Here's an odd story....
Norman Yoshida left this review of my work on his iPod Touch 3rd Gen for him on Yelp:
"Was not able to fix my water soaked Ipod Touch. Oh well, didn't expect much, just hoped it could be bought back to life. Read his website for the odds of getting a water soaked iTouch fixed... Try him if your willing to risk $30... or just put the $30 toward a new one.
Note: Had to contact him after 3 weeks when I did not hear from him. He seems to always be busy or on trips. He responded very quickly and notified me of the bad news. I would try him again."
Bad Human, Here's why...
I did bring it back to life, here's the photos:
The "liquid immersion" work that I do obligates me to be very methodical. Each device type requires certain steps to open, examine and then work and test it for particular problems. This is rather tedious and it starts before I get the device here through the initial phone call I have with the individual.
During that initial phone call I assess what the probability is toward success with the individual on the phone. This is based strongly on three criteria,
1) the liquid material, I manage differently 5 types of potential material,
a) fresh water, which includes washing machine, bath tub, clean toilet
b) citric acid based soft drinks
c) viscous suggary water, think moccha latte
d) strong acids, think seawater or dirty toilet (yes, all the time)
e) restaurant grease trap - really! It took 3 weeks to bring back from dead and make work perfectly a 64GB Touch 3rd gen dropped in grease trap
2) How long in the past the liquid immersion event occurred
a) recent - inside of three weeks - good chance
b) medium term - over a month and up to 3 months, has a probabilty but gets more dicey over time
c) ancient immersion rediscovered - 6 to 18 months, this is when someone finds the washing machine iPod they put in a drawer a year ago and now found me online, expecting me to be able to make a Hail Mary save. In fact, I don't take on these projects because the odds on a save are so long and when I am unsucessful, I return the device and half the money they it with having spent hours on it.
3) how well charged the battery was at time of immersion
a) near dead - ideal, it will create minimal damage to system
b) well charged - will induce corrosion at the LCD's backlight, so the LCD ahs to be replaced
c) charged, and recharged several times times post immersion to see if it will start - this induces electrical arcing that singes, and sometimes burns away the LCD's positive and negative contacts on the logic board. This will destroy the logic board permanently.
Everywhere on my website, which is the way people find me for this work, I implore people to call me so we can confer on the phone. What I want to do is hear what the circumstances are, that I am being asked to manage. I use this process to specifically make sure there is efficascy in making an attempt at the repair.
During the phone interview, I learn the liquid material, when temporally the event occurred and how well charged the battery was. If I believe there is little to no chance I say so and actually tell the individual why it has little chance and in many cases I tell them not to send it to me.
The reasons I don't want to see it are:
1) I don't spending hours on a recovery, to have it not work and do it for $20 to $30
2) I don't want to add one more to what I call my "fatality column", I keep a "win/loss" record ratio that will look worse if I take on impossible missions
3) I don't want the individual to feel abused, because I couldn't make it work, in the belief I didn't spend appropriate time at there "task/project" - face it every bad review here on Yelp is purely the result of me not being able to carry out an impossible mission wuth the individual being hurt emotionally because... they were careless, *and* know it but I couldn't make them look good again.
So during the initial interview, with the client/patient they are given the probability of success. If I believe there is a decent chance at making a positive influence, I get their email address and then verbally step through the instructions of how to send it in to me. Before speaking the instructions, I actually send an email that covers the whole of "the send it in process", which they receive while we are still on the phone together. If email bounces I can tell them while we are still on the phone. That message includes the specifics of what I expect when "the patient" arrives. At a minimum, I tell people that I expect on a single sheet of paper, their name, address to send it back to, their phone number, and an email address. That same sheet of paper is to also have on it a narrative as to what's occurred and when. I want to learn what type of liquid, when and how well charged the battery was.
On the phone and in the email I tell them my fee which I allow people to pay using personal check, cash or PayPal and that I will refund back half the money if I am un-sucessful. Again, I use this phone interview to weed out impossible missions and to let people know what they are likely to expect.
The last part of the phone conversation centers on what my personal schedule is like. I am someone that has always been moved by music since I was a child. My mother was a piano teacher and was a classically trained pianist from... just past infancy. I go to music festivals. I shouldn't have to make an excuse to people about how I spend my time. I enjoy going to music festivals! I always get every project here finished before I leave. I don't invite people to send things while I am gone. I also have a calendar on each page of my website showing any days I won't be here. If the calendar shows me *not* being out of town, then I'm here and available at work. No matter what day of the week it is, if I'm not marked away then I'm here to help you. My being away and unavailable has proved to be a total just 27 days in the first 278 of the year. So I basically take one day off in eleven. Or put another way... while most people take 4 days off (2 weekends) for working 10 days (two work weeks), I take just 1. Rather few people can say that, and I think it's okay for me to be gone/off one day in eleven. My taking 1 day off in 11 shouldn't be subject to someone else's whimsical judement. However Norm brought it up as an item in his Yelp review and I thought I would address it.
I don't want work (immersed iPods) arriving without my knowledge, while I am gone. So the phone interview also tells client/patients what is going on with my personal calendar.
So, done right... for a device to arrive here, there would have to be a phone interview, that lead the individual to send it in. That person would have recieved verbal and email instructions on what I required to be with the deice on a single sheet of paper. They would also know what I needed in the form of payment *and* they would be aware of any trips/vacation time I had in the near future.
You have to imagine my surprise when I got back from being at Burning Man this Year (2010). It was a 10 day trip and my first time there, probably my last, the music angle wasn't what I had been lead to believe... but I learned. I am adveturous enough to try things at least once.
On the first day gone of what would be a 10 day vacation in early September. A package arrived. It arrived un-solicited and un-expected. Inside the package was an 8GB iPod Touch 3rd Generation model. Included with it were three things.
1) a business card
2) a post it note, with the words "water damage 8/2010"
3) a check made out for $60 and then LEFT UNSIGNED
These things were sent by Norm Yoshida on Salmon Rd in Alameda, who runs a "Business Technology Solutions" consulting company called "Ecco Tech" on Island Drive in Alameda, California (94502). Also separately he sells Japanese rubber stamps and Origami paper... all from the same address!
Clearly we spent no time on the phone discussing his case. I never sent him my "send it in instructions" by email *and* he didn't pay attention the aspects on the website that covered what I require, not detaal oriented enough to do it correctly. Because we didn't speak on the phone he was clueless about my upcoming days away which became an issue for him later on.
Norm came to his own set of ideas about how to do things and then hastily did them. I didn't receive the single piece of paper with the needed information, (which I use as a 'traveler' with the device internally while here). I didn't get the narrative I request telling me what occured with the device and an approximate date. Finally, because he seems to want to do things in a short cut fashion... (or thought I wouldn't notice) didn't sign his check to make it a negoiable instrument.
So what I had was work that arrived, that was un-invited, during a time when I at least knew I would be away, without any explanation or story about really why it was here.. and without viable form of payment. {What kind of WATER?? (washing machine, toilet, soup perhaps?) And what he really meant was liquid, which type? (washing machine, lake, ocean water?)}
I had a number of things to do when I got back and then began the normal course of my work once more. A couple of days after my return I got an inquiry about it. In Norm's world it had already about two and half weeks. I had just gotten back and was cautiously mystified about his device.
He exhibited serious incredulity that he could have sent an unsigned check, but agreed to send funds through PayPal and I would return the unsigned check.
When I do the phone interview with someone, and assess the probability of sucess with the individual, I am able to make an iPod Touch 3rd Genration work perfectly again about 70% of the time. When I get unsolicited work sent to me.... I almost never get the device to work. The reason is that people won't admit or tell me the truth. I get devices that were immersed 18 months earlier and they actually say it's been 3 weeks to trick me into the belief there's a chance. So I work pretty doggedly at those unsolicited projects, in the false belief the event was recent enough to overcome the device problems. After I've gone through the device I tell them I couldn't/can't make it work..... then I finally hear the truth.
I rarely take on unsolicited projects, and this had all the markers of a frustrating conclusion. Norman didn't call, didn't provide the details I seek, a negotiable method of payment, in fact he wasn't nearly detail oriented enough to get the package to me correctly. I've worked in the computer field since I learned COBOL in the mid-1970's. My skills in the computer field implementing ERP systems and legacy data migration projects have always obligated me to be very methodical when working through a problem or project and take no short cuts. Though Norm works in the computer field, he seems to have side stepped the needed methodical detail oriented aspects I've found it requires.
It is that experience, that set of skills, which make me good at this water immersion work. It is tedious and requires necessary steps be followed toward a proper conclusion without short cuts.
So here it is, how could a computer consultant like Norm fail at so many steps in the process. Not one, not two, not even three. They are all the result of doing something fast without thinking through the steps and about what you're doing. I work quite differently and I know quite a few computer consultants. They tend to work more like me.
Lets talk about the result of Norman's repair. In order for me declare a repair sucessful, I have to get all aspects of the device working again completely. In the case of an iPod Touch, that means the LCD has to light up, the digitizer has to interpret finger movement so the individual can navigate the device, the head phone jack must play audio for both ears, the internal speaker must work, the battery must hold a charge, the battery recharge circuits must work *and* the WiFi connection has to work. If the individual wants to connect to email or FaceBook wirelessly, they are able to through the WiFi.
Having WiFi connectivity working for an iPod Touch is cardinal to its use for most kids for hand held gaming and internet access.
In Norm's unsolicited, "don't know what happened to it, but let's try anyway" patient case I got the device itself working, it's LCD working, the digitizer, battery, battery recharge circuits, the internal speaker and poweramp that drives the headphone jack and the headphones working.
The only thing I wasn't able to get working was the WiFi connection. In so many ways and for many people this is considered "a good save". But not for me. If I can't get the WiFi working it counts as a failure.
These are all shots of Norm's working iPod Touch 3rd gen taken a couple of days after I got back from Burning Man, and after he sent a PayPal payment. Yes, it's running 4.1 of the OS and there is the Gaming Center. Everything about it is working except the WiFi. The reason it's not working is the transmit crystal is housed under a soldered down metal cap (RF shield) and liquid had permanently damaged it *well before* I had a chance to see it. That may not have been the case if he had made the requested phone call... or it may still have.
The point is to almost anyone else's expectation this patient case would be a "save" and go in the success column. I am just obsessive enough that it's "Not Good Enough" to count as a save.
Clearly, Norm is disappointed but for $30 he got about 7 hours of my life and a Touch 3rd gen that works like new in every other regard but WiFi. In it's present state, with no WiFi it's worth 4 times more than the $30 he spent to save it, I don't think he could see or understand that as he was writing his review on Yelp.
Naturally I'm a bit bummed out that he's painted a negative, broad and largely inaccurate picture. I hope you've taken the moment to examine the photos here, and gotten the full picture. I'm very methodical and good at this task, *and* my reputation is on the line each time I make a try to save a lquid immersed device. I'm obsessive and don't take the responsibility lightly.
|
