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Fantastic web meeting last night with many assembled Brethren! This was one of the weekly web meetings that we have every Monday evening for Professional Appliantologists and Mast Samurai Tech Academy students. Personally, I think it was the best one yet-- lots of interactivity and discussion about all kinds of different appliance repair topics. It was a especially great because we had the audio under control so other people besides just me were able to talk. Mrs. Samurai even joined in the conversation and it was kinda-sorta like a live, interactive podcast! We started off by looking at a schematic and wiring diagram for a GE Cafe duel fuel double oven. The complaint on this was that the warming drawer wasn't heating up at all and neither of the indicator lights for the warming drawer would come on. Using the schematic and wiring diagram, we developed some specific troubleshooting strategies for pinpointing the problem. We also talked about all kinds of other things, all pertaining to running an appliance repair business and livin' the life of an appliance tech. Some of the other things we talked about are: - Pricing your services, pros and cons of using the online Blue Book - Dealing with Craig's List competition who advertise "no service call fee with repair" and otherwise appealing to bottom-feeder customers - The Appliantology chatroom, it's currently an underused resource at the site and we talked about using it more, including our plans to use it for live tech help (as well as just chit chat and hoo-ha). I'm generally hanging out in the chatroom most mornings while I'm checking email, answering forum posts, and otherwise takin' care o' bidness. Pop on in and say hey. One of the brethren suggested an informal chat each evening where we would hang out while surfing the web or checking out other parts of the site. Sounds good to me! I'll try to be there when I can but if I'm not, go ahead and get the party started without me. - Doing schematic markups-- How do I whip out all those schematic markups? Ahh, Grasshoppah, only the Chosen have received this Divine Wisdom. - We talked about different types of tablet computers and PDF reading apps that people use to carry service manuals and tech sheets with them to service calls. - PSA vs. USA - which is the better group to belong to? I am personally a member of USA and think it's a great group. I don't have any experience with PSA so couldn't offer anything on that. - I also announced our latest and greatest offering at Master Samurai Tech: a new, fun, and FREE course on Internetology: Internet Basics for Everyone. Just register (for free) at Master Samurai Tech and take the course right away. It'll probably take you a half hour to do and you'll get a few laughs along the way. If you already have an account at MST, just log in and you'll see the Internetology course on your login/welcome page. - Finally, we compared Appliantology and Master Samurai Techs. Two different sites with different missions. Appliantology is our tech support site while MST is our tech training site. Although Team Samurai runs both sites, they each use completely different software so membership at one does not transfer to membership at the other. We talked about other things, too, that I'm probably forgetting. Maybe someone else will comment on tis post and remind us. Good talk, good talk!