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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 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.
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.
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
Better watch out for the IRS. You have to claim barter on your taxes!
...I have this friend who is a proctologist and he was having computer problems and...
This way to the egress...
"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."
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...
maybe if you gave them linux you could've gotten the "happy ending"
You could just name this story "I am a geek and married".
Lisp is the Tengwar of programming languages.
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...
yes you can, you just need to know how to barter better
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.
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 fixed up my pastor's PC, and in return he has saved my eternal soul. :)
[woman in nightie]: ...but I don't have a hard drive...
*bow chica bow bow*
Hades, PoD: Official Advocate
[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!
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. --
There's a new game we like to play, you see
An OS with added functionality
Won't treat you like a dog or give you BSOD's
We call it - we call it UNIX
(It's posts like this that explain why I sleep alone, dammit.)
cookies, and... My Little Pony stickers...
Dear Penthouse Letters,
....
I never thought I'd be writing to you, but
Get off my lawn.
You didn't have to write a perl script for that -- next time just set your media player to loop the video...
Hmmmph... perl script...
I think he means free as in speech.
Why do I keep typing pythong?
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.....
I have one, it was bought for me. Many people who know me, know I've no problem at all if people ask if I can help, nearly every one has offered me something in return. (A couple bucks, a 6 of beer, a pizza, some home-made cookies...).
But there are too many people out there who -DEMAND- that you help them, and not only have no intention of saying thanks, or even "Hey, what do I owe you?" but "You get paid for this? All you did was press keys."
You're right. I've had total strangers in the grocery store, read my shirt, and you can -see- the "Maybe he can help me/No wait, he looks like he'll tear my arms off..." conflict. The ones that I see, I -do- offer my services to...
I get paid quite well in my 9-5 to repair computers, servers, you name it. When I am home, the last thing I need is to hunt down nine hundred copies of "Gator" and so forth because they clicked "Yes" on every gaim window and so forth.
The chiropractor in the above, wouldn't crack and pop my back into place for free... He, like I, have bills to pay, food to eat, beer to aquire... For friends and family, always free. Total strangers owe me guinness and a promise to never, ever, click "Yes" on those "trust content from...." boxes.
was this a girls dorm for college or a middle school?
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.
Trucks now a days are very high tech. They almost all have GPS responders that reveal where they are, what speed they are doing etc. And truckers are lonely, so they often have internet connections for use while they are parked for the night.
I have found many truckers to be computer geeks at heart.
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