Seems like every time there is a computer catastrophe, we get the opportunity to learn that there's a better way. It also seems that whenever there is a meltdown, I'm out of town! I was attending a meeting in Temecula with my local chapter of Certified Residential Specialists® when my Treo700 decided to take a short vacation. Actually, it seemed more like a nervous breakdown. It just kept flashing on and off like an "Eat at Joe's" sign at a truck stop. I tried everything to turn it off and couldn't. Finally I just had to remove the battery to keep it from flashing at me. As a REALTOR®, staying in touch with my clients is critical to delivering the best service possible. So, when technology fails, it is cause for panic!
Went to the Verizon store. They had to do a hard reset. That removes all the data. I didn't think it would be a problem because the data was backed up on my computer. The Verizon guy told me that real estate people who use there Treos to open lockboxes have this problemfrequently and to call Palm. Okay, I'm willing to put up with a little nuisance for the luxury of not having to carry another piece of technology around. After the reset at Verizon, I went home and did a hot sync on the Treo to my computer. Everything seemed okay until the next day when I tried to use the contact list in my phone to call a client. No contact info for that client. There were contacts in the phone, but not a complete list. Hmmm? Went home, checked the computer. All the Contact info is there. It just wasn't syncing properly to the phone.
Called Palm to see what the problem could be. It was an interesting call. I was talking to a lady in the Philippines (!) who was pretty hard to understand. She tried to help me for about 2 hours. She decided everything was okay from the Palm side and started messing with my Windows set-up. I got the feeling she wasn't giving me good info and finally decided to end the call before she totaled my OUTLOOK and decided to call Microsoft for support.
The Microsoft folks were very patient. They went through a preliminary checklist and decided they needed to send me to a higher level of support. They actually set an appointment with me to call me back. They scheduled to call me before 7 a.m. so my day at the California Association of REALTORS® wouldn't be compromised. I gave the tech support guy permission to take control of my computer and he looked at everything. After checking out all the settings and making a couple of changes, he walked me through the next step...running a repair program. He told me that if the problem wasn't fixed after that, to call back. He gave me a telephone number and a ticket number.
The repair program didn't go through the first time. They'd told me that could happen and to try running a second time. The second time was the charm. It took hours and didn't resolve the problem. So, I called Microsoft again and they set a late night appointment with me with a higher level techie. She went through everything the previous Microsoft engineer had done and then some. After a couple of hours we finally were able to isolate the problem. The culprit was of all things a corrupted contact file. There's apparently no way to tell which one is corrupted. So, we decided to isolate all the contacts in the old "Personal" file and create a new "Personal" file (I didn't know I could do that!) and to move a few contacts at a time and attempt to isolate which contact is corrupted. Voila! I have the most necessary contacts back on my Treo and it's working perfectly.
Now, this whole fiasco would have been hair-raising if it weren't for another very important player in this little scene. That player is really the hero in all of this. The player's name...Mozy.com. I was introduced to Mozy.com by fellow Active Rainer, Gregg Franklin. Gregg is an incredible friend. He is constantly sharing his incredible skills with many friends. Gregg set up my computer so that every morning-while I'm fast asleep, Mozy.com comes in and saves my data and programs to the web. This amazing service costs $4.95 a month for unlimited service. That is absolutely the biggest bargain for peace of mind I've ever heard of. To register for Mozy now...click here
Using Mozy.com to recover my database was so simple. I was even able to go back a month to a point in time before I believed my database became corrupted. Clickety-click on a few keys and my database was reloaded to my PC. Hook up and hot sync to my new abbreviated Personal folders in Outlook and...yippy skippy, my Treo was back in business.
So, I learned a few valuable lessons that I want to pass along to you, dear reader:
1) As long as you have Mozy.com you won't have to panic that your database is fried or lost forever.
2) Microsoft Tech Support is awesome, inordinately patient, and very accommodating to set appointments that will be convenient to your schedule.
3) I learned a way to set up a new Personal Folder in Outlook so that I don't need to transfer all of my contacts in my PC database to my Treo, only the ones that I want to carry in my phone. This sure makes for a quicker sync. And, it's sure is a lot less cumbersome than having every contact in my phone.
God bless Microsoft Tech Support! Did I mention that this didn't cost one red cent? They just verified that I was the registered owner of the software and worked with me till everything was resolved.
Thanks for reading. I wrote this long, shaggy tale in hopes it would save someone else from a similar nasty experience.
________________________________________________________________________________________________
Marlene Bridges, REALTOR® 800 777-1775
South Orange County Real Estate Website
Orange County Seniors Lifestyles Blog
SRES - Seniors Real Estate Specialist®
CRS-Certified Residential Specialist®
President - Laguna Hills/Laguna Woods Chamber of Commerce
Marlene is a highly experienced South Orange County CA REALTOR® specializing in residential Real Estate and the sale of Homes and Condos in South Orange County, California and Saddleback Valley cities of: Laguna Woods, Laguna Hills, Laguna Niguel, Laguna Beach, Rancho Santa Margarita, Lake Forest, Dana Point, San Juan Capistrano, San Clemente, Aliso Viejo, Mission Viejo.
____________________________________________________________________________________________
Cell/Text Marlene (714) 745-2592 or Call (800) 777-1775
Comments(22)