Ever feel you could easily fix some gadget or appliance IF ONLY you hadn’t lost the manual several years ago?
Well, one of the most important things about the Internet is that of the billion plus people who use it daily a significant number are out to help other people and by this I mean they write free software code in the tradition of the earliest of us computer hackers but it means much more.
Among other things it means that someone out there in cyberspace knows to do literally anything and everything.
From setting the flashing clock on an old VCR to replacing the battery in an Amazon Kindle, or making brioche without wearing yourself out, or repairing anything you can think of, someone on the Internet is either a trained expert or just figured it out on their own and a lot of those people make videos showing exactly what they discovered and how to do it.
You can simply search for terms such as
How fix whizbang model xx
OR
How fix whizbang model xx youtube
Or go directly to YouTube and search there because that is the most likely place to find detailed directions on how to do things.
Just state your problem in simple words such as
replace battery in Kindle HD 8.9
The important part is getting key words such as battery and the precise model.
You can also find musical performances, even movie clips and much more, but the real benefit of using YouTube videos is that many of the little problems which crop up every day can be fixed using YouTube videos as a resource and it is my favorite kind of online service, you guessed it by now, it’s FREE.
Want a concrete example from my personal experience? Did you ever see one of those gigantic TVs, I mean 60-inches and above? Many of those use a device developed in 1987 by Dr. Larry Hornbeck of Texas Instruments.
What he did was put millions of tiny mirrors on a computer chip only about one square inch in size.
These DLP projection TVs consist of an arbitrarily large screen (mine is about 72 inches diagonal), a very powerful single light bulb, and lenses to focus the light on the tiny DLP chip which then reflects the light to millions of different color backings on the projection screen.
A giant TV need only be a few inches thick and mine weighs about 95 pounds.
In fact the only drawback to these giant screen TVs is that eventually you begin to get sparklies" or little bright white spots where one of the tiny mirrors is frozen, that is, it no longer moves to the commands of the chip it is mounted on.
At this point many people throw the TV away either happy it lasted so long, or mad because it broke too soon.
But all you really need to do is buy a replacement mirror-chip and swap out the old one - bingo you have a new TV.
The bright bulbs burn out but are easy to replace, however tearing the electronics apart to replace the DLP chip is a complex enough procedure that you either need a skilled technician, or (wait for it) access to the Internet where you can find step-by-step directions and videos showing you exactly what to do.
About the only skill you really need is the ability to use a screw driver and brains enough not to put your greasy fingers on the new mirror.
It took me about one hour total to replace my DLP chip and the $1,200 10-year-old , 72-inch,TV/computer monitor is like new! Total cost $120 for the new DLP chip (including shipping) and $0.00 for the free instructional video.
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