Just recently we received enough money that we could upgrade our office equipment. After doing some research, we packed up into the truck and were on our merry way to Best Buy to purchase a new laptop, a new hard drive, a modem, and a router. The salesman was very helpful - up to a point. We explained that we wanted to network our three computers together and did they know the cost?

You see, they have an in-house computer technology company located at Best Buy called Geek Squad.  The salesman quickly explained that Geek Squad would be able to network us, hook up all our computers, install virus protection and other software that we got and do it in our home at our convenience. HOWEVER, when it came to getting costs on what the final charges would be for their services, the salesman suddenly became not so helpful. When we were asking questions, he was writing everything down and kept saying he didn’t want to forget anything as he would need to check on his computer for the costs. He did say that there was a package that would be perfect for our needs. But, guess what? He indicated that we could have protection for the laptop in case we spilled drinks on it or dropped it, or what have you. We could have another service for the hard drive, and something else for the networking.

Okay. Now, of course, we were excited about this as he also said there was a special price on the package. Folks, somehow we ended up at the cash register still without getting a straight answer on what it would cost for all the things we needed for the Geek Squad. We thought he was ringing our charges up. Boy, oh, boy, was he. I swear we stood around for at least an hour, if not more, waiting, waiting, and waiting. When we asked him what was taking so long, we were told that their network computers were in the process of being upgraded and were slow.  Hmmm, that didn’t give us a warm, fuzzy feeling. Why didn’t the Geek Squad fix them??? Several times we almost walked out of the store and almost told them to forget it. They are VERY Slow! If it were not that we needed this equipment for our business, we probably would have.

Anyway, when they finally got the sleeping giant computer to give up its wealth of information (and that was wealth for the store), we discovered that each and every part of the warranties and hooking up the modem/router, networking, was all billed separately - there was no package. We wanted to make sure that we got appropriate warranties on our brand new equipment so we would be protected. Readers - imagine our surprise when we discovered that 1/3 of the total cost was for Geek Squad! We are a small business; that hurt.

So, after grinding our teeth and buying extra band-aids to cover our wounds of hurt feelings, we went home and waited for the scheduled day for the technician to arrive. Finally it arrived. I want to tell you that we had the best technician we could ever hope for. He was helpful and went above and beyond the call of duty. He answered all of our questions and treated us with respect and dignity, customer service that is long-gone these days. He did not treat us like we were idiots or imbeciles and he did not act as though we were bothering him. We are 100% pleased with the work that was performed by this technician.

After the excellent service we received, we were quite surprised to hear a report from KPHO 5 TV on a study they did for technician companies in the Valley that were gouging customers and performing work on computers unnecessarily just so they could get more money for their service and seeing Best Buy’s Geek Squad as being a strong offender.

So what is the bottom line of our experience? Did we learn anything? You bet we did. First, when shopping at Best Buy, we will always ensure we get a definite price on service work before we get to checkout. Be prepared to wait  as the cashiers are not speedy. Secondly, there are good technician companies; and there are some that are not so good. We highly recommend that anyone who needs a technician to do work on their computers research the different companies that are in your area. Good places to check are the Better Business Bureau (if you are in the U.S.) and other respectable rating agencies. Also, as always, listen to your gut instinct. Don’t be swayed by “I want it now,” unless you are prepared to pay extra costs that more than likely will arise.

Remember when Borlok Virtual Assistants took the leap and decided to migrate to a self-hosting website in order to be better equipped to keep up with the competition and provide services that our clients would like to see? Well, in order to do that, Borlok VA decided to migrate from WordPress.com over to WordPress.org.

Now of course we went through all the fears and trepidations of deciding whether that was really the wise, strategic choice and did lots of research before deciding that it was truly the best course of action. We started out doing our research on Wordpress.org and quickly came to realize that they had made the decision much easier for us.

Wordpress.org goes out of their way to provide recommendations for hosting companies that will be compatible with their newest version and will meet their minimum requirements. For the well-being of their company, the partners at Borlok VA felt that no decision should be made lightly and took extra time to research each company that was recommended at http://wordpress.org/hosting/.

After examining the five sites they had listed and weighing the pros and cons of each, the partners decided to go with Blue Host. Among the various reasons we chose this company were that they were touted to have excellent customer service; but do they REALLY mean that? I mean, after all, we were going to need support if we got into trouble, right?

Read on my friends. Besides Blue Host being affordable (something that small businesses with little budget can appreciate), they also have unlimited hosting space, unlimited file transfer, 24/7 support/customer service, and much more. They have a Help system that you really have to see to believe - videos to walk you through steps and well-laid-out documentation to make your life with them easier.

Remember that customer service we went with them for? Borlok VA found themselves in multiple situations where they needed help - and needed it as soon as possible. The method they chose to communicate with Blue Host was their Live Chat feature.  Now I know that many of you will be looking for other reasons as their primary determinant on which self-hosting company to look for, but Borlok Virtual Assistants is totally satisfied with the customer service and services that Blue Host offers.

As a matter of fact, I just had the worst nightmare as far as one of our sites. Someone thought it would be neat to infect our site with bugs, worms, secret coding, you know, some of the yucky things that no business owner wants. Well, Blue Host was super helpful via their Live Chat, and VERY patient. After all, my knowledge only went so far. You could not ask for better customer service.

What is the bottom line for this company in our opinion? If you are looking to upgrade your WordPress.com website to a self-hosted site, then we highly recommend Blue Host. We have not had any negative experiences with them thus far. Therefore, the answer to our title, “Is Blue Host Really a Host and Do They Provide Excellent Service?” is YES.

Are you one that has recently upgraded to digital cable with COX.net or are you thinking about it? Maybe you are someone that either stays up all night because you work all day or you just can’t sleep?  Are you getting wavy lines across your TV, glitches in sound, notifications that there is no data available, or even worse yet the “This station is currently unavailable. Please try again later message?” This happens to every single station?

We are. We are elderly individuals that leave our TV on to sleep - you know, like some people leave the radio on for the sound.  We like to listen to Country Western music softly or even have programs on. Recently, we’ve been experiencing the above problems EVERY NIGHT starting between 11:00 and 12:00 PM Phoenix time. And then, we wouldn’t get our stations back until 8:30 or 9:00 o’clock in the morning. We actually ended up with less stations than what we had before upgrading to digital.

Now, here’s the kicker. Did you know you have to turn your TV off every night? It seems that COX does upgrades to digital EVERY night between 1:00 - 6:00 in the morning; and if you have digital cable, your box won’t get the upgrades. Yeah, that’s what they told us!  And that’s why we don’t get channels - no sound - nada - zilch. You have to put your TV and box to bed, just like you would put your child to bed. Hmph, doesn’t that beat all. So much for technology improvements.