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Best Results From Bartering Computer Services?
silicon not in the v writes "Last night I was over at some friends' house. They had cable modem with no firewall and tons of spyware, etc. on their system. They complained about all the popups and how bad it was that they were afraid to let their kids on the computer, so I set them up with ZoneAlarm, Ad Aware, and Firefox to get it cleaned up. In return, the husband, who is a chiropractor, gave my wife and I a free adjustment. What other interesting services or benefits have people been able to get by bartering IT/programming services?"
I will fix your computer in return for one of these.
What other interesting services or benefits have people been able to get by bartering IT/programming services?
Beer. And lots of it.
--saint
Isn't this the story line for some cheap porno film??
I do some work for an ISP, and I get a couple of servers hosted for free, including bandwidth.
I also have a nice thing going where I host his users (on my servers), and he sends people needing web design to me.
It works out nicely.
I have no problems fixing lady's computers for a return "adjustment"
I get my taxes done for free after setting up a Samba domain for a local accountant here in my area. Pretty nice if you ask me.
Well my comp sci teacher lied to me. Apparently, you can't barter computer skills for sex. Bastard!
This is my sig. There are many like it but this one is mine.
About all I've ever managed to get for helping my friends with their computer troubles is their recommendation to their friends to bug me to help them. A losing proposition all around.
Not more than you need, just more than you want
When I was a student, I set up an old 8086 "XT" class machine with DOS and 8-in-1 office software for a small restaurant. Basically just duplicated their ledger in the spreadsheet. I ate breakfast there all summer for free.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
Well, it all takes me back to a time when Bill Gates said he would trade me my life for my new operating system DOS... Looking back on it, I still don't know if living using Windows is worth it...
ChirQuacktor, eh?
Methinks you've been had.
My favorite thus far was an offer from a couple in Ireland who offered a night's lodging and a hearty Irish breakfast should we ever visit their fair country--in exchange for the bonus level pack.
Even though we probably won't hav ethe opportunity to take them up on the offer anytime soon, it was made in earnest, and I was happy to send them a copy of the level pack in return. Even though I can't buy beer 'n' pizza with it, this "barter" has proven far more memorable than the typical few bucks plonked in the PayPal account...
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
He gets some dental services that way doing stuff for his dentist. Null
Sushi, beer, dog walking services, beer, sex, logo design from a professional graphic designer, beer. Etc.
The barter rate for Mac support is usually a much better investment on the time spent compared to supporting Windows issues... "Format it and forget about it"
-mj
Better watch out for the IRS. You have to claim barter on your taxes!
Friend's dad is a mechanic. For setting up their shop's computer systems and maintaining them (which consists of a single computer most of the time), I get free car maintenance. :)
I want someone to come over and mow the lawn or power spray the deck. Minimal skill needed. I'll even supply the equipment! No downloading of a mower/sprayer needed. I'll even make sure they have gas! If I mention those as a 'trade' for my time and skill EVERYTIME they say they will find someone else.
"If you are on fire you can just stop, drop, and roll. If you fall into Lava you are just dead." - my 5yr old daughter
...I have this friend who is a proctologist and he was having computer problems and...
This way to the egress...
i've often received old or semi-old equipment from people when i help them out patching their systems back together. often times it's so old all i can really do is rob jumpers off of the motherboard but occasionally a decent monitor or few year old systems will come my way. i usually just hold onto those systems/parts and use them when cobbling together other people's broken-down/in-need-of-upgrade boxes.
NERDS!!!!
a friend is a partner in and the brewmeister of a local microbrewery -- i fixed network printing for his back office staff.
"I'm here to fix the comptuer."
"It's in the bedroom."
"This is going to be a long, hard job."
"Maybe my roommate can help."
Hmm. That makes me wonder who's doing the tech support for these fine instutions . . .
The bigotry of the nonbeliever is for me nearly as funny as the bigotry of the believer. - Albert Einstein
I fixed computers for hundreds of women. I think one of them later smiled at me. Sure she was nailing my jock roomate, but I still think I came close to losing my virginity...
...and I trade services. He does adjustments for me, and when that's done, I make sure his machines are patched and up to date.
...Rob
The American Dream isn't an SUV and a house in the suburbs; it's Don't Tread On Me.
Your technical expertise is worth just as much as his medical expertise, IMHO.
Money, haircuts, food, booozzz, drugs, lap dances...
it being the gun-hating state it is, I got free access to a local 80 acre shooting range and discounted (at cost) ammunition.
This guy is way out there
I work with russians alot so I get paid and I get drunk...can't go wrong there.
i setup SuperHotWhoresWithHugeSexDrives.com... and those poor bastards were dumb enough to trade me a years supply of airline peanuts.. BUHAHAH, best dam trade i ever made, couldnt see it workin out any better!!
My cousin will cook me dinner everytime I go to her house and fix her computer. Saves me 20 bucks for food and drink for the night, and never takes me longer than 45 minutes.
So you fixed something for them, and exchanged it for something that made both of you worse off in exchange?
Give me a call, I have some things that need fixing at my house. In return, I will supply free teeth kicking in, punches in the kidneys, and wrecking of your car.
maybe if you gave them linux you could've gotten the "happy ending"
I fix my neighbor's computer (which gets ruined by loads of spyware crap by his kids, almost every week) for beer, Heineken, of course... :)
Karma: Bad (but who really cares anyway?)
sex....and lots of it
You could just name this story "I am a geek and married".
Lisp is the Tengwar of programming languages.
I get free cheese curds, muenster, colbyjack, and juusto when I do work for the local cheese factory.
I do this all the time. My most "profitable" is probably getting my taxes done for a fraction of the cost while I assist with their computer issues.
Free lunches are the most common.
Personal, um, favors, um, have been offered to me, but declined.
"If you want to improve, be content to be thought foolish and stupid." - Epictetus
I had plastic surgery to my face (the removal of six ugly moles) in return for doing some SEO (nothing unethical, just getting the right search terms in the right places) to the surgeons homepage that brought it into the first place on most search engines when one searched for "breast enlargement" (in the local language).
I think that beats your bone bending...
How's that for intangible benefit?
a call-girl.
:-)
The benefits are wonderful
I've also done work for a pimp, and a crooked tax accountant.
Handy people to know.
So rise up, all ye lost ones, as one, we'll claw the clouds.
Granted, I've never been to a chiropractor, and probably never will...but still.
OOoooh, he cracked your back. Big whoop. Come clean my room and I'll sell you some magic beans.
You've bartered some useful systems support for some potentially dangerous new-age quackery. You might as well stock up on homeopathic medicine, have a tarot reading and schedule a phrenology consultation.
in 1996, my girlfriend and i designed a website for a local sporting goods shop. all the coding, all of the images, all of the design.
we each got a big $$ mountain bike out of the deal, and store discounts on future purchases.
not a bad deal at all.
I do the IT for a friends' beer store - we just put in a new POS system and camera's so he can wathc the store from home.
Now - It's free beer for life!!!
I got a case of decent spaghetti sauce for installing a LinkSys.
I very often will fix computers for free provided the hardware that is borken is stil under warranty. A couple of years ago I did this very often with Hard Drives, I would then either use the Hard Drives or sell them to someone who needed one cheap.
I got to help my friends by fixing thier computers and by supplying cheap upgrades.
If it's not a hardware problem, dinner is always good.
The trick is to rememebr, ther is no
You know this can't be true coming from Anonymous Coward.
Not to mention, if you are that proud... you'd give you full name and address and phone number to provide more service.
Weekend stay in a condo at a local lake in exchange for a very simple website advertising said condo.
I once got feedback on one of my pieces of software from a man who said if I were a woman he would sleep with me. Apparently my software was just that good... My parents, who like to check the feedback on download sites, found that one pretty funny...
Most of the non-work related IT support I provide is compensated via food. Pizza and beer work best.
Other compensations include baby sitting and occasionally it keeps the inlaws from visiting (they are happy playing on the Internet and have less time to visit).
Chiropractor?, if you'll take the services of a chiropractor, I'll give you a job in trade for some healing tonics, a deku leaf, and I'll read your future.
I'll start with the fortune telling. I see that you are very gullible and have resently been taken for a fool.
Is there Anything else really? Beer, beer, beer... Stout, or a nice Lager...
I get a paycheck and in return my gf gets a cut and keeps me very happy and undistracted, it means I get to code more and still get some.
gotten brain for my brain. Fixing two computers at a friends house.
"Fair Game" with Cindy Crawford...
I have this neighbor who works at the NSA. He isn't really the bartering type. He, instead, prefers ominous threats.
Anyway, one day he walked over to my house, knocked on the door, and demanded that I help him get all the crap off his computer. Since he's never too nice to me, I asked him why I should do this. He said if I didn't he'd make me an NSA test case for subdermal tracking devices. Empty threat, I thought to myself.
Well, I was wrong. Now I have the black vans that seem to track me at a distance. They do a good job of staying out of sight, but I know they are following me. I guess I'm comforted by the fact that someone, somewhere knows my neighbors IP and what web sites he visits.
I set up a home network for a neighbour, and in return, I received a bottle of Glendronach 15 yr., sherry cask aged. MmMmMmmmm. Also had offers for Chiropractic and Optometrist appointments, Beer, Baileys + Coffee, "smokes", Free CDs, meals, etc.. Generally, friends and family have been friendly and thankful.
Mr_Wood, out.
In return for my services in fixing friends and family's PCs and printers I have recieved:
Beer
Free labor on replacement of my water heater.
Free server hosting
A kitchen faucet (a nice lifetime warranty Moen one, but not the kitchen sink to go with it)
Discounted closing on my home mortgage
Supper
More Beer
Lots more food, including gift certificates to nice restaurants
Duris MUD - The best pkill MUD. Ever.
I once got a bongo drum from a guy from Grenada after I wiped AOL from his computer.
Meters High School (where I am a student) got over a hundred, basically identical, donated computers. The only problem was that the hard drives are blank (and wiped). I volunteered to help. Since my method was of direct hard drive-to-hard drive copying was so superior to other method of installing the OS and software from CD's, the teacher in charge gave me a couple computers as payment.
Install Ubuntu in Android
In return for rebuilding and troubleshooting a computer for my accountant, he did my taxes for free. I've also had tune-ups done for working on a mechanic's PC.
Usually computer work results in free beer/pop/pizza though.
SmashTech - No smashing of tech involved
I fixed up my pastor's PC, and in return he has saved my eternal soul. :)
It's not /free/ if you had to fix her computer for it.
--Xandu
I never bothered to try and install a Linux distro on his machine... because that would mean I would get fewer dinners :(
in my time as geek, i have recived many services/goods in exchange of my help.
medical services (fixing a doctor's computer(also friend of mine)).
food (everytime i fix my aunt computer, she gaves me a cake or something.).
also some: car repairs, forniture, apliances, some semi-old computers...
actually a friend of mine (geek too), got sex in exchange...
Putting a windows cd backwards, plays evil messages, but it gets worse, putting it right, installs windows.
told me story how he worked as it-support for this company another department had girl working there who was relatively hot from what I hear, so he came up with devious plan and set up program that would corrupt her work files 1-2 times per month on random occasions, so she'd call him for file retrieving job
this went on for about a year or so
after few eggnogs he ended up getting some at the christmas party for the brave work he did for rescuing her work all the time
"Oh, my retinas! MY RETINAS!"
I'm shuddering at the thought.
I've given up. Everyone seems to want my services for free, so now I tell them up front $60 an hour. I figure that's how much my time spent away from my wife and kids is worth.
Although I HAVE traded flight time in my uncles Cessna 172 once. That was a good deal.
sex, drugs, booze, a carton of smokes last week, and sometimes less interesting things like movie tickets etc.
the illicit substances and sex were obviously the best.
yes its slashdot, but guess what that stuff happens.
I got a week for free in a timeshare owned by someone for whom I did a little web design. In fact, my trip to Grand Bahama Island (Freeport specifically) is only a very short while from now. I'd say that ~5 hours of web design in exchange for a week in a Freeport timeshare apartment (4 of us are going) that typically rents out for $850 is fair.
Full-Featured GPL Web Hosting Control Panel
Folks, general advice is for something tangible. Cashage, hardware, caffeine, a trip to tahiti. :)
The main thing to consider here is bartering to begin with. If you're willing to do this for the love of the game, any kudos you receive is nothing more than a bonus whether it be tangible or just goodwill.
If you're not willing to do such things without some form of compensation, go for tangibles. Sticks and carrots suck. Case in point -- "maintain my web site and I'll refer clients over to you." The guy's maintenance needs can be too demanding for empty promises after a while.
In the end, bartering is a dangeous proposition. Love what you do and be willing to help friends out for nothing in return. Otherwise, there may be profits to be had doing consulting work.
Yep you heard me.
Actually, I was going to get the sex anyways, the small perl script was just what I did to prolong the sex.
A bag of weed to reformat and reinstall someones laptop.
We once got a free night at a B&B after I installed a CD-Rom on their old PC. (This was back in the days when installation and driver setup was a bit tricky.)
I'm doing a website for a local chiropractor in turn for free adjustments for life. good thing too cause I got scoliosis that's been unchecked for a few years. Now I'm getting it all fixed up. The one time barter I ever did was when I fixed a computer for a masseuse and her husband, a former radio personality in the Twin Cities MN. They have a huge ranch and lots of Clydesdales. For fixing the computer I got a free massage for my girlfriend at the time and they took us on a sleigh ride on Valentine's Day. Needless to say my girlfriend thanked me very nicely. :D
If I have the time to work on someones computer I typically ask for dinner. When I setup my coffee dealer's two computers I got free lattes for a month. It worked out great for the both of us.
plastic surgeon client, had 2 Olympus E-10's. One had a bent CF slot pin. I traded a couple hours for that camera, works great using the smart media slot. I also have a garage full of old computers, took those in trade for a half hour here and a half hour there.
I fixed a chick's computer once. Then we started dating. I guess that's sort of the same thing.
I know this isn't technically bartering, but this past year, I was a paid computer-fixer for a residential college at my university- I got paid well, too- but the rewards that meant the most to me were the simple thank-you notes that people wrote. Sure, in the course of a year, I ended up with a fair amount of cookies and beer, too... but a short note can convey so much more gratitude.
Most of the time, vows to pay me back with a lunch or dinner have turned out to be empty promises, unfortunately.
That's one thing I've learned. You make someone else's life easier.. get something of equal value in return. Massage is good, home made food, exotic items such as things from vacation travels(spirits, clothes, etc).. also good. If you do enough.. perhaps you can get a weekend away or some sort of event tickets. :) Dream on eh?
(1st sig) If this were a snappy sig, you'd be reading it right now. (2nd sig) I'm a karma whore. >Insert FUD here
It was a twelve pack but up here in the Great White north thats as good as gold! ( It was Keiths and it was great! )
Free roofing service on my house. Of course I had to pay for the shingles, but still, bartering off the labor knocked back half the cost.
Free dental work. To this day I haven't paid real money for dental work for myself. I keep insurance for the wife and kids, but whenever I have a dentist appt, I just have them credit it off towards what they "owe" me for on again off again support.
The usual stuff as well. Leftover RAM, hard drives, etc after doing an upgrade on someones computer.
Some of my "friends" always have something wrong with their Windows box. Once the pop-ups were so bad, they were ready to ditch the PC. So, I got them to try out SuSE Linux. They tried it for a while, and said they wanted to go back to Windows... so I installed Windows back for them, thinking to myself "lets see how long this lasts." Sure enough, a few months later, another call, please come and fix my PC... this time I was fed up with this stuff, so said I showed you the way out, you didnt wnat it, please dont ask me to fix your Windows any more. If more people do this, we can be rid of that virus of an OS soon. Its just that some one goes an fixes this shitty OS, that people are'nt willing to switch to something else. Hope more Linux advocates stop doing the free tech support for Billy boy... after all, Billy boy has taken your money, and is living a luxary lifestyle and off loading the tech support to the geeks that loathe that OS. I am sick and tired of having to support this shit, on my personal time.
I created a nice web gallery of properly-indexed and linked images for a welder-fabricator guy; in return, he made a clone of one of these for my wife (I also paid $100 materials cost).
Well, amongst all of the relatives, and friends, and friends' relatives (ad infinitum) there was this one pizza joint..
I fixed a blackjack videogame for them. It had a minitower 486 in it with a dead CMOS battery. I billed them for an hour of labor, and the new battery, soldered it on, brought it back and hooked it up.
It was more than a year before they let me pay for food or drink there. Later on I ended up running pie for them for awhile, but that's another story entirely.
I offer to teach and tutor people for dinner when I meet new geeks, but I don't have too many call. *shrug*
<script>alert("I never liked JavaScript, really; it just seemed a bad idea.");</script>
I do most of my service for cash payments. But sometimes I accept computer parts that aren't being used anymore. For example, I just upgraded a customer's computer. New CD drive, RAM upgrade, replace dead or dying parts. I reduce the cost by just keeping the old parts which later help me with other upgrades, fixes, test, etc. Another useful benefit is being on the teacher's (or principal's or security guard's) good side ;)
Also, my dad's office has an interesting system, they obviously get paid for what they do at work but for helping the employees with home issues the IT guys get paid in their favorite brand of vodka or whatever their weak spot may be.
-Tim Louden
I've gotten a stovetop griddle (great for making a family load of bacon and eggs), movie tickets, countless meals, short term loans when I ran into unforseen expenses, a really nice pear tree that will be going up in my yard as soon as we close, and the love and respect of my family. Even if I didn't get anything from being the resident geek for two families, I would still do it for all the times I've been helped out when I needed it.
Wu-Tang Name: Half-Cut Skeleton Get your own Wu-Na
Over the years, I've gotten lots of things.. Steak dinners, beer, new articles of clothing, and even chiropractic work like the article mentions. Had one guy, a complete stranger, offer to build me a house for half the cost of what anybody else might quote me, plus a standing invitation to drop in for dinner whenever I happen to be hungry and in the neighborhood.
And if you consider my ex-girlfriend, I got 3 years of great sex for keeping her computer in shape. It was supposed to be about love, but in the end it wasn't. C'est la vie..
Actually my friend gave me his record collection including a rare import album that I was looking for a few years.
-- ladies and gentlemen we are floating in space!
"gave my wife and I" =~ "gave I" = Wrong.
CORRECT:
My friend and I went to the store.
The cashier gave me and my friend a funny look.
WRONG:
My friend and me went to the store.
("Me went to the store" is wrong.)
The cashier gave I and my friend a funny look.
("The cashier gave I a funny look" is wrong.)
anyone wearing that shirt rightly deserves the social ostracization that will ensue.
Photos.
I called around when I was looking for office space. I found a real estate company that just renovated a new space, and were renting offices for $600.00/mo. I offered them $200 cash and 8/hrs a month network admin, desktop support. At first, I thought I had screwed myself, which is true in a strict monetary sense. But I get free ISP, no util bills, access to copier, fax, kitchen, conf room. Not to mention a few cute girls. Beats the living room desk. abulafia!
I've just joined a barter exchange in Seattle called TimeBucks.org. The first thing I did was notice that someone needed help getting their sound card to stop echoing everything (ran into that one myself a while back) as well as some performance issues - luck would have it that they have experience in non-profit fundraising and I've been looking for someone to bounce a few ideas off of. Great system, and well worth my geek time!
Im no ubergenious and even though im pretty young, people often ask me for help (or shout at me because they think ive somehow broke their computer, without me even having so much as their full name - i fucking hate that, don't you?), anyway, when the blaster was in its prime, i managed to fix it without the patch (control panel -> servies -> change the RCP to do nothing when it crashes), so my mum took me to her office at work and had me give instructions on how to do it for her workmates home computers (which i was willing to do, in the hope of some kind of reward) but no, i get nothing but funny looks from people who think they know everything about computers and yet they cant fix jack for themselves.
I also did this for my local pub, since they had the virus too. They said theyd give me a free pint sometime, which im still waiting for (although i'm being paid to make them a site, so i guess i can forget about 1 pint).
In short, ive never got a damn thing for helping people (a countless number of times, i may add), now compared to the great rush and new found information you get from actually causing descruction, imo, its enough to turn anyone to the dark side..
In high school I fixed an auto mechanic's PC and he fixed my car. I've received the best *massage* in my life for 30 minutes of "Getting the internet to work" by setting up their network settings and performing disk scan, cleanup, and defrag. This was several years ago back in college, it did cost me one network cable. But recently the best thing I've bartered for is with my wife's friend. Her husband is an established builder and he agreed to inspect our house that is in the process of being constructed. Every week we're heading out to the build site to make sure my current builders don't mess anything up. In return I've put together a decent family PC machine from spare parts. Got their copy of OS on there and locked it down. All parties are happy. Oh don't tell the wife about the massage, and yes it was just a massage - the best I ever had.
Getting a really old, piece of junk computer to run Windows 98 got me a lot of beer by the owner. I practically did the entire job while in a drunken stupor.
I've traded computer help and web hosting and computer equipment for loads of stuff and services. A few examples:
a boat and trailer
snakes (pet snakes)
several dinners both home cooked and for restaurants
a condo for a week on the gulf
brownies and fresh baked goodies from Publix
remodeling on my house
stove
fridge
tires for my car
VCD's of old DragonBallZ bootlegs
--- www.f-theocean.com
Head.
You've all been getting cool things like dinner and beer and adjustements and all that. All I get are these green papers with numbers on them :)
I was a key figure in getting my schools forum server up and running, I also admined the server for 2 years, coming back about 6 months ago (after I graduated) to redo the server after the hard drive died. This of course means that as long as my old computer teacher works at my high school, I have pretty well an unlimited amount of favours.
A good example is about 4 months ago when I needed a hundred feet of Cat 5, I went to my school and tried to buy it off of him, he insisted that I take it, gave me like 10 ends, and lent me the cable crimpers.
I find that making the person think that they owe you alot is a good thing, a friend of mnine also gave me one valuble hint, don't ever say "No problem" or something along those lines when fixing computers, it undervalues your services. A much better line is "I am just glad I knew what I was doing".
History will be kind to me, for I intend to write it - Sir Winston Churchill
A good friend of mine works the barter system like no one I've ever met. He traded a 1GHz Athalon system for a 1949 Dodge Meadowbrook, in running condition. Not to mention all the free 'services' he gets like hair cuts, meals, and also lots of used computer hardware.
[woman in nightie]: ...but I don't have a hard drive...
*bow chica bow bow*
Hades, PoD: Official Advocate
Rule number two in my book of rules...
"No good deed goes unpunished."
For reference:
Rule #1 is, "Never leave without a backup."
The above is not worth reading.
I managed to broker a blow job out of a girl in college once after I fixed her floppy disc. Come to think of it... I think it was after I fixed MY floppy disc... hmmmmmmm
I did some REAL minor graphic work (changing 3 buttons for their website) for a firm a few months back... one of the provisions of my day job's contract is that I'm forbidden from doing any outside work, so I asked my boss if I could do a little one-off on the side as long as no money changed hands, and he agreed... so I got the side folks to give me a new bowling ball instead of cash - everyone happy all around!
By the way, the new ball added almost 30 pins to my average right out of the gate. If you can lay your hands on an original Spirit, they're awesome!
-Those who dance are considered insane by those who can't hear the music.
My friend's a personal trainer and we trade computer repair for help in the gym. He's designed me a great work out / eating program and he's been making sure I stick to it, all in exchange for keeping his PC running smoothly.
:-)
I've even seen results!
In return, the husband, who is a chiropractor, gave my wife and I a free adjustment.
Hey, I gave your wife a free adjustment last night. Zing!
Seriously, you should write "gave my wife and me an adjustment...". Do you say "He gave I a free adjustment"? No, because the direct object of "gave" should be in the accusative case, which for first-person singular pronoun is "me".
Other pronouns where there is a difference between nominative and accusative include the first-person plural pronoun ("He gave us", not "He gave we"); third-person singular ("He gave him", not "He gave he"), and third-person plural ("He gave them", not "He gave they").
When the direct object of "gave" is a list, each member of the list should be in the accusative case, e.g. "He gave us and them an adjustment", not "He gave us and they..." or "He gave we and them..."
Enjoy!!!!!@!@!2
OK, so maybe there was a bit more than computer services involved, but after spending some late nights with a friend of the family optimizing his system and setting up a wireless network, he offered me their condo in San Francisco for six weeks! I'm now living there, having a great time!
;)
By the way, I long ago decided not to charge money for my services. I always get something much more valuable when I ask for in-kind payment!
Wish you were here!
Machines take me by surprise with great frequency. -A. Turing
About seven years ago I traded a mechanic / low-end used car salesman a 486DX2 PS/2 for a car. I was worried that the guy would regret the trade after the fact but a couple of months later I ended up putting together a P90 machine and a peer-to-peer network (classic use of the term, obviously) in exchange for another car. Granted, both cars were several years old with 100K miles or more but considering that the machines were well past their prime even at the time, I think I got a great deal.
I started out doing a personal website for a friend that tattoo's at a local shop. That quickly turned into 6 sites for the shop and some of there artist's. now i have $800 worth of tattooing done and about $2000 left to go.
the greatest thing one can get when you have kids is a free BABYSITTER! That's right, you and the SO want to go out on the town and you got noone to look after the little ones. So you have to spend some $$$ to get some kid to come over, watch them, eat your food, browse your computer for god knows what and installs who the hell knows what just for a nite out. I traded an old P2/400 with 128mb of RAM HP kayak for 3 nites of babysitting from a friend of my gf's. She watched the kid while we went out for free after I gave her this box (which I got for free!) and hooked it upto her modem and internet. She was practically in tears as she had a pentium/90 with a 2GB drive (now 10GB) and 32mb of RAM. She could now do all her work on it instead of just waiting forever to have the thing load. So in essence, I got laid for doing computer work, yes I can pinpoint it all back to it now!
Wheel of Time: Book by Book and Sumview (summary review) Bigdady92 style: http://bigdady92.blogspot.com/
[ex girlfriend] I'm having problems with my PC, I keep getting popups and it freezes all the time.
[me] That stinks...
[ex girlfriend] Would you come over and fix it for me?
[me] I'm kinda busy lately...
[ex girlfriend] I'll make it worth the trip
[me] Leaving now!!!
...and it was really gwood, too!
I made a website of the pictures for my cousin's wedding (on the internet in under 48 hours from the words 'I do'), which earned me a massive chocolate bar (i.e. the biggest that you can get outside of Christmas/Easter), which was somewhat nice, althouhg if the aim had been to give me caffeine...
Hey! What pretty widgets?
Last night I had some geek come over to my house who wanted to install some crap on my computer. I let him, and in return I got to fondel his wife. I called it "adjusting".
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
Traded a new PC for a whole cut and wrapped beef, still enjoying the last of those steaks.
And my friend's son-in-law installed it while I fixed his computer. Everyone thought they got the better end of the deal.
Along the same lines I've received snake oil, the Brooklyn Bridge, and all natural "enlargers." Plus I got these neat crystals that calm my aura... or something.
However, none of these compensations ever offered the possibility of a stroke. Are you sure the husband wasn't just trying to kill you because he thought you might have hit on his wife?
as in herb. Makes the MP3 visualizations much better when things are fixed.
19:30 today one of my neighbour who works as a Doctor at one Swedish university knocked on my door. He was *VERY* anxious because his computer had broke down. I told him to bring it over so i could have a look at it. (stupid me thought it was a normal SBK-failure).
:-)
:)
Well HOW WRONG I WAS. The computer did not want to start. I told him that Dell would come to his home and repair it at wednesday if he sent a troubleticket on it tomorrow. He told me that he needed the data on the machine tonight.
With no options left I dissassembled the machine took the harddrive and put it into my own Dell CPh500 (old sucker), booted up, copied his data onto a flashdatacard, burnt that data with my other computer onto a CD for him. At that point I probably already saved the day for him.
when I assembled the machine again and was happy with the result, I by more of a reflex pushed the powerbutton. *GASP* I booted up flawlessly into XP again!
So with some McGuyver-tools and some luck I managed to backup/rescue the data, AND brought his Dell X300 back to life. Although I told him not to use his laptop tonight and finnish his work using his old desktop computer.
As a sidenote, if any dell-technician reads this, can anyone tell me what was wrong when the computer's "power-led" just blinked slowly and refused to start? DC-inverter, automatic fuse??? what??
Regards: Fredrik
I can hook your wife up with a free adjustment anytime...
An artist friend of mine made art for me after I fixed her computer.
I can't get anything to come up, and now it is saying I have to wait 24 hours. Can anybody mirror? or just a description if it is tubgirl or something similar
At a local computer gaming center, my brother helps out with the mail server, webpage, a few things like that, and now he gets an unlimited-time account. Somehow, as his brother, I benefit as well, as I also have an unlimited-time account.
So yeah, I get free gaming time in exchange for having a brother with computer skills. In my book, I'd call that a good trade.
Tell me, does this make sense to you: "He gave I a free adjustment." Well then, you should say "He gave me and my wife a free adjustment."
"All it takes to fly is to hurl yourself at the ground... and miss." - Douglas Adams
My neighbor knows everything there is about the internal combustion engine, and could write a decent semblance of a dissertation on Japanese transmissions.
Meanwhile, I'm still trying to figure out which side the gas tank is on.
I do, however, have the ability to configure his living room for THX-certified home theater at wholesale prices on equipment and free labor.
And he's enabled my (1987) Toyota to survive 150,000 miles longer than is remotely feasible by normal means.
We're both happy, and the government gets no tax revenue.
God Bless America.
Amy
This article about economics touches an interesting point of view of exactly this situation, prices of services and products can be expressed no only in monetary prices (absolute price) but also in relative price, wich is exactly this case.
The price of fixing a computer and freeing it of spyware can be expressed in chiropractice sessions, turning this into a normal business transaction where both of them benefit.
After all, barter is the oldest way of trading goods.
And did you pay taxes on that "free" service? Please remember, when you forget to pay Uncle Sam his cut, we all lose. :-)
A month or so before I moved into my first apartment she was moving out of her one-bedroom to live with her new fiance, and so in return for my work she called me up and gave me all the furniture from her old apartment provided I move it out.
I ended up getting a futon, couch, kitchen table and chairs, two clothes chests, a couple end tables, and a slew of kitchen stuff (plates, glasses, pots etc), all in excellent condition. She essentially totally furnished my new place and it cost me nothing.
I consider this to be the best example of good karma at work I've experienced to date.
-- I'm not a pessimist, I'm a realist. It's not my fault that life sucks so much. --
I once setup a wireless network at a friends house. In return he surprised me by paying for a 2 day golf weekend we all went on.
Chiropractors are generally quacks. No offense, but next time receive something of value.
http://chirolinks.quackfiles.com/
Do you have ESP?
guy hops onto irc, asks for help about something. channel members annoyed with newbie questions for help immediately kickban the poor sod. I privately message a question about what they need help wtih, spend about 10 minutes answering design questions about the particular topic. during an exchange of thank-yous/your-welcomes, I give them my amazon wish list URL.
a couple weeks later, I get a package from Amazon with Battlefield Vietnam.
Back in the 80s I did custom programming for small businesses. The vast majority were just basic pay for services but sometimes there were alternate agreement. For example, that's how I got my private pilot's license.
:)
Another client distributed natural foods and always sent me off with a few bags of goodies - they always had a stack of stuff that was fine except for damaged labels and such.
I ended up with some suits/ties/etc. from a men's clothier.
Dealing with IRS accounting for all that is a pain, though.
~~~~~~~
"You are not remembered for doing what is expected of you." - Atul Chitnis
I actually had the carpet in my house cleaned today for helping a friend transition from and old computer to a new one.
After reading through these comments, it seems like most of the 'rewards' are of the instant-gratification type. I would say the best thing that has resulted in my many trips to fix people's computers is the connection that you build with them. Granted, that may be all that is acceptable for someone in my position (student), but think of the possibilities that you will/might have. It's always nice to get instant-gratification rewards, I know... ;-)
i did the same as the original post: firefox+adaware+some basic firewalling rules and some other stuff for a city cop.
I have gotten out of 3 tickets, one of which i should have gone to jail for, just by saying that I worked on the cops computer.
that's not nearly as good as the plastic surgery one but how could i top that.
OK, other way around really but the priest who erm, "runs"? my local church (he didn't actually perform either my wedding or child's christening due to illness, but his church nonetheless) has been getting free Excel support ever since.
It's getting to be a running joke that each week or two he'll turn up at the door with printouts in hand and an unquenchable need for tea.
So I guess he bartered christian services for MS Office development and support services.
I've done graphic design and marketing work for a local big bandwidth aggregator in exchange for DSL and rackspace for my own web and mailhost. Barter is a great way to go, if you don't need actual cash. Most designers I know barter for some of their services, and in turn get great haircuts, concert tickets, sausage, shares at the local gardening co-op, massage, etc. etc.
Through college, I was teaching computer skills and doing computer handiwork for clients, including one psychic.
:D
When she fell on hard times, I traded some work for psychic readings. My opinion of them as a genre changed tremendously over that period of time.
Now, I'm not exactly sure that I believe in the metaphysical aspects, but what I *am* sure of is that spiritual mediums were some of the original therapists. She has a series of clients and ends up using her intuition to give advice and help people through problems.
Frankly, I trust her years of training as much as I do the counselors I've know, and certainly better than a Ph.D psychologist in non-diagnostic work. (Hint: Not all psychologists are trained specifically in counseling.)
Oh, and she didn't need any information to tell me that a romantic interest was a flake. Lo and behold...
If you decide to play with bartering, be sure to define in black and white what you will do and what they will do.
Agile Artisans
When I was in college and all my money went down on beer, I had to teach individual computer lessons to survive. Parents of one of my students had a food business (cooking at home, then delivering orders, and selling the rest in the shop). Although there was a fixed monetary charge, they still couldn't let me out of the place before feeding me to death. It was a good bonus and very appropriate. And I was lucky enough, cause they were good cooks. :)
Fixing computers, on the other hand, is mostly a one time job and results in random ways of payment - from nothing, through beer, to paychecks. There are no limits, really.
Leonid Mamtchenkov
My hourly rate is too high to ask friends to pay, and I hate to lower my rates... So, I'll work on a friend or family member's computer for a bottle of single malt scotch (NO BLENDS!), their choice as long as it isn't Glenlivit for Glenfiddich. Not that either of those brands are bad, but they are the two most likely ones for someone to purchase and I'd rather be surprised by a cheap bottle I haven't tasted before than get the same old thing over and over.
-Chris
-- This sig is only a test. If this were a real sig it would say something witty. --
cookies, and... My Little Pony stickers...
From mom and dad. Help buying a wheelchair accessible car (man, it's expensive ... like buying a cheap house) from grandma ... a dirty look and lots of "I didn't do anything to it" from my brother ... a broken CD-RW drive to dissect from my uncle ... I love my family :)
Dear Penthouse Letters,
....
I never thought I'd be writing to you, but
Get off my lawn.
Sometimes undying gratitude as well. That can go a long way. Oddly enough, a lot of time when the computer is totally hosed, I get better results. "Okay, the OS is hosed, the hard drive has 5 errors, you only have 16mb RAM on a Win98 machine, and the CD-ROM won't work. Not a lot I can do here." "Oh, I am so sorry to drag you all the way up here..."
Oh, and I have gotten a LOT of free stuff, like old computer hardware or stuff I find around the hardware.
God, I am such a geek...Gotten a couple of dates, and an ex girlfriend. I usually charge in food. Occasionally I get money.
"Better to be vulgar than non-existent" -Bev Henson
I've received lots of small portraits of past presidents and other dignitaries as payment for my services. They're always green so when I get duplicates I burn them as they make a nice starter for the fireplace.
Seriously, I've traded programming for nice original paintings.
Of course we torture people, we need the information --Gen. Pinochet
I once recivied a Harley for payment of what was then a top of the line computer
I haven't traded any computer services to other people, but I have traded artwork to other people who have fixed my computer or done small programming favours for me and the like.
'Course none of that was as good as having my own programmer boyfriend, but the current one has his own redeeming qualities too... Perl is just not one of them. =)
My Webcomic: Asylum on 5th Street
The formerly retired CIO of my company gave me $250, for coming over one evening last week to fix his home computer. It turns out the personal firewall was causing slow internet browsing, he thought he had a virus. While I was there, I introduced him to spy-bot, adware, locked down his wireless, and showed him how to surfing the internet using knoppix. Mind you, I didn't ask or expected any compensation, as it was out of loyalty, friendship, and respect.
I have recieved beer, money, food, home-made herbal teas, coffee, hardware, a brake job, but my favorite was the girl that gave me a copy of her and her boyfriends collection of 'personal' pics...
a fat chick then?
From a bunch of friends I get a free meal every time I help out. I also get free hair cuts from another friend who is a hair dresser. And is it considered bartering when you fix your parents after all the things they did for you growing up? Though in a lot of cases in fixing friends computers, there is a blury line between bartering and people returning the favor. Hmmmmm.
Once people find out you work with or have any knowledge regarding computers, they are all over you about helping them with their computer woes.
I recently moved to a new neighborhood. Once my neighbors found out what I do for a living, they were asking me to look at their computers. So far I've helped 3 of them.
One was wondering why their computer was slow. When I got there to look at it, turns out it was a win95, 10yo, never updated, virus infected, spyware infiltrated POS. I did my best to clean it up without formatting the drive, but told them they should really think about upgrading to something a bit newer. All I got for the time spent was a 'Thanks Dude'. Asshole.
Other 2 were much better. All I did was clean sasser, install sygate firewall, ad-aware and AVG. One guy found me a bag of my favorite hot fries (andy capp!) and the other installed an irrigation system in my front yard at cost.
Back in the day, when I moved to a student collective, I let two of my neighbours (that I hardly knew) borrow my computer so they could check mail.. that was the beginning of friendship that I cherish today
- Mad, ingenous - they've both left you puzzled -
I dont know about you, but i figured that if i started associating removing spyware and fixing drivers with sex, i might as well go ahead and join a monastery. So, instead, my friend with benefits and I barter around something I truly detest: cooking. I fix the computer (annoying), she cooks(annoying to me), i eat the great food (happy day). and presto! at that point sex can be had without fear of pemanent spyware induced psychological damage AND i got a great meal.
All your preview button are belong to hello kitty.
"Net is broken on my box, could you help me?"
:) Exception: Linux. Burning Linux was for free :)
:)
Sure. A bit of fiddling around, ping 127.0.0.1. works. ping gateway - doesn't.
Ping several hosts around - one responds. "Your box is working okay, that's the ISP's server broken, call them and they will come and fix it".
0.5l decent quality vodka.
My usual fee for burning CDs was 1 blank. So you show up with the source and two blanks and leave with source and copy. That was kinda insurance too: If I burn OK, I keep the blank for myself. If I screw up, I burn again on that blank, no reward for me
Usual fee for "friendly services" is 1-3 beers. Like, "how to remove compromiting wallpaper" troubleshoot through the phone
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
I have helped set up a network, clean up pcs and install a bunch of progs in return for what i love best....
modification work and suspensions...and now i am the one who can do both. Yeah, im a freak
If it wasn't for C, we would be stuck using BASI, PASAL and OBOL.
I get a lot of food and gift certificates for restaurants for setting up the network at my son's private school. Maybe they think I don't eat enough since I'm a skinny computer geek...
---
Lousy rotten karmic retribution.
Just like you, I have gotten free Chiropractic care in exchange for computer help. The running deal is that my Chiropractor and I are effectivley on retainer for each other. I get all the chiropractic care I want at no charge, he gets all the computer help he needs at the same rate. He pays for all materials.
Thus far, it has involved speccing out a couple of computers for him, installing a LAN in his office (from scratch, cabling and all) and straightening the Green pin on one of his monitors so that the video was no longer purple. It has been a very good deal.
For another customer, I have done a hard drive upgrade in exchange for the old hard drive and a monitor. The monitor was promptly redeployed to my wife's computer (hers was staring to go fuzzy) and the hard drive was then sold to another customer of mine (nothing unethical, sold as used and wiped clean first).
www.wavefront-av.com
I do a little Web design for friends and colleagues. Most of the time I do it as a favor, not expecting payment in return. One girl, a musician, sends me her CDs so I make MP3s for her site. I get to keep the CDs. Another friend, an awesome artist, gave me an original piece he painted just for me.
All in all, I like the barter system. No bills to collect, no hurt feelings, no taxes to pay.
--FilmGuru
One man's trash is another man's treasure.
In small town America, people have a bad habbit of keeping all their old broken or useless things around for no apparent reason. My landlord keeps 5 dead cars on the property I'm renting from her in return for a slight rent break.
The same applies to their computer hardware. I fix their newer machines and in return, I convince them that their old hardware is of no use to them.
In return for my services, I can ofen walk away with various car and computer parts that have proven to be of great use to me. The best deal I've ever struck landed me with a working P4 and motherboard from a computer with a bad harddrive for the simple task of eliminating Sasser.B from another machine.
I did a bunch of work on the Dali Lama's PC. Got rid of the spyware and got him a bunch of MP3s. The guy wears a big robe which doesn't have pockets so he doesn't carry cash.
Suffice it to say I was feeling pretty ripped off. But he told me that in return for my good work right before my death I'd have one moment of perfect clarity.
So I got that going for me.
I have no
for 4 hours of work. That comes out to... $350/hr. I don't even play guitar, but it looks sweet!! That beats the $50/hr salaried job I have as a game programmer.
Unless you only pretended to fix their computer, maybe by straightening out the cables or aligning the keyboard, you got ripped off. You traded real work for a chiropractic "adjustment."
If a chiropractor or naturopath or other pseudo-medical quack offered to barter me for services, I'd tell them to use a rubber eraser to get rid of the pop-ups.
When I need something ( chiropractic, new car, ect... ), I ask them if they'd be willing to barter services for a better price ( or simple trades, often enough. You'd be surprised at how much you can get like that ).
:)
Often, what will give me the idea is I see something that I can improve on.
Granted, most of the time, they are taken care of in that dept, but often enough I have gotten free stuff for a couple hours worth of work.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
Fixed computers for a Doctor's family recently... Got in a friendly argument about payment. See, this Doctor has done alot to help me and my family at various times, including doing very expensive procedures essentially for free. So I naturally didn't want to charge him. Finally we agreed that instead of payment, as a late surprise birthday gift my girlfriend could come for a day of horseback riding since she hasn't ridden a horse in a few years and has loved them since she had one as a little girl.
:) God bless the generous.
Of course the nut mailed me a check anyway.
Maxim: People cannot follow directions.
Increases in truth directly with the length of time spent explaining them
I was offered drum lessons for computer repair
At school I have people run SETI for me when I end up fixing their machines, any extra processing power is always a welcome thing.
I fixed a minor problem on the pc in the back room at my local auto shop. They gave me half a dozen free oil changes.
I also fixed a not-so-minor problem for a local gun store. He paid me with a very nice folding knife.
I do family & friends for free, or more accurately "for a favor to be named later."
"An unarmed man can only flee from evil, and evil is not overcome by fleeing from it." Col. Jeff Cooper
Many years ago, I tutored a friend though an Advanced Pascal course he was taking at one of the local universities. In exchange, he gave me a really nice Mossberg shotgun. Only in Texas...
of a chinese couple.
In return I got some cash, and a bottle of the best tasting chilli sauce ever (750 ml).
After going through a pack of crisps, dipping them into the sweet sweet sauce, and eating them, I sat back and thought "Fuck it".
Two minutes later I had drunk the whole bottle. Quicker than I drink beer.
Then, I felt violently ill.
Gamers Europe - Gaming News. Reviews.
Bike geeks are almost as bad as computer geeks, though they tend to be thinner.
I don't work in IT, so whenever I do work for friends or family on their PC's (backup, spyware, firewall, etc) I always charge cost of parts and a case of beer.
My girlfriend's roomate has a laptop that the whole house uses. It is miserably infested. I have been progressively cleaning it up and teaching them what to do to keep it that way. These girls tend to hang around the house in varying states of undress. I'm very happy to support them!
I've been getting sex in exchange of that shit work!
(and dates, and chocolate, and "Obvious" compliments, and selling my sould to the devil)
*Poster does not garatee his method will work for everyone
I got a ton of free legal services when buying my house for installing a printer and winzip on someone's computer for them, as well as lugging an old *HEAVY* laserjet down a flight of stairs and into a dumpster.
I received a 12 pack of Pepsi...and money...and drugs...
I think he means free as in speech.
Why do I keep typing pythong?
Priorities in life..........
1) Free Money
2) Free Food [beer]
3) Eat the profits [chinese buffets hate me]
Just got appointment to the eye doctor
Have had dentist appointments [still use them]
also car repairs
Seriously.
I was in college, and from 2001-2002 I spent an hour a week helping a priest from the theology department learn how to use his computer. I went over the basics of the Internet and eventually moved on to a few higher-level topics... when I graduated, he was still pretty shaky. Since I live in Erie again now, I caught up with him and he's easily one of the most advanced users among the theologicians.
But the important thing is that he said I should use him as a reference on my resume, and because of his recommendation I landed two jobs since graduation. I'm really grateful that I decided to do it, and I thank him every time I see him.
"Why Subscribe?" Good question...
I try to avoid income derived from bartering because, in the U.S. at least, this income is still taxable by state and federal governments at fair market value of the service/product being traded on both sides of the deal (Google "bartering tax law", or consult with your tax accountant or attorney for more details). For this reason it becomes difficult to strike a truly equitable deal.
There are some scary consequences for not keeping accurate, defensible paperwork on any barter transactions. Free trade is only free trade if the government gets its cut, and heavy fines and/or jail time just aren't worth the risks of swapping professional services/products casually. If you get caught without good documentation, it is likely you will involve yourself in a government sponsored colonoscopy going back several years.
I get free hosting from a friend in exchange for some admin and security work now and then. I am getting the better deal as he does not ask for much very often.
the currency of college students...
A cop on our block had his HDD crash and burn. I did the replacement and XP reinstall (yes, including SP and hotfix, XP firewall, unbinding file+print, and autoupdates set to autoinstall).
He bought me a cold bottle of Chimay ale, which was nice, but I was hoping for something a little more cop-like out of him, like maybe harassing the CEO on the street in front of the office. They say "cops got the best stuff", too.
Another neighbor is an interior painter, and he's done some free painting for me, but I'd go to his house to drool over his daughter anyway, which is a tad twisted since she's 17 and I'm...older than that.
One time I got a huge 3ft tall bottle of Belvedere Vodka for working on a PC. I don't drink Vodka, so my girlfriend's alcoholic sister comes over regularly and fills a flask full of the stuff. She occasionally gives me free beer at the bar where she works, so it's a nice trade. I had worked out a deal where I would work on the local barber's PC in exchange for haircuts, until everyone in town started giving their PC to the barber to get the "free" work done on it. I finally just quit getting my haircut there and the barber quit calling me for work. Not a very interesting story, but you asked. -B
60 percent of the time, my comments are right everytime.
Beer
When I do work for individuals, I'm very careful about making sure I appear as an employee of a big consulting firm, rather than as the owner of a little one. People don't tip owners, no matter how small their company. Even when we come to their house at 3am, quietly tap on the basement door instead of ringing the doorbell, and discreetly get rid of their porn popups before their spouse wakes up. Even when they haven't thought to put on clothes.
I've actually gotten more for _not_ doing things as part of my consulting work. ie - "Don't tell my wife/husband/partner about this if they call to ask what the charge is for." "Don't call the cops, I didn't mean to download that."
Cute girl, in a band. Needed a website for said band. Now, technically I didn't stipulate the sex as payment, but would I have received it otherwise?
He called me up one day saying "uh... my admin has completely flaked/skipped town, and I don't know my root passwords".
I took a trip from silicon valley up to the Sierra foothills mountain community he worked out of, showed him how to force console-login to his main Solaris server, and I reset his root password. The easiest 10 minutes work I ever had. He was absolutely overjoyed.
That afternoon, we went out for drinks. That night his girlfriend made a nice fried chicken dinner. After that, we went to a local inn where he played some damn fine acoustic guitar.
The next day, we went whitewater rafting on the American River. It was sweet.
For all my independent consulting work, I usually try to include one of their products or services into my fee as a "bonus". I'll still charge the same fee regardless if they give it or not, but every time they usually give a deep discount or free of charge. For instance, I did an ecommerce site for a guy selling wireless cell phone accessories. He gave me and my team all the accessories (extended batteries, leather cases, wall/car chargers, etc. $50 value) which was helpful. He even let me request 5 extra kits so I could use them as Christmas gifts for friends/family. But nevermind the fact that the kits were cheap Chinese imports that costed less than a dollar each...
.NET application for a local rental car company. They let me "borrow" a brand new Mustang convertible for a week ($200 value) for finishing a month early.
I also did a
I also did some development work for an accountant, who did a really good professional take on my taxes ($350 value!). For those of you that don't own a home business, taxes are a PAIN to do!
In my permanent job where I do alot of sysadmin work and development, I get unlimited access/bandwidth (within reason) to our remote dedicated servers. They even allow me to resell some space as web hosting space to clients that I provide for ($299/month value).
The best thing I've gotten so far out of a computer gig would be a nice brunette that I call my girlfriend. She's a business major and had to take a class at our University in Microsoft Access. She came into the lab at the right time when I was tutoring and hit it off since. 18 months later we're still together and looking forward to becoming more permanent (Priceless).
I find it interesting that nobody has actually said sex yet. Lots of jokes about it...but nobody really said it. Closest I have seen is that a friend of mine went on a date a while back...halfway through the date the girl says..."so I am having some problems with my computer...can you help me fix it?"...doh!
I tried for 5 years to come up with a clever sig...only to realize that I am not clever.
Adjustment? What crap. The only thing those people adjust is the amount of money in your wallet.
I was at a dive resort in a very out of the way destination about 5 years ago. They had some real computer issues which I straightened out and in return, I got to go on a fishing charter by myself (all alone in the boat with the captain) and then later got to take a date horse back riding. The resort owned the boat. The horses belonged to a small ranch on the other side of the island. No bad for a non-dive before fly day!
In return for building Beeryard.com I get free beer.
As in, free beer.
Pete
No kidding, a year or so back my mother's boyfriend asked me if I could come over to one of his friends house to fix a problem he was having with his computer. It was about 8 or 9 on a Sunday evening , my only day off I might add, but I said "sure". After hearing a description of the problem I determined it was Blaster so I loaded up my trusty pen drive with the removal tool and Ad-aware. After spending 45 minutes removing blaster, patching, removing around 300 bits of spyware (according to Ad-aware),and defragmenting I figured the guy was going to hand me a twenty or possibly even a fifty (he owned a used car dealership) for doing all that work and making it to where his computer was usable again. What was my grand reward for taking over an hour and a half (this includes driving time) of my time on a Sunday night? A yummy bottle of Yoo-Hoo chocolate drink. The sad part is that if I had killed him I would be considered the criminal.....
TimeDollar.org
people trade services in a community for "community points" tradeable for services/etc from other participating community members. So you can fix one persons computer and get plumbing services from someone else, etc...
*shrug* A real neat idea IMHO.
e.
Build Your Own PVR/HTPC news, reviews, &
For the simplest things. 50 for re-booting a file server. 20 for re-installing a set of drivers. 10 for removing the netsky worm (after norton got stuck in a loop eating up all the processor time and memory. 2000 instances of netsky on one machine). I think once I was payed in sausages...
and I mean real alcohol-wine and not the "Not an Emulator"
***
A professor of mine taught me backgammon strategy in exchange for getting him connected to the Internet. He never taught me enough that I could beat him, though, so I left some spyware behind. :)
I install, fix, and maintain servers for a company and they give me an office, money, days off, and benefits for it.
1f u c4n r34d th1s u r34lly n33d t0 g37 l41d
Wow. My dad, mom and sister are always calling me expecting me to fix their stuff over the phone. And I never get anything at all in return. Though they do provide a convenient way to remove aging computer parts from my own house when I get to upgrade their machines. That's the closest thing I have to a "reward". Lucky me!
You should ask for this instead.
It just seems more appropriate.
This is not my sig.
since bartering income has to be declared as such on your tax return. But the cost of preparing your return is deductable but not in the same tax year usually. Otherwise it'd cancel out quite nicely for you but not the accountant.
A haircut.
Serveral massages.
Dinner (and she hit on me...)
"'Restricted level accesss' to some of her 'services'"
Note that these were all with different females.
Less look fast, more go fast.
I bartered with an elderly guy that is a former college Art teacher and an avid painter. I would come by once a week and he would have a list of questions about his computer and we go through them, and have a good time chatting from everything from computers to baseball. We set up a system were I gave him 50% off my normal fees, and took 50% off the paintings he would normaly sell. The paintings are great, and something I would never be able to afford. More often when you barter, you get more than you would have gotton paid for.
While I was a barely employed geek during the dotcom crash, my wife was working for a company that had cut their departments way past the bone. She was having to work extra hours and then some just to get her job done.
I would occasionally write a tool that would be useful to her and her department (mostly so I would get more time with her), and she'd pass that tool on to her company. Her boss realized that I was saving the company dozens of hours of work each month and wanted to compensate me. Unfortunately, there wasn't budget for it.
What there was budget for (typical in a large corporation) was team dinners. For a long time, I ate with my wife's team whenever they had these team dinners, as a way of being compensated. I was programming for food, being paid over the table, abeit the dinner table. I still find that humorous.
Wake up - the future is arriving faster than you think.
I fix the computer.
In return, I get:
Junk mail/spam.
Woken up way too early in the morning.
Harrassed about how the computer takes 3 seconds longer to start up after installing AntiVirus.
A dirty look when I remind Mom that her best course of action is to 'restart the f-ing computer'.
The dubious pleasure of cleaning a keyboard used by three smokers.
Jolted out of sleep at 2am because the printer's not working. If they'd look at the damn LED status indicator, they'd see it only wants to be fed some frigging paper.
Screaming and hollering when the router needs to be reset. Heaven forbid my sister should stop chatting for a minute.
I once rebooted the server in my lawyers' office (it was having a problem) and received one 2 hour visit for free! About 300 bucks for a few minutes work - not too bad!
One trade, I got hold of a case (20 bottles, IIRC) of Paulaner Oktoberfest for $30. Man, was I popular at the next party.
And of course any number of other customers offered me a free beer after finishing the work. That was usually the start of the Q&A session, which always boiled down to "what did you do, why did you need to do it, and is there anything I can do about it so it won't cost me too much from now on?"
-- Old Man Kensey
Anytime I deal with anyone who provides a service...I always ask "how is your Web site doing, getting any sales off of it." You never know if they might be interested in trading.
Try it, it might work.
Back in the bad ol' days, I used to help people with computer problems all the time in exchange for various odds and ends.
I knew a guy who ran a TV repair service. I wrote caller ID software for him, including reporting, etc. I set up an arcnet network for him once with spare parts I had. I did various other odd jobs (menuing systems using--*drumroll* batman) over the years for him.
I got various parts from him, including my first daisy wheel printer (complete with a crooked J!). He also, reguarly, would buy me 100 packs of 720k floppies, and the fancier disk drawers/cases.
Hey, we're talking 1991 or so here. All of this was behind the times, but it's the cheap stuff.
I finally upgraded from an NEC V30 (8086 upgrade) to a 386 SX-25 by helping a guy build his new system--a 486 SX complete with the seperate math coprocessor. And, of course, the new system had a bad power supply. The first time we fired it up, it fried everything. Absolutely everything. A first-generation sliding-tray load 1x CD-ROM (no more caddies!), the MB, CPU, math co, every memory stick (4MB), the HD (probably 80MB at the time), video card...everything. Luckily, he bought everything from one shop, so they replaced every last piece. And I got my shiny new/old 386.
Those days are long gone. I've been bought dinner once or twice by people since then, maybe given a minor trinket sort of thing. But, in general, people take it for granted. You can have a friend drag you out for 5 hours to fix a system for another friend (who you have never even met), and you're lucky to get a 'thanks' for it.
*THAT* is why I almost never help anyone anymore. I think this is becoming a more common attitude amonst us geeks, and rightfully so. The ignorant masses will just have to learn on their own for once! =P
I recently made a trip to the beach. Before we left, I was waiting on my friend to finish getting her stuff packed. Knowing how long girls take to get ready, I fixed her roomate's computer; he had been talking about getting a new hard drive since he was so slow lately. I installed ad aware, updated the definitions, and ran it. It found 3000+ objects. The most I had seen until then was about 700! His computer runs much better now. When we arrived back home on sunday, my car which had been parked in his driveway looked awesome. He washed it, waxed it, and even put shiney stuff on the tires, and polised the exhaust tips! talk about karma :)
--
I also informed about the evilness of Kazaa but I didnt uninstall it, since I didnt have his permission. I also told him about mozilla, firefox, and even AVG antivirus. I'll check it out again next week. Something tells me he'll have some more boogers on there ;-)
Can anyone think of a way to write into linux an easy situation where women will need "our support"??? Lets get this in early people. With windows being replaced by linux there won't be all those bugs to fix.
Evolution or ID?
Grass, Gas and @$$, the best things in life aren't free, unless you are a geek, in which case the first two may be bartered for computer services and the third is non-applicable.
Break the mindless monotony!
Beer
Free labor on replacement of my water heater.
Free server hosting
A kitchen faucet (a nice lifetime warranty Moen one, but not the kitchen sink to go with it)
Discounted closing on my home mortgage
I like how beer comes before Discounted closing on my home mortgage
It started with one customer who is a weapons dealer. Now I know 8 of them.
:)
They keep trying to give me various weapons as well as pay my rate.
Also, I am sure everyone else was laid a few times, right?
Leonid S. Knyshov
Find me on Quora
It is a little late but I will chime in anyway...
For almost a year now I have only paid for the parts for all the repairs I have needed on both my car and my truck. In return, I maintain (read, reinstalled windows on 1 box and set up spy -bot and ad-aware on another) my mechanic's computers, including his girlfriends. Free towing as well! It is a wonderful set up for both of us.
After several intense 'service calls' on my Aunt's 2 PC's (burned CPU replacement, motherboard swap, OS reinstalls, basic home network), my uncle gave me his Smith & Wesson M25-5 revolver, in perfect condition except for the missing packaging. It looks so darned nice that I haven't even had the nerve to take it out shooting yet.
I designed a web site for a jeweler in exchange for merchandise (which pleased my wife very much). I also designed a web site for a limo service in exchange for free rides.
After the university I subsisted during my career search by doing computing odd jobs (installs, virus removal, general end user support). Now five years into my career I only support one of these original "clients", the wine distributor. He is a fairly knowledgeable guy that wants to learn, never asks the same question twice, and understands when you are busy. The best part about this client is the small vintage boutique wines that are tendered as payment. Executive Summary - Non-PITA user that pays in ultra high end booze.
In college, I was having a futon delivered. The guy carrying it in saw some code on my screen and asked if I knew about computers. I said I did and he asked if I knew how to create a form on his website so that people could fill in their information and have it mailed to him. I said sure; it's pretty simple to do in perl and that I'd email it to him with instructions on how to set it up when I had a chance. He said that if I did that, the futon was on the house. 10 minutes of whipping up some HTML and customizing formmail.pl and I had myself futon.
Geek installs worthless security snake oil software and a buggy beta quality browser with well know serious security issues on some decent guy's PC.
Decent guy - who is a chiropractor - chiropractices Geek Attitude Improvement Treatment with the help of a baseball bat.
Geek ends up in hospital for 42 months...
In 99' I was doing some Y2K updates for Phil Mick and got to meet his wife. What a babe, a close talker too! woo woo.
I'm surprised nobody managed to get laid in connection with fixing ladies' computers. I had at least three offers myself (but in typical geek manner messed them all up - one hint: don't come late for your appointment!!). Or perhaps this happens only in Old Europe, not in the USA?
I'm in a Unix state of mind.
How to get out of doing tech support for your family.
I live in the same town as my grandparents so they feed me whenever something goes wrong. When I fix my friends' computers I get beer.
"I think I need a good hard drive" insert cheesy porn music here
I regularly build and maintain computers for friends for the low price of:
1. A 12 pack of Labatts Blue
2. A 6 pack of Southern Tier (A local microbrew)
3. A Pizza (of my choice source and toppings)
4. If they are really feeling nice, 1 or 2 AND 3.
usually only gets you more requests for free help.
Pull my finger for my public key.
Sex.. yes, geeks do get laid, but it makes asking for money difficult.
4 fat Cohiba cigars as a tip.
Fixed 5 imacs in trade for getting to keep one of them.
$2000 to spend 8 hours removing klez from a network overnight.
Recently Knocked $500 off a dual Opteron server with 2 GB ram in exchange for the sun 250... with 2 GB of ram it replaced.
If voting were effective, it would be illegal by now.
I got a free front axel with installation, front-end alignment and next weekend I'm getting a free engine mount... (one of my current ones are busted.)
Honestly though, most of the time all I get is grief. I hate those bloodsuckers, who constantly call you when they break something and actually try to blame you for the breakage! Their lines usually start out like,"Hey, I don't know what you did when you came out here to fix my computer six months ago, but now my $%^#'s broke... can you come over?"
Stick with money. It makes everything easier to manage and measure, which allows you spend more time focusing on business and getting work done.
How about bartering with an English teacher to get grammar lessons?
I got a really nice custom golf club, and like other I have gotten beer, food, stogies, beer, and I did get peep up a skirt every now and again... ;)
Built 1 web site = free sushi for life from a master chef
Host 1 web site = free tattoos over most of my body
Built+host 2 web sites + email = sex (well, she married me too)
Built+host 1 web site = free accountant
admin 1 box = free 1U+1Mbit connection (which I use to host the above mentioned barters)
tech support = free clothes from a cool store
If I could just work something out with my mortgage lender and my utilities I could quit my job!
`fortune -o`
there's this lady who lives in my apartment building who seems to always need help with spyware, adware, virus, failing applications, lost files, blue screens, etc...
In exchange for the help on the computer I am getting a nice breakfast, among other things...
Seems to keep the both of us happy...
was this a girls dorm for college or a middle school?
I've worked for beer (well lots of people will trade beer), candy, dinner, and other assorted "favors".
*Never* give up your time for free. If someone wants it done, they *will* find something.
I got dirt Cheap Electronics for exactly the same thing.
Whole Sale A/C and Vac cleaner
I was getting some jewelry appraised when the gemologist mentioned he was having trouble with his computer. I removed the nasty app that was embedding itself into IE, changing his home page, etc., and showed him how to use adaware. In exchange, though I tried to decline it, I got a discount on the appraisal.
... he said that he was looking for information on Tiffany's products and found that searching on "tiffany" didn't have quite the desired results!
...
I don't know if this guy was extremely naive or what
When I was still an extreme linux newbie, I remember paying my grad student friends in pizza whenever I trashed my system somehow
-monique
I do a lot of trade for computer services. In fact, I do it about any time I get a chance to. I've done trade for probably $600 worth of dinner/shows at a local theater, a washer and dryer from the appliance store, chiropractic visits, specialty popcorn, rekeying the locks at my home , a $700 custom built computer desk built to my specifications (has room for my bestly HP Laserjet III in a cabinet with a slide out drawer, holes and compartments for running cables out of sight, and etc), a rebuilt of the transmission on my van, and more. I would dare say that computer skills are probably one of the best skills to have if you are a person that deals with trade.
I have done work for an escort service, in return for "service."
I've been trading my programming services for workout training for a few years now (NOTE TO MOST: this *isn't* doing diet coke curls).
I got my motor cycle painted (green flames on blue metallic base) for repairing an old compaq and setting up a new dell. http://www.opherautowurx.com/portfolio/showphoto.p hp/photo/34/password//sort/1/cat/502/page/1
SWEET.
and lots of it because I have never received anything else when helping family/friends.
My dad's a network admin, my sister and brother-in-law are database admins, and my mother's a computer store office manager. No bartering for me! It's more like it's a shameful thing if I have to ask any of them anything.
The coolest voice ever.
I helped a young friend out by putting in a HD for him - he tells his friend - and I end up droppping in a HD for his friend as well. Well this kids folks come over - and his father wants some work done as well. He does some steel rolling - I need some steel work done. We strike a deal. So I get free steel rolled and this kid gives me a $100 gift card. And I get free baby sitting out of his sister .... all for dropping in a HD, and building this guy a comp.
Slashdot, where armchair scientists get shouted down and armchair theologians get modded up.
One good quack deserves another! Both are founded on illogical systems and merely pull users into repeated sessions of treatment which are profitable for the practioners but ultimately do little to solve the problems of the patients.
I once received a root canal at my dentist's office for looking at the database program he used to run his office with.
Sucks though, it fell out about 10 years later and had to be redone... Much worse the second time!
-DF
It's a shame to hear your girlfriend kicked you out of the house.
Especially one who produces stuff that you want. They love to barter goods and services. The performing arts group I work for gives our network/hardware consultants season tickets and a $40,000 concert title sponsorship every year. Heck I give the printer repair guy 2 season tickets every year and I only pay for parts over $200.
Let's see....
....and the best thing was never going to jail for all the crap I pulled as a teenager - I used to help the desk seargeant so I was always let off of all charges.
;-)
Apple iBook
Free Accounting Service for life
50% Discount on tattooos - set up their POS system
sporting equipment - even a treadmill
concert tickets
hockey tickets
lot's of free meals and drinks
It's good to be a geek
Made a great bumper sticker in the 70's, unfortunately, I rarely get compensated for helping friends. And because I live in a congested city (LBC baby!) I seem to collect "friendships" based solely on my kindness. "Come over tonight, we'll make you dinner and give you some beers. By the way, my partition table seems to be corrupted...."
As a geeky sort, social interaction is quite usually a waste of time! (besides that on UT2003 and the occasional sexual interaction that does not involve pR0n.) How do I diplomatically inform friends and family that work is work, and sitting down and diagnosing and fixing problems is work?
I have the best pro bono business on the planet!
Brother-in-law-6-of-6: fix my computer.
Me: Sure
[/me fixes computer]
Me: Is that a perfectly serviceable 486 box lying unused under the desk?
6of6: Yep. I was going to throw it out. Why?
Me: Have you considered making a donation to Rupert's home for retired computers?
[/me leaves with the box currently residing at 67.52.33.156]
I'm not quite as historically diverse as a friend who used to have an 8088, 80286, 80386, 80486 and Pentium all powered up at one time. All my boxes participate on my network, for one thing. If I could only find linux drivers for the Mylex RAID array in my AT&T S40...
--
E_NOSIG
"I think he means free as in speech."
So does this mean he has to have sex with anyone who asks from now on, or did he get it under a BSD license?
My Sig: SEGV
I once did some graphic design work in return for a windshield for my 1973 Volkswagen Super Beetle. The '73 Windshiled is a hard to find part that nobody will ship. In exchange for resizing and indexing some images the guy took at Airfest, I got the winshield shipped in a ginganic box...about $160 for the shield and something like $200 shipping.
I also once traded a year of hosting for a Sony WEGA TV, and six months for a new guitar.
Hey freaks: now you're ju
Those are euphemisms, right?
More computers, sex, drugs, alchohol, cigs...bartering is good if your batering with the right people.
Maybe we DID take the blue pill. You wouldn't remember anyway.
I was shopping for a ton of new camping gear (new pack for me, a whole set of equipment for my girlfriend) for a trip we were taking, and the guy who ran the store was complaining that his computers were all rebooting over and over.
Being a giant dork and avid slashdot reader, I recognized the symptoms as one of the viruses making the rounds, helped him remove it and patch things up to be secure. In exchange, I got 25% off anything, which he has been offering to me on every trip I've made to the store. Not a bad deal for 20 minutes' work.
I fixed a family friend's computer and instead of cash I asked him for a ride in his BMW Isetta (Infamously known as the Urkel car)
G
Pretty sweet deal
A picture of it is right here: http://expert.ics.purdue.edu/~akovacs/P0005830.JP
Don't think I got so many amazed looks when riding in a car before.
WTF? So you were a Girl Scout camp couselor?? j/k
I fix a problem with my wife's computer account, later she returns the "favor". We both get a chance to use our talents.
Normally, if the work isn't too involved (fixing a broken config, repairing windows, etc...), then I charge 2 12-packs of Coca-Cola.
:)
However, my accountant and I have a deal where he does my taxes for free and I keep his computers running for free. And let me tell you, he is quite good at keeping my money in my hands!
Ron Gage - Westland, MI
for helping someone with their computer was my wife! :-) :-) :-)
If "disco" means "I learn" in Latin, does "discothèque" mean "I learn technology"?
i continuously work on my family's home and work pc's and give advice on what to buy and in return i've gotten multiple oil changes and handywork done.
I switched my optometrist's office from Win to Lin and got lots of free contacts and exams.
I do a lot of work for my neighbor, and he gave me two over-sized Barca-loungers, and is always buying my kids stuff.
I really believe that trading services is a viable alternative to working for $'s.
Now, how do I figure out what IT services my bank needs in exchange for skipping mortgage payments...
- OrbNobz
Oh. Hey yo.
While I was in the army in germany, I "exchanged" my expertise in setting up computers/labtops/AV knowledge for beer, liquor, and sex. Best deal I ever had was I set up a female's (civilian local, age 17) room (tv, surround sound, computer) for a threesome with one of her female friends (civilian local, age 18). It wasn't something planned though, her friend kinda walked in and asked if she could watch, then join. My usual fee though was a case of beer (24 bottles of local stuff).
Hmmm, I have 5 mod pts, its time to metamod, and on top of that I have to meta-metamod? When do I get to read slashdot?
ive had offers of money for maintaining past installs/setups/scripts ive worked on when dropping by.
my previous job was at an internet gaming cafe - a new business, and a good startup (in my business-happy eyes). it makes money still, but it didn't really make enough to sustain the manager + employee. Now afaik, it's self-sustaining with just a minimal wage employee.
I still frequent the place on holidays as there's a relaxed atmosphere and because gaming is fun. when dropping by i've found that some of the features i've setup in the past - such as a custom network "update" solution to synch all the desktops with the installed games and software plus a LVM filestore - aren't working as desired or need a tweak. This work may take me a few hours to sort out, even a day or two during my "holidays" away from uni, but, when you _want_ to do something and _want_ to help, it doesn't matter - especially when you enjoy tech/admin work.
ive turned down the offer of money in return for the fixes ive applied.
2 reasons really.
1) i see myself as a friend to my ex-employeer, as he treated me as one (this is such a great experience away from the capitalistic demoralization i faced at an SFI Group Pub)
2) i set the damned thing up using know-how that isn't going to be rivaled anytime and i dont want it to be me that causes a place i like to loose profit through hiring some pay-for-tech.
I guess, when it comes down to it, ive never had huge problems with money, and im unlikely to in the forseeable future. this is not to say im rich, but i am very giving within my own capacity. the christian ethos maybe. i do wonder of myself in different positions, whether or not i would do the same things i do now...
Matt
The father of one of my friends needed Linux installed. When I was done, I found out that he was a lawyer who owned a liquor store. One cancels the other out, I guess. Anyway, I was amply rewarded.
beer. what could be better? (and dont say sex, babies come from that)
I came into my Uncle's all Mac shop to help him with a scanning problem, and I haven't left since.
In college, I was approached by one of my girlfriend's dormmates, a good-looking blonde poli-sci major who'd procrastinated on some statistical thing she needed to do on the campus computer system. She was in danger of failing a class if she didn't get it done over the weekend, and she literally didn't even know how to log into the system.
So, after much hinting and many awkward silences, she blurted out that she'd do anything I wanted if I bailed her out. Surely at that moment I achieved a permanent place in the Geek Hall of Fame, perhaps in the Absurd Fantasies wing.
But it gets better. You see, I was very happy with my girlfriend at the time (whom I later married), and I didn't want to mess that up by sleeping with someone she saw every day and whom I didn't trust to keep quiet. So I turned her down.
For the sex, anyway. I had her take me out to dinner instead. The stats thing she needed took me 20 minutes to run.
I was walking on air for some time after that, just based on the principle of the thing.
When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a skull.
Hypothetically, the air conditioning in my VW needed to be replaced (about $1,200), and my mechanic had a piece of software that he wished to "evaluate" (forever). After 10 minutes of hex editing (and cursing) I got the parts at cost and free labor ($800), and my mechanic is still "evaluating" away...
I support my Dentist's network for free and make myself available for a couple of support calls a year and in return I get free dental work. Even when I have dental insurance it still saved me several hundreds of dollars. He also works on my girlfriend for free even though she's not covered under my issurance. One year I think I saved about 2,400 dollars. I figure if I billed him and he billed me at normal prices we'd break about even.
My Hello World is 512 bytes. But it's also a valid Fat12 boot sector, Fat12 file reader, and Pmode routine.
In high school I had a crush on a girl. Her mom happened to own a florist shop... and needed a website. I setup and updated her website in exchange for free flowers. We all know how expensive flowers can be... especially when shipping! I pretty much had an open house account... to send/buy whatever I wanted!
When I was going to college, I was working weekends in NY and going to school in Baltimore, and, well, I had a little accident on the New Jersey Turnpike where I sort of hit a Highway Patrol car in the snow at very low speed. He wrote me up a ticket for "careless driving," which would have sent my insurance through the roof.
I was embarrassed about it, but I mentioned it to my although-I-didn't-know-it-wife-to-be, and felt that I had to plead guilty to the charge. She mentioned that her uncle was a lawyer in New Jersey, and that he was having trouble configuring his new Unix box (a Fortune computer, this was 1983.) A deal was quickly struck.
I went up there for the weekend, and got his machine configured, and he told me about this spectacular precedent called the Wenzel case in New Jersey -- where no matter what the evidence is, if the cop didn't actually see you being careless he couldn't charge you with that. He refused to represent me, but he counseled me with exactly what I had to say. Basically, although I was acting in my own defense, I couldn't testify for myself -- I would merely cite the case.
Well, traffic court in New Jersey was a long slow process, and I was the last one there when the cop finally deigned to appear. He gave his report, and I offered no explanation, but cited Wenzel, and the judge said "Get out of here." And so I did.
That barter probably saved me many thousands of dollars over the next few years.
thad
I love Mondays. On a Monday, anything is possible.
Uh oh.. here come the "..She was a hooker with a broken windows install" stories.
boycott slashdot February 10th - 17th check out: altSlashdot.org
A guy across the dorm hall 3 years ago and I have an arrangement, he asks me computer questions and on-site help and he gives me as many free movie tickets (he's a co-manager). He gives me 10 reserve movie tickets (basically movie ticket vouchers) at a time, that's about $80 (less if redeemed for matinee show times) each. The theater he works at is part of a chain, so the reserve tickets work at theaters at school and at home. It's a really good deal considering I've used about $250 in movie tickets through "the hookup". If he's working, I can also go up and talk to him and he escorts me (and friends I bring) past the ticket-taker guy, really smooth.
It's good when you can take a date past the ticket lines, walk up to my friend the manager, say "hey, can we see this movie starting now?" and he nods and we walk past the ticket-taking lines and personally escorted to the theater and ends it with "enjoy the show".
I have free beer and discounts in 2 pubs in exchange of maintaining their mp3 servers.
Lots of fun
-- EOF
I was invited over for dinner alot to homes of fellow students, and during the dinner, "Saaaayy, you know something about computers... Can you take a look at my computer?" I knew that was the only reason I was every invited, but I was not proud, but rather hungry. After thinking back on those experiences, I would not have the career I have now without having done all that work for free.
Sola Scriptura Sola Fide Sola Gratia Sola Christus
I have done some extensiove work at my boss' house and along with some pocket money I have received a nice .54 caliber knight muzzleloader, beer, assorted liquors and several pounds of venison meat. All in all I feel that I make out quite well.
The dingo ate my sig.
Wow! That sounds like it's nearly either psychedelic or instant heart attack. Fortunately there's no non-diet cola in the house or I'd have to go make one of these...
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
I have traded computer help for lap dances. Really!!!
'nuff said
At least not usualy, but plenty of brownie points. I generally find that those that I've helped are quite willing to help me in their area of expertise should I ever need it. I've never done an implicit trade, I just help out when I can and they tend to do the same.
Like a recording studio that I hang out at from time to time. I'm friends with the engineer and interned there for a bit. I've also helped him fix computer problems, including one very critical one. The flip side is I can come and borrow a couple $2000 mics, no questions asked, if I need them for something, and he's happy to give me advice on my own sound projects.
I find that works much better than direct bartering. The whole "do unto others" and such. Sure, there are people who will take advantage of it, and there are others that you'll simply never need their particular skills, but it really does work out well generally. People WILL remember that you helped them out, and most are willing to return the favour.
My senior year in highschool (long ago in ye dinosaur days) the typing lab replaced all the typewriters with new computers. My school was behind the times even then so this was a big deal. I was one of maybe 3 people in my grade who knew what a modem was.
So, I started hanging out in the typing lab and maintaining the machines when the other kids would mess with them (security was virtually nonexistant, this was like DOS and win 3.1 days). In exchange for keeping things running, I got to hang out in the room (which was one of the only airconditioned rooms in the school) and play on the computers whenever I had a free period or just didn't feel like going to class. As long as I wasn't taking up a machine for a legitimate class that is. If they were full I'd just sit around in the back and read.
One time one of the typing teachers got pissed I was always in there and kicked me out. I was pretty pissed about it. I planned to get revenge on them by not maintaining the machines anymore, but that night the department chair called me at home and apologized for her, so I didn't.
All this for being around when teachers come running down the hall going "What's the thing to format a disk again, format semicolon A?"
Introducing the new Occam Fusion! Now with sqrt(-1) fewer blades!
My girlfriend's mother offered to hem my pants if I fixed their computers, but ususally (especially with family), I don't get shit.
I like to pretend that dozens of college women I've fixed the computers of will eventually "repay" me, but it never happens. Worse, when they do call again, the converstation usually looks like: "Hello" "Hi, Matthew, this is ______, remember me." "Um yeah, what's wrong with your computer?" "Well, I can't seem to get it to...." I call these girls "Annies", after the young lady who calls once a month like clockwork for computer assistance.
I get a free self storage unit in exchange for computer work for the owner. Which is a really good deal because the owner's computer may have problems 2 or 3 times a year, and those self storage units go for about $50.00/month!
Found a great attorney, kept me out of jail for a pretty serious crime, all for 1 full year of computer support...
At the end of the year I would have rather given him the $5,000.00
When I worked a part time Friday night job, one of my co-workers asked me if I could look at his new system and explain some things, CD burning, firewalls, AV protection ...
:)
I don't charge people, since this is not the kind of business I want. When people hear this they usually leave me alone. He was a good guy, so I helped him out. He was insistant on paying me something. Since he was a farmer, I asked for a bail of hay to help me when I seed my lawn.
Well, it worked. I have a nice green lawn now.
I bartered computer lessons for japanese lessons.
Back in '92 and getting started in ham radio, I fixed a friend's father's PC. He had been an extra class for years already, opened a drawer full of radios (scanners, not ham transceivers) and said "pick one." I picked a Radio Shack PRO-2005 that he modified to receive cellular, and I still sleep to the sounds of that radio every night! I even modified it to support PC control two years ago.
Then in '94 while working desktop support at NYU, I went to a few dorms after hours to fix problem machines. One guy brought a fifth of vodka for me the next day as a thank you. Haven't opened it yet.
Intelligent Life on Earth
I charge a bottle of Crown Royal for all of my IT services. Two bottles for the mother-in-law though.
A nosy friend of my mother's fixed me up and introduction to a young lady. At the time I lived in Atlanta and she lived in Lafayette, Louisiana. We were both in school. We emailed each other and made a phone call or two for three months before she came to Atlanta to visit her mother.
Now I do Windows, but at heart I'm a Mac guy. As soon as I introduced myself to this lady, I determined that she was a Mac user. She told me that her mother was a self-employed person who ran her business out of her home on a Macintosh, and that her mother needed a great deal of computer help, which she wasn't really able to pay for.
(Lightbulb goes off).
We met. Five months later she bailed out of grad school and moved to Atlanta. We were inseparable. And I spent a lot of time, gratis, helping her mother tackle her Mac problems and get her business and office under control. I upgraded both of them to newer Macs, largely at my own expense.
When I asked the young lady to marry me, and she said "Yes," I went to her mother.
I said, "Linda, how would you like a lifetime of free technical support?"
(Wedding bells)
It's /never/ free.
I setup a couple of Final Cut Pro stations for a YMCA program and got a free one-year membership. Of course I didn't use it enough. Other than that I mostly get free food.
I got a carterphone direct-connect modem board, designed to be built into a teletype machine. 110 baud (which I later upgraded to 300 by modifying the filters).
This might sound like crud. But this was back in the days when 300 baud was a FAST connection and modems were EXPENSIVE - and mostly supplied by Bell. It is what initially got me online, once I finished my homebrew video terminal around '71 or so.
(Later it also got me onto the UUCP mailnet - back when the complete list of sites fit on three pages.)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Let's see here...
Yeah, I've done all right for myself.
Moderate drunk! It's more fun that way!
I built a computer for a friend's dad once. He gave me a case of 12 year old, single malt scotch! That was maybe the best 'extra' I've ever recieved.
Yeah, "FictionPimp", I'm sure you did.
until it happened to me! I was working at the campus computer lab one night when we got a call from one of the women's dorms regarding a network outage. The call sounded odd: there was giggling in the background, and diagnostics showed no outages or problems in that area.
"Let me see if I can ping you," I said.
"Oh, yeah, baby, ping me! ping me!" said the sultry voiced vixen on the phone with me. That's when I knew something was up.
[Sorry, IRL calls, and I need to go. Someone else should finish this. I suggest incorporating the phrases 'Plug in my cable, baby' and 'That's the wrong port!"]
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
A few years back, I built a PC for my uncle's family out of mostly leftover components I had laying around. In return he did some bodywork on my car for free, basically fixing the damage from a recent front-end collision and removing some random rust to boot. I was happy with the deal.
I've heard that bartering became very popular in Argentina after the massive devaluation of their currency. People lost the trust in their financial institutions and are now relying on bartering to exchange all sort of services....
cheap paving for two driveways (just beer and 20 a person), free baseball tickets (great seats too I might add), candy (and not the cheap stuff either) and some guitar cables....money too sometimes...
When you were offered the free adjustment you should have turned tail and ran, and I mean RUN!
It's amazing to me that it's 2004 and people STILL go to chiropractors.
I got a cat a few months ago that had worms and needed to get spayed. A freind of mine had a computer that was infested with Windows ME and loaded with spyware. I fixed his computer and he fixed my cat.
I got a friend's horribly-wrecked-dell/windows computer up and running with a MandrakeMove live CD, and backed up a bunch of his data off to an external drive, and promised to help him restore his system at some point in the near future when we had time. In the meantime, he can surf the web, and I showed him how to reboot with the live CD if things get scary. In return he gave me a copy of the Original, Pre-Special-Edition Star Wars trilogy.
8086 is _not_ an 8-bit processor. It's basically a 16-bit processor, with segmented memory that let you access 20 bits of address space. While Linux didn't run on them, because it used the 80386's memory structures, there were Unix versions that did, including Xenix and Minix. After all, the machine's roughly as capable as a slow PDP-11. It multitasks just fine, if you're using an operating system that can do that, though it doesn't have the hardware assistance that later machines did.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Most of the time, when I help out people with computer problems, I get at least a thank you. Probably the best thing I've received was when I thoroughly constructively critiqued someone's web site, and fixed a minor table error for him. This is something I just happened to do because I was bored one day. He was so grateful that he ended up sending me a Wacom Graphire tablet.
Sure, he said he didn't really like it or need it, but I was very grateful for having received it. I still use it to this day.
Why, I got laid. No, I didn't :(
A free chiro adjustment, eh? The way chiro works, you'll need to keep coming back to 'fix' the computer so that you can get another 'adjustment'.
Twice a week.
I suppose you also got a stick-on antenna signal booster from the cell phone kiosk vendor you helped and a radiator flush from the Jiffylube down the street.
It's really great that he gave you that "adjustment" for free.
I suppose the return value on that is a personal thing, since we all know that Chiropratic "medicine" is a sham.
------------------------------
Ray Raspberry
raspberry@b3l33t.org
A while back I did some part-time network support in an internet coffee shop. $10 an hour and all the coffee you could drink. I about doubled my salary that way and got to trial their new "King Mocha" which was 6 shots of espresso and a hefty helping of chocolate syrup (The large was 8 shots.) Turns out that was WAY too much espresso in WAY too short a period of time. Had I not already built up a resistance, the shock to my system would surely have killed me. It was the most hyper I'd ever been since I first discovered coffee...
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
I think my best trade was when I got my wife out of the deal :) And people say computer repair doesnt pay well ;)
The goalie on my ice hockey team (yes we have ice in Texas) ran a sporting goods store, and mentioned one day that he needed some work done on his store systems. I configured his DSL router, ran a few cat-5 cables, set up a shared print server, and scheduled a job to backup the day's receipts from the front registers. I got discounted hockey gear and a kickass jersey out of the deal, not too shabby. Hockey gear is expensive...my skates alone retailed for $400.
You'd be surprised how theraputic it is to check someone into the boards after a long day of handling support tickets. Too bad more of my customers don't play hockey...
Study everything, you'll find something you can use - Jason Bourne
I do work for a group of SCA folks and I get all kinds of barter from them. Some really cool period or home-made clothes, butchered and dressed live stock (hams/chickens/quail/turkey/venison) eggs, butter etc. I've always wondered how to report some of it ? As the market value of my time, the super-market value of the items ? or like I did for most of it, unless it involved a big ticket purchase item on my business license I just did not report it. :)
The further off the traditional lifestyle pattern you get, the odder the barter options become
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
Fast forward to last year, when I bought a home. It's old, but in a great location. Like most homes, it needed some work. Every time I start some stupid project, I've had help, expertise and materials quietly appear. We were going to add windows to the basement, and suddently some beautiful windows were "left over" from a project across town. My bathroom blew a pipe, ruining the exterior wall. A crew of guys comes over, tears the wall down, re-plumbs the entire bathroom, and rebuilds the wall. Currently, he's running fresh plumbing all over the house, 'just because'.
Although I initially intended to do a favor the guy, I've come out WAY ahead on this deal. I don't have the skills/tools/expertise to do a tenth of this work, and contractors are expensive!
i build web pages for food all the time. my day job pays the rent and bills, the web pages are easy and cheap, so a homecooked meal is perfect for me. Also it gets me good word of mouth which i hope will one day lead to a nice coporate gig where i won't feel like a rapist charging for my services.
I'm coming into this a bit late, but here's my story:
I do a lot of work for a music store, so in return I've gotten:
A Brian Moore i9p (guitar)
Korg Triton Extreme
Line 6 Vetta w/ FBX footboard
LDT Bass
Crate Bass amp
And that's the gratis stuff, I'm not going into all the discounts and whatnot I've gotten.
Plus I get lots and lots of little miscelaneous things; picks, books, cables, straps, stands, etc.
A large chunk of my studio, actually.
If you've got a hobby and you can do IT work, find a store that feeds you and make an offer, it worked for me, ymmv.
--J(K) DOS is like Unix in exactly the same way that a pinto is like an aircraft carrier.
I have never received anything good in trade for computer services. The most I can hope for is a temporary abatement of the Maternal Guilt Ray that drags me over to my mother's PC every time she gets a new virus.
I think the best approach here is to adopt Penny Arcade's brilliant strategy.
The name "The Ultimate Fartkno" explains why you sleep alone.
My neighbor, a machine operator by trade, installed my septic system, put in my driveway, and dug the hole for my house foundation. I paid for the backhoe for a week, he did the heavy work with me helping out.
In return, I upgraded his laptop OS, memory, and pretty much am his tech support.
CmdrTaco's Marriage Proposal
Of course we don't know what else was bartered, but I'm sure there was the occasional computer service thrown in.
Sex
I do Xbox mods for other students in my high school and their friends. I have them order the chip themselves, then give me the mod chip and their xbox, and a 6-Pack of Kokanee. All in all it's about a 5 minute soldering job, and I can usually get a pile more beer if they want a lesson on how to use it too! Everybody ends up happy!
A friend of mine runs a transmission shop, and wanted a server built to host websites and a mailing list. In return, I've had about $500 of work done on two vehicles, including cracking the tranmission open on one of them to replace a $25 part that requires 3 hours of labor to replace.
The barter system RULES!
rm -fr
Tech Support for the Family?
I did pretty much the same thing to a friend's system, and her dad happened to be a piano tuner. He offered to tune Mom's piano in exchange for what I did, which worked out well as Christmas was approaching ;-)
"Software is like sex; it's better when it's free." -Linus Torvalds
Well i have two stories with me on each side of the equation. The first is, I get my friend Monkey do to php scripts for me, and in return i give him female attention. The most recent incident of this is he made me a game of Pong, and I took him on vacation to san francisco. The other side is what i get when i work on my friend Devo's computer. "I can come over Sunday night, on one condition-" "That you can crash on my couch? No problem!" "OK that but I meant, on the condition that you get me fucked up." "Oh! of course, of course..." So in exchange for PC help I get wine and grass and a place to sleep. pretty cool. Only I guess I got too fucked up because in six hours I only got a third of the way through the care the machine needed. Stupid windows. kat Lovely Trixies
an olive oil bottle of moonshine, made with potatoes. Kind of orange-ish, and kinda tasted the same. Didn't taste much like alcohol, but it did get you messed up, and quick.
I mod down pyramid schemes in sigs.
When she fell on hard times...
Bah, if she was any good she would have seen it coming!
"I've had waitress's ask me computer questions while I was waiting for food to arrive because of that shirt. All it does is tip people off that you know about computers."
I guess we'll never see a geek wear a "sex therapist" tee-shirt then.
It wasn't planned, like "Roberto, fix my computer, and we will get laid".
I really, innocently fixed her computer out of the goodness of my heart, and she then decided a nice guy deserved to get into her bed.
And yes, I can post this under my own name, it was a nice thing.
I've recently completed a moderate custom software project for a fully loaded Sager NP4780. I really didn't think they would go for it but I had to ask. All-in-all a $3000+ package.
I've also bartered for a number of developer software packages. I try to barter for something that will help me complete the project at hand. You're more likely to get what you ask for if you can spin it as a benifit to the project in addition to compensation.
Fools ignore complexity; pragmatists suffer it; experts avoid it; geniuses remove it. ~A. Perlis
I got 3 hours each of massage time for my wife and myself for fixing a computer. I get lots of offers for bartering in Maine
I only got caught because I posted about my tax evasion on a public website, and then invited a lot of other people to also confess about any tax crimes they might have comitted.
Maybe this could be a regular thing, each week an Ask /. could discuss
some minor or major crime, and invite others to post confessions.
Jesus H. Christ on a pogo stick, what the hell were you thinking?
P.S. Yes, I take the IRS seriously, and I don't fark with them.
I fix my brother's computer, and he fixes my car (he's a bit of a genius with anything automotive). Not as interesting as when I swapped a dead DIMM from my sister in law's machine though - I got a can of chocolate sperm from that (sis-in-law is an Ann Summers rep, wife was going to a hen party).
"A couple of them have promised even more. :: sigh :: What a burden it is to be loyal to one's mate...."
People who are married, or seriously engaged are hit on, more than the completely hopeless. Guess they figure that someone else has already cherry picked the good ones.
No, really!
It wasn't bartering as such but, you know, two people sitting on a sofa, one laptop stubbornly refusing to submit to having Windows installed on it, idle time between reboots etc. etc.
I set up this NT-based network (yes, i'm sorry Linus) for the CAD computers in Junior year....my teacher was getting annoyed that he couldn't have them all print to the plotter, nor feed the licenses, nor share files. Being that I'd had considerable experience recently, I made a nice little network, print sharing, etc...all that nice stuff.
End of the marking period comes, and because of this project I hadn't done two drawings, nor finished my CO2 car on time...I go up to him and say "soo....when should I make those up"....He just looks at the glorious NT box and its NT workstation minions and says "Let's just....oops! A+"
'Twas a great marking period for drafting. And it: A) got me a great recommendation for college, and B) got me a fair bit of fame for being the computer guy. It worked in so many ways...:-D
AccountKiller
I used to fix computers for friends for free just as a favour.. Then word travelled locally and I built a good reputation. People started offering me all sorts of things for computer help; free wine, beer, wine and beermaking accessories (all while I was underage), free weights (yeah, like I actually work out), cookies, dates with hot women (I never did and never will take a pity date), and eventually I became good enough at doing it that most of my offers were money. And so I registered a computer consulting business at age 16.
I soon had people asking if I could build computers for them.. or tell them what to buy.. or better yet, if they could just hand me the money and I'd do it all for them. I mostly do it for money these days, but I regularly get tips because customers are happy with my level of honesty. Most of my tips are cash (about 10% tip on a whole computer, which is pretty big.. especially considering most parts only have 13% markup!) but I am still tipped with a couple cases of beer now and then. I've had customers ask if they could set me up with their daughters, I can get into a number of local clubs for free with no line, a few local gyms, and I get discount pricing on pretty much everything I buy.
Computer skills can get you seriously networked with people. I think that's the most important part of all. My friends are always shocked at how many people I know. We'll be talking about, say... getting a car alarm installed on my friend's POS that's been stolen a million times. I know a guy who can hook us up on pricing. I know another guy who will install it for me for free. I know a woman at the insurance agency who will pull all the strings she can to see if the new alarm will lower the insurance rates. Knowing people in places will bail you out of a million and one situations.
Forget favours like beer. Networking with people is important, and computer skills can do that for you.
I'm now 20 and just finished my second year of university; I work fewer than 10 hours a week and make more money than the average bachelor degree graduate from my school. I usually don't brag, but I think that's a pretty good accomplishment.
Coulda at least tried for the 3-way since you already had a girlfriend. *shakes head*
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
I never went to a chiropracter and I never had a back problem.
Besides, people are beginning to understand that most back problems are psychological in nature.
Be real here... Chiropracters are glorified massage therapists who put on lab coats and pretend to be doctors.
I wouldn't send an ememy to one. Well, maybe a few I would.
used to work at the university of michigan .tmp on his windoze desktop. he was so thankful, he offered to buy me a case of whatever beer i wanted (and i was underage!), so i said, blue moon belgian ale. he gave me a couple six packs and complained about the cost. whatever, he'd go on to make like 100 grand the next year.
business school computer lab. a mba who
was a TA for a undergrad class was storing all
the grade data on a floppy which, of course, he never backed up. it went bad and he started losing his mind. i found the file in a
i should have said latrappe quadruppel.
Although I mostly receive cash in return for computer repairs (since I own a computer store), This week I traded spyware/virus/cable modem issues + free router for labor to fix my air conditioner in my work car (1996 volvo 240 station wagon, viva la brick!). I provided the parts and he provided the freon and some other little things and whatnot. It worked out really nicely.
Tis better to be silent and thought a fool, than to open your mouth and remove all doubt --Abraham Lincoln
Nothing makes me happier than a new Windows virus! I don't fix problems for a living anymore and only take care of friends and close associates. I learned a lon g time ago charging people in this category for their problems only results in hassles. Instead, I take food and liquor.
When sasser hit EVERYBODY I know I received the following for services rendered:
5 pounds of Brie
A flat of Budweiser
26 oz of Glenfiddich
26 oz of MacAllan
2 bottles good white wine
2 free lunches
A 5 pound prime rib roast from the local butcher
More recently, one of my umm, associates, has been offering me scads of umm, recreational substances, to keep his system hunky crunchy.
I've stopped recommending Linux (you know, the OS Linus didn't invent) because it would impact my diet too much.
Ever wonder if these worms are written by computer repair people?
My daughters get free tuition at the local private school for me running their website and maintaining their computers and network, and my oldest gets free ballet lessons for running her ballet school's site. I got season tickets to the local minor league ball team (and money) for doing their site, and I am working a deal for 1000 pounds of beef from a local meat distributor. I also maintain the computers at my mechanic's shop and he gives me free auto repair. I have also bartered for one time things, such as an AR-15 assault rifle and barretta 9mm, a minivan, a set of golf clubs, and a few other goodies. It's all about your approach!
Lunch and gas money back home 365 miles away.
Party at O'zorgnax's Pub! Buy me a Slurmtini aye?
I helped out some neighbors with a cable modem problem.
:)
They gave me a nice bottle of wine and a $50 gift certificate to a wine shop.
Then they had a friend of theirs give me a $90/hr contract job configuring a couple of media center servers. That was an on-site job at a digital media company that I wrapped up in three hours. As I was finishing up that job, they picked me up for two days' worth of video production consulting, also at $90/hr.
All in all, 25 minutes of blowing away bogus browser extensions netted me about a grand and a half.
So always be nice to your neighbors!
Karma
" I get all the chiropractic care I want"
For a second, I thought you meant all you "need", which would be none.
As for the chiropractic "care", I hope it was a she, and she gave you a happy ending; that would be more satisfying and more theraputic than an "adjustment".
Sucker.
In High school my buddy and I enjoyed programming our TI-82 calculators during class to do all sorts of pet projects. I made a gambling program, we'd regularly make programs that solved some of our heartier Calc. problems.
Well we had a calc teacher who decided that since some kids were copying formulas into the program sections of their calculator, he would require everyone to clear their calculator's memory before the final exam. We were in the same class, my buddy and I, so we'd lose all our extra (and intra) curricular programs.
So we devised a program to fake the "Mem Clear" screen on the TI-82. (Not a hard feat, just had to make a couple of graphics with cursor on, cursor off, then call them on a timer). We told a couple of our close friends, but didn't really want word to get out.
But it did. I remember eating lunch downtown when one girl from class approached me on the sidewalk and said she heard I'd made such a program. She was at risk of failing the class, wanted to keep her cheat sheets, blah blah blah.
And then she said, "I will do anything for that program." I kind of brushed her off, b/c whatever I asked for I'd feel horrible about. Then she re-iterated, "I will do ANYTHING."
Little geek takes a big gulp, makes some karma considerations, and tells her, "no thanks." She was sorta slutty, so I doubt she had much to offer besides STDs.
Allergies are one area where homeopathy is useful, because you're not concerned with curing the causes, you're concerned with getting rid of the symptoms. ("Yes, I know there are trees blooming outside, I just want to stop sneezing.") Modern medicine has antihistamines that can help block the symptoms, and cause some side effects, and homeopathy has bogus quack formulations that can also help block the symptoms, and have different side effects, and depending on which one does a better job for _you_ with the allergens that are blowing around right now, and which one has more annoying side effects (e.g. drowsiness vs. stomach upset), sometimes homeopathy is the right choice. Or you can get allergy shots, which aren't really much different from well-controlled homeopathy. It's only been the last couple of years that I've found that modern medicine has products that are significantly better.
Flu is a special case. It's a virus, so if the vaccine didn't protect you this year, modern medicine mostly tells you to stay home in bed, drink hot fluids, and cover your mouth when you sneeze, and otherwise can't do much. Homeopathy is good for this - there are a couple of homeopathic preparations that can take you from feeling really lousy to merely feeling not very good, and that's a big win.
The nice thing about homeopathy is that its particularl bogus theory is that the more you dilute a medicine, the more subtle the hints it gives your body's immune system about how to attack the real problem, and therefore the stronger it is. (It's similar to the theory of making martinis that says that you should take the vermouth bottle and gesture meaningfully in the direction of the glass without actually pouring any in...) So unlike herbalist medicines, which you take in non-trivial quantities and can sometimes cause liver or kidney damage if you're not careful, most homeopathic medicines aren't going to hurt you, and the "really strong" stuff is no threat at all if it doesn't work.
Chiropractic is another quack theory that is obviously not useful for curing disease, but sometimes it can help with back and neck pain, and if you think of it as yet another form of massage, it's often somewhat helpful for many people. My first chiropractor was also an MD, which rather surprised both communities. The last one I went to wasn't able to recognize that my shoulder pains were early bursitis, so it was a while before I found a doctor who could do much about it, but at least he knew his limitations and could tell me that shoulder joints weren't something he knew about.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
He said I will be "compensated", so naturally I thought "money!" ... I set off to write that piece of software for him, including windows, menus and stuff (think Dos 3.0 days, Turbo-C 1.0).
It was really great stuff, and I was immensely proud of it. Took me around 100 hours of coding.
Comes the day of delivery, I install it at his lab, make some on-the-spot changes to comply with his remarks, and then I ask him about my "compensation". On that day, I've learned that some things have to be clearly stated in advance...
The guy said "I have something great for you..." and proudly presented me with a bunch of floppies containing stuff like "PrintMaster", "PC-Tools", etc. All copies, of course...
I told him I expected payment, and he told me that he can't pay me because I can't give him a proper reciept, which he needs for his paper-work. Since he was my father's colleague, I didn't spit in his eye; But maybe the lesson was well worth it, after all.
For installing a network at a friends house they gave me their eldest sons scientific calculator to use on my A-level maths course. Saved me 35 and I had fun building the network.
"So she did some adjustments,"
ha ha ha ha ha. That's code word for "rub you and charge you a lot of money".
Adjustment. R-i-i-i-i-i-i-ght.
Haven't received it yet, but I suspect Game 4 of the Stanley Cup final! Go Flames!
Why yes, I *AM* new here. Why?
I do work on friends computers for cash, flat rate regardless of time involved and if I have the parts laying around I throw those in free.
:)
The coolest barter I did was for a Hemp clothing store. I did their website and maintained it for 6 months and in return I got:
Hemp sweaters
Hemp t-shirts
Hemp Jeans
A leather beanbag chair
A battery powered bong (my fav!)
A sweet collection of pipes
Incense
Hemp soap
Various other odds and ends
I think it worked out well, got his store online and I got bunch of killer gear. The store owner also introduced me to one of his manufacturers and I did their website also - again a whole bunch of Hemp clothes for me! When you see what these things cost in the store, I think it was well worth the barter
-----------
The phone, the bane of my existance, rings. "Hello, Computer Room" I say, being helpful - BOFH
everything except that which i actually need. a job :(
...he passes to Moses who shoots....AND SCORES!!!!!
egads, not ZoneAlarm...
I'm exchanging a reduction in rent for web site design on the lease I just signed. That on top of the 20% I convinced him to take off the asking price because I'm quiet, neat, and female, makes the in-town location fairly affordable (no, life isn't fair, but I might as well make the best of it, eh?). In the latter case as well as the former, I think it just takes a geek with enough balls (er...) to suggest an exchange. Granted, that doesn't work for family, since I'm not going to tell my grandma she needs to give me something in exchange for my help, but it sure does for everyone else I've suggested it to.
- scout
Wow... I fucking hate this kind of post spam. That's just some stupid click-through game.
01101001 01100001 01101101 01101110 01101111 01110100 01100001 01101100 01100001 01110111 01111001 01100101 01110010
- a rhubarb pie
- a giant frozen salmon
- free meals
- used computers and printers
- wads of $20s
- my gf's appreciation in bed
;)
Since its also my job, I try to limit myself to just relatives and close friends. Generally the free meal is how it goes, but simply having someone's appreciation and indebtedness can go a long ways too.Back when I used to do alot fo tech work, I had a client who allways had to have the latest and best out there.. So he would buy the upgrades, have me come install them and let me keep the old gear.. My home system was always 1 step below top of the line =) Was a nice deal. Also I did a web page design for a client once and along with the money we agreed on, he gave me an old laptop, that I put linux on and still play with once in a while =)
-G
A man, a plan, a canal, panama
I swap computer support time with a guy airport, for time in his airplane (Cessna 172). I've flow across the country a couple of time on this alone. I'm a certified pilot, so he just throws me the keys... (he even pays for the gas.. )
What is it about late teens/early twenties that think they're in love? Christ anybody with half a brain knows "Gee, I'm only 20, I'm just in this for a good time".
Love is often confused with lust. You, my friend, had lots of hormones and your brain was fooled. At least be smart enough to know the difference now that you're (presumably) a few years older.
BOOZE
Our greatest enemy is neither a single man, nor is it a nation, it is, as it has always been, our own greed.
I'd like to add another note of thanks to Tom for a completely fantastic game that my girlfriend introduced me to (she was hooked for months) and which filled my dreams with the sounds of squeaking gnomes...
(No, it's not just another Arkanoid clone. The gnomes, man, it's all about the gnomes...)
I do unix stuff for a friend in exchange for the occasional case of beer. Works well for both of us.
I say I ain't giving you no tree fiddy you goddamned Loch Ness monster, get yo own goddamned money!
But the whole idea of barter is that you don't get any money nor pay it. How uncle sam expects a cut is beyond me...
You're right of course, but who would be stupid enough to admit it? OH gee, I got 3 pounds of genoa from the butcher to fix his hard drive, uncle same gets 30%, so I'll send him a sandwich.
Beware... sometimes there's a catch to this whole bartering thing.
On a semi-related note, I wholeheartedly recommend not knowing anything about Windows, so when people ask for help with their computers, you can simply smile and say "Sorry, I don't know anything about Windows, I only use unix systems." It works great for me.
it just deserves better than a 0, is all.
Tons and tons of free beer,food,and lots of referrals.
Crisis is the rule, not the exception.
Used to have a great deal going with one of the better dentist in town - before I moved away. I did all his office and home PC support - he did all my family's dental care, Me, my Wife and Son.
One night he calls up about 11:00 with a problem with his son's English term paper asking if I could come over next day after work. "When's his paper due?" I ask - "tomarow morning" was the reply. I was there in about 15 minutes, recovered the document and was proclaimed the 'hero' by his teary eyed high-schooler.
His comment? "I don't even respond that fast to dental emergencies!"
Senior NCO in the fight against entropy. I've seen things, man. Things no one should have to see.....
"I don't write the law. I just do my best to obey it, and vote every chance I get. "
Why obey stupid laws?
Lets look at the example above where you mow your uncle's lawn for a season, once a week without fail. Lets say its a big lawn (mine is 2 acres), and it costs $50/mow from a professional and so in gratitude, he's gonna fix up your old Z28.
That's probably $1000 of lawnmowing, and he does $2000 worth of work to your car. Now, in your ideal world, you enumerate what its worth, and you would owe the government $600 and your uncle would owe $300.
Now think about that for a second. If both of you just STFU, then you don't have to pay taxes, and honestly, the government isn't going to "help" you in any way because you paid those taxes.
Really, I'd question the sanity fo anybody who did that. I'd go so far as to call them a moron.
No offense.
i'm a mac guy with plenty of windows PC skills, and i've gotten really, really tired of fixing peoples' piece of shit computers because windows is a massive security hole. most things involve spyware, viruses, trojans, little green men, steve ballmer playing with wires, etc... these aren't hard to fix (not like a borked partition map or such) but they're just a pain. now that i'm living on a college campus, all the naive users out there are clamoring for help as soon as they smell geek.
bitterly, i resolved to not waste my time unless there's a pretty (AND SINGLE, wtf) girl or some nice dank involved. mac users get all the help they need because, well, fuck windows.
- emilio
neurostyle dot net - it's all in your head
Normally, I did it for the fun and experience it gave me, but sometimes it turns on you to bite you in the ass...
...and this thing's a mess. 47 separate virus reports, over 700 spyware programs (not including cookies), no Virus Scan Software, Firewall, etc.
Friend - has friend - Can you do me this favor??
Me- O.K.
- Standard industry rate of, oh, $40.00 USD
I upgraded the memory, wiped his viruses from the drive, installed AVG (it ROX!), and set up ZoneAlarm and TinyFirewall. BUT...his hard drive was going bad (lots of seeking, slow responses, occaisionally not booting). I told him about it, told my friend about it, showed him what may happen, and suggested that he get a hard drive pronto. You never know what may happen.
Natch, it died as soon as he got it home. Now I'm the guy that is known as "...The @##hole that I gave $40.00 to..."
Bottom line: Be careful of who you fix stuff for. Neophytes don't know if you did it to them, or if it was just time for the crappy 3rd rate hardware to expire.
I recently wrote an application for a mate of my brother. All I asked for was a tray of beer, but the guy was pretty happy with the app (it's a fitness and game statistics tracker for his Rugby League). After I'd delivered the app may bro rings up and says he's got the beers plus a whole sheep carcass in his SUV and he's heading over to drop it off ! Needless to say, I had to put on a spit roast party that weekend which is A LOT more work than downing a few well earned beers ;)
I case you haven't guessed, I live in New Zealand where there are about 20 sheep per human.
It's good luck to be superstitious
Traded some web site design time for a set of OPENSTEP 4.2 CDs, which i installed on a p90 and started to learn to code on. Changed muh life *sniff*
I helped a friend of mine set up an optometrist with a BBS system for his office. My friend got free contacts (colored ones, I think). Unfortunately my eyes were perfect at the time, so I didn't get anything. :-(
Acronyms Obfuscate
I hate to break this to everyone but services or goods recieved in barter are taxable at their fair market value as either income or a sale depending on the exchange.
I got lunch at Applebee's by helping the manager set up her cable modem... It took me more time to drive over to her house then get it running for her.
I'm a member of the Valley Barter Group in Phoenix.
I am able to trade out computer services for barter bucks which I can use to get food catering, so I don't have to spend time shopping/cooking.
The added bonus of joining a barter group is that people are way more willing to spend barter bucks than cash, so you can get value out of people who wouldn't otherwise pay you. It is also good for increasing business when you don't have a lot of it already.
Security is inversely proportional to the commitment of one desiring to circumvent it.
I work in a hospital and one of our senior doctors wanted me to do some work for him. He gave me 2 offers. I took the second one - cash. The first one was a free coloscopy...
I'll see your Constitution and raise you a Queen.
I've never had any offers of sex, but I've been given a dobro, a lawnmower, a variety of CDs, a pan of toe-curlingly delicious lasagna, a cordless phone, a gutter-cleaning job, and a smorgasbord of computer parts.
I've only cut one person off cold. "You really need to learn some of this yourself," I told him one day. "I don't need to," he said. "I have you." No he didn't. Not after that.
True story...in college I saw this hot chick at the cafeteria in the beginning of the 2nd semester...and I had never seen her before. After asking around I finally got introduced through a mutual friend, and over lunch one day I just mentioned that I was interested in computers. She mentioned that she was having issues with her laptop, which would randomly shut down on her. I didn't really know what was causing the problem, but I decided to head over and take a look at her computer. Couple nights later, I head over to her dorm room...I just do a few standard things, run Ad-aware, etc. During the whole time I'm there, the computer doesn't shut down once. After about half an hour I'm done, but every time I tried to leave she kept trying to find a way to keep me there. We ended up just hanging out for about four hours that night (it was on a Monday), and over the course of the week I averaged at least that much time or more with her every night. I got a girlfriend out of it:-)
I once helped to troubleshoot a computer in the local INS office. The same guy, who gave me a hard time about my expired passport six months ago, was so happy that he extended my permit for an additional year.
People like people who like them. This shirt says that the world pisses me off, and you're part of that world. Therefore, i'm pissed off at idiots like you who can't tell that my time is too precious to spend fixing your broken PC.
If you're too busy to fix someone's PC just tell them so, nicely.
That's respecting yourself, AND others. (ok that sounds like an after school special but it's true).
Photos.
Thats what my girlfreind gave me for fixing her pc, does that count?
:)
Now if only her twin sister had the same problem
GPLv2: I want my rights, I want my phone call! DRM: What use is a phone call, if you are unable to speak?
I was negotiating a price on some rural acreage with a developer. I'd asked for one per acre price. He was holding out for several hundred dollars more per acre price than I'd offered. We needed to print an earnest money agreement, but his all-in-one printer/scanner/ fax wasn't installed and he had no internet account because his modem 'wasn't working'.
I disabled serial 2 on the mboard, and presto, the modem now worked. I hooked him up with a local ISP dial-up using numbers he gave me and then used that account to download drivers for his printer/scanner. Then I was able to print the Texas Board of Realtors releavant documents. It saved me a 90 minute drive, and only took about an hour all told.
When it came time to write the price per acre in, he wrote in a price per acre on 5 acres $250/acre lower than he'd previously accepted. Times 5, that was a $1250 hour-long house call... and I believe he did that simply because I'd offered to do it and had not mentioned charging him, although he new tech was my trade.
So says the anonymous coward - the authority on all things.
Every Geek that has ever gotten any in a dorm started the evening with 'can you fix my computer?' its like a Frat boy hearing a girl proclaim 'Im so DRUNK!' sort of like droping blood in the water of a shark tank. Ahh, the dorms, the best 8 years of my life.
One time John Travolta asked me to fix his computer. So I went over his mansion and he put a gun to my head while this hot blonde chick gave me a BJ. He told me I had 30 seconds to fix it and I did. Then I got a job as Wolverine in the X-Men movie.
All I ever get are cookies and cash!
-==- Buy a Mac and leave me alone!
Basically, when they ask what they should give me, I say,
"well, normally when I do contract work I get paid $xyz/hr, but that's a bit unreasonable for what I (have done/am doing/will do) for you. I can't really justify taking less, so let's just say that if you want to compensate me, think of something that you feel is roughly equivalent to what I've been able to do for you."
Things I've gotten:
RT Airfare and 2 nights hotel in vegas.
Half an ounce of the best BC bud I've ever had.
An iPod.
Countless sweets/alcohols and other consumables.
Also, before I was a "computer professional", the computer skills were very handy in college too. It didn't take long before everyone in my dorm knew that I was the one to go to get your campus dial-up connection working. Within my first week in school, I knew a) almost all the girls by first name (and they knew me) and b) which of them had boyfriends. I never got sex for computer help in a quid pro quo fashion, but it certainly laid a lot of the ground work that helped me stay happy for most of freshman year.
"Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos!"
ticket to my Mother-in-law's house... In retrospect, I guess that was a punishment for fixing her computer.
You seriously believe that some chick is going to put out because you helped her fix her computer, remotely, without ever seeing you? You've got a better chance with Seven of Nine.
Dude! You guys got screwed! Exchanging technical knowledge and time hardly equates to a little black magic and some cracked bones!
TT
I retrieved 56MB of data for a company from a crashed windows server they hadn't backed up. Windows was so badly corrupted it would lock up even in Safe Mode and the Windows installation disk didn't have the tools to fix it. I used Suse Live 9.0 to boot the machine and burn the data with my USB DVD drive. Then I reformatted the hard drive and reinstalled windows. It took a couple of hours and they knocked $300 off the price of their service vehicle I was buying because they were liquidating. I gave them the Suse Live disk to keep and made them promise to try it.
Best thing I got for cleaning and defending my school's networks was trust, in the form of full root privileges on my account, including the ability to disable the monitoring software the school usually installs.
I've also had friends bake me brownies, and between sugar and trust I'll take sugar.
The story is about best results, not worst.
I have had some annoying girls ask me to fix their computers. These are usually the friends of friends, who care only about themselves, basically the cast members of "mean girls." So instead of trying to get something out of it I usually ask them for something they won't ever end up giving me. An example, this one girl begged me multiple times to fix her computer. I told her I don't know how to cook and if I fixed her computer I simply want a dinner out of it. But I knew she was too selfish to ever do that in return. My real plan was to help her so she can't ask my help again. I cleaned the computer up, got it working great, 5 months later it is filled with spyware again and even though she has mentioned it to my brother he simply responds "he is still disappointed about you not holding up your end of the bargain."
I spent the hour not for the free dinner but because I knew I wouldn't get it and I could use that for leverage.
The joke was to take a glove and fill it with sand. Place one hand on the shoulder with the glove on the other shoulder and proceed to do a DRE (digital rectal exam).
Not that I know anyone that actually did that or anything.....
I just came home drunk and horny from a night out (Yes, on a Monday, what's your point?), and I went to slashdot to get rid of the latter factor.
Shutupshutupshutup!
Give me a treat, and I'll give you Mozilla.
Give me a raging case of herpes, and I'll clean your PC of Spyware.
Use your teeth, and I reinstall windows.
IT for Sex.
Seriously, I had a friend that hooked up with a chich for no other reason than because he fixed her computer a couple of times... then he fixed her.
I'd like to get this worked out, anybody know any hot female computer illiterates that would like some "help?"
Some people prefer not-so-easy women.
I mean, I *know* that the girls that I've been with haven't been angels (why else would the last one be able to give bj's in her sleep?), but a stripper? Sheesh.
the HTML and spelling errors on www.ideepthroat.com - you could probably strike a good deal :-O
My landlord owns a small local business that has about 7 workstations and a server. For about the first year and a half, I never paid rent. I would just go in and provide tech support, do a new install, or whatever every once in a while and we'd call it even. I tried as hard as I could to keep this up for as long as possible, but alas, I've gotten their network running so smoothly that there's not as much of a need for me there these days.
I am currently getting Python lessons in exchange for drum lessons. skill_bartering++
--Paul
Unixpunx
Making of own currency and tax evasion and whatnot.
I do contract IT consulting for a number of small business clients. One company that called on my services late last year sells spas and other "outdoor living accessories" (e.g., high end custom-built barbeque grills and elaborate children's playground structures) to people with a lot more disposable income than I have. They had a lame consultant who sold them a way too expensive server, installed Windows 2000 Advanced Server on it, and didn't even bother to set up Active Directory. Here is a small company with only seven employees, yet the guy charged them $2300 for the Win2K advanced server license alone (with 25 client access licenses). For half that price, he could have set them up with a Win2K Small Business Server with a 10 CAL package. He gave all users Admin rights on their workstations and this caused no end of problems. On top of that, he downloaded the freeware version of Panda for virus protection, but never configured it properly. They called me in to clean up several virus-infected systems and to upgrade some computers after the original consultant stopped returning their calls for help.
They were so grateful for my assistance that they offered me a spa as payment. Now, I stop by every few weeks to check on things and monitor the system's performance and every month after I send an invoice, they deduct that amount from the balance I owe for the spa. It may take me four or five years to pay it off, but I'm paying in services rendered, rather than in cash out of pocket.
Not a bad deal at all, as I sit relaxing in my backyard amidst the swirling bubbles of my Grandee Hot Springs spa.
I rock your computer, you rock my nuts.
Reserved start line seats and vip camping weekend for me and all of my friends, paid for and delivered.
Got Code?
I fixed it by moving the BIOS battery jumper and in return they gave me $20(price they sell it at, they get it for much less) worth of chemicals. I was professional and didn't consume any until I fixed the computer and everybody was happy.
I think this internet thing sounds like a good idea
i was able to get a free exhaust for my car by re-doing the owner's website (http://www.enthuzacar.com/). I heard the exhaust was good, but upon viewing the site, I was horrified by the FrontPage templates, etc. So I pitched the idea to him and he was all for it. I'm now looking for other sites that are poorly designed so i might be able to barter for some of the goods on the site. Got a $290 exhaust out of this deal...
"hey, could you pass me a paper towel? er.. I mean... DEPLOY ABSORBTION PANEL!"
I would hope a job.
well... I do work for a couple of tattoo artist's, in exchange for tattoo time.. one hour of my time = one hour of tattoo time, so far i have spent very little on my tattoo's 16hrs so far $120CDN is the usual cost or $1920 in time.. my cost: $560 not too bad... one note, it is the guys who are windows users who owe me more time, the mac guys i have ot pay for the time... ;)
Lots and lots of cocaine.
;)
One night after at a bar I randomly ran into this guy that some of my friends and I had met earlier at a basketball game. After the bar closed we proceeded back to his house to continue the party - it was at this point I noticed a computer and sat down to mess with it. Seeing this our host starts with a laundry list of problems his windows box was having. I told him that I would love to help but that i was a bit too drunk.
And then he brought out the coke...
As everyone else coninued drinking/screaming/watching porn in the background this guy would hold up a mirror in front of my face every few minutes when I was hyped/frustrated/too high/not high enough until I had finished.
All said I was probably paid about $100 for three or four hours of work. Sadly not the first or the last time I have accepted substance for service
In the words of Rick James: "Cocaine is a helluva drug"
---- The real Slashdot is still here. You just have to browse at -1 to read the comments.
(Man runs at announcer vehicle)
Man: I have a degree in homeopathic medicine!
Announcer Vehicle: You have a degree in Beloney!
(Shoots man with hose).
Then there's this music store. I got a brand new set of pearl drums for some computers and services. I love that deal!
I'm not anti-social, I'm anti-idiot.
That's hilarious. Your first thought is to stay under the table and masterbate instead of actually trying to talk to her or ask her out. DAMNIT MAN! SNAP OUT OF IT!!
Funny. I always get the "trust content from..." dialog whenever Windows wants to download a patch.
Maybe clicking "No" would help...
I once saw a
I should've got a screenshot.
Free trip to Kauai to work on sister's PC. Spent the weekend there and did the tourist thing.
m.mmm..myyy
My personal trainer couldn't resist asking for help with his girlfriend's computer. I gave him the standard "I HATE doing user support, etc." He persisted. I ended up installing putting together a new system for them in exchange for personal training.....I got about twice in personal training time value as I put into the new machine....Worked for me....
Apple Pie.
The promise of a complete set of Renaissance men's clothing.
Lung Surgery.
Five pounds of coffee.
*****
Dear Mary,
I yearn for you tragically,
A.T. Tappman, Chaplain, U.S. Army.
for 25 hrs a week of various computer monkey stuff.
Just to name a few:
1) Food
2) Money (in various forms - cash, checks)
3) Bandwidth (hilariously true - i work for bandwidth)
4) Old computer hardware (Hey - I just got this new system, can you help me out? I'll give you my old one...)
Frink: Nice try floyd, but you were designed for scrubbing, and scrubbing is what you shall do.
I've been living in the lovely South Pacific island nation of Vanuatu for nine months now, all expenses paid, in exchange for putting in time making computing and communication better here.
It's called 'volunteering'. Try it some time. 8)
Crumb's Corollary: Never bring a knife to a bun fight.
Elk and deer meat from avid hunters (I live in small town in the mountains).
Building materials and labor for the house I'm building.
Auto repairs and parts - I get "fleet discount" at local parts store.
Kawasaki X-2 jetski
And list list goes on and on
I grew up trading labor for things, so this is nothing new for me.
I'd work 6 months straight at that rate, then take a two year vacation...
Damn I wish I knew a dentist who needed a small home network setup,,....... right about now, considering one of my rear teeth "crumbled" on the weekend.
Curses.......
and before that dinner at a very nice restaurant, bottle of wine. did i mention the condomless drunken sex?
I downloaded it from your sig months ago on here, it was hilarious, i sent links to people and they all love it. Its become a staple of any software pack i make for people (moz, winamp, trillian, adaware, dopewars). Yeah, got pissed and canceled my paypal acount a while ago otherwise i'd toss a couple of bucks your way, sorry, but yeah, keep up the awesom gnome bouncing work! :)
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
i have a friend who runs a coffe shop. she wanted for a long time to get into wireless(a lot of her customers were asking) but kept putting it off til a starbucks moved into the neighborhood. she started getting solicited from t-mobile to set up a hot spot, but they were asking some pretty steep layout...
long story short, we ended up with a pretty sweet setup both for her and her customers, and she's super competative with the starbucks, net access price-wise.
my return? free coffee, net access and the appreciation of a friend, not to mention putting the squeeze on corporate coffee shops with no soul;-)
three can keep a secret, if two are dead - benjamin franklin
I wish my ex was like that.
If you were not such a pitiful freak, you would have gotten some head from her. Even according to God herself, head does not count.
"I've never cheated on any of my girlfriends
Well, except that one little time in Japan
but that was just some head
And head don't count right
Ahh thanks god. I knew you'd understand"
i guarantee no one has gotten a blow job out of it. "I removed your spyware now blow me"
http://www.vanillaafro.com - take me seriously and I will shoot you
You wrote "gave my wife and I" for the whole /. world to see. Maybe you could have received an English lesson instead of dangerous fake medical treatment. Is English your second language? Regardless, you ought to know that "me" is the objective case first person pronoun in English.
I won't name the faire, but will only say its the only profitable faire of the five total the corp owns. Even so they had trouble paying with cash or much of anything.
I had been doing computer work for some time and they had been paying me a combination of cash and comp tickets. But finally they ran out of comp tickets and they wanted to keep the records off the book to keep corp hq happy. So they letme have the run of the gift shop and I walked away with a car full of stuff, literally.
"Your having a bad day when the voices in your head put you on hold"
Below is the relevant excerpt from the article:
In finding defendant guilty of careless driving, the Law Division judge stated: The defendant quite clearly operated his vehicle carelessly, failed to exercise appropriate caution in the prevailing circumstances, and endangered both the persons in the other vehicle. These conclusory remarks, however, were insufficient to establish a careless driving violation. It appears that both the Municipal Court judge and the Law Division judge applied a res ipsa loquitur analysis in finding defendant guilty of careless driving. The doctrine of res ipsa loquitur, however, has no application in the determination of careless driving due to the quasi-criminal nature of the proceeding in which the State has the burden of proving beyond a reasonable doubt all elements of the offense. See State v. Wenzel, 113 N.J. Super., 215, 216-18 (App. Div. 1971)(the mere fact of an "otherwise unexplained jackknifing" where a tractor-trailer entering a construction area had jackknifed on the wet roadway, crossed into the opposite lane and broadsided another truck fatally injuring the truck's driver, did not establish that the defendant had been driving carelessly.) The careless driving statute provides: [a] person who drives a vehicle on a highway carelessly, or without due caution and circumspection, in a manner so as to endanger, or be likely to endanger, a person or property, shall be guilty of careless driving.
[N.J.S.A. 39:4-97.]
Here, other than the accident itself, the State only presented defendant's statement that his vehicle began to slide on the wet highway and continued to do so when he tapped his brakes. Moreover, his apology was not an admission to driving carelessly, but merely a statement that his car had slid on the wet pavement. The State presented no evidence indicating that defendant had been speeding, driving too fast for the wet road conditions, distracted or otherwise driving without due caution and circumspection. Consequently, there was insufficient evidence to support defendant's conviction for careless driving, and we reverse that conviction. We affirm the driving under the influence conviction and sentence under N.J.S.A. 39:4-50(a) and vacate the stay. We reverse the careless driving conviction under N.J.S.A. 39:4-97 and remand to the Law Division to amend the judgment.
"It is a solemn thought: dead, the noblest man's meat is inferior to pork."
i got to fly in a real c-5 flight simulator on a military base after fixing one of their servers, and i am not enlisted...so it was pretty neat, full hydraulics, real instrument panels and a full panoramic view of the sky... and the best part was i pulled off a perfect landing first time around!
I moved to Georgia back in August of last year, and while I was doing contract work and looking for full-time work, I managed to strike a few good deals
* free dinner paid for by the pastor of my church for installing a new Dell for him. Would have gotten his old system, but both he and I felt that it would be better of if it were used by another church
* a huge discount in wedding photography for providing graphic design and PC support services to a local wedding photographer and videographer. I would have gotten a photography package for free in exchange for a website, but the photographer felt that he could hold off on having a website designed.
I trade computer and network support for chiropractic care. I worked out a deal with my chiropractor 4 years ago. In addition, I gave free computer lessons to a professional massage therapist for 3 years in exchange for working on my shoulder. Between the two deals, I was able to cure severe scoliosis that was caused by rhumatitis in my shoulder which was caused by a couple of car accidents. The barter system is great, and if my field was something completely different, I feel that I would still be able to find a way to perform trades. --x
I administer my dentists network and he gives me free cleanings, fillings, caps, whatever... I had a small skiing accident last year and tore my lower lip from my gumline. He sewed me back up with 14 stiches, gave me a pat on the back and said take care. Its a nice trade!
I don't believe in sigs.
I went to a client's home today to help him install a new printer/scanner/fax. When I arrived, he already had hooked it up. Since I was already there I showed him how to use the new device (about 20 min. worth of time). Before I left, I asked him what he was going to do with the old combo device. When I did, he asked me if I wanted it. I readily agreed and walked off with a printer/scanner/fax well worth several times my minimal call charge. ;)
Most men are not thought unwise until they speak.
I setup my Chiropractor / Podiatrist's office network with a Linux / Samba server. I've had to deal with 3 support calls in about 5 years. In turn, I get a constant supply of Bextra, which would cost be about $500 a year if I had to pay for it.
Feel free to replace busy with whatever reasonable excuse. "I'd really rather not, I fix PCs all day and I just can't handle any more of that work during off hours" is perfectly understandable.
Photos.
That shirt is a big fuck you to the world. If you want to say fuck you to people who -DEMAND- they help you then by all means go ahead. I'm just saying that the shirt in question makes you seem like a dickhead to everyone, even the nice people. That shirt makes it seem like even asking is wrong. It reeks of snobbery, and anger. That is the message it sends.
Photos.
You mean, "my wife and me," of course. Nothing looks worse than over-applying a rule of English to avoid looking bad.
What is it about late teens/early twenties that think they're in love?
Well, I was 29 and she was 31 when we met. What is it about ACs that grants them this idea that they can see into everyone's minds and hearts? What an amazing ability you (don't) have.
Since I met my girlfriend I have been doing occasional repairs and stuff on her friend's computer (virtually for free) and when I moved in with my girlfriend, we scored a clothes dryer and a small fridge, both were second-hand, but fully functional! (My Homepage)/a>
Shouldn't that be "...my wife and me...". Just being pedantic this morning.
...vocal lessons. I get to do the nerd work that I'm good at and find out that I'm good at something else too...
I'm doing this since last 10 yrs.
:-)
Special stuff I got so far:
* Dell P3 Lappy (used for 2-4 months)
* Nokia Mobile 2300 (new)
* Web hosting space
Other regular stuff:
* Different kind of food
* Drinks (soft only)
* Free rides to local places
And not to mentioned:
Tones of friend who recognized me in 1000 people as geek
Quite a few years ago, I replaced a bad hard drive and reinstalled the OS (DOS and Windows 3.11, if I remember correctly) for my dentist. In return, he was kind enough to wrench a cavity-infested wisdom tooth from my skull - free of charge.
I think he got good on both ends of that deal.
UNIX: Find it, fsck it, forget it.
Non-dodgy stuff - tickets to see comedians, speakers and local (Australian)bands, both in my home city and Melbourne, - superseded laptops, PCs, and parts, - free meals for both myself and friends at local restaurants, both the low-cost and the expensive ones - books and gift vouchers - of course the most valuable thing you can get is further work - plenty of that too. Dodgy stuff: - sex toys and associated bits and pieces - once got free lingerie & perfume for a girlfriend from a woman who ran a lingerie & perfume party business - first moves from the previously mentioned girlfriend, and several others
I help out a local bookkeeper as needed. For that I get my taxes done and usually a good dinner each time I'm over.
:)
Works well for me.
Sex, car repairs, gadgets, and lots of other stuff are what I have managed to get for my services.
Apparently, alot of you have pseudo-friends; people that are only your friends when they want something. Friends should share some interests, if you don't have anything in common with your so called friends, why are friends? Loose the users, they only drag you down.
You can't solve everybody's problems, but by being half-intelligent about your choices you can barter a good deal. The guy you know who fixes cars needs his shop to go wireless -- Help him out. The hot beauty downstairs wants her laptop to be wireless, use your charisma (this works for those who have it). You can get a piece of ass and leave the router open so you can connect for free anytime. I am an American, and I am proud to be in the land of endless opportunity.
Looks like it is time to replace your Personality Module. You are a bit to clingy, guess I better replace your fuser to
Here in Key West there would probably be too many unwelcome offers.
She did. :D
No, really. 'Course, it wouldn't take a psychic to see that everyone was going to have troubles after September 2001.
I once worked 10 Tech hours and received a Kawasaki 454 (4 Cylinder) in excellent condition. That was cool.
Is the recipe under GPL license? ;)
I'd hate to taint my drinking habits with proprietry dishes
-Elfy
My brother-in-law runs what I believe the Americans would call a "wholesale liquor supply company". In other words, he sells wine, beer and spirits in very large quantities to pubs and restaurants. I've helped him with his home and business PCs, and am always there on the phone when he needs advice :)
ben_ the technologist and platform agnostic
Awww come on guys this is funny shit. Too many times in meta moderation I see funny moderations for absolutely retarded things, this is actually funny and gets nothing???
Mostly these - in this order, which represents more or less the priority order of these items in my life, before I became a monk. Not bad for some Java applets, registry cleaning, Linux tuning - not to speak about HD formatting or finding back "erased" documents.
Religous speak to God. Insane are spoken to by God. When all shut up, one can finally hear Shostakovich in peace
So far I managed to wangle the following:
Various people just gave their thanks which is fine as in the vast majority of cases the problem wasn't their fault. And yes I have been in a girls dorm room at 23:30 fixing her PC when I was at University *ahem* *ahem*
t
I was driving through Nye County a few years back. Met a girl at a petrol station (they're expensive out there, if you didn't know). She'd just closed her brothel because she'd been DoSed by a competitor. Really broken up about it she was - and cute too. Was going to drive home to New Jersey to be with her grandma. I felt sorry for her.
'Who's your provider? Where's your site located?' I asked. 'I ran it right off a rickety old Gateway back at the house', she said. 'I can take a look at it', I said. She was afraid to go back, but I convinced her it was no big deal.
So today the girl is open for business again. And I drove out of Nye County with a smile on my face and a chanson in my coeur. And she was so impressed she told all her friends and today I have more business than I know what to do with.
But the worst part is keeping up my stamina to take payment for services rendered.
Easy. A friend of mine needed a computer. Nice and solid, nothing too fancy, very safe.
:)
He wanted to not only mess about on The Net, but also do AutoCAD work.
So I got him some nice powerful components, put the whole thing together, set it up, placed the usual Adaware, firewalls, scanners, etc on it, put my 19" CRT on top of it (I got myself a 21" TFT instead), and he was happy with it.
And offered to build me two cabinets for the apartment I'd recently moved into. Now he's a carpenter, and a darn good one.
Have you never looked at a corner in your place and thought: "Man, building a large custom cabinet right into there would be *so* useful"? Well, I designed two cabinets (no, I know nothing about it, but it's fun), and now we're both happy.
He has a nice and solid PC.
I have two nice and solid cabinets.
Cheap for both of us
Free PC version of ChipWits at http://www.breueronline.de/klaus/chipwits/
From a recent Seattle Times article:
"The IRS has said time exchanges can be tax-exempt for several reasons: they're informal and noncommercial in nature; they aren't legally enforceable but backed only by a moral obligation; their purpose is charitable."
(The quote is from about two-thirds the way down the page. Search for IRS to find it quickly.)
I don't know if I'd call it charitable in many cases. I think the article may have mangled the IRS's reasoning, but I am pretty confident that non-legally binding service exchange is not taxable. Imagine the accounting headaches if it were, and the trouble enforcing it.
Looking at the replies, some people got sex for antivirus or box repair or even some coding. Once upon a time, I got a perfect sex just for teaching her how to play Lemmings. I tried it again a week later with Warcraft (1) and succeded again.
There you are, staring at me again.
From the IRS:
http://www.irs.gov/taxtopics/tc420.html
or to quote the top paragraph:
Bartering occurs when you exchange goods or services without exchanging money. An example of bartering is a plumber doing repair work for a dentist in exchange for dental services. The fair market value of goods and services exchanged must be included in the income of both parties.
It also specifically addresses Internet bartering exchanges lower on the page
The Internet has provided a medium for new growth in the bartering exchange industry. This growth prompts the following reminder: Barter exchanges are required to file Form 1099-B for all transactions unless certain exceptions are met. Refer to Barter Exchanges for additional information on this subject.
There are exceptions, as with most tax laws, however, it is the opinion of both my accountant and my lawyer that if you work in a field related to the service you are trading, it is income, and not exempt (as in, if you hold a job in the computer industry you cannot barter this service without reporting it.)
It probably also kills the informal exemption if you advertise the service (as you would on a website) although I am not sure of this.
I know the IRS did send a letter in November to a lot of these types of sites reminding them that they need to report all of the transactions to the IRS. I would not be suprised if customers of these sites get a 1099 at the end of this year (it is generally unwise to ignore a warning from the IRS.) It is also possible to be penalized for failing to file quarterly reports.
Of course, they have to know you are doing it first, and that might be a little bit difficult for them to find out if the site does not report it.
I'm a signature virus. Please copy me to your signature so I can replicate.
who's we all? Suppose you've never injured your back?
I usually get dinner in return for fixing friends/familys computers. I'd probably get dinner even if I didn't touch their computers, though.
-Rich
The best payment thusfar has been a bottle of 25 year-old Macallan Scotch whisky. That set the precedent for payment for all future services -- a bottle of Scotch whisky or Irish whiskey.
I support a dentist and an orthodontist with their computer systems. (Billing, records, scheduling, etc.) I've gotten free dental, and a huge reduction in the ortho charges (3 kids worth). The work is not hard, but when they call I show up ASAP to take care of them.
I did a website for an eyedoctor last year. Towards the end of the gig, my 3 year old jabbed me in the eye with his fingernail, causing a puncture (no permanent damage, but it hurt like hell). Nothing like being able to call the doctor at home, meet him at the office, and get it taken care of right then.
Oh yeah, did I mention it was Easter Sunday?
A student in NYU's masters in comp sci program didn't know how to do some silly HTML(!?) thing, and I had seen the movie Swordfish, so I thought I should recreate the first hacking scene...my conclusion: absolutely no way in hell can both heads operate at the same time, at the level needed for simultaneous hacking and bj.
A really, really, stinking rich friend of my father's called me over to look at his droolable Dual Xeon Workstation maxed out with 4 Gigs of RAM. Having acquired my ethics from a sick cocktail of Slashdot, Survivor, and hentai comics, I looked at it for half an hour, unplugged the hard drive, and told him it was an incurable virus and he'd be needing to buy a new one.
I am typing this from my new PC which I received as payment for the advice of buying a G5. I'm happy, Apple's happy, he's happy! It was the right thing to do!
C'mon you guys! Don't look at me like that! Evil is the new Good! Jump on in, the water's fine!
I'm not normally an irrational zealous dickhead, but I figure "When in Rome..."
Free "adjustment"? Damn. Why, is your wife hot or something?
A friend of mine had a fella he knows ask us to build him a computer about three years ago... this was back when you'd easily be able to save 2/3 the cost of hardware by building it yourself. The guy offered to pay us in alcohol. Turns out he was a truck driver who delivers alcohol to liquor stores. There's apparently some obscure NY law that states you can't sell bottles with damaged labels. The guy had accumulated a basement full of stacks of liquor, and he doesn't even drink.
We put him together a screamer for about $700. He paid us in what was easily $3000 of alcohol. It was enough to fill up a large storage closet, and nearly every bottle was unique, although he did give us 10 bottles of Bacardi 151. We got most of our liquor education from the stash he gave us. Even now, after splitting it 3 ways with former roomates and consuming half of it, there's still enough left to fill up a large rack in my closet. Good trade in my book.
Hell is being intelligent in a world full of idiots.
I've been doing a bunch of IT support for a local bike shop, and now I get to work on my bike there after hours. It sure is nice to have all the parts and tools I need and the expert advice is always good. A bike stand that's bolted to the floor sure spoils a guy!
BTW: Check out Rivendell Bicycle Works
I did some computer work for a Thai Buddist Monk for free. I showed him how to reformat his laptop and install the Thai version of Windows 98 on it. He bought the Thai version, but did not want the junk that gets preloaded with the laptop. I taught him how to do it, so he could do it himself and teach other Monks how to do it.
I do not feel ripped off, I gained some good Karma out of it. He said a prayer for me, which I think was cool.
I sometimes do charity or pro-bono computer work for the poor, it helps me get a good reputation. Then people who have money ask me to fix their computer problems and they offer to pay me for it, seeing how good a job I did on the other systems.
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
All that beer has taken the sting out of fixing an old junker.
I changed my numbers and apparently didn't find all the $1000s I origianlaly used. Since you have to file a schedule C for barter anyway, you'd be a fucking idiot not to take into consideration all the expenses that came from the batering. This is a legitimate business expense, since it is in the pursuit of profit. Now once again, until you learn basic economic concepts stop wasting my time.
That which is done from love exists beyond good and evil
I once recovered a senior's project from a random corruption in M$ Word. The text was still there, but Word wanted nothing to do with it for some reason.
I managed to get my Linux box to mount it, and copied the document off the floppy. Using strings, I extracted the 40 pages of text sans the formatting from the document. She wanted to pay me, but I talked her into dinner instead. Being a college student, having other people cook decent food rather than cafeteria food was worth more than money.
I got my car detailed...which was nice considering that I had fast-food containers from 2 months ago in the back that they happily cleaned for me.
In no particular order, I've received:
... picture collection, and out of the third, a drive out to her acreage for some horse riding for myself and some friends.
:)
-Food
-Drinks
-Computer toys
-The old computer I was replacing
-Getting flashed
-Ye ole BJ of lore.
-Nookie in the server room (note: Be sure that if you're going to do something, you do it away from the switch rack... flailing legs have a way of catching on cat5)
-Free services (taxes, forms, homeopathic, etc)
-A job
-Money (it's worth mention!)
-A weeks worth of free coffee.
-Did some supermarket work, and got "load up a cart and head out the front door..."
-For some odd reason, I once got a pallet of paper.
-Herbal supplements
-We have an annual race her in town, where they dump thousands of rubber duckies in the river and see which one wins... I once got an armful of those rubber duckies
-A pharmacy I did a quickie for couldn't give me any of the good stuff, but they did give me a grab-bag of various contraceptive devices.
-A roast. Already cooked, fresh out of the oven, put in a bag and handed to me as I left. I'm sure her heart was in the right place.
-A haircut
-A coupon for a free waxing (?!?)
Currently, I'm doing a few side-jobs for people... out of one, I got bags of money, out of the next, (setting up a website for a girl) I got to peruse her
Yes, real horses, the 4 legged kind, you sicko!
If I knew the wedgies I gave you back in 6th grade would have resulted in this . . . I might have taken a moments pause.