January, 2009 Archives

Eye on the Prize: HDTV tips for Super Bowl

American Football Super Bowl is only 3 days away. Whether you’re a Cardinals fan, a Steelers fan or you want to see “The Boss” light up the half time show, DIY troubleshooting and repair site FixYa has some great advice to enhance your Super Bowl party. If you’ve got an HD TV set, here are a few tips from the community:

1. Calibrate The Set: Though this is a controversial topic in FixYa’s community, all experts agree you should calibrate your set. For optimal viewing experts suggest using a calibration DVD, getting your set professionally calibrated, or least expensive, changing the set’s picture mode to vivid or sports.

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Selfless Support Rocks!

jsrock516 smFixYa has always been about helping people to reclaim, refurbish, and repair their products rather than purchase new ones. Jsrock516’s story is a quintessential example of that aim. A couple of years ago, he started working in the appliance repair business. He enjoyed working for himself, but he was forced to leave the business because he could no longer deal with having to charge people high labor charges for repairs that he felt they could do themselves if they just had a little guidance. FixYa has provided a forum for this sort of selfless support, and jsrock516 has enjoyed being able to do things like helping a single mother on a fixed income repair her clothes dryer. Jsrock516 is a true altruist, and answers free questions exclusively.

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Much more than an Emissionwiz

Corvettes smHis name might be Emissionwiz, but this Expert is all Guru. With 4463 solutions to his credit, and a whopping 88% average, Emissionwiz has long been one of FixYa’s top Experts. His Areas of Expertise aren’t hard to figure out- cars, pure and simple. Emissionwiz is a graduate of an Air Force electro-mechanical tech school, and his main training was in large diesel-powered electric power plants and aircraft runway arresting gear. After all that, he’s come to hate diesel repair. Thankfully, Emissionwiz also has extensive training in automotive electronics and control systems, and is very skilled at auto and truck repair. He worked for 30 years as a tech for a new car dealer, which he still does part-time. When he’s not working, he likes to build fast cars. He must like to drive them too, because he owns a Corvette. Not surprisingly, he also likes motorsports.

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Videos…

Hey Folks! We’ve noticed that a few of you have created videos to help in explaining various repairs to our members. We thought we’d upload a video of our own to explain FixYa to the YouTube, Vimeo and video community. (Feel free to embed or spread the link) If you’ve got videos regarding FixYa repairs, let us know in the experts lounge or in the comment section below. Thanks and keep the great solutions coming!

Fixing for the Fun of It

Long Island smOne of the things that make FixYa unique among other crowd-sourcing sites is the fact that our Experts can earn money for their solutions. Yet some Experts are not motivated by monetary rewards. They choose to share their knowledge and expertise without seeking financial gain, answering the unpaid questions and helping people free of charge. Bob from LI is one such Expert, focusing almost exclusively on the free questions. He’s been around for just over a year and has helped 822 people repair their appliances, large and small. As he puts it, “I tear into anything that breaks, just for the fun of it.”

Bob is from Long Island, and learned the appliance trade from his father. His dad was extremely knowledgeable when it came to appliance repairs, teaching it in New York City schools and writing statewide examination questions on the subject. His father taught him how to repair refrigerators and other large appliances, and Bob made money repairing small appliances throughout college.

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