time, but is now nothing more than a novelty that collects dust somewhere or ends up in a landfill.

As fewer and fewer people with disposable income use the phone book, its benefit to your organization decreases dramatically - more than likely past the point where it makes fiscal sense to pay to play.

What Does Disposable Income Have to Do With Yellow Pages Advertising?

Demographics and disposable income are the two most important statistics in Yellow Page advertising.

Lets start with demographics.  Who is using the yellow pages and who prefers the web?  According to the Local Search Association, a yellow pages trade organization, 56% to 68% of those surveyed indicated they had used either the print yellow pages OR the internet yellow pages (like how they lumped the two together?)

A second statistic that might be more useful from the same survey indicated that 70% to 84% of those age 54 or younger use the search engines FIRST.  They may end up on a yellow pages website eventually, but they start their search with Google and not yellow pages.com more than 75% of the time.

The only demographic who used the search engines less were those ages 55+.  Usage of search engines drops to an average of about 42% while the use of the printed book or direct links to the yellow page website held steady.  Assuming that these customers were adverse to using the search engines, it is safe to assume if you are looking to reach customers aged 55+ who do not have a relationship with an existing top-of-mind vendor you might get some traction with the printed yellow pages in your area, depending on industry.

With that said, that doesn't mean that the yellow pages is a lock for reaching those 55 and older (who coincidentally are responsible for 55% of all package purchases and have 75% of the nation's wealth (source).

Consider these facts about these cash-rich 55+ customers:

• 89% of those 65 or older have a personal email account (so they do use technology)
• 1/3 of all web users are over 50
• 36% have a smartphone and half of those use it to check email once a day
• The Internet is the most important source of info for those 55+ before making a durable goods purchase
• The top four online websites for people over 60 are Google, Facebook, Yahoo and YouTube
• 72% of those 55+ shop online

By themselves these numbers indicate that retiring Baby Boomers are using technology to get information and that necessarily means they are using the printed yellow pages less and less.

The most shocking fact that should have yellow page sales reps quaking in their boots is the rate of Internet adoption by boomers.  Consider the fact that from 2004 to 2009 the number of 65+ internet users increased 55%.  The web is only going to get more popular and that necessarily means the printed yellow pages will become less and less popular.

A Case Study in Failure

In 2011 Schrock Innovations Computer Company took out a yellow pages advertisement in the Dex phone book in Omaha, NE.  The advertising bill came in at $1,600 per month.

We asked for a metered phone number so we could track the results of our ad through Telemetrics.

At the end of the year our final Telemetrics report indicated that we had received 24 phone calls for the entire year.  Assuming that the same person did not call twice, that breaks down to a cost of $800 PER LEAD!!

Those were not confirmed customers - those were just leads.  For all I know they could have been wrong-number hang-ups.

You ad could be performing just as bad as our ad did, but how would you ever know?  Without a metered number you simply can't track yellow pages leads.

Business owners who can't track results desperately want to believe that $1,600 a month was not wasted.  There must have been SOME results that helped our company, right?

The answer is probably not.  We would have probably gotten more use out of our $19,200 if we stacked $20 bills in our bathroom and used them for toilet paper.  Sad but true.  Don't make the same mistake I did.

How to Replace Yellow Pages Results

Although Schrock's experience would indicate the yellow pages are a bad bet, there are areas where the yellow pages are more effective than in others.

If a business pulls out of the yellow pages and does not do something else to replace the lost leads that business may be more profitable, but revenues will go down.  Revenue is cash flow and in a tough economic year falling cash-flow can be a problem.

The answer is to shift your marketing dollars away from yellow pages and then refocus a much smaller spend to get better results using the new medium that everyone is rapidly adopting.  Go where the eyes are - go online.

Don't get me wrong, Google AdWords is expensive and doesn't really work for every industry.  That's why we recommend avoiding any ad or placement buying scheme that guarantees your ad will be seen.  First of all, it is just as expensive as the print yellow pages if you add up the overall costs of maintaining the ad.  Secondly, why pay for something that you can get for free?

By using basic, white-hat SEO (search engine optimization) techniques, most businesses can easily dominate LOCAL searches for their products or services.  There are tons of articles online about how to get your web pages to rank, so I won't rehash that here.  The important thing to remember is that is you have good content, a winning sales model that has a compelling hook and upsale opportunities you can't go wrong.

Save your money and ditch the Yellow Pages.  Trust me, I am glad I did.  Monthly budget for two phone books back in our bank account = $33,600 annually.

On Monday morning the world is going to end for computer users.  The Internet will finally buckle under the strain of all of those videos, searches, and knowledge of questionable value.  It is the Internet's doomsday.

Now that we have all of the drama out of the way, the storied DNS changer virus is going to be the biggest non-story of the year.  If you are not familiar with the DNS changer virus, here's a brief re-cap to get you up to speed on the story you will hear WAYYY to much about tomorrow:

What is the DNS Changer Virus:

A few guys in Estonia were sitting around one day trying to figure out a way to make money on the Internet (or in this case off of the Internet).  They came up with the bright idea of creating a virus that would redirect people's web browsers to their pages instead of taking the users to the pages they intended to visit.

Imagine a scenario where you attempt to go to your bank's website.  If I am running the DNS changer virus, I can see that you are attempting to go to your bank's website and I can instead silently redirect you to another website that looks JUST LIKE your bank's website.  Once you enter your username and password I store them on my computer to exploit later and then pass you on to your bank's real website.

You might assume you entered a password wrong, type it in again, and get access this time.  No big deal to the end user - until my Estonian friends start scamming a reported $14 Million from victims world-wide!

The FBI busted up the ring in 2006, but all of those infected computers were still out there.  When the ring was busted and they turned their computers off, tons of computers around the world could not access the Internet.

To help the victims infected with the virus, the FBI brought the DNS changer servers back online - only without the nasty stuff) so people's computers would function on the Internet again.  The FBI is taking that server offline after providing infected computers with Internet access for 6 YEARS.  The server goes offline on Monday.

How Many People Are Still Infected?

It was estimated that in may about 355,000 computers world-wide were infected with DNS changer 6 years later.  About 77,000 of those computers are in the US (come on people!  6 years with no anti-virus software?!?!)

This virus also infected a number of wireless routers in 2006, using the router to redirect traffic while your computer might scan completely clean with anti-virus software.

How Can I Tell if I am Infected?

Simple!  Just visit the website set up to help people get their systems cleaned up.  If you get a green background you are good to go.  A red background means your computer or your wireless router are infected and you probably can't get on the Internet anymore.

http://www.dns-ok.us/

What Kind of Damage are We Looking at Monday?

The damage from the virus will be contained to the 77,000 computers and/or networks that are infected.  The infection is no longer spreading.

With that said, the real damage is going to come from the volume of phone calls we get at Schrock Innovations.  If anyone has Internet trouble tomorrow they are going to think they are infected.  Sounds like a great time for Time Warner or Cox to do some scheduled maintenance and freak everyone out ;-)

Every week in our Service Centers customers bring their ailing computers in for repairs. Many of the repairs we see on a weekly basis are repetitive and pretty easy to diagnose.

In this video we address some of the most common issues we repaired this week in our Service Centers. Have you ever:

• Had a laptop battery that would not charge?
• Had a computer that would not turn on?
• Dropped your laptop and cracked the screen?
• Had a drive C error message?
• Had a USB port on your computer stop working?

If you have experienced any of these problems, watch the video and see what we do in the Service Center to get our customers' computer up and running.

Have you received a text message telling you that you are the lucky winner of a Best Buy, Wal-mart, or Starbucks gift card? If so, you are not alone!

One of the newest types of identity theft scam lures unsuspecting victims by sending mass text messages to randomly generated phone numbers.  The batches SMS messages usually send sequentially, which means many people within the same community receive the messages at about the same time.

The messages state that you have entered one of the surveys that is commonly located on the bottom of a store receipt.  Their hope is that you did complete one of these surveys and you might believe that you actually won.

When the victim clicks the link in the text message they are taken to a website that asks for the person's email address and ZIP code.  If that information is completed, the next screen congratulates the victim and states that only a little more information is needed to claim the gift card.

The website asks for personal information including name, date of birth, address, and phone number.  That is actually all of the information that is needed to steal your identity.

WOWT Channel Six news stopped by our Omaha Service Center to ask some questions about the scam.  Here's the video of their news report:

If you received one of these text messages Best Buy posted suggested information on their website about how to handle it.

If you have already responded to one of these text messages and completed all of the information then you could have a problem on your hands.  It might be a good idea to file a police report (create a paper trail marking the beginning of the event) and to also request that your bank place a fraud alert on your credit reports to prevent accounts from being opened in your name.

Schrock Innovations believes that companies should be good stewards of the products they produce.

That is why Schrock offers to recycle computers, cell phones, and accessories at no cost.  Normally monitor disposal is $15 per unit.

April 28th and 29th Schrock is taking technology recycling to a whole new level with a 2-day recycling event that will allow you to safely dispose of your old computers, phones, accessories, and cords all for FREE!

What Can I Bring?

April 28th and 29th at our Omaha or Lincoln Service Centers you can recycle your old:

• Computer Towers
• Laptops
• Printers / Scanners
• Keyboards / Mice
• Computer Speakers
• Cords
• Cell Phones
• Chargers
• Extra Batteries
• CRT and LCD Monitors (limit 1 free monitor per customer)

What if I Want to Recycle More than One Monitor?

During this event, each customer is allowed to recycle one monitor for FREE.  Each additional monitor is $15 to recycle.

However, during this special event for every monitor you pay to recycle we will give you a $15 Schrock Innovations gift card.  At the end of the day, its as close to ABSOLUTELY FREE as you will get!

Because of logistics, we must limit each customer to 10 monitors in total.  If you have more than 10 to recycle please contact us to make special arrangements.

What About My Data?  Is it Safe to Recycle?

Schrock Innovations takes your personal privacy seriously.

Each and every device that has data storage of any kind (hard drive, flash memory, cell phone, etc.) will be professionally wiped by our staff BEFORE it is sent anywhere to be recycled.

A recent UK study found that 54% of all phones that were disposed of contained personal information like social network passwords, bank accounts, or phone logs.

Of the phones that contained personal data, over 80% of the people who disposed of the devices *thought* they had completely wiped them before disposing of them.

Nothing is EVER deleted from a computer, laptop, tablet, or cell phone until it is professionally deleted.

You can rest assured that the data on your recycled devices never leaves our Service Centers.

Why Should I Recycle my Old Electronics?

It is estimated that on average each household in the US has 3 old and outdated computers in storage.  Schrock Innovations recently attended a committee meeting of the Nebraska Legislature where our State Senators expressed concern that electronic devices in our landfills were becoming a health hazard to all of us.

When you throw your old electronics in the garbage they don't just go away.  Harmful chemicals like lead, cadmium, and mercury are vented when these devices are crushed or placed in the landfill.  These chemicals stay in the soil for decades and can pose serious human health risks including cancer.

Most people don't recycle electronics because you have to pay companies to take your equipment.  That is why Schrock Innovations is holding this event.  It is free on May 21 and 22, so PLEASE make a plan in your household to set aside the old cell phones and computer gear you honestly will never use again and dispose of it safely.

Can I Bring Non-Computer or Phone Stuff to Recycle?

This event is limited to computer equipment and cell phones only.  We are working with specific partners to make this event possible.

We can not accept old TVs, cable converters, VCR's and other related items.

Special Circumstances and Advance Notice

If you are bringing in a large quantity of equipment (more than 15 total pieces) PLEASE call us and let us know you are coming.  We have to make room to store the recycled equipment for up to 48 hours before it is transported (so we can pull all data storage devices).

Call Lincoln at 402-423-9595, call Omaha at 402-934-9423, or call Papillion at 402-884-0880 24 hours before you arrive with your equipment.

The Schrock Innovations Computer Company has spent the last 13 years building a tradition of quality technology products and award-winning service in Lincoln.

Schrock Innovations has created a new position called a Solution Advisor that is designed to ensure that we are providing the best technology solution or combination of solutions available for our clients and customers.

This position will require a candidate to:

• Contact customers after service to ensure satisfaction
• Contact customers with expiring software subscriptions for renewal
• Maintain the appearance and functionality of the sales floor
• Assist customers and clients in purchasing new computers
• Meet with clients about website development projects
• Meet with small businesses to establish corporate service agreements
• Offer technology solutions to customer with malfunctioning computers
• Handle service concerns
• Other duties as assigned
• Actively prospect provided lists

This position is perfect for a candidate with a sales, marketing, and/or technology background to achieve earning potential that is limited only by the ammout of time you want to work. If you are a highly motivated individual who likes the idea of unlimited income potential AND a rock-solid list of leads, Schrock Innovations Computer Company is looking for you!

To be considered for this position a candidate must:

• Have 5 or more years of experience in commissioned sales
• Have an understanding of computers and other technology items (or be open to rapid training)
• Have reliable transportation
• Pass a criminal background check
• Formal sales training or record of sales excellence is a plus

Compensation:

This position is a contract position. Each solution assembled for a client or customer will offer a varied commission. The candidate selected for this position will set his or her own schedule.

Commissions will vary depending on the type of sale earned and the value of that sale to the company. A complete commission schedule will be provided during training.

Schrock Innovations will provide the following equipment if desired by candidate:

• Laptop Computer
• Tablet
• Droid Smartphone (use of company phone required)

Application Information:

This position is an immediate opening. To apply for this position, please complete an online application on our website. Please do not call or visit our Service Center about this position.

If you have additional questions, or wish to submit additional information such as references, portfolios, or prepared resumes in addition to your online application, please send them in response to this advertisement. You must complete an online application to be considered for this position.

Qualified candidates will be called for a telephone interview. Based on those interviews, the pool of candidates will be narrowed and called in for an in-person interview.

ZDNet.com is reporting today that a new variant of malware has been detected that infects your computer and steals your online banking credentials.  This new infection can even defeat the image verification schemes that banks have put in place to prevent such intrusions from happening.

From ZDNet.com:

The latest strain of the ID-theft malware, called Gameover, begins as a phishing scheme with spam e-mails — purportedly from the National Automated Clearing House Association (NACHA), the Federal Reserve Bank, or the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) — that leads to malware infection and eventual access to the victim’s bank account.

The FBI said the phishing lures typically includes a link in the e-mail that goes to a phony website.  ”Once you’re there, you inadvertently download the Gameover malware, which promptly infects your computer and steals your banking information,” it warned.

The FBI said recent investigations have shown that some of the funds stolen from bank accounts go towards the purchase of precious stones and expensive watches from high-end jewelry stores.

Please make sure you are running Symantec's Norton 360 software and you are using the Secure Updater to keep all of your third party applications up to date with the latest security patches.

More and more individuals are exploring the possibility of creating personal websites that are not intended for business use.  Whether you are a home schooling mother who wants to create a WordPress website as a journal to benchmark the progress of your child, or if you are interested in expressing your views on the latest video game techniques, a personal website is an amazing way to get the job done.

There are literally thousands of website hosting companies out there to choose from offering varied degrees of service and always promising the lowest possible prices.  To help you cut through the clutter and select the company that is best for you, WPDesigner created a website that compares and contrasts the most popular selections so you can make an informed decision.

WPDesigner paid me to look over their website and provide our thoughts on what they were trying to accomplish.

Site Design:

The WPDesign website is easy on the eyes with a mild-earth-tone look.  With that said however, there is a reason that most hosting companies have text on a white background - its easy to read and understand.

WPDesign's logo is a cursive font on a brown background, and if I didn't know what I was looking for I might not easily see or remember it.

Site Functionality:

The selected hosts are laid out in a grid style that easily allows the user to easily see which one best meets your individual needs.

I also liked the posts at the bottom of the pages offering some insight into how to create a website with WordPress.  If you were thinking about doing a website on your own, these articles would be a nice cache of information that would answer many of the questions you didn't even know to ask at this point.

I just happened to click the About link at the top of the page to learn more about the website's creator and what their specific goal with the website was.  The link was broken and did not work.

Conclusion:

WPDesign is a website that could really benefit a beginning personal webmaster identify a good hosting provider and get the information needed to deploy a basic WordPress website.

I think they need to do a bit of work on their site to correct some minor issues, but overall their information is useful, laid out nicely, and a valuable read.

Apparently the web development team at Schrock Innovations needs more work.

Things get pretty busy over there at times, and I often have to sensor my ideas before I pass them on to the Schrock team so I don't kill them with work.  It can be a good thing or a bad thing to have a team who can create anything you can imagine.  Especially when you have an imagination like mine :-)

So the week of Christmas I habitually checked my email and I found this:

For those of you who don't know, that is me, my wife, and my son.  Very creative, very and I have three new projects to start the new year.  Happy New Year web team!

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 for drives are creating headaches for everyone from the regular consumer, to massive OEM system builders like Acer and AsusTek.

The text of the article follows below:

A bad dream is playing out in Thailand and turning into an unpleasant and costly reality for Midlands computer retailers and repair shops.

The Southeast Asian country, which is grappling with the effects of devastating flooding and evacuations from its largest cities, is home to many of the world's largest computer hard disk drive manufacturers, including Western Digital, Seagate Technology and Toshiba Corp.

Over the last three months, floodwaters have crippled hard drive manufacturing facilities, bringing hard disk drive and component production to little more than a trickle. Hard disk drives are about the size of a small book and serve as the main storage components in computers, holding information about the machine's operating system and other software.

Analysts and computer store owners who serve Nebraska and Iowa say the shortfall of hard drives is going to take its toll on the holiday shopping season and could last well into 2012. The issue could mean disappointment or lighter wallets for consumers planning to give certain electronic gifts.

"It's a nightmare scenario for us," said Thor Schrock, owner and CEO of Schrock Innovations, a computer retailer and repair shop with locations in Omaha, Papillion and Lincoln. "And it's only going to get worse."

At the beginning of November, Schrock said, hard disk drives already were becoming so expensive at wholesale prices that he spent $27,000 at Office Max and bought as many hard drives as he could.

"We cleared out three of their warehouses," Schrock said. "In order to get to the end of November, we needed more hard disk drives."

Hard drive prices have doubled since mid-October, Schrock said.

He said there may not even be enough available hard drives to maintain a predictable inventory, especially of low-priced netbooks.

"As a computer retailer, this is our big time of the year, and if we can't get hard drives, we can't sell computers," Schrock said. "And if we can't sell computers, we can't service computer parts, either."

Fang Zhang, an iSuppli analyst, wrote in a research note that Western Digital will likely be knocked from the No. 1 perch of hard disk drive producers because of the flooding. Zhang also predicts that the shortage will become more serious at the end of 2011 and pour into 2012, at least through the first quarter.

During that time, shipments are expected to decrease 30 percent, causing prices to soar, Zhang said.

Darby Deeds, owner of Computers To Go in Bellevue, said in mid-October he made an order for 500-gigabyte hard drives, which are used to build and repair computers, for $40 apiece. As of Friday, the same drives carried a price tag of $99.

Across the board, consumers buying computers as gifts this holiday season should expect that to translate into at least a 10 percent price hike on all computer purchases, he said.

With that inflation sending the prices of PCs upward, Deeds said he has noticed that his sales to business clients, which include some sales to Offutt Air Force Base, haven't slowed. He expects that to continue through the shortfall.

"Their reaction has been — 'We've got to have it,'" Deeds said. "They're not changing anything."

General retail consumers, however, are exhibiting more patience, Deeds said.

That spells bad news for Nebraska Furniture Mart, one of the area's largest electronics retailers.

Bob Batt, executive vice president at the Berkshire Hathaway-owned Furniture Mart, said the disaster in Thailand reminds him of the catastrophic earthquakes and tsunami that blasted Japan and disrupted electronics supply chains earlier this year.

"We're not expecting good things," Batt said. "We're monitoring the situation and will take the appropriate action. It's that kind of a deal. Time will tell."

Computer companies that have been pinched by weak demand in the United States and Europe are bracing for the hard drive shortage to compound those issues.

Analysts have said that the drives that are available will first go to companies with top priority, like Dell and Hewlett-Packard, for example.

Still, those producers remain concerned. In a statement, Dell said that it anticipates hitting the low end of its fourth-quarter revenue projections because of the disaster in Thailand.

The industry prioritization, however, means companies like Acer and Asustek, both of which make cheaper netbooks and desktops for consumers with a tighter budget, are more likely to get shorted in the supply chain.

"The situation is severe, but the exact timetable for a full recovery is unknown at the current time," Acer said in a statement. "There will definitely be price hikes for HDD storage, but the magnitude is uncertain for now and would most likely be transferred to end users."

Apple officials have said they expect an industrywide shortfall, but aren't sure how things might play out for their company.

"Like many others, we source many components from Thailand," Apple's chief executive Tim Cook said during a conference call with analysts and journalists. "It is something that I'm concerned about. How it affects Apple, I'm not sure."

The devices that could get a boost from the Thai disaster are laptops and devices that run on solid state, or flash, memory. Most mobile devices and tablets run on solid state memory, which doesn't have moving parts like a hard disk drive, and an increasing number of laptops, including Apple's Macbook Air, use solid state because it's typically quicker and smaller.

Schrock said that although tablets like the Apple iPad are already popular, the Thai floods could push more consumers in that direction rather than spending more on overpriced PCs.

For now, though, those affected by the supply chain disruptions aren't throwing in the towel on this holiday shopping season.

"It's not pretty, but we just don't know what's going to happen," Batt said. "Bad news comes along from time to time, and this is one of those times."

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 production 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.