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Plumber, Electrician... Digitician?
Alien54 writes "This article from the Sunday Boston Globe describes the rise of a new type of tradesman called, for lack of a better term, a digitician, a label describing the burgeoning army of overqualified, unemployed, or free-spirited computer technicians being deployed to front porches around the country."
When I used to work as a Computer Support at an office, I used run around all day doing this. Sure, I didn't make house calls, but that in itself doesn't make this a new profession. I was just called the "IT Support Guy", not a "Digiticain".
I really hated my job when I was doing IT support. I met these lusers who wanted do weird things with their computers, and then exepected me to support them. Often, I had to stay in the office till 8:00pm.
Thank god now I have a job as a full time developer. I would never want go back to the days of being a "digitician", even if I got paid US$100/her.
Indefinitely Detained US Citizen
Not complaining, it's just a weird trend. This happening to anyone else?
Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
I find that there is a great demmand for this sort of thing. I have been "dabbling" in this by fixing some of my dads co-workers friends computers for them.
/uninstalling useless applications, etc...
They pay me $20 / hour for doing basic maintenance on their pc downloading and running spybot, adaware, norton, defrag, learing their startup programs from crap,
It almost feels bad taking their money, but when you think about it, it would cost them alot more if they were to take the computer in for servicing and then they would be out of action for at least a week.
A friend of mine decided to put out a bunch of flyers around spring break (which happens to be in Feb. for me), and he was just raking in the dough from people getting him to fix their computers. He even got the odd senior who wanted him to teach them how to use their new computers.
I think that this is a great way for teens to make some quick dough. As long as your a few bucks cheaper and faster than the next best alternative, you will make a killing.
Check out Phlak.
It's fairly polished and can be used for a whole lot more than just removing spyware. I'd highly suggest checking it out.
Oh, and it uses XFce4, which I think is just a damn cool alternative to KDE and Gnome. XFce4 + Slackware 9.1 is a great combination for older computers that just get bogged down by KDE and Gnome.
ce n'est pas un Sig.
In order for a electrician/plumber/carpenter to work on your house they must be licensed and bonded. But a guy to fix your computer? Nothing... he could very easily sell you 64MBram for $200... install mcafee for $150... and run WindowsUpdate...
The first was mentioned in a blog, and uses F-Prot, which is FAIB for home/personal use.
There's also Knoppix STD, a security/vulnerability live CD that includes ClamAV. Doesn't look like they're using the Captive NTFS driver, though, so not sure how well that'll work compared to one that does, like...
BitDefender, which seems to be All That And More. It uses Captive, has ClamAV, and I'm pretty sure it's GPL'd, too. (The company does make commercial/proprietary products too.)
These take care of viruses. I'm not aware of any spyware-removal programs that run under Linux, which is a shame. It really would make it easier to boot from the CD, sip coffee for 15 minutes, then go back to Windows with that fresh feeling...
Carousel is a lie!
"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education."
-- Mark Twain
Best Slashdot comment ever
A Couple Of Things About Mechanics:
1. Not all mechanics are dishonest.
2. Not all mechanics are competent.
3. Dealerships make most of their money off of parts.
4. You usually get what you pay for.
If you really want a good mechanic in CA, find someone who passed ASE L1 (Advanced Diagnostics) and has a CA EA Smog License. ASE L1 is both a difficult test and has an experience requirement. The CA EA Smog License is a state exam that requires completion of ASE A6, A8, L1, a Clean Air Course, and an OBD-II Course -- most mechanics do not bother. These guys don't screw around, know their stuff and don't fudge anything. The CA Bureau of Automotive Repair does pull smog licenses and they aren't trivial to maintain. Most shops have very few smog techs.
That being said:
1. Not all computer techs are honest.
2. Not all computer tech are competent.
3. Computer stores with techs make most of their money off of parts. (Benefits and overhead are pricy.)
4. There are a lot of dishonest people out there who'll gladly take advantage of people.
Bad computer techs do the same crap as bad mechanics. They overcharge, the replace things that don't need to be fixed. They outright lie.
I was recently brought a family friends computer. Some "tech" said he wanted $250 to try to recover the data on her hard drive because the computer "stopped working." What had happened was the PS/2 keyboard connector had a bad connection and it failing the boot process. In 30 minutes, I copied the hard drive data to a CD, verified it was the keyboard connector, and returned the items to the owner for FREE. I was rewarded with a $50 gift card to Best Buy.
The computer owner had gone out and bought a new computer as she was unwilling to spend $250 for someone to TRY to recover her data. And she was incredibly grateful to have someone tell her what was really wrong with her computer and fix it for a reasonable (FREE) charge.
Often, clients KNOW this, and still are willing to pay. My dad is a car guy. Been screwing with engines since he was like 8, did lots of customizing of cars in high school, even works as a sales guy for car repair books. However, he pays someone to change his oil. Not like he doesn't know how to do it, he taught me how to change mine. He just doesn't care to spend the time, it's worth the money to him to have someone else do it.
There is also something to be said for having a professional that will do something right do it. I got a new thermostat and, like a retard, forgot to mark and label the wires. Well, from reading the documentation I was fairly certian I knew which one went where, but not 100%. I decided to just call a guy, and get it wired right. It was worth it, too, since it turned out they'd used non-standard colours in my place and I would have wired it wrong.
Restraunts are probably the most general form of paying someone else to do something you could do yourself. It's not hard to learn how to cook, and with a deceant cookbook and time you can make even exotic dishes. It's a pain though. I mean let's say I want to make a date some nice Italian food. To properly make a good pasta, with fresh cooked noodles and sauce and all plus side dishes like you'd get in a deceant restaruant is like a 4-5 hour job. Forget it, I'll just drop $50 and take her to a restraunt. Nothing I couldn't do myself, just something that I don't feel is worth my time.
The real bottom line is that if you are competant, not a dickhead, and serve the customers you can make some money.
The other thing to remember is a saying a got from a consultant/coworker a few years back.
"The difference between working for a company and working for yourself is that you are trading the illusion of freedom for for the illusion of security"
"I say we take off, nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure."
Here's a better link.
What's strange about this particular story, is the snopes.com article on it.
A number of reputable sources, who have obviously researched Steinmetz, seem to confirm this story as true, yet snopes does not. Perhaps snopes is wrong for once?
Life is too short to proofread.