January, 2009 Archives

Over the past months, our members sent in suggestions to improve our repair directory and FixYa’s employees have worked night and day to make those changes. I present to you the NEW and IMPROVED US REPAIR DIRECTORY!

FOR THE U.S. INFO SEEKER: Is your dishwasher flooding your kitchen? Don’t throw in the towel. Just visit fixya.com/repair and choose your category (dishwasher), State and City. Contacts for your local repair specialists will pop up in seconds.

FOR U.S. THE EXPERT: If you’re an expert and you’ve got your own repair business, you can also list your company in our repair directory. Just fill out this online form and we’ll list you in the local directory free of charge.

We hope you like the new directory! Keep those suggestions coming in the expert’s lounge or email our community manager Lauren at lauren[at]fixya.com. Thanks!

FixYa participated on Jan 10 as a judge for CES’ Last Gadget Standing Super Session. Narrowed down to 10 finalists, the people chose:

The Eye-Fi Explore Video Card. On stage, the Eye-Fi demo was amazing. Eye-Fi is a wifi video card with instant video uploading ability. These guys have partnered with YouTube and allow for instantaneous uploading of videos as they’re being taken. In fact, they put a Johnny Cash tribute singer onstage and uploaded it on the spot. Obviously they earned some serious style points with the audience, and the instant uploading capabilities of the product mean that with this card, what happens in Vegas is not likely to stay in Vegas.

EVENT DETAILS: Last Gadget Standing is on Jan 10 at 10:30am in the Las Vegas Convention Center’s North Hall and features the Top 10 Gadgets of CES as chosen by the audience. We hope you can join us. If you’re in Vegas, follow us on Twitter here.

After narrowing down the entries from hundreds of applicants, the judges of CES’ Last Gadget Standing (FixYa included) have made their picks. Below is a sneak preview:

WowWee JoeBot: Um guys, need I say more? It’s a freaking robot. This JoeBot is meant to be an entertaining companion and sidekick. Apparently this little guy will dance while you beat box. More>>

emWave PSR: Lauren writes, “The emWave PSR is an affordable, portable biofeedback tool.” This is particularly important as our experts have warned us about the high price of most products in this category. More>>

MSI Winbook: The Wind is the first 10-inch notebook to feature an Intel Atom 1.6GHz processor. It’s the perfect mini laptop for trips. More>>

Like many of FixYa’s Experts, Shuttle83 got his start as a child, destroying his family’s appliances. But unlike most young Experts-to-be, Shuttle83 was actually able to repair what he broke. As he reminisces, “when I was about 9 or 10, I took my father’s TV apart. When he found out what I had done he told me I had one day to put it back together, or I was in for the spanking of my life. So I put the TV back together and it worked. He came into the room and started laughing. He then told me that the set had not worked in two years and he was just using it as book stand.”

Shuttle83 pursued his innate talent, reading books on electronics and taking radio and TV repair courses in high school. After college, he got his CET Certifications in Consumer and Communication Electronics, and his FCC Licenses in Radiotelephony and Ship RADAR. He worked for a number of companies and eventually ended up at Verizon where he worked his way up to the position of Distinguished Member of Technical Staff. As if that job weren’t enough, he’s also the CEO and Chief Technologist of Electron-Age Technologies LLC. Having accumulated so much experience, he’s come to think of himself as a “technical Swiss Army knife.”