Compute This 11-23-2025

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Shrock Innovations presents the midwest number one independent computer repair
company with service centers and Lincoln, Omaha, Papillion, Des Moines,
and across the country via the Shrock Desk. This is
compute this.

Speaker 2 (00:17):
Good morning, folks, and welcome in to compute this. My
name's Thor Schrock'm the owner of the Shrock Innovations computer company.

Speaker 3 (00:23):
Where.

Speaker 2 (00:24):
Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, I believe it is
the fourth quarter and it is holiday season. And yeah,
it was crazy yesterday, absolutely crazy. Now, we took an
entire day of business and compressed it into a half
day because everybody wanted to be out by three o'clock
to go watch the Nebraska Penn State game in Nebraska.

(00:44):
Iowa was busy consistently throughout the day. When Iowa was playing,
you know, things got a little a little slower in
the the Des Moines service center, but that was an
earlier game. So anyway, the it was it was crazy.
It was crazy yesterday, the level of things we saw
in the cre service center. And then on top of that,
you know, for those of you who aren't familiar, the

(01:06):
Holiday Special is a sale that we do every year.
It is intended to be the biggest, baddest, bestest computer
that you can possibly buy, and we sell a limited
number of them at cost. We sell three hundred units
at cost, one hundred and fifty laptops, one hundred and
fifty desktops. Now, going back several shows, I've said this

(01:26):
several times, I just want to make sure I reiterate here.
Why on earth would you buy a computer that has
specifications that allow you to do things that you don't do? So,
in other words, why are you buying way more computing
power than you need and spending money that you could
spend maybe half that much and have a computer that
meets your current needs. That's the trap. That is the

(01:48):
trap that everybody falls into when they buy a computer.
This I only needed this much, So I'm just gonna
that works in a car, that works in a house.
If you're buying, like I said, if you're buying an
air conditioner, and you why would you buy an air
conditioner that can cool a four thousand square foot house
if you only have a two thousand square foot house.
Wouldn't you buy the smaller air conditioner? Yeah, you would.
With computers, that doesn't work, And the reason it doesn't

(02:12):
work is because your needs change over time. Even if
you do the exact same thing with your computer five
years from now that you do right now, the demand
on your computer is going to change over five years
through updates, new pieces of software, small little things that
you don't even realize that you're doing now that you
weren't doing before. You know, in the past, I've said,
you know, remember when Netflix came to your mailbox. Nobody

(02:33):
ever thought you'd be watching Netflix on a computer, let
alone a web connected TV in your house. No one
ever thought you'd be cutting the cable cord and going
to streaming services instead. You know, there's just there's things
happening in the world around us, and they're going to
impact the way that we use technology. Now, if you
buy a computer or a computing device that is intended
to just barely or is maybe slightly more adequate than

(02:57):
your needs right now, it's going to be completely outdated
in eighteen to twenty four months, and that's why people
throw their computers away every eighteen to twenty four months. Also,
it has to do with the batteries, because the batteries,
that's the natural lifespan of a laptop battery. Now the
pancake batteries that they put in laptops, they begin degrading
significantly after eighteen months. That's why your cell phone gets

(03:17):
replaced on a two year cycle. People buy a new
cell phone every couple of years because the battery just
stops lasting as long. And you know, you could go
get the battery replaced, I supposed, but that's a pain
in the took us and you really want an excuse
to get a new phone anyway, so you just do that.
So at Shock right now, in the fourth quarter, we
have our holiday special, which admittedly no looking back, and
we've been doing this now since I think the first

(03:38):
year we did the holiday special was two thousand and one,
so I mean twenty five years of holiday special, so
a quarter century ago. When we started, we probably could
we didn't really have a marketing department back then. It
was me sitting at one of those like pompous office
desks you get from the office supply store, you know,
the ones with the big cubbies that go up in
the air, and I was like, I need to name

(03:59):
this sale something, and then I'm looking up on the
TV and Bill O'Reilly was on the TV, and Bill
O'Reilly Oh yeah, Bill O'Reilly was on the TV and
he was talking about the Christmas Wars or something like that,
and so I was like, well, maybe I shouldn't call
it the Christmas Special, maybe I should call it the
Holiday Special. And he was like, we really didn't have
a marketing We could have come up with a better name,
but we started calling it the Holiday Special and it

(04:20):
just stuck right. It became something that took on its
own life. Customers will wait all year long and limp
along with a bad laptop waiting for the Holiday Special.
We have been doing this long enough now that when
we tell you this computer is going to last, you
like a decade, especially the desktop a decade. Made the
laptop eight to ten years, but the desktop is a
solid decade, and then especially on the desktop, that we

(04:42):
can then upgrade it after that. Even we've been around
long enough now that we have customers that have, you know,
twenty twelve holiday specials that they're still rocking with because
they've been upgraded, they've been changed, they've been adapted, and
their cost of ownership over the period of time they
own the computer is so much lower. So we're going
to talk a little bit about last week, we focused

(05:03):
on the Holiday special desktop later on in the program.
Today we're going to hit on the laptop a little
bit and tell you about that one. But I just
for those of you who are new to the program,
maybe you haven't been here for twenty five years. You
don't know what the Holiday special is. That's what the
hubub is about. That's why we keep talking about it.
Because the quantities are diminishing. I haven't I should look
at the website and see how many are left. I
know we're not running out yet. It's not like you

(05:24):
have to come out today and buy one now. It's
not like that we're getting close on the laptops because
we have a reduced supply. I don't think we're going
to get one hundred and fifty laptops this year from
Asus because of the Windows ten demand. Windows ten died,
of course in October, and everybody went out and bought
a new laptop, and it really shranked down the supply.
On top of that, everybody believed that chip tariffs were coming,

(05:45):
so everybody bought technology pushed a lot of demand forward
into the third quarter. So there's now just reduced availability
of laptops in the supply chain, so unfortunately that it's
making them more expensive for us to buy, and it's
also reducing the number we can get. So Leaven the
Papillion service center. We have eight Holiday special laptops left
right now, like eight for the entire company. And I

(06:08):
know I can get more. The problem is I can't
get more at the price we're selling them for. So
I can get more, but they raise the price by
three hundred dollars and I'm not going to raise that.
We have all of our marketing material printed.

Speaker 4 (06:19):
You know.

Speaker 5 (06:20):
It is what it is.

Speaker 2 (06:21):
The two computers are the same price. I'm not going
to say now it's a twenty one hundred dollars computer.
That's not going to happen. So it is what it is.
We're going to see what we can get. Well, we
have eight laptops left, so I'm gonna spend a little
bit of time talking about the laptop this week, and
then we'll move on with life. Four zero, two, five, five,
eight eleven ten is the number to join us on
the program today. If you call in, ask a question,
make a comment, of course, we will put you in

(06:41):
the drawing for the twenty five dollars Shrock Innovations gift certificate.
If you're outside of the metro area, you can reach
us at eight eight eight two five zero two zero
nine to one. If you did miss last week's program,
it's not up on the website yet because Alfonso is
on vacation. You hear Alfonso's family lives in Venezuela, which
he went back to Venezuela. I'm like, dude, like, did

(07:03):
you see like the flotilla as you flew over in
your commercial plan? Did you wave it like the aircraft carrier?
You know, like, nothing would make him happier in life.
I mean, I shouldn't say this while he's in Venezuela,
but you know, nothing would make him happier than to
see Maduro. Yeah. I bought a box of cigars once
and then like the sub brand of the of the

(07:23):
acid cigar was the Maduro one, and I offered him
one and he goes, is this a joke, Like you're
trying to make a funny. I'm like, no, it's just
a good cigar. I'm it's a Moduro. It's good, but
it has nothing to do with Maduro and Venezuela. But
so he's in Venezuela with family right now. And and
doing his thing there. So when he comes back, he
will post the shows the back shows on there, but
they're usually on YouTube rumble on the Shock website. They

(07:47):
will be up there. You can catch them at Shrock
Innovations dot com. Last week, we talked about a new
AI feature coming to Mozilla Firefox. We shared what makes
this year's holiday special special, and we also shared some
staff achievements that we're you know, really proud of some
of our younger guys coming up and doing some amazing
things and providing some really award winning service. You know,

(08:07):
Chase got his first five star review in Lincoln the
other day and just just amazing.

Speaker 6 (08:11):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (08:12):
And we also told you about a new competitor to Wikipedia.
So it was a good show last week. Coming up
on the program this week, I'm gonna give you an
update from around the service center and some of the
things I've been pitching in quite a bit in the
Lincoln Service Center. Are ops managers on vacation right now,
and uh, you know, we're a little short handed in Lincoln,
so I've been pulling you know, full time hours in
the Lincoln Service Center, which I get to see a

(08:32):
lot more stuff. It's been so long, guys, since I've
gotten to be a front desk or a bench tech,
and I miss it so much. I missed talking to customers.
I miss having that interaction and solving problems for people,
and and and taking somebody who's upset or frustrated and
making them calm and happy, and just being that that
that rock, that that you can lean on when you

(08:53):
need tech help. I miss doing that because, you know,
my life has been like are we moving our payroll
processing to ADP this week? And it is an open
enrollment is coming up. We have to get our blue
Cross blue shield.

Speaker 4 (09:03):
You know.

Speaker 2 (09:04):
It's like that's been my life for the last few years.
And so now I'm like back in the trenches. I'm like,
this is awesome. I still have to do all the
boring stuff. But in the meantime, though, wow, I am
filling my bucket up in the trenches. It's fun. But
and I get to use all the systems too, and
then I'm like, oh, we need to change this and
improve that, and so some cool things are coming. But
I want to welcome all the new faces to Shrock.

(09:24):
I mentioned a few weeks back that we were a
company of twenty five people, basically, and we had twelve
open positions. If we were a military unit, we would
have been combat ineffective. We're at a fifty percent casually rate.
We are combat ineffective, but somehow yet we have to
remain effective. We have to keep working for people. What
that led to is some longer than longer turnaround times

(09:46):
than we would like in the Omaha Service Center. You know,
we want to be at twenty four to forty eight hours.
They were pushing seven days at one point, the same
thing in the Lincoln Service Center. So we really buckled
down in Lincoln, got those turnaround times back down to
forty eight hours and Lincoln. The Lincoln Service Center is
still running until December first, at reduced hours. It is
closed on Sunday and it is open Monday through Monday

(10:09):
through Saturday from ten to six. December first, we're planning
to go back to regular hours, primarily because we have
so many new people coming on board now in the
Omaha Service Center. We've got Cole and Zach coming in
and basically just helping out on the bench to get
those turnaround times down. We actually changed the staffing structure
of the Omaha Service Center because all of our competitors

(10:30):
have stopped servicing consumers, so literally every consumer in West
Omaha is coming to Shock, every single one. And Best
by half the time has to refer the people that
go to Best Buy to come over to Shock because
they're not allowed by corporate to fix the things that
are wrong. So we're just we're just getting our butts kicked.
And so we had we had to add some staff.
So in the Lincoln Service Center, we've got Joseph in

(10:52):
there who started a couple of weeks ago. He is
just doing phenomenally well. And Alex will be starting as
a front desk for us on December eighth, so we're
really really excited to see him coming on board as well.
In Shock business, we have Valerie coming in to basically
you know, I think the official position is called sales coordinator,
but you know, she is the keeper of the trains.

(11:13):
She is the one that make sure everybody is at
the station on time and that everything is getting done
the way it needs to get done. She is the
glue that's holding that entire team together essentially, and it's
in a really really important position and I'm very excited
to have her there. And then of course we've got
Brooke who started in the Papillion Service center as a
front desk and Papillion, if you've been into the Papillion
Service center, you know the guys always have been coming

(11:33):
out of the back to help you out. Well, now
they'll have a dedicated front desk, which is great because
what that does is it allows the technicians to not
be interrupted by checking a computer in. They can just
let the front desk check the computer in and they
can keep working on their tech work. And that's going
to improve turnaround times and raise service levels in the
Papillion Service center. So a few weeks ago, you guys

(11:54):
heard me talk about, you know, service since COVID. Like
during COVID, everybody had an excuse to have poor service,
and now it seems like everybody just has poor service,
but the excuse is gone. And I don't want my
company to be that. I don't want shock to fall
into that trap where, you know, we what we use,
what we're doing now is comparatively great service. But if

(12:18):
you compare it to what we were doing before COVID,
we've lost a step, genuinely, And you got to be
able to admit that. You know, if I was a
football team, for example, who got absolutely decimated in a
game that real they were supposed to lose, but it
was supposed to be like a ten point game, you know.

(12:38):
And yeah, maybe they scored another touchdown. I don't know
because I stopped watching in the fourth quarter. I was like, yeah, yeah,
why am I? Why am I introducing this stress to
my life? Like I don't need this. I'm a fan,
but I have wearing the shirt. But I'm turning off
the TV. I'm done, I'm out. I'm gonna go put
the kids in the tub. It's that time. But you know,

(13:00):
you've got to admit sometimes when there's something missing, right,
you got to admit that. That's the first step of
fixing it is admitting it. So, yeah, there are some
things that we need to do better. So I focus
this week on working on our checklists. What do we need,
what can we systematize, how can we take this? When
Alex comes in, I want to give him a system
that if you just follow the system, the system makes

(13:21):
happy people, makes happy customers. All you have to do
is follow the system. And if we have an upset customer,
it's probably because somebody didn't follow the system. Right. So
let's just follow the system, let's go. And so we're
building these new systems and bringing in new people and
getting Brooke trained in there and Valerie trained in there,
and all the new technicians trained in there. So you're
going to see a lot of new faces at SHOCK
and we're really excited about that. In the Lincoln Service

(13:43):
Center of the remodel is essentially complete. We have one
cabinet we have to build for the bathroom. We have
all of our bathroom toiletries and chemicals on taking up
like three bench spots in the back. We need to
get that cabinet built so we can get those bench
spots back and then we'll be out of Q We'll
be maybe down to twenty four hour turnaround time, So
we got to get that back. The other thing that
I noticed on the bench this week, that is a
recurring theme that I want to take the opportunity to

(14:05):
briefly address here once again once again, is the need
for you to keep your shock devices within their extended warranties,
no matter how old they are. Case in point, in
the Paplion Service center this week, I had an Intrepid
that had a bad hard drive and a bad battery
and sticky keys on a palm rest. It was a

(14:26):
two thousand or twenty twenty Intrepid, so it's six years old,
almost six years old, and so it's toward the end
of its functional life. The warranty expired in January of
twenty five and the customer elected not to renew it
because they said, Ah, the computer is kind of old.
I'm not sure I want to do it. So she
comes in for a maintenance checkup. She finds out the
batteries at sixty six percent health. The hard drive is

(14:48):
running at thirty eight megabytes a second, which is essentially
the speed of a mechanical hard drive. You know, it's
wickedly slow. And she said, yeah, sometimes the keys stick,
and we don't know if the keys are sticking or
if maybe the is just that slow that you think
the keys are sticking, and that's when there's a hesitation
between each keypress. Don't know why. The repair bill was
like six hundred and something bucks. A new Intrepid is

(15:10):
seven ninety nine. So she bought a new Intrepid. But
if she would have kept that computer under warranty, we
would have fixed all of those things except for maybe
the sticky keys. The sticky keys. She might have had
to pay for the part on, but like the hard
drive would have been covered by warranty, the battery would
have been covered by warranty. Everything would have been fixed
for free. That one hundred and fifty dollars warranty would

(15:30):
have saved her six hundred dollars, or she actually ended
up spending about one thousand dollars after everything was said
and done, buying the new computer and doing the data
transfer and all that stuff, and of course buying the
extended warranty, so to a thirteen hundred dollars something like
that by the time she was done, so she would
have saved herself thirteen hundred dollars by having that stupid
one hundred and fifty dollars warranty. You know, the warranty

(15:51):
that if you don't use it, we give you your
money back automatically. You don't have to keep your paperwork,
you don't have to call us. You get an email
says there's money in your SHOCK account. You do get
a robo call saying we're calling you about your extended warranty.
Actually it says something along we want you to hear
the message, so we're like, hi, this is recorded in
my voice. Hi, this is Thor from Shock and we

(16:11):
might owe you money for your extended warranty refund. Give
us a call back and we'll check into it for you.
So of course, everybody who calls back is hoping we
owe them monies. But everybody calls back as opposed to
we're calling about your extended warrdey on your auto, you
know whatever. Nobody calls that guy back, so you know,
we're trying to get you to call back. And a
customer in Lincoln today literally asked me to my face,

(16:32):
why do you do this? Like this makes no sense
from your perspective? Why do you do this like you know?
My accountant says it's stupid too. But the reason that
we do it is because we want your business long term.
We have been around since nineteen ninety nine, and since
nineteen ninety we're at the point now where we have,
in some families, three generations of people. We have grandma, grandpa,

(16:55):
we have mom and dad, and now their kids are
going to college and we have we're providing their college
life tops three generations of technology for a family when
we are I remember when I was a kid, my
dad he would say, you know, you got to take
that car down to the boys. And I always know
who the boys were. Now I can't remember who the
boys were. I think they sold their their auto shop
to somebody else or something. I don't know, but you

(17:16):
got to take it down to the boys. And my
first car that I bought was bought from the boys.
It was something that somebody abandoned that they fixed up
and they sold it to me. And it was my
first car. It was a Chrysler le Baron. Yeah, it
was brown, like a shoebox on wheels, but it had
it had a digital digital dashboard. You know, in the
early nineties, I was pretty pretty high tech. I was
pretty happy about that. But I digress. All this said, guys,

(17:40):
when you come to Shock looking for technology and support
and service, that's what we're here to provide you. And
we're here to provide that.

Speaker 4 (17:46):
That is what we do.

Speaker 2 (17:48):
We are a service company that happens to do it work.
So if we keep you under warranty, you're going to
be happy. If you're not under warrant, you're gonna have
an uncomfortable decision to make at some point. I guarantee it,
whether that is should I fix this or not fix it,
if you decide. If she would have decided, you know,
I just want a new laptop anyway. Guess what if

(18:09):
she had an extended warranty. When that warranty lapsed, she
would have got a credit in her Shock account. She's
probably already buying Secure Update and sofos or security software
from US. Those have annual renewals. She can use the
credit to pay for those if she wanted to. So
having money in your Shock account is a good thing
because it'll automatically be used first. When it comes time
to charge your credit card, we won't charge your card,

(18:30):
will use your warranty your money in your account first.
So please, if you have a Shock device, if it
is not under warranty, if the guys say, hey, do
you want to extend the warranty on this, especially after
a maintenance check up, when we've checked everything out and
everything is nice and healthy, please extend the warranty. If
you're buying a new holiday special, there's an option to

(18:50):
get a one year, two year, or three year extension.
Please take the three year extension. Not because we make
more money, We actually don't. If there is nothing in
that holiday special, I can replace for three hundred dollars,
not for the cost. The processor alone is five hundred
dollars in that computer cost. That's what we that's five

(19:11):
c notes is what we've put out for every holiday
special desktop we build just for the brain, just for
the processor. And there's not even three hundred percent tariffs
on that yet. Four zero two, five, five, eight eleven ten.
Coming up after the break here, rumors about those three
hundred percent tariffs are floating around, and I might actually
have some good news for those of you who are
planning on buying some technology for the holiday season. We're

(19:31):
going to tell you what the rumors are floating about
new Trump tariffs on technology, specifically chips. Coming up next
on Compute.

Speaker 5 (19:38):
This computer problems usually don't just suddenly happen. Most failures
usually start out as small issues with few or no symptoms.
Over time, they grow into error messages, blue screens, and
other problems that can be costly to fix. Rock innovations
buy annual preventative maintenance check up catches those small problems
now before they can metastasize and become tomorrow's cost repairs.

(20:00):
During the maintenance check up, our experienced technicians perform up
to eight hours of tests, checks, automated repairs and optimizations
that keep your computer at peak efficiency while identifying potential
issues while you still have options about how to handle them.
When your computer gets its first check up, it can
see up to as twenty five percent performance improvement and

(20:21):
leaves our service center cleaned, sanitized, and running better than
the day you bought it. Just About every complex device
requires maintenance. Your computer is no different, especially considering the
valuable information that passes through it every day. If you
have not had your computer maintenance in the past six months,
you are overdue. Stop in or call any of our
service centers to arrange a free pickup to ensure your

(20:43):
computer continues to work for you.

Speaker 4 (20:46):
Shock innovations can't telemportant technicians to you, but online help
is only a click away with the Shock Desk. Subscribe
today and get unlimited help whenever you need it.

Speaker 5 (20:56):
Have you noticed that almost every piece of technology seems
to do its best to be disposable? Every day people
talk their phones, tablets, and other electronic devices because they
can't be repaired. Manufacturers have engineered their products to fail
on a schedule so they can extract more money out
of your family budget automatically every year or so. But

(21:17):
what if it didn't have to be that way. What
if you could get the performance of today's fastest computers
with the expansion and upgrade options you used to enjoy.
You just described Shrck's modular desktop computers. Having the right
tool for the job is important, and Shock's Modular Desktop
pieces packed the performance and flexibility to handle your computing needs,

(21:37):
from just checking the email to running a complex business.
Modular desktops are engineered to be easily repaired with widely
available industry standard parts. Every component is selected intentionally to
give you years of upgrade and repair options. It is
not uncommon for a short customer to be using the
same computer for a decade after they bought it. Modular

(21:58):
Pieces are the most popular customer computers in the Midwest
for a reason. When you are ready for your next computer,
stop in to check out the Modular lifestyle or shop
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Speaker 2 (22:24):
All right, there we go. I'm like, there's no light.
There's no light. Yeah, we'll call that operator air. I
got distracted. Ohe ohe baby. All right for zero two, five, five, eight,
eleven ten. Welcome to the program. Don you're listening to
compute this? How can I help you today?

Speaker 3 (22:40):
Well, so I've got a question. Uh. I've got a
laptop and I took it in because the upgrade didn't
work yep, and it seems to be stuck on twenty
three h two and you guys couldn't figure out, you know,
how to unstuck it. So uh but I just in

(23:01):
passing so something about and Microsoft was ending support for
twenty three h two.

Speaker 7 (23:08):
Yes, is that true?

Speaker 2 (23:11):
Yes, it is. If you get two revisions behind on
your Windows installation, you will no longer get security updates.
So two three h two, after that was two four
h two, and now we're on two five h two,
So you've officially fallen two revisions behind. So the short,
the long and short here is there's something going on
with your Windows installation that's not allowing anybody us Safe

(23:33):
Upgrade anything to install that new If your two revisions
behind by this point, there's definitely something not right with
your install.

Speaker 3 (23:42):
Okay, but I didn't say this, but it didn't. I
bought Safe Upgrade in twenty four but I was in
the middle of cancer treatment and I really didn't pay
a whole lot of attention. It didn't upgrade it then either.

Speaker 7 (23:56):
So.

Speaker 3 (23:58):
There's obviously something wrong with itmputer, but it you know,
it's Windows eleven, so it was running. But so if
if in the long in the long run, I need
to get a new one, then right.

Speaker 2 (24:12):
Well, if I could ask real briefly, you mentioned you
were doing cancer dream and how are you doing?

Speaker 3 (24:18):
Actually I had my last PET scan and I beat it.

Speaker 2 (24:25):
Yes, that's awesome, that's actually.

Speaker 3 (24:28):
Yeah, it's it's actually gone. I had Hodgkins swim foma
and I've been off chemo for about seven months now,
and my hair came back.

Speaker 2 (24:42):
And the thing he's worried about, you know, yeah, I
beat the cancer, but my hair came back. That was amazing. Well, congratulations,
now that's awesome. I'm really glad to hear that. Regarding
the computer. I can't do anything about cancer, but about
your computer, that's something we can do. The answer is
not to buy a new computer here. The answer is
there's something. There is something with the Windows programming that

(25:03):
is not allowing us to install the new updates, and
it's not allowing Microsoft to install them. So what we
want to do the end all, be all solution if
we're at the point where all the guys that the
biggest brains at TRUCK have sat down and said, we
can't figure out why this Windows installation will not accept
new updates. What we need to do is give you
a new Windows installation. Then we just we need to

(25:25):
take your data back it all up, wipe the computer clean,
install two five h two as the as the let's
install Windows eleven version two five h two as the
source of the beginning operating system, and then transfer all
of your information back over. It's called a backup, wipe
and install. The reason that the guys they don't like

(25:46):
to do this number one. So there's two schools of
thought at Truck. There's the my technicians are problem solvers.
They really desperately want to They want to be the
guy that figures out the impossible problem and solves it,
so they will work for hours and hours and hours
on a computer trying to find a solution. And then
there's the there's like the business side of Shock, which
where I come from. And I'm like, Okay, if you're

(26:08):
going to work on this computer for seven hours, I
want you to call this customer and tell them it's
going to cost them seven hours of labor at one
hundred and fifty dollars to fix this computer, or we
can cap it at three hours, do a backup, wipe,
an install, which would you prefer, mister customer, And guess
what they're going to say every single time, They're going
to say, do the three hour one and so okay.

(26:29):
So in other words, I appreciate your problem solving effort. Guys,
I know this is personal for you. Now, if you
want to stay after hours on your day off or
something and come in and work on this unpaid, then
you can be the guy that figures it out. But
if you want to be on the clock trying to
figure it out while we're on seven day turnaround times,
call the customer and tell him he needs a backup, wipe,
an install. Be done with it, let's go, let's get
it out the door, let's get solve the problem, move

(26:51):
on to the next problem. So that's the solution to
the problem. If we were at this point where we
beat our heads against the wall for so long that
we're like, you know, we just were unable to determine
why this computer can't take this update because there's something
deeply flawed in the Windows installation. Just give them a
new Windows installation. Sometimes you don't have to solve the problem.
Sometimes you can work around the problem, and it's a

(27:11):
much more efficient solution, and you don't need to buy
a new computer. Your computer is running Windows eleven perfectly,
unless there's some other reason internally why which I'm sure.
We've checked the hard drive, we've checked the memory, we've
checked you know, the processor, we've checked all the hardware,
and it's all fine. Because if we had bad hardware,
we were like, Aha, there's the problem. It's bad hardware.

(27:32):
But we haven't, so yeah, I would say a backup,
wipe and install is the solution. We can we can
beat this too. We just gotta. We just got to
go in there and blast out all the old We'll
keep all your data, we'll reinstall Windows and put all
your stuff back, and then you'll be back in business.
So that that's the solution. Which service center were you
going to?

Speaker 6 (27:49):
Don?

Speaker 3 (27:51):
In Lincoln? I am, And he was so nice about it,
he said, Don, there's just he says, I had my
lead tech look at it, and he says, but he
never suggested the wipe and install. He just said, you know,
we can give you a new computer and move all

(28:14):
your data over and and that was that was it.

Speaker 2 (28:19):
Well, there's a new lead tech in town in the
Lincoln Service Center, que sheriff music. Really yeah, and it's
not me, but I'm training him and uh and basically
I'm like, hey, if we have a problem like what
Don's having now, our job is is to make problems
go away. Our jobs is to make it look easy.
So let's do that. So Don, if you want to

(28:40):
bring that into the Lincoln Service Center, we're open Monday
through Saturday from ten to six right now, if you
can get that into us, I tell you we're going
to get that solved for you. We're gonna we're gonna
get it figured out because we don't fail. All right,
I'll do that, all right, Thank you, Don, appreciate it
all right. For zero, two, five, five, eight, eleven ten.
Don is in the drawing for a twenty five dollars

(29:01):
Shock Innovations gift certificate, which sounds like it might come
in handy up against three hours of labor. So hey,
there you go. That'll help out a little bit. We're
gonna take a quick break here, guys. When we come back,
we've got David on the line. And also rumors about
three hundred percent chip tariff's not happening going away, a
tariff is going away or maybe never gonna happen to
begin with, And also the absolutely awesome, stunning beauty of

(29:27):
the twenty twenty five holiday special Laptop Chef's Kiss coming
up next on Compute this.

Speaker 5 (29:34):
Shock Innovations solid state laptops are engineered locally for speed
and reliability you just can't get from the major national brands.
Each of our laptops starts off with an a Zoos chassis.
We remove the stock drives and memory and upgrade them
with higher performing components. This unlocks the full potential of
the laptop, making the unit up to twenty five percent faster.

(29:55):
This is why Shock solid state laptops last so much
longer than the competition. If your laptop starts out twenty
five percent faster, that means over time, it doesn't slow
down nearly as fast.

Speaker 4 (30:07):
If you can dream it, Shock Interactives website developers can
make it happen. Refresh your website, automate sales and marketing,
and grow your business today with Shock Interactive.

Speaker 5 (30:17):
When your computer has a warranty and you have a problem,
don't call the manufacturers for help. Call Shrock Innovations. Shock
will contact HP, Dell, a Zeus, Samsung, or any other
manufacturer to arrange a warranty repair at no cost to you.
We know how these companies work. We know the loopholes
and the tricks to get your system repaired under warranty

(30:38):
as quickly as possible. Even so manufacturers can take up
to twenty one days to fix your computer. We'll give
you the option of a fast local repair in one
of our service centers, or provide you with a loaner
laptop to use while you wait. We can even back
up your data before we ship your computer, just in
case the warranty fix includes a hard drive. White Shock

(30:59):
testsure can when it comes back from repair to ensure
the problem was solved properly and all of your hardware
works like new. There's a reason Shrock Innovations has consistently
voted the best in town. Whenever you need help, wherever
you need it, Shrock Innovations makes your computer work for you.

Speaker 2 (31:21):
All righty folks, welcome back in Thanks for sticking with
us through the break there. My name is Thor Schrock.
I'm the owner of the Schrock Innovations computer company with
four locations to help you out when you're having computer problems.
In Lincoln, the og Shrock Innovations where it all started,
seventy five oh one South fifteenth Street, South Lincoln. In
Omaha one hundred and sixty eighth in Burke Street, the

(31:42):
last remaining Stalward Consumer Computer Repair service center in West Omaha.
That's where you can come. We're turnaround times are no
longer seven days. I believe we achieve five days this
week and we're on track for three days next week,
so we're getting back to normal, guys. A lot of
that is a huge staff injection, just getting a lot
more labor in that service center to help get things
moved out quickly. In Papillion eighty fourth and Highway three

(32:06):
seventy that's right right, gosh, right across the street from McDonald's.
There's Spin Pizza right there. Alli and Hobbess Great Restaurants
were right in the Midlands Place shopping Center, and of
course in wester Moines, Iowa, ninety five hundred University Avenue.
We are as close to Wakee as you can get
without being in Wakee. I think if we crossed the street,
we're in Walkee. Literally, if you just cross the street,

(32:27):
go across the street, you could do the dance back
and forth Walkee West of mooin Walkee, West Moine. But
we're right there at ninety five hundred University Avenue four
zero two five five eight eleven ten or eight eight
eight two five zero two zero nine to one. There
were rumors earlier a few months ago in August that,
in fact, President Trump said that he was going to
impose a three hundred percent tariff on foreign made chips,

(32:51):
and the condition that he gave to avoid this was
if you're producing, if you are under construction with a
chip factory in the United States, you would be exempted
from the tariffs. Well, a lot of places took him
very seriously. It takes a little time to spin up
a chip fab factory. And it wasn't you have plans
to do one, it was you have to have it
under construction. So now we're hearing from administration officials that

(33:16):
given the new China trade deal, which may or may
not be being adhered to entirely by China, President Trump
wants that deal to stick. So he's not going to
do anything that's going to really infuriate China. If you
did a three hundred percent foreign chip tariff, especially considering
that Apple, TSMC and Nvidia, Intel and Samsung are all
building fabrication factories in the United States, they would all

(33:39):
be exempt from the chip tariffs. The only country that
would really be hit that's a chip producer is China,
and China makes a lot of the lower grade chips,
the chips that are in everything you don't think about,
Like when you have a touchscreen toaster, there's a chip
in there doing that. You know, when you shut your
refrigerator door and the water pitcher automatically refills, there's a

(34:00):
chip controlling that. When you open your car door and
your running board deployees, there's a chip controlling that. And
they're all low grade chips. They're not like super fast processors,
but they're low grade chips that are all made in China,
And so if there's a three hundred percent tariff, it's
really going to upset China. So rumor has it that
the three hundred percent chip tariff is officially off the table.
Trump will never say that publicly, but administration officials officials

(34:23):
are using back channels to say that that is off.
So that is actually really great news because it means
that your lower end budget laptops are going to be
widely available this holiday season and they will still be budget.
If a three hundred percent tariff had them, it had
probably add about fifty bucks to the price of those
budget laptops for zero, two, five, five, eight, eleven ten. David,
Welcome to the program. How can I help you on
compute this today?

Speaker 7 (34:45):
Good morning, morning or I'm calling to give a huge
thank you to Ryan.

Speaker 3 (34:52):
In the Lincoln store.

Speaker 7 (34:53):
He saved me a whole bunch of time and money
last Friday, I believe it was okay. I live outside
of Lincoln. I live about ninety miles away from Lincoln
and or Omaha, and I had just purchased a brand
new cell phone, I upgraded to another model, and I

(35:14):
wanted to transfer my sofo's account from my old phone
to my new phone. And normally I guess that takes
a trip into the store to get that done. But
Ryan was able to provide me walk me through the
installation at home.

Speaker 6 (35:32):
Here.

Speaker 7 (35:33):
So this man deserves a promotion in a large raise.

Speaker 2 (35:37):
Well, here's the thing, all right, citizens of Lincoln, I
am calling on you. I need your help. Ryan works
in the Des Moines service Center and he is living
in a hotel in Lincoln right now for the through
the end of the year, essentially bailing us out in
Lincoln as an acting lead technician in that service center

(35:58):
because he can do things like this.

Speaker 7 (36:00):
Now.

Speaker 2 (36:00):
The reason this was a challenge is because you have
to with the phone's camera to install sofos, to add
the group policy, you have to scan a QR code,
So that means you have to have another device. We
can't email you the QR code and have it come
up on your phone screen because you can't take a
picture of your screen with your camera. You can't scan
the QR code, so you have to have another computer.

(36:20):
We can email you the QR code, you can scan
it with your phone and then put a boom, but
a bang you're in. So Ryan can figure that kind
of stuff out. And do I want him to be
the lead tech in Lincoln. We are going to make
him an offer, and he has already told me he's
probably going to decline the offer because he's moved twice
already in like two years, Like he moved from Phoenix

(36:41):
back to Des Moines, and he moved again, and he
doesn't want to move a third time in three years,
and we're gonna pay the move. And he said if
we put him up in a penthouse maybe, And I
was like, well, you know, a penthouse in Lincoln is is?

Speaker 4 (36:53):
You know?

Speaker 2 (36:53):
I mean, have you I can find you a penthouse
and Lincoln. You didn't tell me what kind of penthouse.

Speaker 6 (36:57):
You know.

Speaker 2 (36:58):
We're talking top floor of the uh on end street
here fourteenth and end on the top floor. There we go,
there's your pet house. Buddy, have a good life. Don't
go out after ten. No, but no, I want I
want him to run the Lincoln Service. And we're gonna
make him an offer. So everybody in Lincoln, when you
see Ryan, you have to tell him how badly you

(37:19):
want him to be in Lincoln.

Speaker 5 (37:21):
You have to.

Speaker 2 (37:21):
You have to give him a hard time for me,
because number one, he'll enjoy it. Nothing. Nothing makes a
guy feel wanted like being told he's wanted, you know.
And number two, you know, we're gonna make him a
really compelling offer. And if he chooses to decline it,
then that's great. Well, but he has a he's he
has a future with our company in a lot of
different areas that he could he could move into and
so you know, he's I really appreciate everything that Ryan

(37:44):
is doing for us in Lincoln right now. He's literally
saving our bacon and he's putting in giant hours, and
he's he's thinking ahead and he's thinking outside the box
and just doing things like what he did for you, David.
I mean, just that's just that's just a Tuesday afternoon
for Ryan. So I want that guy in Lincoln. So
next time you talk to him, tell him have you
accepted the offer yet? And they'll be like, ah, come on, guys,
you know, thank you for the call, David. I appreciate

(38:08):
you joining us on the program today. Four zero two, five, five,
eight eleven tens number to join us. One of the
other things that Ryan is amazing at is is making
sure that he gets these holiday special laptops configured exactly
for what you need them to do. You know, anybody
can go out and buy a computer, and any guy
at Shrock can sell you a computer, you know, or

(38:29):
anybody anywhere. You can go to Best Buy and you
can buy a computer, so you can get great computers
all kinds of places. But when you buy a holiday special,
I don't know if you knew this or not. But
like when you come into the service center and you
buy an Intrepid or an Endeavor or a Glant, we
pre build those in the Papillion Service center, and then
they're shipped to the local service centers and there might
be some minor customizing work. We might make the hard

(38:50):
drive a little bigger, or maybe add a little bit
of memory or something like that, but that's the extent
of it that's done locally in the service center. Every
single holiday special computer is hand built, purpose built for
your specific application. So when you configure in order, whether
you go to shrowk Innovations dot com and configure one
online or if you go and do it, you know,

(39:11):
in the service center with the catalog and everything else.
When you can figure that, we place your order and
the Papillion Service Center literally builds your computer to that
specification for you from the beginning. So it's not like
going to a box store and buying something that was
made six months ago and then somebody kind of tweaks
it for you. It's not even like buying one of

(39:31):
our normal units that is pre configured and then modified
for you. This is literally built for you from the
ground up. That's the beauty of the Holiday Special. Now
with the Holiday Special laptop, you're getting a three K screen.
We put the Holiday Special beside the other laptops on
the shelf so you can see, like the Basic one
has a decent screen, the Intrepid has pretty much the
same screen, and then the Galant has a slightly better screen,

(39:55):
and then the Holiday Special smokes everything else in the line.
Like it is vibrant, crazy vibrant. Triple monitor support. You
can run with dual monitor, dual external monitors, and the
laptop monitor will to run triple monitors. It's got USB
s ports that carry video as well as power, so

(40:15):
that's pretty impressive. It has that rise in AI nine processor.
And I'm gonna coming up after the break here. I'm
going to tell you a little bit about some of
the applications of AI. We have a twentieth century technology
coming back that's actually being used to combat AI and education,
specifically AI cheating. So we're going to talk a little
bit about some experiences with AI. But the Holiday Special

(40:36):
laptop is designed for what for the AI stuff that
you're going to be doing tomorrow, And I know ninety
nine percent of you listening right now are saying, I
don't do anything with AI thor and I don't want
to do anything with AI stomp the foot, And I
understand that. And I also know you said the same
thing when you said I don't want to go I
don't want to get rid of my Windows XP. I

(40:58):
don't want to get rid of my Windows seven. And
just like all the times that you were forced to
move on to something else because the technological march of
progress forced you to do it, you're gonna be forced
into using AI, whether you want to or not. And
as I'm gonna tell you in the next break, you're
gonna be happy about it. And I'm gonna tell you why.

Speaker 3 (41:17):
Now.

Speaker 2 (41:18):
The thing is, you need a computer to do that.
We're reaching peak data center out there. We're running out
of power. We're running out especially on the East coast,
these data centers that they're gonna start flooding into the
Midwest because there's no power left on the east coast
of the West coast. So when we reach peak data center,
the only place left for the computing cycles to do
the AI work is on your device. If you have
a device that's not built for AI and it tries

(41:39):
to do AI. You're screwed. It's gonna run like a turtle.
This has the rise in nine AI processor. It is
designed right now to do the AI work that you're
going to be doing five years from now. The hard
drive ultra fast one terabyte solid state. The keyboard is
not only back lit, it's RGB back lit. What does
that mean? You can pick the color the back light.

(42:01):
Do you like your red, you like your blue, you
like your green? Maybe you like the rainbow wave, you know,
whatever you like to do, the keyboard will do it.
The touch pad is massive and it supports gestures. Yes, no,
not that gesture. Hopefully you're not giving that gesture to
the to the touch pad. But it supports gesture control
as well. So the camera on the thing is a

(42:22):
Windows Hello capable IR camera. You can log in with
your face. Guys, you don't even need a pin anymore.

Speaker 4 (42:29):
It is.

Speaker 2 (42:30):
Once you get used to that, that's the boogie life.
I mean, you've made it so anyway, check out the
Holiday Special laptop. It's on display in all four service centers.
We have eight left in stock. I'm going to try
to get more. I just have to try to get
that price down somehow. So that we can afford to
sell them at below cost, essentially is what it amounts to.
So got to figure that one out. Four zero, two, five, five, eight,

(42:52):
eleven ten. We're gonna take our final break of the program.
When we come back, George, your call is coming up
next on compute this.

Speaker 5 (42:58):
Everyone has experienced some form of data loss or know
someone who has. It's unfortunate, but sometimes the technology we
rely on simply fails. And the last question you want
to hear at that time is you have a backup.
Right when your hard drive, memory card, backup drive, or
flash drive fails, you turn to the data recovery experts
at Shrock Innovations to get those pictures, songs, and memories back.

(43:22):
You know, not all data recovery companies are the same.
Having the right tools and knowledge to get the job
done right on the first attempt makes all the difference
between a successful recovery and the permanent loss of your
important data. Sometimes you only get one shot at a
successful recovery. That's why Shrock has invested in top of
the line recovery imagers, a Class one hundred clean environment,

(43:45):
over ten thousand dollar components, and a staff of recovery
engineers that are the best in the business. Shrock has
a ninety six percent recovery rate getting data back from
failed devices. When the unthinkable happens and you need your
data back, turn to the experts at Shrock Innovations for
professional and affordable data recovery services.

Speaker 4 (44:04):
Drive Advisor is a free program from Shrock Innovations that
monitors your hard drives health and tells you if it's
going bad. Download it for free at driveadvisor dot com.

Speaker 5 (44:14):
Laptops are subjected to some of the most stressful computing
situations imaginable. They get dropped, stepped on, flap shut, and
pushed until the battery dies. Sometimes your laptop works hard
for you, so when it has a problem, take it
to the laptop expert at Shrock Innovations. Shroc has four
convenience service centers in Nebraska and Iowa with more than

(44:35):
one hundred total bench spots to get your technology up
and running again. Shrock has the largest supply of replacement
components in stock and we fix more laptops than any
other nearby repair center. Why wait weeks to get your
computer fixed when Shrock can diagnose the problem provide you
with a friendly and accurate estimate and fix it usually
in two days or less. Remember, if you have never

(44:56):
been into our service centers before, new customers get their
first hour of labor free. So the next time your
laptop screen gets cracked, the keys pop off your keyboard,
or your two year old decides a glass of milk
is exactly what your laptop needs to cool off, Take
it to shrck and let your local laptop repair experts
get it back in top shape again.

Speaker 2 (45:21):
All righty guys, is this too soon? We've started a
war on Facebook. Now we have des Moin customers telling
Ryan he can't decommit from the des Moin service center
he needs to stay. And now we have Lincoln customers
begging him to decommit. It's like it's like he's a
Riola brother or something. It's crazy. Four zero two. You see,
Ryan wouldn't even know what that means. Four zero two, five, five,

(45:42):
eight eleven ten. All right, George, welcome to the program.
How can I help you this morning on compute this?

Speaker 6 (45:47):
Oh right, Zorah, thanks for taking my call on your
extended warranty?

Speaker 4 (45:53):
Is that?

Speaker 6 (45:54):
How long is that lap? The payment? You know you
pay one hundred and fifty for the extended warranty. Yes,
how long does that last? Every year?

Speaker 2 (46:06):
Gotcha? So here's the entire extended warranty purchase. Because everybody
figures there's a catch somewhere, So I'm going to tell
you all the details so that you know if there's
a catch, you can pull it out for yourself. There
is no catch, but you can figure it out for yourself.
Number One, When you buy a computer from Shock, the
extended warranties are cheaper to buy. At the time of purchase,
they only cost one hundred and twenty five dollars. So

(46:27):
if I'm telling you to add a three year warranty
to your computer, I'm saving you seventy five dollars. Over
the course of that warranty period. You get one year
with the computer, and you're adding three more. That gives
you a four year total warranty. Now let's say after
the fact, you will just say you say no, thor
I don't want that, And then we call you when
your warranty is ending and we say, hey, give us
a call back. We might owe you money. And you

(46:49):
call back and we're like, no, we don't owe you
any money because you didn't give us any money. So
you didn't buy the warranty, you don't get a refund,
but your warranty is still expiring. Do you want to
buy another warranty now? For one hundred and fifty dollars
that would be a one year warranty, so it's one
twenty five per year. You can go one, two or
three years at the time of purchase, or you can
do one hundred and fifty and single year increments and

(47:12):
then essentially, I think the price of the warranty has
gone up one time in the last decade. It went
from one twenty five to one fifty. So the price
of the warranties doesn't really change from year to year.
It's not like it goes up every year, so you
end up owing a little bit. It's not a revenue game.
That's what nobody understands for us. This isn't the classic
warranty game where we're trying to gamble and see, you know,
are you going to buy a warranty you don't need

(47:33):
and we'll make money and then if you get it's
not an insurance policy. This is like a a duh.
You don't have a brain in your noggin if you
don't buy this warranty. I mean, and I tell customers,
like on the radio, I say that you're a flipping
idiot if you don't buy the warranty. Now, I would
never tell you to your face that you're a flipping idiot,
but I would say it on the radio when I'm

(47:55):
not talking directly to you. So it's one of those
things where it's like, no, this is a service thing.
This is so that when you come back in with
a Shock computer and it's got a problem. All computer
computers are like people. Eventually, they all die. Eventually. There
is no computer that lasts forever. And guys, I know
a lot of you have computers that are old. They
don't build them like that anymore. They're eighteen to twenty

(48:17):
four month devices now that we somehow make last four
to six years. So, yeah, the.

Speaker 6 (48:21):
Warranty keep you saying, came in and bought a warranty,
and at the end of that warranty, I didn't use it.
Do I pay another one hundred and fifty for the
next year?

Speaker 2 (48:33):
Then great question. So here's what happens if you don't
use the warranty. Our system automatically refunds it back to
your Shock account. If you get a refund, you'll get
an email saying you have a deposit has been made
into your Shlock account. And then of course you're going
to get a phone call, a robo call from us
about your warranty being expired and needing to renew. So
that's all going to happen. Now, I can give you

(48:55):
a refund automatically, but I can't till that for the
next year if you spend the money on that. Yes,
I can give you a refund all day long, but
I can't spend your money for you. Well, I can,
but I mean it's generally frowned upon. I'm not the government.

Speaker 6 (49:12):
A quick question. Yeah, I've been trying. I leased a
computer from you, yes, and that lease was done, and
I bought a mini earlier this year. And it seems
to me that there was a deposit.

Speaker 2 (49:25):
Yes, there's one hundred dollars deposit that you put down
for the Freedom Modular program when you started. That you
should have received back when you turned the computer back in.

Speaker 6 (49:34):
Okay, I've been trying to find this for a month
now and nobody. I've talked to Madison over at the
the your Dodge Street home haw store and she keeps
saying that she turned it over to a the office

(49:57):
manager and he never called and I called her three
times and I can't get an answer.

Speaker 2 (50:08):
Gotcha. The reason you can't get an answer is because
Alfonso is on vacation in Venezuela until after Thanksgiving, and
he is the only one that can give those refunds
back for the deposits that were made three years ago.
Our technicians are only allowed to refund purchases within the
last twelve months, and the system automatically, it's just a
safety mechanism that's in place to prevent improper refunds and

(50:29):
you know, theft essentially, so Alfonso can do it. He's
just out of the office till after Thanksgiving. That's why
she keeps emailing it to him, and she's not getting
an answer back, and that's why you're continuing to call.
So I'm sending myself an email right now George to
remind me to remind Alfonso when he gets back to
take care of it.

Speaker 7 (50:46):
Now.

Speaker 2 (50:46):
Alfonso's back on the twenty eighth, but Alfonso is going
to have a stack of email. So I'm I am
wondering if Alfonso's going to come back on Thanksgiving Day
and just work quietly. Well, you don't know, Alfonso. He's
been gone for ten days and he knows. There's the
only thing bad about going on vacation is when you
come back. Yeah, so he will usually he'll usually pad it.

(51:07):
So maybe he's planning on being back Monday. So maybe
he's coming back Friday or Saturday and doing that. I
don't know. Yeah, but at any rate, the long story, Shore,
I apologize for the inability to handle that we have
like thirteen customers still on Freedom Modular program, and so
we there hasn't been a need to build a system.
As we've ended the Freedom Modular program, we're not signing

(51:28):
up new customers, so essentially we're working everybody out of
the system that's in it, and so once there was
no need to build like a refund mechanism for it.
Because we only have thirteen people. We owe refunds too,
So that's the that's why you're not getting the answer, George.
I apologize for the trouble here, but I promise you
when Alfonso's back, you're gonna definitely get that taken care of.

Speaker 6 (51:48):
Okay, appreciate your answer.

Speaker 2 (51:50):
All right, Hey, no problem, George, have a great afternoon.
All right, real quickly. Here there's a twentieth century technology
that's coming back to combat AI cheating in education, and
it's called blue Book. Those of you might remember this
from your college years. The blue book is a test book.
When you go to take your test, you have to
handwrite all of your answers in the blue book. So
now teachers are requiring students to handwrite their answers. In fact,

(52:14):
sixty six percent of high school and college teachers are
crafting assignments specifically now to counter AI cheating. The way
they're doing that is seventy six percent of those teachers
are requiring hand written work. You can't have a typed
paper because at least if you had to handwrite it,
you at least had to copy it from chat GPT.
You know, at least there's a chance you might know it.

(52:35):
And then number two eighty seven percent are incorporating oral presentations. Now,
a couple things with AI stuff. I know nobody says
they're going to use AI for anything. Let me give
you a couple practical applications of things we've tried out
just in the past few days here in the service
centers and at home in the shop. I needed to
order a palm rest for a twenty twenty intrepid that

(52:56):
I didn't remember the part off the top of my head.
We can't get it from Asus anymore because it's too old.
I scanned it, put it in a chat GPT said
source it from Amazon or eBay, prioritize price and then
shipping speed. And it found the part and gave me
a link within like thirty seconds. So AI is not
going to replace people, guys. It still needed me there
to do that. What it's going to do is it

(53:18):
saved me like twenty minutes. So we're going to be
saving five minutes, ten minutes, twenty minutes here and there
in our lives by using AI to do stupid tasks
that we could do ourselves. But why are you doing
that yourself when you can just have an AI do
it for you. That's why you need AI capabilities and
the computers that you're buying for the next five years.
All right, So stay on the line, Alan, I'll take

(53:39):
your call off the air, and then today's winner is George. Congratulations,
You've got yourself a twenty five dollars shot gift certificate.
We'll see you next weekend for another edition of Compute
This