repair

ClubLocal, a company that contracts with merchants of home services like plumbing or handyman work, wants to make sure customers waiting to have their homes fixed know exactly when the repair guy (or gal) is showing up.

The company, which expands to the San Francisco Bay Area on Thursday after testing its service in Dallas, lets customers schedule a service through its site or mobile app. When the pre-screened technician heads out for the job, users can see a photo and the credentials of the technician, and track his or her progress toward their homes. It's similar to ordering … Read more

If you have experienced problems with your Mac and have had to take it in for servicing, be sure to check your system's serial number when you get it back, especially if the service required a logic board replacement.

While most of the time applications and services you use in your Mac will be relatively independent from the hardware setup, there are some instances where specific software may matter. Recently a hint was posted on MacWorld that discusses the reliance of Apple's FaceTime technology on the hardware of the system, where people who have had logic boards replaced … Read more

It's happened to a lot of people -- their iPhone drops from their hands, falls off their lap, plunks into a toilet, or gets knocked off a table.

Showing off a cracked iPhone screen is sometimes almost a point of pride. I have one friend who lovingly calls his damaged phone "The Hurt Locker," referring to the 2008 movie about a bomb disposal team working during the Iraq War.

But, many of these damaged iPhones cease to work after going through various mishaps. That's when repairs come into play -- and, they're not cheap.

Currently, … Read more

Apple could be planning considerable changes to the way it handles warranties on its devices, according to a new report.

The iPhone, iPad and Mac maker is said to be planning a revamp of its basic AppleCare warranty service to become a subscription that will cover all the Apple devices a user owns. AppleCare currently has to be purchased on a per-gadget basis. According to AppleInsider the company held a meeting about the changes on Thursday and plans to roll them out this fall.

The report also claims that Apple is working on some behind-the-scenes changes to the way it … Read more

Windows 7 Manager is an all-in-one system cleaner, tweaker, and maintenance tool that, among other capabilities, incorporates a wide range of "fixes," many of them built into Windows, yet tucked away in odd corners that make them difficult for ordinary users to access. That's sometimes because inexperienced users who misuse a fix or a tweak can cause more problems than they started with. Windows 7 Manager is a good example: It probably packs more features than any tool of its type we've seen thus far. Yet with so many things to run, inexperienced users can end … Read more

iFixit, a company that takes apart technology products, analyzes what's inside, and determines their repairability, has launched a new platform to make it easier for folks to lean more about tablets.

The company's new "Tablet Repairability" list shows all of the recently released slates it's taken apart and discusses how easy it is to repair them when trouble erupts. Each device is given a score on a scale of 10, with the top product -- the Dell XPS 10 -- earning the highest score of a 9, thanks to it being easy to open, and … Read more

Real Racing 3 (iOS | Android) is the best in the popular auto racing series so far, with real-world cars, tight controls, and amazing graphics, but some people still may be turned off by the game's somewhat intrusive freemium model. In fact, this game would have been a CNET Editors' Choice if EA had stuck with the one-time purchase model of the first two games in the series.

Real Racing 3 delivers the most realistic racing experience available on a touch-screen device. Everything from the car models and textures to the lifelike physics as you speed around real-world tracks fully … Read more

RAM sticks, known for their chip creep and random failures, are among the more annoying pieces of hardware to pinpoint as the source of a technical issue. Before you start digging around in the tower, it's best to start with a quick and free memory check via Windows. This way, you'll know whether or not it's worth swapping around sticks of RAM to see which one is the dud.

Here's how to get started:

Step 1: Open the Start Menu and type in mdsched.exe, then press enter.

Step 2. A pop-up will appear on your … Read more

The human skin, with all its frailties, turns out to be difficult to recreate, let alone improve on. The main challenge: It manages to be both self-healing and sensitive to the touch, enabling it to send vital information to the brain about temperature and pressure.

But chemists and engineers at Stanford say they are one step closer to developing an electronic skin that has both these properties, and they report this week in the journal Nature Nanotechnology that it could help lead to smarter prosthetics and more resilient, self-repairing electronics.

Their central task was to find a self-healing material (a … Read more