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BBC Writer Tries PC Repair, Finds Poor Software
twitter writes "BBC author Paul Rubens tried out amateur computer repair and wrote about it. All of the software was for Windows, and he finds what most of us do: "Most of the problems I've been called to look at have been caused by viruses and spyware, some by strange software [conflicts], and only one by faulty hardware." He then flames the whole world of computer repairmen as 'a bunch of unqualified amateurs.'"
Luckily he wasn't trying out the amateur software development.
If we went by his definition of unqualified amateurs, most OSS developers would have been in the same category, but look what these "unqualified amateurs" have done to OSS?
Rock that crushes, Paper & Scissors that don't matter.
But because computers are so complex, it's inevitable, and usually not very long, before they stop working as they should.
This is your first mistake. Computers are not inherently complex (even Windows). People have a habbit of making computers more complex than they need to be (i.e. installing whatever whenever and expecting it to remain on there and stable forever). If people would just take the time to understand that they do not need 10000 things in their tray and took the 10 minutes to read exactly what each of those things they installed did they would quickly learn what the Uninstall Program feature is for.
When a domestic appliance goes wrong, you can ring a repair man. When your car breaks down you can call the garage. But when your computer system goes wrong, who do you call?
Google or a manual. Just like I did for my burned out tail-light on my car, the squeaking dryer, and the rattling my engine made when it spun a rod. Now, in the case of the spun rod there was nothing *I* could do without taking it to the dealer to repair but at least I had an idea of what to expect when they told me what was wrong with it.
The simple truth is that although computer systems are sold as consumer goods like fridges or washing machines, there's no computer equivalent of a qualified service engineer who you can get to come around and fix things.
You bought software or your hardware from somewhere I would guess (if you built this stuff on your own you have enough knowledge to fix it on your own). Take it to them. Dell, Gateway, Apple, whoever. If you're talking about software issues, call the company of the software you installed, oooh, it's Spyware problems. You only have yourself to blame for not researching carefully what you put on your computer. Just because you can modify your computer more easily than most pieces of hardware you own does not mean you should be absolved of all responsibility when it breaks. I wish that more people would understand that.
It seems incredible, but millions of families and thousands of businesses have no-one to turn to but a bunch of unqualified amateurs to fix the most complicated pieces of equipment that have probably ever existed. It's a scary thought.
What do you suggest? A school where they teach spyware removal? Or do you propose they learn about securing their networks (wireless and wired), their computers w/firewalls, spyware and virus protection (and frequent scans/updates), and keeping abreast of new news about OS updates and protections to the latest and greatest things out there? Why not spend the 20 minutes reading one of my posts or the 10000000 other posts out there that tell you exactly what you need to know:
1. Get a software firewall (ZoneAlarm) that tells you when an internal software package is calling home.
2. Get AdAware, SpyBot, and SpywareBlaster. Keep them up to date and scan frequently.
3. Install all the latest updates for your OS and keep them up to date.
4. Don't install something that you don't understand. Check with Google first. It's not hard to spend the 5 minutes with a Google search on the name of the program you want to install to find out if it phones home (and if you don't at least you have ZoneAlarm to give you a heads up).
5. Get some sort of virus protection (i.e. NAV or AVG)
6. Realize that regular maintenance is required for ANY piece of hardware (cars, HVAC, etc). Do you not change your oil every ~3000 miles? Do you not check your air filters in your home every month or two? Do you not add water softener salt every month?
I just gave five pieces of software that are free, easily found on reputable/major distribution sites, and that have probably been repeated elsewhere thousands of times. It amazes me that someone who claims that he can fix other people's problems didn't find this software and then had the audacity to claim that the software out there sucks.
If only more people were w
Remember, Pee Wee pulls for Apple :)
Pee Wee fixes computers? (Heh, heh!)
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
If they knew what they were doing, they wouldn't be wasting their time cleaning spyware off grandma's machine for $12/hr.
No boom today. Boom tomorrow. There's always a boom tomorrow. - Cmdr. Susan Ivanova
He then flames the whole world of computer repairmen as 'a bunch of unqualified amateurs.'
I would say he's pretty much on the mark there.
Any story by Paul Ruebens has to be met with a certain level of healthy skepticism on my part. :-)
To the mods: Post is meant to be funny.
---
Welcome our new amateur computer repairman overlords.
I freelance on the side. 95% of the calls I get are in regards to virus, spyware, winsock errors, et al.. usually caused by unpatched IE, or attachments..
Mr. BBC writer.. how bout a Gentoo or Debian install? Problem solved..
"a bunch of unqualified amateurs"
Perhaps if they were paid more than your typical McDonalds employee they'd be a bit better than said fast-food dispensers.
Boycott everything - they're all trying to fuck you one way or another
wow you come to tell me that poorly written software and spyware is the reason for problems...really i didnt; know that, for years i had come to beleive i just had the bad luck of quarks hitting my computer harddrive crashing it, gamma rays for striking the pentium proc. causing weird things to happen in word...really it was software all this time go figure.
He then flames the whole world of computer repairmen as 'a bunch of unqualified amateurs.'
Aren't they? Are you suggesting that those drones at Best Buy undergo training?
... I know this isn't the same guy (or even the same spelling of the last name) but once the mental picture of Pee Wee getting all flustered over spyware had been formed, I just couldn't resist.
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
It seems incredible, but millions of families and thousands of businesses have no-one to turn to but a bunch of unqualified amateurs to fix the most complicated pieces of equipment that have probably ever existed. It's a scary thought.
Sure it seems scary at a glance (I hire a professional builder to fix my home, I hire some kid down the street to fix my computer) but after a while it does not seem so outrageous. If you're silly enough to download enough viruses or spyware to make Windows not load or your Internet connection stop working, you'd be silly enough to hire an 'unqualified amateur' to fix it.
Guy asked me for a quarter for a cup of coffee. So I bit him.
...he didn't try to become a pilot!
-Valiss
that we stop getting shoddy articles from amatuer journalists. They have no business offering their opinions or articles. /sarcasm.
The Blaster Master Fighting for Truth, Justice, and Evil Pie since 1979
If they knew what they were doing, they wouldn't be wasting their time cleaning spyware off grandma's machine for $12/hr.
You're right, I charge $40/hr
Folks don't mind paying $50+ per hour for their vehicle repairs, but nobody wants to pay that sort of money to get their operating system de-loused.
I think that's a major part of the problem. It's hard to make money as a retail computer repair technician, and it's not a fun career. I would guess that the good ones aspire to move away from retail as soon as they are able.
Never ask for directions from a two-headed tourist! -Big Bird
I don't think he's calling the repairmen amateurs... but the people that joe user ends up turning to. Maybe the kid down the street, or the guy next door who hooked up his own router. Most people don't call someone for PC repair, they just find "someone who knows something" ... no shit that person is an amateur.
My family and friends don't bug me that much about computer problems, but when they do, they know that:
And I outside of the occasional meal, I am free.
Fortunately, the hardware problem ended up being a temporary issue.
"Play is the only way the highest intelligence of humankind can unfold." -- Joseph Chilton Pearce
I know people, and am someone who learned back in the mid 1990s how to fix computers, and managed to keep up with current hardware trends to offer service superior or at least as good as a place like Staples, or a box-store repair center could provide.
In the world of computer repair though, you often get what you pay for. If you're outsourcing your computer repair to the kid down the street, you might get lucky if they're smart and read slashdot, or you could get someone who thinks you upgrade RAM by adding a hard drive.
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
It seems incredible, but millions of families and thousands of businesses have no-one to turn to but a bunch of unqualified amateurs to fix the most complicated pieces of equipment that have probably ever existed.
I've always heard that the UK is culturally very hostile to IT. I guess now I know for sure.
If people went around treating their refrigerators as bad as they did their PCs, then we would have the same problem. Put the fridge in the middle of the street, let people take food, put food in, plug it into a DC power source etc. That thing would break in a heartbeat. However all we do is open/close the fridge and occasionally defrost/clean it. Have someone use their PC to goto ONE website ONLY (ie microsoft.com) with a direct pipe to the site - that computer will be bug free for a while. Maybe even 10-15 years just like my last fridge.
Get Paid to search
I've occasionally taken a look at some non-technical friend's computer, and I can usually do enough good that they're very grateful afterward (even if it's just reinstalling some DLL so their spellchecker starts working again). Picking up $100/week or so for this kind of weeks sounds like a reasonable hobby for an unemployed techie.
Have you read my blog lately?
We really are a bunch of unqualified amateurs. That is, except for a top-level 3% or so (I could be wrong..... I could also be wrong about putting myself in this category). What matters is persistence and continuing research & education (self-taught properly niched persons, not that tech school stuff that is one of the greatest rip-offs and causes of problems in IT today)
What it comes down to is a very specialized people with a knack for dealing with themundane problems encountered on the desktop today. Server maintenance, network design and upkeep is simple in comparison to the myriad of problems encountered by a low-level desktop tech today, in retail or in a SMB environment.
The author does bring up some interesting points, however, regarding the difference between car/washing machine repairmen and computer techs..... there is very little one can do to ensure they are being serviced properly in todays marketplace that, at this time, can have no place for certification and the like.... "A+ Certified and Toilet Trained: Equally proud of both." to quote.
Computers cannot subtract, they cannot multiply and they cannot spell check a document.
Computers can add binary numbers, and that is all.
Computer software exploits this ability with some clever logical gymnastics to give us the "Computer Appliance" that we enjoy today.
This fellow appears to have some difficulty discerning what is a computer, what is computer software, and what is a Rogue Windows exploit.
There is only one entity to blame here. Microsoft, for producing a weak Operating System.
As a high school student looking for a summer job, I was thinking, "why not repair peoples' computers for slightly less than Best Buy or CompUSA?" $40 dollars to reformat someone's pc or remove some spyware is a lot better than $6 per hour. This article only confirms my belief that most computer problems for people are trivial for someone with an inkling of knowledge. If that doesn't work, just reformat!
Well, Paul should stop touching little boys. I've tried working in the world of ametuer pædophiles, and they're all a bunch of unqualified ametuers. They can't do anything right.
The thing about repair computers, on whatever level it is, it pays the fscking bills. That's really all that matters.
And they also read Slashdot. Go figure........
It's either on the beat or off the beat, it's that easy.
I moderate therefore I rule!
--
We built our systems, tuned them, made them perform better than they should, kept them virus free, and done it for less than going with a retail box just so we can be called amateurs. Sorry, but only pros can do things like that.
What's really sad though, is that all you need to do to use a computer and have almost no problems is well... RTFM. =/
-illumina+us "I put on my robe and wizard hat..."
A car is something that gets you to your job, and you invest thousands in (tens of thousands for most people). $50/hour for a few hours isn't all that much.
$50/hour for 3-4 hours ($150-$200) is often 20-40% of the original computer cost. When Dell is offering $549 packages deals with a flat screen, most people's knee-jerk reaction is that $50/hour is 'too high'. And it is too high, for most people and what they do. If it's related to their work, they can expense it. If it's just an email/gaming machine, they can buy a new one that's faster anyway.
creation science book
Notice that his ad makes good use of white space, lacks grammatical errors and is generally well composed?
He should take up journalism or something!
The only amateur is this journalist. What he should really be saying is "Wow! Repairing a computer, removing spyware is complicated"
He is somewhat right though, pc repair people could be more qualified. Perhaps he'd be willing to pay the costs to have a more qualified person to fix the computer, or maybe those better trained people don't work as computer techs.
But slightly less unqualified than users.
Hence the huge market. This guy seems to be the last to know about all this. Despite the fact that I recommend procedures and fully document everything I do so, customers still want us to do all this stuff, or simply find it too complicated. I find doctors and lawyers to be similarly clueless despite all their training.
PRICE.
No one wants to pay $50 - $100 an hour for a qualified person to come to their house and tell them that their computer would run fine if they would stop visiting so many porn sites.
I have worked on at least 100 home PCs in my lifetime and have not found a single one that was free of pornography. Don't get me wrong, if someone wants to look at porn, that is their business, not mine. But don't get all pissed off when fat-young-heiffers.com loads your machine with digital nastiness that you didn't ask for.
"I'm just here to regulate funkiness."
Nobody with skills wants a market (consumer computer service) with whiny, cash-strapped cutomers who don't think they should have to pay the time and cost it takes, when a better market (business computer service) exists.
Computers are like other service industries, except that they require a lot more knowledge and care to prevent the problems from happening in the first place. People don't realize that difference, and expect solving computer problems to be like plumbing, with easy estimates of time and cause.
Promote civility: mod down any post starting with 'ummm'.
I find that most people are very stingy when it comes to getting qualified or unqualified help in getting their computer fixed. They'll drop a thousand dollars to pimp out their car but won't buy a hundred dollar external drive for backup until all of their business records are wiped out. And its next to impossible to convince people that their Windows systems need regular upkeep, which will come out cheaper than feverishly fixing the systems after they failed.
I also had a gig providing free tech support for a small non-profit, and when I had to quit it, I looked for a paid support option for them. I have found highly qualified company that would support the network for about $120 per hour on a regular contract. But before them, I have talked to multiple organizations touting only slightly cheaper support options ($75-100) who were utterly incompetent.
In the last thirtyish years I have seen many people try to start business servicing computers. They almost always fail. I'm not sure why but I can name you at least a dozen around here (city of about 100k).
What does seem to work is a computer dealership with a service technician. Those do seem to have some staying power.
Pee wee himself?
In other news, today's secret word is "motherboard".
For a small fee, I can tell you how to close an HTML tag. This may prove helpful to you in your chosen career as a website designer.
When a domestic appliance goes wrong, you can ring a repair man. When your car breaks down you can call the garage. But when your computer system goes wrong, who do you call?
People in my city would tell you to call me, since I make a pretty decent living off of going to peoples houses and cleaning up their computers.
This is essentially a hobby, but people appreciate it and sometimes pays me quite large sums of money (even though I don't really require more than maybe some food or a cold beverage in return).
I enjoy large posteriors and I cannot prevaricate.
Sure, there are schools to get certified in Computer repair. But people who get this certification usually end up being the "Amateurs".
I did computer service work for 4 years while going to school. It was for a consulting firm. I'd be farmed out to different businesses all over the GTA.
I wasn't great at it. But I knew loads more than anybody and these businesses. After the first service call, all computer related problems were automatically our fault. You constantly had to deal with irate people. No wonder I only made a fraction of what the company I worked for was charging for my time.
The thing is. I learned this stuff on my own. Taking apart my first computer, perpetually upgrading it, writing my own software, etc. I had an interest. Most people don't. They just want it to work. They want this website to show their video clip, or that file to play this sound clip or whatever. They have no interest in knowing what you should and shouldn't do and how it all works.
The people who KNOW how it all works usually don't want to do it. I sure don't. After working in computer repair service for four years, I hardly want to help out my best friends let along do it for "someone somebody knows with a problem". And there is the catch. People who know, who are good at it, and who can do a good job, don't want to. It's the Janitorial job of the IT world.
--- tracer.ca
Seriously, maybe he should try going to PC World (in the UK), and getting the "Qualified" "Professional" staff there to help him? Many "professionals" are random people with no experience who have been put on some useless training course.
I run 70-85 depending on the client, up your ante 40/hr!
You're cheap then. The company I work for has 51 of us repairing computers at peoples homes. We charge $88/hr. And we have to much work, we need to hire another few techs.
I've had over 25 years in the computer industry, and spent a fair part of that time having to do tech support for home and business customers. ("How do I turn it off; it was already on when I started working here.")
These days, dealing with random members of the public and their constant problems would be the last way I would choose to spend my time; it's bad enough just keeping an eye on family and friends' computers, and most of them at least know a bit about their systems!
So yep, if they know what they are doing, you'd not find them advertising in the local shops! As we said at work: A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. It was the systems "fixed" by amateurs that gave us the most problems!
come on, there are TONS of "computer guys" out there that don't know and an IP address from a subnet mask. Or an IRQ from a port address. But they do know how to do a series of things that might make it work, a reboot, a re-install or a call to someone else.
Of course this has been my experience in dealing with numerous computer guys, mainly outside of big cities.
damn n00bs. :)
So this guy, who is a writer for the BBC by day and who has no formal training puts up an advert in his local news shop as a computer repairman. And he complains about these repairmen being amateurs? Was he looking in a mirror when he said that?
Why doesn't Slashdot ever get slashdotted?
So this weekend (yep, my holiday weekend) a close friend of my parents needed serious help. Her external drive (where she unfortunately saved all her data without backups) had stopped working. This was her entire business (stupid mistake, but common among end users). She had already spoken to one "IT Pro" who had taken a look, said the drive was completely dead and told her to send the drive to one of those low level recovery services which cost $3000. I took the drive, plugged it in to USB, and copied her files right off. Turns out the firewire connection on the drive had died. This "IT Pro" didn't even have the brains to try a different connection type! When someone tells me they've got a friend or brother or son in IT I assume only that that person is an idiot. Often I'm correct. If you don't know what your talking about, shut your mouth. Don't try to oversimplify or make something up. It makes all of us look bad.
Who wants to get roped into answering the phone at all hours from someone who cant figure out how to avoid a virus or worm? I wont answer that call from anyone. Get WebTV and shut the fuck up.
You cant pay me enough to swing by in the middle of my day to remove porn-popups, if you are gonna keep using IE, and not reign in your 13yr boy with a perpetual woody.
I dont care if you have a pair of 44Ds in your blouse, I aint fixing your machine unless you are prepared to sit on my lap while I load my "Spybot".
"The simple truth is that although computer systems are sold as consumer goods like fridges or washing machines, there's no computer equivalent of a qualified service engineer who you can get to come around and fix things" I thought that was what A+ certification was all about.
Crisis is the rule, not the exception.
He is speaking out of frustration.... :P
I really can't blame him....After 5 years as tech support I know where the frustration comes from,
(I hope there is no way to mod this as "Pathetic"!!)
My local computershop repaired my computer, which I bought used from them, twice. The first time because of a burnt motherboard... The second time because of a burnt motherboard... The second time they also said that the cpu was "damaged".
The weird thing was: When I gave them the computers they smelled but worked. When they had examined them they didn't function at all. Amateurs? I really think soo... They broke my beloved computer!
And it's called knoppix. memtest to test ram, badblocks to test the physical disk. When spyware destroys your windows, you boot up, move your files to your friendly local linux-admin neighbor's ftp server, wipe the whole thing with fdisk, and then boot up with your Windows CD (only to repeat the process 2 months later when you are once again overrun with spyware).
Or you can just install Debian, learn what you're doing, vacuum all the dust out of your box occasionally, and stop worrying.
If that was some kind of sexual innuendo, you're a sick bastard.
Cheap, too
When I sit down in front of a Linux server I can whip out super professional tools like strace and ltrace and lsof and dig through /proc, whip out gdb, etc. and follow everything step by step through the source code. Everything's usually simple enough that I can fit the entire system in my head and see where the broken piece is (except for PAM). The system invites me to do this. I can diagnose problems scientifically, professionally, and quickly.
When I sit in front of a Windows box, with some exceptions, all I can do is push the same set of buttons that the user has been pushing, and see if I can find a combination that works.
PCs force me to become an amateur. Reason: bad tools available.
He knows what he's talking about.
The problem isn't completely with technical incompetence, the problem can just as easily and will more probably be with care and respect for the customer.
It's a service issue, not a knowledge issue most times when you run into a computer tech who seems to be bumbling something up. Did they check to see what the problem actually was? Do they care enough if they're only making $7-10 an hour from their employer to save your enterprise business plan or presentation? Probably not.
Actually the whole thing is a lot like having a car. You can go through a bunch of different mechaniacs who are either dishonest or lazy, but once and a while you find that one shop where they're commited to service. I don't know about you, but I end up holding on to that shop's business card like it's solid gold. And that's an industry where there are standards to meet. I pay more for better, and I'm always happy with the result.
So WE as computer techies are to blame for this attitude in non computer techies in two ways; way #1, we undervalue ourselves and in turn make the work we do less valuable. #2 we don't do the work properly because we don't respect it ourselves.
Actually come to think of it, as a freelancer, I'm not competing with these low-balling stained-shirt wearing Linksys cablemodem router admins anymore, I'm going to set my rates accordingly. //more of a rant than I wanted that to be.
Luck favors the prepared, darling.
This journalist appears to have set a blurry line as what constitutes a "repair... as we all know the most common reason computers tend to break is because they are either deluged with adware/spyware or if they've become infested with a virus.
Instead of emphasizing these facts, the guy just natters on about his advertisement, the intensely complex nature of computers (backing it up with little evidence, typical journo) and the huge amount of consumer demand there is (oddly, he backs this up quite extensively). If anything this article is more inclined to the business itself than the "cowboys" who profit from it,
By the end of the article, hes become pedantic and I daresay sardonic, if anything such an article encourages the "cowboys", indeed, even this guys very point is inane.
I mean, so what is computer repair is a lowly skilled job which doesn't happen to require a degree in computer science? If the job is done well, and the "cowboy" gives you some advice about preventing your computer breaking further, then what computer owner in the right mind would give a flying feck about his qualifications?
a bunch of unqualified amateurs
No kidding. There's a reason so much of the world runs a crap operating system and crap applications.
It looks like the BBC writer didn't do his own homework in English class.
Is $50/hour a fair price?
And the men who hold high places must be the ones who start
To mold a new reality... closer to the heart
because if you did, you would have noticed this is from:
"Dot.life - where technology meets life, every week
By Paul Rubens"
what the hell is dot.life and why is it on slashdot? who the hell cares if some guy thinks he's the first one to do side work because people don't even want to attempt to learn how to use their computers?
this article should not be on slashdot, it's basically this guys frickin blog, it's NOT ABOUT ANYTHING@(#)
FOR SHAME TIMOTHY
Probably because Paul Reubens' is paria in the U.S. after the pedophilia case against him...
Jupiter is the name of the lander... ...the actual landing site is in my backyard, and I assure you, it is indeed rocky. Noisy and tough on the garden, too.
"We have to go forth and crush every world view that doesn't believe in tolerance and free speech." - David Brin
I've met plenty of people with qualifications (computer science degrees, various certifications, etc..) who couldn't fix the simplest problems or don't even have an understanding of the most basic aspects of the systems. On the other hand, I've met other people who are more than capable and don't even have a college degree or a certification. The bottom line is this: If a person can fix the problem and provide you with an exact description of what caused the problem, and they can reproduce their results, they have the only qualification they need. (ie. they know what they're doing)
The biggest mistake that a lot of people make is thinking that computers are a business. They aren't. They are a technology and therefore you need technologically savvy people to work with them. I have no formal training at all, but most people I know always come to me for help because they know I can figure out and solve any software or hardware issue on a PC. I think it helps that I have a non-formal background in electronics first. I, generally, know how the circuitry works at the hardware level. So it's very easy for me to rule out hardware problems before I explore the software itself. Many times, I find that the culprit is too many apps that are stomping over each other.
When I was a Windows guy, it didn't take me long to discover that most of the instability in my system was caused by all the extras I loaded on for convenience. This was an alien experience to me as it wasn't that way in the Atari ST world I migrated from. I didn't like it, but I wound up finding that the best way to run Windows was to keep it lean and pretty plain vanilla. If I wanted extra apps, I always went for Microsoft products because they usually worked the best with Windows. Norton stuff was very cool, but resulted in a lot of instability (this was Windows 3.1). Then I got sick of having only one place to go shopping and moved to Linux. All problems solved...
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
I have been in professional pc repair for 14 years, and I can honestly say he's missed a big point. While most problems are fixable by the user, most don't seem concerned enough to learn the basics and try it. While I wouldn't expect every home user to know all about their machines, I have dealt with businesses that are staggeringly, and proudly, computer illiterate. Then when you do that thing (found on page 12 of the manual) that fixes it, they give the same classic line : "I could have done that! Why should I pay you?" They'd rather call someone else to deal with it. This same principle keeps all those oil change places running! But, hey, as long as guys like this are around, I will always have the next house payment!
... all you have to do is say "I CAN FIX THAT!" and have more of a clue than the person with the broke gear.
:P
Considering the number of retards and windows installs in the world, this is fairly easy to do.
Computer "repair" is a lot like plumbing... the difference is that you don't see everyone who's plunged a toilet calling themselves a plumber and billing out 50$ an hour. Real plumbers know their shit and get paid accordingly- likewise, a real pc tech who actually knows their shit is earning their paycheck without breaking much of a sweat.
The problem is finding competent people. It's reasonably easy to tell if your plumber doesn't know shit, but if you're not some degree of geek, you'll get totally snowed by "computer repair"- though if you're some degree of geek, you don't need one.
in the USA we have a boat load of shade tree windoze mechanix, hardware partz swapperz, and even a few shade tree unix repaimen.
... and am pretty pleased that all of is pretty much half working ;-)
So, it's not as big a problem finding someone. Rather, the problem arises when 'good practice' fails and some thought has to be applied.
Strangely it seems that it is easier to find a shade tree mechanic who can handle the thinking end of things, if one is willing to hunt up the dood with the good reputation. He'll usually charge the rate of 'professionals' but take much less time because one does not have to pay to work through the ranks.
I fix all my own stuff. Computer, house, electrical, plumbing, furnace, TV, HiFi, automobile,
I'm curious...how much of that do the techs get, on average?
incompetent hacks throw up complete rubbish on their blogs and people over react because they feel that one idiot's voice is important.
Oh, wait, it does!
Free Mac Mini Yeah, it's
When a domestic appliance goes wrong, you can ring a repair man. When your car breaks down you can call the garage. But when your computer system goes wrong, who do you call?
...there's no computer equivalent of a qualified service engineer who you can get to come around and fix things.
A quick look in the yellow pages under Computers, Repair will show a list of what are supposed to be qualified computer repair shops in town.
If you are smart enough to find the Appliances, Repair section, why can't you find the computer repair? I know for a fact that there's a computer repair shop in my town that can fix most anything that can go wrong with your PC. I was a tech there for about 5 years.
Now I run into the problem that when they have a problem with their PC, they call their ISP, because they have FREE tech support (for help with the internet connection only, but that doesn't stop them) I know this, because I now work for my local ISP and helpdesk.
But the fact still remains, this guy is an idiot when he makes this claim of no one to repair your PC.
I realized the perfect example to shut your gob.
My parents have been computer users since 1984. We had an Apple II+ (followed by a IIGS ugh), and then they some variety of PC's at work.
They are very organized and successful people, and they used those early computers with no problem. Word processing, spreadsheets, it was enormously useful and rarely gave us problems. As the years have gone by, the problems they have had with computers have increased exponentially.
This same story is being repeated in every computer owning household in the world.
But if it makes you feel better to stand on your soapbox spewing gibberish about stupid everyone is and if they just follow your 6 simple steps (each of which has 10 implicit substeps that would require hours of training to get through) then everything would be rosy... well keep doing it I guess.
I'm an 'in house' computer tech. It's my sole occupation. I don't work on a helpdesk, not that there's anything wrong with that, I actually bring the machine to my desk and repair it.
For a while I tried to work independantly. I paid for some advertising and got a little work. Do you know what I found out. People (consumers, not businesses) don't want to spend money on computer repairs. And when they do they usually hire the wrong people.
I don't mind saying that I'm very good at what I do. And working for myself I had the freedom to do whatever I had to do to please the customer. That stands in contrast to what most 'store techs' have the freedom to do for the customer. They can only do what the customer is paying for... in other words, no extras, no 'going the extra mile'.
The end result was things like this kindly old lady (my first customer) paying $90/hour for some jerk to format and reinstall her pc. And he didn't update windows or tell her about doing so. WTF is that? 3 Months later she needed more work done....
So when I formatted her machine I made sure to instruct her on how to get updates. I made sure to give her a quick tutorial on security in general. I also told her she could ask me questions in the future via email if she forgot anything. And I did all of that *for free* because I care about the service I provide.
I think that a lot of 'rent a tech' types don't really give a damn about what the customer is going through because they're only getting paid $8/hour. (In Canada thats crappy pay).
But do you know what the funny part is? I worked for about half to a third of what my competitors charged. But they were from the big computer stores so I could charge less and make more... but that's irrelevent to the customer. But I found that most people didn't want to pay me, they would wait until it was so bad they couldn't do anything and then they'd take it to a 'store tech' and get crappy service.
So ya, no wonder people think the 'average' tech is a dumbass. It's because the tech is from Big O'l Retail Store and doesn't really give a damn.
You want good computer work, then find someone that does it exclusively. Ask for references. Shop around. But whatever you do don't pay $90/hour for an $8/hour tech to give you $8/hour-quality service.
I'm not sure how he comes up with this conclusion, unless the people he services actually told him that they'd used these "unqualified amateurs". It doesn't take a rocket scientist to reinstall windows, or insert an anti-virus CD and run it. Duh.
Send it to me, postage paid. I'll repair it and send it back.
;-)
Honest.
He should have called GeekSquad!
Firstly, he "had a hunch" that people might need help fixing their computers.
Well, the rest of us knew that a looong time ago. I used to offer the same service myself, but I guess I was ahead of my time. This was around 1998, and while I did get calls, not as many people owned pcs then. Then after a while, I got lots of competition from people who were prepared to basically work for nothing, or so it would seem from their rates.
Of course, as I soon realised, these competitors were using these tactics to get a foot in the door, then convince the customer that something really expensive needed doing, whereas a simple job like adding a RAM stick would only really cost the price of the RAM and 1/2 hours labour.
Being basically honest, I decided against being associated with that business.
I did however make enough of an impression to still get calls from old customers to this day.
Another point worth making is on the unqualified amateur subject. Considering that most relevant qualifications available are worthless anyway, except to line the pockets of unscrupulous teaching organisations, then I would expect to be more knowledgable by not having taken any "courses". Add to this the fact that no course you may take is going to be up to speed on the latest problems in the real world and you can discount this argument entirely. I mean do you really need CompSci to change over a hard drive or disinfect a Windows system. You don't even need to have ever held a soldering iron in anger. Its almost like companies asking for candidates with 10 years flash experience + 7 years VB6 + java + 4 years C# (would be good).
Maybe I should get back in the game as an "Instructor" LOL.
Finally, I notice he described himself as an "expert" on his advert. Maybe trades descriptions would like to hear about this....
My father is a veteran systems administrator with 35 years of experience in the industry. His and his girlfriends' home PCs keep getting virii, spyware, and adware.
It's not that dad's an old coot, he actually keeps his skills up to date. It's that Windows is so unbelievably insecure he just can't keep up with it. He uses antivirus software, he tries to keep it up to date, he has multiple spyware scanners/removers which he updates regularly, and he just can't keep the systems clean. Every year or two it gets too unbearable and he just has to wipe the machine and reinstall from scratch, or replace it.
If my father can't do it, then no normal mortal computer owner should be expected to do it.
I think I've got Dad just about convinced to buy a Macintosh. When he hears that I have absolutely no problems with malware and I don't even have to have special software to prevent it, he gets very interested.
Actually, I think they treat PC much like refrigerators. An appliance. They do little or no maintenance. They don't see the symptoms of an impending failure until it's WAY too late. Usually pretty dirty, with some old, leftover stuff they'll never use, but won't throw out.
Here's the real similarity - They are complex WAY above their heads, so they won't crack it open and try to fix it (usually), and the repair man is certainly out to screw them raw, and go back to their geek buddies to yuk it up about how they replaced a fictional part and charged the customer $175.
Of course, if they would have spent a few more dollars for a unit with better features and quality parts, some of this could be avoided, but they want the cheapest, "bestest" one they can get (under $500).
Face it, do something enough times, and it can cause problems.
have you checked for bulging/blown capacitors?
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Anonymous coward tries BBC writing, finds grammatical errors.
One can be unfamiliar with LAN or common Linux/Unix issues (or PC-related issues at all) and be quite competent in their area(s) of IT expertise.
A lack of knowledge doesn't always imply incompetence. Sometimes it's simply a lack of knowledge.
Mainframe/UNIX Bit Twiddler and long time Windows/Linux Hobbyist.
The Theorem Theorem: If If, Then Then.
These companies can't afford expensive support contracts with computer service organisations - and they haven't got the time to pack up the computer and take it to a shop, and then wait a week or so for it to be fixed.
This is what I hate most about people that HAVE to have a PC. Do these companies think twice when they go to their local lube shop, and agree to monthly servicing of their fleet? Do they have montly phone plans that they have to pay for?
The list goes on and on regarding regular bills that have to be paid to maintain and operate a business. If you want computers, you had better plan on one more. Don't want that bill? Buy a lot of pens and paper. Enough said.
Softwares are too complex for most of the people. They don't want to read the f* manual, and you won't change their mind, whatever you'll tell them. They too scared, hell knows from what but that's people.
They don't read their TV's manual, car's manual or whatever manual there is. They don't want any message boxes with questions or information. The first thing they'll do is to push the closest button they think fit.
In my opinion, OSs should be smart enough to answer most of the questions asked by other softwares installed. The default should be to show only the minimum required information. Microsoft has done a step forward but it would take years before operating a computer would be close to operating a television.
You can't get there from here.
I'm a qualified technician. I can vouche for the fact that there are quite a few out there that AREN'T qualified. But blanketing the entire industry like that. I'm quite insulted by being grouped with the majority of the "techs" out there. People go elsewhere because "it's cheaper" but then they bitch about the quality of service they get. It's something I've been complaining about for a long time. I'm good, I know what I'm doing and if you want quality work, you're going to pay for it. But don't group me with the guys that are nothing more than hacks that were home geeks and thought they could turn a hobby into a living and screw people in the process.
They say I'm a pretty smart guy overall and quite handy with power tools. But when it came to refinishing hardwood floors in my house I chose to pay someone to come and do it. I sure could have rented the tools taken some practice in less visible areas and breathed dust for a week and maybe saved a few hundred bucks. Instead I was more than happy to pay a guy $2K to do all the messy work for me leaving me with brand new looking floors after my vacation.
That's called division of labour and it's a good thing. What seems like a trivial computer issue to me is probably dumbfounding to my floor repairman. But he knows everything there is to know about wood floors and I'm sure he's not any less smart than me. It is all about what we choose to specialize in.
Your pizza just the way you ought to have it.
Yep, I charge $39 an hour, but that's only at my shop. House calls are extra, depending on mileage and the kind of job.
rm -rf
Perhaps he should be a chinaman and learn how to repair an abacaus before he try his hand on a real computer that plugs into the wall. :-)
:-/
Ok ok... I'm going to modded down...
If you hadn't mentioned your memtest86's, I would've sworn it was bad RAM. Memory testers aren't perfect; you might want to try swapping out the memory anyway, even though memtest says it's OK.
Most of these problems can be solved fairly simply: give them a copy of Knoppix or Ubuntu/Live and just have them use that. Data goes on USB sticks. There is little to screw up that way and it fulfills all the basic functions that people need: web, office, mail, graphics, etc.
I went to school to be a programmer but turned to telecom for my first job, went on to be a voice administrator and am now just a repairman... I love this job and I learn as much as I want or have time for, I decide how much time I'll need to fix a system. It's not hard to do my job but any good repairman has a few years of expirience to deal swiftly and correct to any problem. Only problem is that people generaly think my clicking the mouse 5 mins or updating firmware is something the guy at the newsstand could have told them. But as that guys number wasn't available, they called you and expect to pay just enough to buy a beer. Do you really expect from the first repairman you call to be a modern Homo universalis?
that his toilet explodes and he calls a plumber who just happens to be a /. reader!
GET FREE APPLE STUFF!
Even if the person they have helping them is competent, some times the end user will still blunder into trouble no matter how often their computer is serviced and they are advised to keep their security software updated and run regularly.
Using the dishwasher analogy: If you take one home and try to do a load of gravel while banging on it with a sledgehammer, is Maytag to blame?
This article was written to be a filler...he probably had nothing else to write about and so pulled this out his ass...
...most people who have computer trouble have at least one techie friend who is not an "amateur", and can fix the problem for them.
And the thing about something bound to go wrong in some time is stupid...there are machines that obviously go without even reboots for a few years. If computers had a degree of randomness or failure after some time, it would come pretty quick since there are billions of instructions being processed all the time - what excactly is this time-to-failure? Well, you could make an argument that a hard disk is rated for 100,000 hours or something but I think the author is speaking of software.
And furthermore, most people DO KNOW to go into google and search but are scared of the consequences of perhaps doing something wrong - just like most people who use Windows are probably scared to go edit some random-ass file in Linux to get something to work.
In short, this article is stupid and actually is not slashdot-worthy really...it's just something we tear to pieces anyways.
In my family and among neighbors I'm normally the one who is called to do tech support. 95% of the time the complaint is "Computer is slow" or "Pop-ups all over the place". So I wander on over to their house, do some scans, stop some processes from starting and they are fixed. Normally I will also install Firefox. Then I write them up a nice little schedule of PC maintenance with instructions for each step. Normally they stick to that for about a week or two. But it's a week or two where I don't have to help them. In the end it is up to the end user to get informed and protect themselves. Most do not do this, so they have us. Which is normally good enough.
I reject your reality and substitute my own.
There are two reasons why so many amateurs are the only ones doing this kind of work.
The first reason is that computers often cost more to fix than what was paid for them in the first place.
It can take a few hours sometimes to fix some of the more persistent viruses and malware out there. As a consequence, only businesses seem to be able to afford my services.
The second reason is that home users have unreasonable expectations. Many seem to think that once I've touched their computer, I own it, and anything that goes wrong after that is my fault, not theirs.
I've only made a couple of home user calls. My first call was on a PC that had 26 viruses and over 100 malware and spyware-related issues.
In another case I had to tell a lady that she could buy a new PC for about $200 less than what it would cost me to rid her aging computer of demons.
Surprisingly, I have noticed that I charge $20/hr less than Geek Squad out of the local Best Buy. However, the home computer market is a touchy one.
Proverbs 21:19
I do this for a living. Thank you to all the crappy software vendors, virus creators and spyware companies.
But seriously...I use this analogy for my customers: You change the oil in your car every 3000 miles, you read the owners manual, you took a driver's test. A PC is a machine just like a car and it needs attention. You need to read up on it and look after it just like any other appliance or machine.
When you're on the highway, you're sharing the road with other drivers...much like when you're on the internet you're sharing it with other people. You have insurance incase someone hits your car...but you don't have virus protection or spyware protection incase someone from the net hits your PC.
Same story, different day.
Heh. Lightweight. I break their computer and then they have to pay me to get an all-new one. And if they're too cheap to get one, problem solved.
This is the classical example of somebody not understanding how to use a computer.
If a laptop fails:
First backup your things (which you should have done in the first place).
Next reload the system software. Windows will eventually screw itself up anyway.
Finally you contemplate other options.
The attitude of "somebody should have created an easy downloadable solution to fix my world" is increasingly being deployed instead of brains.
We are 4 people in my hopusehold. 12 computers of which 5 are running Windows, the rest running Linux. Even my kids have no problems with windows other than windows itself. They all know the drill: Keep your stuff in a directory structure called "My World". In case of malfunction or our linux firewall screaming bloody virus warning: Time to find the Knoppix disk and delete the windows system directory. Then you reload windows and the world is at peace once more.
How in the world do you think I could otherwise keep this menagerie runing?
As little as humanly possible, unless the employer's a commie.
You want to get paid well, get some professional qualifications and sorry... MCSE doesn't exactly cut the mustard.
You want someone who knows what they're doing? Get someone with professional qualifications.
It is however a solved problem, lawyers, accountants, doctors etc all have to belong to professional bodies in order to practice. You want to be taken seriously in IT? The BCS in the UK, IEEE Computer Society and/or ACM in the US (and internationally), the ACS in Australia.
You want someone who takes what they do seriously? Or maybe a fly by night cowboy will do.
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
The BBC also needs to do a special on the lack of Dental and orthodontics professionals in the common wealth! (sorry low blow but good for a cheap laugh.)
This sounds a lot like my old Athlon machine:
memory would occacionally fail
HDDs would bog down the system
spontaneous reboots
gfx failure
didn't like non-integer clock multipliers
sometimes the FSB would set to 100 instead of 133
two PSUs exploded
I believe I've replaced every part(or tested in other machines) except the motherboard. Which I guess is my/your machine's problem.
I can't remember who said it, but "You put a supposedly intelligent person in front of a computer and they become an incompetent idiot".
At work I deal with some front line helpdesk stuff, and honestly sometimes you wonder what on earth these people do at home (I keep getting an error message! What does it say? I don't know... I don't understand computers) - like if a light bulb goes, do they sit in the dark until an electrician comes out to replace it?
Excuse me, this article by Paul Rubens is just a rant/flamebait, isn't it?
After all, why should someone offering "computer repair" be restricted to offering a physical repair, and why not checking for spyware, etc. as well?
I'm also missing interesting details in the article that would help me to mend my evil ways should I venture to become an "amateur computer repairman" !
Also, you get what you pay for - if you want repairs as cheap as possible, you end up with people with a limited repertoire, not with a costly team of experts.
I'm still trying to figure out what people mean by 'social skills' here.
...I suppose then the average computer user is the equivalent of a drooling, babbling idiot.
My whole theory still holds true. There is only X amount of computer knowledge in the world. If Y amount of people are using computers, then the knowledge per person is X/Y. So, as the amount of users, Y, increase, the share of knowedge, X, per user continues to decrease. If you think about it, it's more on target than Moore's law.
-- Liberalism is a mental disorder.
You ever to PC work for the average home user?
if you open a command line, the over 40 crowd thinks your a computer god, the 24 and under crowd thinks your some kind of uber hacker.
you can buy a car without being a mechanic but you still need a license to prove you won't kill the cat backing out of the driveway, nothing like that exists for computers.. because you'll only harm yourself and you'll have to call one of 5 companies to help you
AOL, Microsoft and others have spent millions of engineering hours to make sure anyone can get online and stark clicking everywhere they see something flashing, it reminds me of the senior citizen zombies in front of the slot machines at the casinos
they have zero knowledge of what it takes to win...and believe in luck, just "max bet" and hit the 3 buttons....try again
There is absolutley no need anymore for anyone to understand anything regarding operating systems, file structure, syntax, controls, etc
br? I have a 512 usb flash drive with Mozzila/-plugins galore ad-aware/spy-bot etc. a couple of dos bat and vbs files. It takes about 20 minutes to get the average pc back into good health. You barter a good homecooked dinner or a bottle of something you like... show them the glory of tabbed browsing and not clicking anything that warns them that thier computer may be infected and to 'click here' to scan. You spend 15 minutes explaining how to use spy bot etc. Put a post it note with Dell/MS/Verizon/Comcast/ whatever tech support line. PS.... show them the help button
The root cause of all of these problems is poor OS design. A properly-designed consumer OS needs to do two things to avoid these kinds of problems:
Windows XP does a half-assed job on both counts, and that's the fundamental problem. Longhorn will take some steps to address these issues, although I'm betting it will still only be about 2/3-assed.
For instance, normal users will no longer run as administrators by default, and new security infrastructure will safely allow qualified code to carry out administrative operations when it needs to on behalf of the user. But this will probably only work for new software written to take advantage of it. It will be years before all the existing WinXP-generation software gets phased out and replaced by equivalent Longhorn versions that utilize this approach, so in the meanwhile, people will still probably set themselves to run as Administrators so all their existing software will work.
Another instance: Device Manager is the right idea for managing devices and drivers, but it's not nearly bulletproof enough. Device management in WinXP has a variety of buggy behaviors that I won't go into here, but they would all need to be fixed, and the user should never have to boot into "safe mode" to deal with some device or driver issue.
A third instance: it's simply poor design that a program can launch at Windows start or user login in a hidden way or without the user having specifically chosen for that to happen by placing an icon into their Startup folder in the start menu. All these various hidden ways (Run and RunOnce regkeys, etc) for programs to launch themselves at startup need to be eliminated from the design of the OS, to put that control exclusively in the hands of the user. This alone would go a LONG way toward ridding the world of spyware/malware.
Moderator hint: a comment is neither "Flamebait" nor "Troll" if it is true.
There's a T-shirt at ThinkGeek.com that says, "No, I will not repair your computer". As one of his fellow "amateurs", I think that this man has let himself in for more than he could imagine.
I have one non-technical friend whom I support and help with computer issues, and he's the good kind --- this individual actually listens to what I tell him, and learns and understands. He appreciates things like "limited" accounts under XP. He's never asked the same question twice. The problems he's experienced have not been of his own [direct] making, but I can often sort them in fifteen minutes (and I learn stuff in the process). Hence, I enjoy supporting this guy because my wisdom is being passed on and put to good use.
Oh, if only they were all like that. When it comes to some I've seen, I can only say that if they drove a car like they use a computer, they'd be bloody dangerous. Just like:
"Helen" (or should that be "Lynette"?) the Housewife really should take more care! Why would anyone visit the kinds of sites that can spread that kind of adware when children use the same machine? When people take this blatantly cavalier attitude (yes, I am a snob and a disciplinarian), is it any surprise when bad things happen? If my years of computer use have taught me anything, it's that the digital domain has its own kind of karma --- and your sins will find you.
Which is all very well. Except that (a) sinners never learn; and (b) the sinners always come and find me.
It's got to the point where I've told my family not to mention that I'm good with computers. "I'm crap with them." I don't like the stress, and I don't want the responsibility of administering yet another person's PC and having to give them a crash course on Security and Maintenance, and how the World Wide Web is not The Internet. I'm not a one-man IT support department, and I can think of better ways to spend my precious time. Doing what Rubens does (paid or not) would drive me potty.
Let's see how long he lasts.
I imagine like many a young geek I was not alone in repairing PC's for access to food, money and girls. I didn't have qualifications other then being born into a household where computers were modded on a regular basis.(my appleIIc dual booted between an ibm board and the apple board) Of course what was important to me as a young geek isn't as important now. Fixing someones PC is a pain in the ass. Inevitably there is going to be something you didn't expect - like very few people keep motherboard manuals, and how do you look up jumper info when the only machine around is the one your repairing. When I was 16-20 it provided pocket money and access to girls and food (pasta for powerpoint anyone?) but as an adult I long ago realized that my time is more valuable - if I was doing it for a company I would expect min $50 an hour, I spent the years accumulating the experience and refining the skills. The average home user isn't willing to pay the 50$ an hour so they get 16-19 year old kids(unqualified amaturs)fixing their pc's. I have nothing against these kids, and I imagine many of them are more capable then me with some of these technologies. As long as the home user refuses to pay professional rates for PC service then that market place will stay the domain of young geeks, and provide them a place to use their skills for food, girls and money. Let em have it - if you are worth professional rates work in the professional market - don't work in the home market and crowd out the kids.
The rock, the vulture, and the chain
When my family says, "Dylan is in computers," they don't know anything about what I do. I'm not an IT guy, so when my friends call with problems, they get a boilerplate attempt at fixing it, and a subsequent blow off if it didn't work. My family gets 5 hours, after which I throw up my hands and leave.... Making that assumption is good form, but it's not exactly the best way to do things. Sometimes the problem is something you can't quite see, can't look at in the right way, and if you're a programmer normally hardware might mystify you. Not me, but I've met those who are that way.
My little site.
$40 for residential customers, $60-$100/hour for commercial depending on the difficulty of the problems, and *I* decide on how difficult.
I think I have a franchise opportunity here. Please send enquiries to /dev/null.
Give a man a fish and you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish, and he'll say "WHERE'S MY FISH, YOU IDIOT?"
I have gigs of porn, and have never had a problem with malware. The one time I did get something was when I downloaded a crack that included a trojan. Downloading warezed software is inherently risky, but porn seems to be safe - no executables. The only way you could get in trouble is via browser vulnerabilities (and I don't use IE so I'm safe-ish) or something else like buffer overflows in jpeg libraries. Which isn't exactly porn-specific anyway.
...as well as my current job as a help desk technician, I have had a lot of experience with 'puternoobs.
I did some work this summer for $35 an hour on my own, which is great when you can get it, and absolutely silly when you consider the utter simplicity of the tasks (install spyware killers, run them, drink Mountain Dew.)
I, for one, hope people don't figure out how easy computers can be if you just try. I learned most of what I know by trial and error. If everyone knew that, I'd be out of a job.
...to get to Seasoned Professional is through Unqualified Amateur.
And what is good, Phaedrus, And what is not good... Need we ask anyone to tell us these things?
If the computers he is working on are Dells and Gateways with stock configurations, chances are he isn't going to run into a great deal of issues on the hardware side. If he is like me, however, and is constantly piecing computers together from spare used parts, mismatched RAM pairs in every box for example, he is inviting hardware issues. I think we can safely say that we have gotten beyond the days of Win9x and its poor device driver model that openly invited a BSOD whenever a particular piece of hardware acted up. Granted, I know that Win2K and XP will BSOD in the event of hardware failure (and many other things), but for that matter so will Linux and just about every other OS out there. Nothing is bullet proof. What I am trying to get at is that hardware repair guys have indeed become nearly useless trade as most issues are software related (as this guy points out as well), but in light of that, there will always be a need for people that can diagnose and repair hardware situations. Out of the many home computers I've looked at, most needed RAM upgrades and what not (in addition to complete OS reinstalls), thus involving some level of knowledge of computer hardware. What stick of RAM would you use for an older gateway P2-400? PC100 would work right? Sure if it is low density. If you just told someone to buy a stick they'd have no idea what the hell to look for. The board won't even recognize most modern RAM you could just buy at best buy. I have a Dell P166 here I use as a file server. It won't take more than 64 megs of RAM because the wonderful intel chipset is hard limited at 64 megs. Great design feature eh? The board takes SDRAM too. If you stick 128 in it, it just recognizes the first 64. Yeah, a BIOS update never fixed the cap as it was hardcoded into the chipset. Guess dell never thought anyone would need to give a P200MMX more than 64 megs of RAM. Genius! The hardware has gotten somewhat simpler to deal with (automatic IRQ assigning comes to mind), but knowing what the hell is wrong when something goes wrong is a skill that will never go away unless hardware designs start becoming radically more simple, disposable, all on one PCB solutions. Video game consoles come to mind. The guys that do the hardware repair should hopefully be offering anti-spyware cleanups by now as I'm sure that they are well aware of how much their market has shifted within the last few years.
zosxavius photography
When your A/C goes on the fritz do you fix it or call a "Qualified" tech? When your TV goes on the fritz do you fix it or call a "Qualified" tech? Whe your frige goes on the fritz do you fix it or call a "Qualified" tech? Call a "Qualified" tech if you can't fix your bloody computer yourself. Why does it sit in the shop use long? There seems to be more abusers than there Qualified" techs to work on them. Please get the kid down the street to work on your computer, it simply means you will be paying me even more money doing to repair your system. I would not even concieve of working on my car's engine these days. I will troubleshoot the problem but nothing more. Surf the net blindly and stupidly. Install every piece of software free or purchased you can put on your computer (even if you never use it; Because it is so cool!) Go ahead and give little Johnny and Susie full admin rights on your XP machine or better yet let everyone use the same profile! And don't forget letting the nieghbors use your computer, its not their system so why should they care what happens to it. Why because it means more money in my pockets. How about this as an amazing concept............ simply learn a few basic concepts about computers. It is my experience the people who have biggest and most problems with and on their PCs are the same people with the mindset of "Manual?...Instructions?......I don' need no stinkin' manual or instructions! To sum this rant up when all else fails RFTM (read this as aka the instructions, for those in California I realise computer don't come with manuals anymore, but there are a lot of good basic use books out in world for computer 101 and 102. Until then folks keep up the good work on fragging your systems it keeps me off the streets and occupies my evil little mind and I can use the cash.
"a bunch of unqualified amateurs"
I know you are, but what am I!
Hmm... perhaps you're onto something there! If we could advertise Firefox as "the best browser for viewing porn sites without screwing your PC", I wonder if even more people would want to install it?
But then, I guess that might put you out of business, so probably isn't worth the hassle for you to install for people!
Organic free-range music... yum!
Just finished reading this and got called into my sister's room and asked to fix her computer, as it had just "decided to turn itself off". I'm no expert but I have to say this was well within my abilities... the plug had come out of the socket.
Wow! Thanks for the compliment! Isn't that the definition of a geek? Someone who takes stuff apart to learn how it works?
Did you know that the Wright Brothers where amateurs? How about Thomas Edison? Yep, him too. Look what they accomplished.
I spent 2 years at University, I dropped out for stupid reasons but to be honest, I know more than most of the people there who graduated. Unfortunately, that silly piece of paper is all most employers care about.
When I had a hiatus in my normal flow of software development projects last year, I attempted to build a sideline business in this kind of service. I was "convinced" by the older blog article posted here a couple of summers ago "Technical Self Employment is a Fat Paycheck Waiting to be Pocketed" as well as the Joshua Feinberg "Computer Consultants 101" course which I bought (my word on the latter: don't get it. I found it a cheap and quick "high" but very unhelpful in the longer run.)
Short version: this is a REALLY crappy business. This "story" of low end tech support being a viable career option seems to have been floating around for quite awhile. The pundits claiming that it is a good refuge for a underemployed techie are full of crap. You're much better off temping at Home Depot if you need quick money, and continuing to interview for a normal professional IT or engineering job.
The basic problems:
Customers expect a quick, easy spend; the potential liabilities are huge; there is extremely little pricing or maneuvering room even for due diligence.
What I found:
The market is absolutely glutted with freelance computer techs. I have absolutely no idea how this writer got off the ground so easily. My chamber has about 30 out of a 800 business member base. All quoting the "we are your virtual IT department" line.
As far as marketing: I had joined the chamber, I told every blessed professional and in-business person I knew, I gave talks, I advertised, I sent out a mass mailing of postcards. NOTHING. Or, very little business. I gave it a year.
The clients suck. You really need a signed agreement with every business you deal with, in order to limit your liabilities, but many won't sign one. The same people who will blithely sign away their rights at the Quick-Lube station that fills their crankcase with moldy Kayro syrup will act like you're trying to scam them if you ask their signature on an agreement to begin work.
Payment is a challenge. I let just one local business, an "ESTEEMED CHAMBER MEMBER", go without collecting on the date I was there. The jerk didn't pay me (a lousy $190) until he called me needing more work, several weeks later. Another business, a health club, stiffed me out of over 1/2 the billings for an onsite service call. And so on and so forth.
Respect? You're treated like the janitor by most clients.
More on due diligence: when a user has a really trashed out (virus/adware laden) PC, AND does not have any of the system recovery disks, AND wants their precious data recovered first... the amount of time it can take is essentially bottomless. You just can't tell them that it may be 3 hours to 15 hours. They will simply not accept that. And you just, absolutely do not know even the order of magnitude until you get into it.
EVERY job I got involved some hideously unpredictable ball of mud.
So you wind up looking like an asshole all the time because you can't predict within the $50 what the client may spend to bring their PC "back", so you wind up working like a dog to "keep it low".
The reason nobody in the retail area wants this business is for the reasons I've listed. It's just too bloody hard to undo the damage that end users do by unsafe computing practices. That's why most stores' service departments just format and reinstall. Their attitude is "screw you and your data, tough luck" for a reason. They know that few will pay to have it "done right". And you can't run a business that is so marginal.
Computer manufacturers can solve all these problems in three easy steps::
1) Replace the harddrives with read-only media.
2) Mount temporary and swap files/partition in RAM.
3) Weld case shut.
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
I upgraded the token Windows machine on my home network to XP Pro this weekend. My first experience installing XP. It's not bad. The product activation is annoying and with oddball hardware you have to hunt for drivers, a rock that NBM'ers throw at Linux. Overall I thought it was pretty nice. Better if I didn't have to spend so much time fiddling with it to keep it running right. Can't imagine how people not in the tech industry get by.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
That's professionalism for you. That's what it is--a con game. Just sound like you know what you are talking about. If you express any reasonable, knowledgeable level of uncertainty, people will accuse you of snowing them or not knowing whats what.
Confidence trumps competence.
and all your problems will be solved.
Researchers today reported that the sky is blue.
Chris Mattern
Replace parts until it works.
Seriously.
It's not possible for a broken system to reliably report which parts are broken (think about it... if the system is broken, then it follows that the logic used to check it all works may also be broken).
From the article:
There seem to be plenty of retailers only too willing to flog PCs to companies, but no-one around to help when the e-mail stops working or an essential spreadsheet refuses to open.
These companies can't afford expensive support contracts with computer service organisations - and they haven't got the time to pack up the computer and take it to a shop, and then wait a week or so for it to be fixed.
These 2 paragraphs directly contradict each other. Contrary to the first paragraph, there is somebody around to help when the essential spreadsheet fails to open. You are dealing with what the author claims are the most complex machines that a consumer is likely to own, yet he demands that the service be cheap as well. Cars are comparatively simple but shops charge an arm and a leg for a mechanic, why should computer mechanics be giving their service away? The author says the companies "can't afford expensive support contracts" and "haven't got the time" to take it to a shop. Maybe these people shouldn't be using these massively complex machines if they can't afford to run them. A factory manager doesn't expect his factory to run without maintenance. The fact is, computers ARE complex and take some skill to maintain. If you are not willing to pay for a qualified technician then you will get what you pay for.
The reason there aren't more people doing home/small business support is because these types of customers always want something for nothing. If you fix a home user's machine, every time something goes wrong in the future YOU are they one they blame and the one that they call. Since they don't know how computers work anything that goes wrong with the machine is associated with your earlier repair. Dealing with established businesses is much easier because they accept IT as a cost of doing business are they are willing to pay for it.
Enigma
You send this in to the BBC as an editorial to the article. It's stuff like this that is too often left out of the mainstream press. Hopefully, the general public might take a bit of insight from your responses instead of relying on this poor sod's delusional assumption that computers should work like his toaster, and that tech support is a one question, one solution affair.
I'm not tense. I'm just terribly, terribly, alert.
Also, keep in mind that there is an 80K portion of memory that memtest stays resident in, and cannot be tested. I suppose it could be a freak occurance that there is bad memory within that 80K window.
hello dear sirs my name is jamesh i are india (bihar) can u guide me install red had linux 9?
Ah. So you're a transplant from the auto mechanic industry?
I've found most "in-store" repair places to actually be more incompetant than "amateurs" who come to your house. The in-store people have little/no training, and usually just take stabs at what might be wrong. I remember waiting in a mom&pop store the other day to purchase something, and listening to the repair tech. telling the customer what was wrong with their PC.. "yeah, you had spyware, so we installed Spyware Xterminator, it's a $40 product, so that's on your bill. I don't know why your CD drive was no longer recognized by the system, so we just installed a new one. That'll be $200." Sheesh.
Not All Who Wander Are Lost
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Succinct and true.
One of the biggest problems with PC repair and support is that the majority of technicians treat all problems like some poorly-trained doctor, prescribing antibiotics by the handful rather than doing in-depth tests.
When's the last time you saw a PC technician try to debug the problem at a low level? It's always just reinstall, reinstall, reinstall.
The author of TFA makes some good points, even if he does insult the vast majority of us in the process.
When Mom buys a new PC for her 12-year old son, or for herself, in their minds they are buying a consumer product. They have certain *expectations* of what it will allow them to do, and they have certain *expectations* that they can treat it the same as they would any other product they buy from The Big Retail Store.
It's certainly true that consumers are generally irresponsible with how they use and maintain their PCs. But the blame for that belongs more with the companies that are so heavily marketing the computers to them, selling them that new HP Pavillion the same way they'd sell them a new TV.
Consumers, and also, I'd say, many small businesses, have no understanding of the total cost of ownership for their computers. As someone else pointed out, a computer illiterate person or business that breaks enough things in their Windows installation will quickly find the cost of "repair" exceeding the price of the original computer.
This, too, isn't so much the consumer or business' fault as it is the people selling these machines.
Many posters have commented that consumers know to factor in costs of maintenance/repair when buying a car, dishwasher, etc, "so why don't they do it with computers?" The answer is, they do! The PROBLEM is, when Joe Consumer asks Joe Salesmen "what do I do if I need support," the answer they get is that Dell/HP/Compaq/Emachines provide unlimited, free technical support.
They never mention that technical support will likely be of little or no help. But Joe Consumer *was* smart enough to consider the question of support, it's just that they were misled into thinking they had nothing to worry about.
There is, of course, the separate problem of the "unqualified amateurs." But the problem is this: if YOU YOURSELF are not computer savvy, you're most definitely not in a position to determine if Kid Down The Street or Joe Consultant or Joe Job Applicant is computer savvy. So, yeah, you have no idea whether the person you're paying to fix your computer is "qualified" or not, and there's really not much way to determine this short of having them talk with a "trusted" computer person.
This especially applies to pre-Generation X'ers. How many times have you heard some kid's mom rave about how their son is so good with computers or how she's encouraging them to major in computer science, etc, etc, simply because she sees him playing computer games all the time and this looks like such a complicated and foreign world to her?
I might be unqualified, but I'm only an amatuer until you pay me. After that, I'm an unqualified _Professional_. In my experience with car and appliance repairmen, god knows I'm not the only one of those around.
Why so much attention to a very badly written article? Here is a summary of Mr. Rubens masterwork: -Computers are very complex. -No one wants to fix them. -Mr. Rubens will fix them. -Lots of people fix them. -People who support them are unqualified amateurs. Ergo: Mr. Rubens is an unqualified amateur (Computer technician & author). -P
Ohhh! Pay Dirt! A pair of half-eaten choco-pants!
Where the heck is Larry Ellision when you need him! Get the stupid PC out of the houses people. If I could just surf, or just do work instead of maintain my pc I would pay a monthly fee. If I didn't have to upgrade hardware and was just served a picture... that would be fine with my wife. When did the PC start to make sense? I have never understood why we would push a tool on users, instead of a product. A dishwasher cleans stuff, a fridge cools stuff, a monitor displays stuff... A computer is a tool for computation! We got away from computers when they became cool. Every person has to have one... a computer on every desktop has to improve productivity right? As for the guy who says porn is on every computer... That stuff is on computers because computers are designed to contain and diseminate not display! How much Porn is left on TV? Not much when you turn it off.
I'm a website developer, but I also get called upon to do general computer tech support from my website clients on occasion.
9 times out of 10*, when they ask my advice for preventing the same issues from coming back in the future (usually spyware/virus/etc issues), I give the same response: "Well, you *could* do X, Y and Z (NAV, AdAware, yadda yadda yadda) and pray for the best, *or* you could get a Mac."
They almost never listen. Usually they think I'm joking, occasionally they at least pretend to take me seriously, but they almost never actually follow my advice.
*(even as a die-hard Mac advocate, I recognize that there are certain realities in some cases--a professional accounting firm, for example, simply can't switch over to Macs since so much accounting software is Windows-exclusive. They could, however, at least *add* one Mac to their network, at the very least for emergency email/web browsing/etc when the rest of the network gets taken down by a virus/etc...)
What we need is for microsoft and Intel to firstly, get out of the computer buisness alltogether. Then we need companies like apple to produce better machines, but what we really need, is well desinged open source hardware that is stable and not controlled by greedy companies like MS and Intel who's sole purpose for existing is to sell you hastily designed products that are desinged in such a fashion as to become obsolete rapidly and not be engineered to interoperat with older porducts and also to be very hard to keep functioning. The reason for the overcomplexity and non-interoperability and the phenominon of "buy our latest mag/book on windowz secrets" is because the product has been badly designed and designed in such a way as to break down after a given amount of normal operation. The fact is, is that we have the technology to make reliable hardware and software that can maintane itself without use intervention and to fail without crashing really bad. Our hard drive are massive now, we will soon have cheap multiple cpu motherboards, there is no excuse for a system to get corrupted and have no real easy way of fixing it. Open source software and hardware can solve these problems, or at least make things a lot smoother, these propriatairy companies are not good for the long-term growth and usefullness of the computer world. Economics states that companies that establish feilds, first set the standards and reap the rewards of doing so, it's just that both MS and Intel have done so and found out that giving us half-finished/buggy products and than re-invnenting the computer every five years, they could theoretically keep us on the purpetual upgrade/re-invent band wagon forever!!
1. Be an cluless end-user ...
2. Hose your machine
3. Try to fix it yourself and REALLY hose your machine
4. Complain about those who actually do know how to fix the problem
6. Write a story about it
5.
6. Profit
When I finish my GCSEs (end of secondary school exams) in June, I'll have two months free before moving onto further education. I am now seriously considering doing a bit of this to get me a bit of money. I have great experience with computers, and feel confident that I could help a lot with peoples problems. But would people trust a 15-year-old with just experience to fix their PC, and even if they did, how much should I charge?
Anytime someone writes something with abosultes, like saying everyone, all, etc., they're asking for trouble. However this guy is fairly close to accurate with the 'unqualified amatuers' comment.
First, understand that there is no required certification to call yourself a computer repair technician. You just print up some Avery inkjet business cards and get a magnetic sign for your car, and you're in business.
In order to get a job in IT or call yourself a tech for some larger outfits, maybe they will require an A+ cert of an MSCE.
You can take a high school drop out and get them an A+ in under 6 weeks, no experience necessary.
With another 3 months you can have an MSCE, and even then you know one OS, albeit the most common one. And you're still not schooled in the art of spyware removal.
Compare this to the path to call yourself a licensed electrician or plumber (years as an apprentice, then state level testing). And also consider that the body of knowledge to become and electrician or plumber is much smaller.
Or perhaps see how long it takes you and how much money it costs to become I-Car certified for the automotive world.
And these are just the blue collar trades of the world, not something that requires 2 to 4 years of actual college.
So even with what the computer repair industry considers 'qualified', I consider to be minimum knowledge to 'open the hood' and poke around.
If PC repair was similar to the auto industry, a PC tech would have various certifications like ATA-66, ATA-100, ATA-133, SCSI, SATA, and the old grey haired guys in the shop would still have their patches for MFM and RLL. A hard drive swapout would pay a book time of 1.5 hours at $55/hr.
But in reality the PC repair biz is learn on the fly by way of making mistakes, and charge by the hour.
about his "overqualified amateur" rant, since it was off the cuff.
And his point was that appliance repair people get training in fixing a specific item, whereas computers have such varied configurations that it is nearly impossible to be an expert in fixing EVERYTHING.
Or at least, I hope he understands that.
I happen to be one of those "unqualified amateurs" doing home and small business tech support for low rates. I have twenty years in the IT field, so I know the basic facts about IT: nothing works and nobody cares. I have only been messing with current PC systems for the last three years, but I learn fast and usually have some idea where to look to solve a problem. But there's no doubt that the bewildering variety of screwups in both hardware and software make it very hard to do a quick, efficient fix.
As an example from my own machine, a couple weeks ago I moved some partitions on the 160GB hard drive to make more room for my Windows 2000 and Windows XP root partitions (thankfully my Linux is on the other drive). Once I started accessing the partition that ended up on the other side of the 137GB barrier, both Windows crashed totally.
I reinstalled and reconfigured, making sure I had SP4 on 2000 and SP2 on XP (which I had before the crash). After accessing that partition again, I discovered that neither OS could see files put in that partition by the other OS.
To make a long story short, after nearly a week of wrestling with this, and being amazed at some of the bizarre behavior (all of which clearly indicated that at least one of the OS's simply was not seeing that partition in the "right" place on the drive), I discovered an MS Knowledgebase article that helpfully stated that Windows 2000 with Service Pack 3 cannot read the partition table correctly for "some" hard drives! (God forbid that MS tell us WHICH drives, WHEN, and WHY! Now I know! Big drives!) And I had installed 2000 with SP3 and THEN applied SP4 - too late, homes!
Now, I spent a HELL of a lot of time on Google looking for ANYONE who had similar symptoms or a similar problem. Nothing - on the Web or in Google groups. I should have checked MS first, but even there it was not easy to find this particular KB article.
Apparently, only under the specific conditions I had - a particular drive, installing 2000 SP3 first, then applying SP4, and possibly dual-booting with XP - did this problem arise.
Multiply this by the tons of proprietary motherboards, manufacturer-tweaked BIOSes, "custom" hardware, scores of thousands of software apps, and add in a pinch of spyware - and how the hell can ANY tech ever hope to figure out what is wrong in less than two to four hours?
Which, at the rate techs charge, is a hell of a lot of money for some home user who has, on a national average, maybe $100 disposable income for the month. It's no less of a problem for a business user if a critical server is out of action for that time.
Another tech told me about trying to get a wireless LAN working for a small business down in Palo Alto. The frequency saturation in the 2.4GHz band was so bad there that the users kept getting kicked off or re-associating with the wrong access points. He tried everything - other brands of wireless, bigger, more directional antennas - nothing worked. Finally he had them buy a Cisco access point that was seven times more expensive than the ones they had been trying, which put out 100mw instead of 20. That worked - so far.
For the last week, my AV has been turning off its email scanner for no apparent reason. No indication why, no good explanations on the company's forum. Since turning off the outbound SMTP scanner, it seems to have stopped doing it - so far.
PCs are a nightmare today, no question about it.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
> The difference between auto mechanics and computer repairmen is that the mechanics have a union which forces licensing on its members to boost the price of labor.
Then WTF is a MSCE?
Last summer I expanded my consulting business. Previously, I'd only handled small businesses. Then I advertised to fix home computers. The same afternoon that Yellow Pages advert hit my doorstep, I started getting calls and it hasn't stopped. 95% of it is spyware screwing up the Internet connection and slowing down the system.
If there's someone under 25 in the house, it's nearly a certainty the computer is hosed-up with spyware. And no, porn is not always involved. There is nothing I can do to solve the spyware problem for many of these people. I can't pin-point how they got it. Sometimes you get a time and date but that's just a footprint.
I can clean their system for $80-$100 but that only gets them back to square one and they will cheerfully run to step two, three and four. Microsoft AntiSpyware isn't sufficient. To clean many systems, it requires expert use of Hijack This, and I'll run AdAware and Spybot just to be sure. If I didn't run them all, I can't tell you how many times I've had to repeat the cleaning. Some of it is quite good at regeneration, and when they're starting-up in the registry with vague names that purposefully resemble Windows components or printer drivers, it's a hassle to Google them all.
I can look the teen in the eye and tell them not to run KaZaA and Morpheus and to stop installing software, but they keep doing it, especially if Mom doesn't make them pay the repair bill. No one wants to run as non-admin. Even if they buy some $30 anti-spyware tool, it still pops-up and asks them to block or not. They are not often capable of answering correctly. And heaven forbid they try to fix it themselves - damn these system restore checkpoints to hell! All they do is screw up the system. If Microsoft can't adequately tell me what it's doing, I don't want it in the operating system.
And what about the customers who are unhappy with your work because they're rapidly re-infected? Customers aren't logical and adept at computers. That's why they are customers and not computer experts.
If it weren't for customer data being spread all over the computer, and the inane time-consuming complexity of reinstalling all their apps and drivers, I'd recommend a reformat in a heartbeat. But these days, many systems like Compaq don't even come with restore CDs - you have to take the time to burn five or six yourself sometime after you buy the system and before your HD dies.
Curator of the Jefferson Computer Museum http://www.threedee.com/jcm
I can tell you, often times, the problem is largely a lack of knowledge by the computer user about the options they have available to them.
Sometimes, yes, you get the people with the attitude of "I don't WANT to know how to fix this thing. I just want to pay someone to come out here when it breaks, and make it right again! I just want to USE it!" But just as often, I see problems like spyware/virii preventing the system from running well enough to get a product like Ad-Aware or Spybot installed successfully.
Usually, you can get around that by booting into "Safe Mode" in Windows - but does Windows make it clear to people that holding down F8 at bootup will do that for them? Heck no! It's pretty much a "hidden feature", because Microsoft decided most people shouldn't see that option, lest it confuse them. So even the people who did their research ahead of time, and tried to install Ad-Aware, Spybot, etc. etc. can't always get that far.
Many times, a customer calls me out to fix/clean up a system, only to say "Wow... You didn't really do anything I couldn't have just done myself. This stuff isn't so hard, is it?" They're right, of course - but what they really paid me for is my knowledge of which buttons to press, and which tools to install to fix things.
This also brings up another point... It's insanity NOT to charge a somewhat steep price for this type of work, because more often than not, the customer gets an education from your repair work - and doesn't need to call you back ever again for a similar issue. If you don't get decent money up front, you're often just giving them an education in virus/spyware repair for well below the "going rate" for computer training - and teaching them how to do your job.
No one will pay the cost of fixing a trashed machine given that the human cost to fix it is $100 or more when that is 1/3 the cost of the machine.
I always ask three things:
1. Did you back up the data and when did you back it up?
2. How many hours of work have you invested in getting all of your email, personal documents, pictures into the computer?
3. Are you prepared to lose that data?
Computers work best for people who are willing to learn how to use them. If you're not willing to learn because you're too lazy or busy, or if you just can't retain information very well, you'll probably have to call someone to help you.
And no, there's no grand unified certification system for those people who can help you. Nor should there be: "computers" is too broad a term to be encompassed by a certification. The author is right - it's not like hiring an auto mechanic. In fact, despite the frequency with which computers are compared to cars, the analogy is terrible. Auto mechanics don't have to deal with spyware infecting cars, and don't have to perrform security patches. Computers are a much wider discipline; imagine if a car you bought three years ago were now doing entirely different things than were possible when you bought it. Different fuel, different controls, different color, different vulnerabilities. This would be the only way to make a car analogous to a computer. Computers are multi-function, and new functions arise all the time. There is simply no way to be "certified" for all of the problems you're likely to encounter on someone's home computer. You just have to stay informed, and be smart about how you use your system. If you fail, or just throw up your hands in defeat, you have to hire someone like me to be smart for you. Or stop using computers.
Another interesting auto-mechanic-analogy observation: yes, computer techs may not be certified, but you also don't have to have a computer user's license. And you can "drive" a computer at any age. (The analogy keeps getting worse.)
"He then flames the whole world of computer repairmen as 'a bunch of unqualified amateurs.'"
I've known this for 25 years..
I've been repairing computers since waaaaay back, back before the IBM PC.
In the early 80's, we were GODS... We were the elite few, we were the "healers"...
We had to isolate a single flaky 64k ram chip on an AST (384k) 6-pack, or the 256k motherboard and replace it. That was nothing. I could read the POST error messages and know the exact chip out of the 90 possible chips. We had to isolate and repair defective capacitors in CRT's or replace printheads in dot matrix and keep continuous duty band printers running.
A soldering iron was always on in our shop, we REPAIRED things. We didn't play swaptronics like these kids nowdays do. We had to hunt down and repair problems..
I remember one dufus at a drafting company had decided to hop up his compaq deskpro 386 Autocad station all on his own without permission. It was company property but he wanted to be the unauthorized office superhero so he ordered a $900 80387 from Compaq then tried to install it himself. True brilliance, he installed it 90deg off and it cooked. It melted the legs into the socket and the mobo was dead. In a total panic he brought the machine to me and I told him that there was not much chance of repairing it but I would try. I found a replacement 80387 socket so I fired up my desoldering station and after many tedious hours, I removed and replaced the cooked socket and the mobo was back in biz.
It cost him $900 for the first 80387, then $400 for me to repair the mobo, then another $900 for another 80387. The next one, he let me install it for him, I only charged him $20 to install the chip. The chips, he ordered those on his employers dime so he had to choke up $900 out of his on pocket to replace the chip he trashed.
This was back about 1986, when $900 was a healthy chunk of change and a 20mhz 80386 system was still a few grand.
Now, no one fixes anything, they swap some suspect crap around and chunk the suspect.
Hell, I even did hard drive salvage, back in the days of 10mb to 20mb drives. It was nothing unusual for me to open a drive up with siezed bearings and move the platters into another drive to get the data off. It was a one shot deal but I did it on numerous occasions. I had no fear of taking on ANY level of repair.
Now, you have numbnuts like these "Geek Squad" morons at Best Buy who can't find their own asses without both hands and a flashlight. Most of them have never once held a soldering iron, they don't know crap. They might be able to diagnose a dead PSU or a dead HDD or an unplugged display but they are really just junior grade virus cleaners.
As the story tells, most problems are caused by windows. MOST computer "repair" now involves cleaning up windows problems..
These kids these days, they are NOT technicians... I was REPAIRING computers before most of these "techs" were even born...
Nothing offends me more than to go into best buy and some kid starts trying to chat me up with his buzz words, trying to impress me to make me think he's some sort of guru. I'll shoot him down in flames in 30 seconds or less. Last time I went in best buy I came close to punching the little asshole, I ended up going to the manager and filing a complaint, the kid followed me around the store harassing me about windows, I had asked if a particular part was Linux compatible and he went psycho on me..
Really, Windows itself is what keeps these places going, there really is very, very little actual "repair" going on anymore..
I tried starting a computer support/repair business during my last stretch of unemployment. It can be done but the upside profit potential is pretty low unless you figure out how to exploit kids to do the work cheap or charge more than most people want to pay. And fixing problems yourself day after day gets pretty tedious, especially when you've been hired because the clients were too cheap to get real support.
I'm sure one can make a living at it but once I got a "real" job I dropped trying to do it as a business without a second thought.
Fixing PCs used to be not so bad. You'd go over, have a look, fix things, explain (people would listen), and wouldn't mind paying (as PCs were more expensive back then and most ppl didn't know as much about PCs).
Nowadays, they'd want you to do it for free (or just about), argue with you over stuff they don't understand at all (some people are really confused yet think they know everything better than you). Reinstalling windows is a pain (reinstall XP home and reactivate fore them? or backup activation? this thing only gets in the way of elgit customers). People don't ask anymore when a little something isn't working, they wait till it won't even boot without crashing to ask, so you have to fix a unusable PC instead of some bugs. And most of the time you gotta work with this new XP teletubbies look and crappy new start menu (I so hate these things), options taken away from you (like the new user manager that really sucks). People don't seem to understand anymore formatting means everything on their PC will be gone, and no, I don't want to reinstall their warez either. Spyware and viruses are a real pain adding to all this lately. And when you can't fix it anymore (too often as they wait far too long), then you gotta manually find and backup all their files for each user profile (including outlook info, IM logs, photos, mp3s... gigs worth of crap). It's become WAY more trouble than it's worth (unless you really charge money, but nobody wants to pay that anymore). And even if you spend 4h of your time for 20$, they'll still be ungrateful. And then when they get home they'll just hit some porn site with IE again...
I only do it for a handfull of people now (family/close friends), and only if they don't mind changing a few things (like ditching IE). In some cases (like my mom who knows NOTHING about PCs) I've set them up with DeepFreeze so they can't mess them up anymore (and I keep a ghost image as well). Other people? The answer is no, find somebody else, not worth wasting my time.
Nobody wants to do the job anymore but some amateurs... It's no surprise to anyone who's ever been into this before.
///<sig
The only difference between a professional and an amateur is the fact that one of them gets paid.
A certification or a degreee doesn't mean you know more than anyone else, it just means you sat in detention longer.
Intelligence is a matter of opinion.
People are willing to pay, and pay quite a lot, for car repair. They seem to think computer repair should be free, or at most really cheap. Well, as with all things in in life, you get what you pay for. You aren't going to find highly trained professionals willing to work for $5/hour fixing your computer. You'll be lucky to even find amatures who'll do it for that.
As an example: My air conditioner on my condo broke receantly. It blew air, but the air didn't get cold. Got it looked at and turned out it had worn out a part that caused the freon to leak out. When all was said and done, cost me like $400 ($150 for the freon, and labour at $75/hour). This seemed like quite a reasonable price to anyone I talked to.
Now last week, one of the secrataries brought in her mom's laptop because it was screwed up with spyware. That's not in our pervue (we support departmental sytems only) but it was a slow day and she offered to pay. So I did all the normal things, tracked down the process that kept killing virus scanners and task manager, installed and run AVG, Spybot, etc, updated to service pack 2. I had it for a day and a half, but probably spent 2 hours of actual work on the system (most of them time was just letting it do things unattended). For that I wanted $50, which I got but she thought was kind of expensive.
So wait, my time is worth less than 1/3 of an A/C repair guy's? We are both trained tech's right? Actually, I'm more trained than he is, but hey.
Well the difference, of course, the cost of the device. The A/C is probably $6000-7000 to replace, more for a nice one. The laptop I imagine you could replace for under $2000, and it would be better than what you have now. The A/C will last 10-20 more years, barring unforseen problems. The laptop will by luck to make it 4 more, and if it does it'll be unbearably slow by then.
Thus it's easy to see why someone is willing to pay so much for the repair of an expensive mechanical device like a car or appilance, but not for something like a computer. Given that many people (espically those that aren't proficient) have comptuers that themselves are less than $500, there's just no way they are goign to pay much for repair.
I live in a resort town, which means there are a lot of folks who have their second (or fifth) home here. They have computers, they have computer problems, they're used to paying $50/hr to have someone walk their dogs back in Manhattan. They'll gladly pay that for computer service and tell all their friends if you do a good job, even if it costs them $200-$300 for a basic virus/spyware cleanup and antivir/spyware install.
In the same town I've dealt with friends who've asked me to check out their computer, but then decided a $20 memory upgrade was too much money to make their machine work properly. Just make sure your prospective customers know you're going to charge $50/hr (or whatever) and you'll get the right clients. It's a strange but true phenomenon that people who pay more for your services will be less demanding and more satisfied, whereas those who are getting a great bottom-dollar deal always whine and think they are somehow getting cheated.
The problem with the vast majority of computer repair people is the complete lack of training. I have been using computers since I was 12 for the last 15 years. I admit I don't know everything but I have made it pretty much the focus of my academic efforts so I know a lot. I took computer science in university and in college so I not only know how to fix a computer, I know what, why, where etc about it. Having worked in the field I have met people who were good at it, as intuitive as I am when there is a problem to solve, and I have also worked with imbecils. I remember one guy who I asked one time how many kilobytes were in a megabyte to test him. I think his answer was something like four or something equally retarded. When I asked him how he could be a computer repair person and not know that he replied that he didn't need to know. Needless to say I got all the systems that were hard to repair and fixed them in half the time it took him to figure out one simple problem. He wasn't incompetent by far, he'd just worked on an assembly line before and never had to deal with troubleshooting. He threw the parts together and voila, next system. Anyone can throw a system together, it takes actual knowledge of how it works to repair. Which brings me to my point. A+ cert can get you a job as a repair person, but the test is juvenile, so I never bothered to take it. Plus, jobs repairing computers don't pay well as far as I know, since in most cases its cheaper to buy a new system than pay someone to troubleshoot and fix one when they charge $50 or $60 an hour at a store.
Read my short stories - You won't regret it.
I guess I'm an amateur with 20 years of experience... I guess those "professional" certifications that cost more per year than "professional" nurses, Firefighter, Police, EMT's, some doctors, Vets, CPA's, etc. don't mean jack? The average IT "Amateur" (or his/her company) spends upwards of $4K a year maintaining certs, exactly what does a "professional" journalist spend per year on certs?
If Kerry was the answer, it must have been a stupid question.
The UN - The largest "political" cause of death.
From a post earlier in this story:
...
...
Economics hampers repair process
The second reason is that home users have unreasonable expectations. Many seem to think that once I've touched their computer, I own it, and anything that goes wrong after that is my fault, not theirs.
A few severed traces on a PCB can be repaired with soldering tools, a bit of wire, and a steady hand.
Before everybody turned into "certified board-swappers", a technician was often called on to actually REPAIR things, rather than REPLACING them...
You sir, are obviously an arrogant ass who lives in his own little world of superiority. Congratulations and good for you!
When was the last time you had to do maintenance on your screwdriver?
And the fact that you have to do maintenance on a computer just means that the industry is still very, very immature. It SHOULD be just a tool. You shouldn't have to learn the intracacies of it just to use it. Case in point: cars. When was the last time you changed a distributor caps, or re-did the points on your engine or had service on your carbureator? Oh yeah. You haven't. Most people your age never have because cars are much more mature than are computers in terms of life-cycle, which is why it's easier to run a car (which is more complex than modern computers). It's getting better (Windows 2000 was a big breakthrough), and it's going to continue to get easier, and easier to use a computer, as it should.
I don't respond to AC's.
For a little bit in unviersity, I decided I'd try and do computer consulting on the side. Not for big business, I knew I couldn't provide the level of support they needed. However I figured I could take on small contracts for individuals or little businesses. I actually was certified with basic low-level CompTIA certs (not a bad ideato get, since clueless managers know and like them even if they don't mean much). Figured I'd do web design, systems support, and basic networking since that's what I knew.
Didn't have much trouble finding work, there were plenty of people and businesses that needed things done but weren't willing to pay what professional consulting companies charge. Seemed ideal..... Except they basically weren't willing to pay for anything. They thought they should get nearly everything for free.
For example I got hired to do a company's website. Just a little local place. Cool, they provided me their logo they'd had designed, pictured of all their merchandise and so on. It took some effort on my part to explain that they also had to provide text, I couldn't write about products I didn't understand, but I got that in the end too. I in turn found a host, made a site, setup an online shop and so on. This I did for one flat fee, as we agreed upon in advance.
Ok but the problem was, they seemed to assume that fee meant that I should then do any and all comptuer related work for free. I got a call because a computer wasn't working, so I came in and looked at it. Reason was it's powersupply was fried. I explained it needed to be replaced and they argued with me. Seemed to think I should be able to "fix it". Went back and forth and finally they said fine, leave it, we don't really need that computer. No idea why $50 for a PSU would have been such a problem.
Ok, then I tried to bill them and they didn't want to pay. First argument was that my web design fee covered it. I explained no, as we agreed, that was for the design of the website, nothing more. Then they said ok, fine, but you didn't FIX anything, we won't pay if you don't do anything. I told them doesn't matter, my time costs money. You had me come in and look at it, etc. I think I finally got a little money in teh end, but not what I wanted and they were all pissy about it. This happened like once more before I just stopped taking their calls.
It was the same story for the couple other gigs I did. The people wanted to nickle and dime every little thing and basically thought that I should work for free. Gee, well you know, as much fun as it is to work and not get paid for it, that's really not why I'm here. I eventually just gave up, and decided consulting was not my thing, at least until I was at a leve where I could charge some real money for it and work with people who are serious.
I started out my consulting business in 1999 by charging $40/hr. Then I obtained my certificationn and decided I could charge $60/hr. I stayed at that rate for 2 years, and then decided to test the market to see if my current clients would accept an increase to $75/hr. None of them objected and new clients feel that rate is quite competitive. As long as I prove my worth to them (and paying me as a consultant is cheaper than hiring someone full-time), they don't have any problem with that fee.
Not to state the painfully obvious, but the way most retailers work, it's no great suprise their employees say unintelligent things like "it's the gold contact that let you know it's a USB 2.0 cable because electricity travels faster through gold." (That is a direct quote, by the way!)
The big chain stores charge customers $50 an hour (for in-house repair) to upwards of $100 an hour (for on-site work) and then turn around and give these hard-working individuals a whopping $10 to $12 per hour to survive on. The word "geeksploitation" comes to mind in a big way. It's this reason that most computer repairmen who tolerate this onerous situation (you can make $10 an hour doing data entry if you can just *type* fast) and hire on at these places are literally the bottom bidders in the system. That is just barely enough money to keep a geek in new hardware so they can learn the intimate details of troubleshooting it (which is cheaper than regular training classes, and includes employee discounts on the hardware). The majority of these poor, damned souls either stagnate, or tolerate the situation only long enough to get jobs at better places as either system administrators or network engineers, who are typically only marginally less underpaid.
Your best bet to finding really skilled geeks is still word-of-mouth to find an independent contractor or small group of geeks acting in concert.
Stop the geeksploitation!
Also, keep in mind that there is an 80K portion of memory that memtest stays resident in, and cannot be tested
- department:
From the fun-things-to-do-with-all-that-video-ram-nowadays
A couple of years ago, someone at the German c't magazine wrote a little more-or-less-stable memory test program
that used the memory of the graphics card to run from.
I think it is this tool and needs to be unpacked to a bootable floppy disc.
Works well.
If someone's fucked up the software on their machine, zap it all and install from scratch. It literally isn't worth the extra time reqruired to try to diagnose and sort out the crap that gets installed. Course MS license bollocks can make this slightly more complex.
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
Before I 'retired' and struck out on my own, I earned my stripes as a Desktop Engineer, designing-- and supporting-- images to be deployed on thousands of desktops. I've repaired (no, that doesn't mean "re-imaged") more desktops than most of my peers in the business, and there are 10,000+ computers running my XP images as I type this.
Most of the folks in the home PC repair business washed out of jobs like mine, either because of the recession or because they just couldn't hack it even in good times. Their skill sets vary widely, and are mostly quite limited. (As soon as someone goes after spyware with software, I consider them "quite limited").
From what I've seen, the ones who are home-based and have low overhead tend to scrape along on what they can bill semi-honestly (if not competently). Those who f***ed up and opened storefronts are forced by their monthly nut to gouge everyone who comes through the door.
For what it's worth, I charge $60 per hour with a one-hour minimum and a "can't fix it, it's no charge" policy. I don't haggle: anyone who balks at the price can call someone else.
My previous employer is struggling to get me back, throwing money at me (and I've been saying no, so far).
Get a mac.
Call me a troll if you want but mere mortals can not deal with all of the crap that windows exposes them to.
If they want to listen to music, email, surf, and write the occasional document, the mac IS the most painless way to go.
If they want to game, or watch the latest in WMV, then they'll need to deal with the pc world.
I work on win 2000 all day but take my Ti with me most everwhere I go. No spyware, popups, or viruses and with PithHelmet, almost no ads on web pages either.
Use your money and time wisely.
- Zav - Imagine a Beowulf cluster of insensitive clods...
That's like complaining that a book is too hard to use because you have to spend all this time learning how to read. Some things have a certain amount of complexity and people need to learn. The car analogy is great, except that you aren't expected to repair your car or computer. You do have to learn how to drive a car, and you should have to learn to use a computer. Learning simple things like "read messages that appear on your screen instead of immediately clicking the ok button", and "do not install random shit that you don't need" would solve 99% of people's problems. The fact that people don't treat computers with the same respect they do cars is the problem. People don't tend to shove random fluids in random holes under their hood and expect their car to work, but they do the equivelent to their computers all the time.
from article:
"Computer software is very, very complex. Stick a load of it together on a computer - itself a pretty complex beast - and you've got yourself a system which is more complex than anything else you are ever likely to own."
so? that's not saying much, what's he comparing it to, the toaster oven? I'd say a car is a much more complicated beastie, you're getting poor mpg (equivalent to ur computer eating resources) and what do u do? Sorry no Task Manager to see what's eating resources, no MSCONFIG to disable startup processes. And most of us would be fine with your buddy down the street messing with car to see why it's not running right wouldn't you?
my karma will be here long after I'm gone
You are an unqualified amateur, sir!
If you want to check on a local business, you can check the local BBB. You know that a doctor with a degree from somewhere besides University of Phoenix has a reasonably good chance of being competent, but there is no way to prove to the average consumer that you are not an amateurish hack. I've been working with computers for the past 15 years (competent for last 10) and normally know what's going on, or when I don't know what's going on, where to turn to so that I don't crap up the situation even more.
A few years back I took the A+ Certification test to prove myself. The only thing that I proved was that the A+ Certification was a joke. I passed the test with flying colors without studying, or opening one single "10 easy steps to A+ Certification Glory". Not only did I not have to study, but I found a few questions that had no/incorrect solutions. One question had a picture of the connection riser of a legacy motherboard, and it asked to identify the USB port, except there was no USB port in the picture.
I find traveling or visiting friends to be a hassle because I seem to be the roaming tech support man. In the past 10 years of working on other's computers, I have only had to work on three Macs, and I don't have enough fingers/toes/hairs to count the number of Windows machines from which I've removed spyware and general crap, or changed settings that the user had no idea about.
Whenever I encounter a Windows machine connected directly to the internet, I refuse to work on it unless they make the small investment of a hardware router. I know that a router is not the end-all solution, and doesn't block things from phoning home, but it shows them that there are associated costs with computer security. Also, a few minutes explaining a few specific security functions can go a long way.
From the article:
When a domestic appliance goes wrong, you can ring a repair man. When your car breaks down you can call the garage. But when your computer system goes wrong, who do you call?
In my experience, most people call their ISP, even for problems that are not internet related. How do I know? I work for an ISP. And they expect their ISP to fix it. They see their ISP subscription as a service contract. When, after some questioning, the ISP helpdesk operator ascertains that the problem is not internet related, or not covered by the support policy, then begins the hard part of convincing the customer. It's often easier to tell the customer to reboot.
You make the mistake of thinking you can educate the fundamental stupidity out of people. You can't.
In the auto industry you can usually tell from the outside when a car is severly underpowered, but that is not the case with computers. You will be hard pressed to find anyone that would take a cool looking Cavalier with a body kit over a Porsche, but you will find people at "insert local retail shop" that buy something completely underpowered at an overpowered price.
I personally believe that a lot of the blame rests on the retail shops that promise everything except a back massage from their bargain bin computers. If you take a computer that is barely over the minimum requirements to boot the operating system without creating a massive swap file, then add a bunch of bundled programs that load on startup, then spice things up with a piece of adware/spyware/trojan, what else can you expect besides angry users.
"there's no computer equivalent of a qualified service engineer who you can get to come around and fix things." BS. It's called A+, N+, MSCE. LOADS of certifications to prove the qualifications. This guy must be a rank amateur himself to not know what certifications exist out there. And computers aren't inherently complex? What another load. YOU figure out how to arrange 50+ million transistors on on tiny circuit so that they work. This guy's the equivalent of Al Gore.. "I invented the Internet"
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
When you fix a car, you typically get a warranty on the parts, and they fail in a limited number of ways. Software is different.
You don't get, for example, replacement brake pads that mysteriously decide to cause your engine to spontaneously explode.
Now, given that, the vast number of un-related problem causes, and speed of software development (compare cars we drove in 1980 to today. now compare software/pc hardware) - means that
- no matter how much you are trained, a large amount of knowledge becomes useless by the time you're trained in it
- as a result, troubleshooting is more a matter of "common sense" and a process of elimination than training
This is why pc techs are "unqualified"...smash.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
start -> run -> msconfig
Turn off all services you don't need or understand.
Turn off all programs loaded at startup that you don't need or understand.
Install ZoneAlarm
Defragment at least monthly.
Windows will be running lean and mean
(XP home uses less than 86MB RAM used on a 512MB laptop)
For the tech savvy - get a cheap (PII+) 2nd box with 2 nics and install SmoothWall
That OS serves as a firewall + DHCP server and does wonders for the home network - no router necessary, just buy a switch for the local network.
Man who annoy computer fixer often have broken computer.
There are viruses that can write junk to your BIOS' flash ROM. DoS attacks can cause systems to overheat. The malicious packets are made with software. GPU's and CPU's can be overclocked with software. And while I've never heard of it happening, emulators like MAME could theoretically damage your hardware. The disclaimer for MAME says that the author isn't responsible for hardware damage due to usage. I don't think it's likely, but apparently, it's possible.
He's not charging a call out fee. See, this guy will go listen look at anyone's computer. Please note, he also did not quote his rate for repair work, he did not try to make a living off of his work. He also has not mentioned how many folks actually took him up on his offer once they spoke to him. I've tried this. Most people realize that for the price of parts and labor they can buy a new computer. OR they dont want to pay for three hours of work while I go to their homes, install a piece of software, scan, repeat.
Fifty years from now, desktop support will be a skilled trade, just like mechanics, plumbers, carpenters, and electricians. IT training will model the apprenticeship programs found in the traditional trades, and states will require licensure to practice computer support. Thousands (or millions) of help-desk workers will be represented by unions seeking to end unfair labor practices at major corporations or government institutions. The rest will become part of major contractors doing only computer work.
Fifty years from now, all the voodoo and black magic that allude and confuse "end-users" will continue to do so. But no one will consider doing their own IT (just like no one tries to build their own house). They'll just call someone else...just like they call a mechanic, plumber, carpenter, or electrician.
Some people just look at me as if I'm quite mad, & end the conversation. That's fine. I don't have to bother with them any more.
Some say: "What do you suggest"?
I say: "Linux, would you like to have a demo?"
So I pop a Knoppix LiveCD in the slot and let them have a play.
For people who only need a bit of Web and Email and a typewriter simulation that's the answer in 5 minutes. If their modem is not supported by Knoppix sell them one that is. An external modem is far cheaper than having someone skilled at the IT support craft footle around for hours trying to rid a Windows hard drive of every item of malware spew.
If the customer is interested in going further I explain that they will have to expend either time or money to install and set up a custom Linux distribution.
All this nonsense simply because flippin Microsoft make every user an administrator by default. The're irresposible nutters who should either be thrown in the slammer, or commited to an asylum. Don't consort with them, or you'll get corrupted.
Not only can untrained techs cause obvious damage due to a slipped screwdriver etc, but if unaware of ESD damage, a tech can cause random failures of components that can be maddeningly difficult to diagnose. I've seen systems pass intensive memory tests with flying colors half the time, and lock up the other half. No apparent pattern, until I would check the prior work orders and see that Joe Schmo was the last tech to work on the box, last week. (Joe's name has been changed to protect the clue-challenged, of course.)
Paleotechnologist and connoisseur of pretty shiny things.
Not all complex objects are hard to maintain or repair. It's the way the complexity is put in the design, that is the problem.
One of the problems with the popular OS and many of its application software is that it wasn't designed from a clean slate, with modular structure to manage complexity. It was created with compatibility and marketing in mind.
Hardware design is more stringent in quality and maintenance compared to software. That is why even complex CPUs don't fail as often as simple application software.
So, it is not the software itself that is hard to maintain by nature, it is how people designed them.
The more monolithic softwares are, the more difficult they are to manage. They should have been designed with replaceable components with fault-tolerance, with standard interfaces between components, just like replacing parts in a car when they are faulty. You don't replace the whole car just because one part is not working. But in software, you have to upgrade the whole piece, rather than a small part of the software.
i should definately do this... i may not be a master programmer, but i can definately figure out how to run ad aware and how to hard reset a crashed machine. Im amazed that people still havent figured this simple stuff out yet... not even to mention installing ram and cards. come on people! :-)
Mike
I heart the RIAA & MPAA, im sure its mutual...
Prior poster said:"You are being unrealistic because you assume it takes them the same amount of time to learn as you.
/s, or dir *.exe (find all files with a .exe extension).
My parents have been working at this hard, for months now. But even the simplest aspects of using a computer have escaped them until recently. These people, god bless them, don't understand that a document, a batch file and a program are the same type of thing on the hard drive. It's just a question of the contents and whether the computer tries to run it or not."
Let's face it many adults are stupid and many people don't want to learn how to use computers, I was entirely self-taught and as a non-programmer (before I learned programming) I knew how to use dos like the back of my hand because I persisted and spent the time necessary to learn the foundational concepts of how file systems and programs worked. All it takes is effort and a decent memory, to learn the conventions of the system. Dir / p or dir
The problem is computers cannot be made simpler to use until processing power increase. Right now we are at the manual use phase, we can't really talk to them or get them to understand our thoughts or conventions.
The people that are smart enough to use programs made for computers, and fix them are not in anyway dumb they are just more persistent and have better memories then other people.
Personally I think it's sheer lazyness, people should learn DOS/command line systems and filesystems first in school, then go to windows because without that basic dos background you don't really "get" how windows works because it's based on the basic filesystem concepts most people learned from the Dos and windows 3.1 days.
In what the writer writes in his article in some ways is an unjustified view of a computer technician. Though I agree that anyone can claim I can fix this, there are those who really do know what they are doing. In my personal experience as being a computer technician, I have trouble-shooted over a 1,000 pc problems and have come to the conclusion that their are three factors that most often are the primary reason why their pc is not functioning. 1) The computer user is under the assumption that they can get something for nothing and will use P2P programs or go to web sites to obtain such items not realizing the true harm of this approach for a free lunch. 2) Computer Users simply are unaware or do not comprehend how important it is to be user aware in understanding how applications work / hardware. (For example: most people will install 2 to 3 anti-virus programs on their pc think it will make it more secure but fail to understand that these anti-virus program will just battle each other hence a zero-sum game). 3) Sometimes the problem is caused not through user error but rather through hardware problems. Though this 3rd reason takes the blame off the user, I must add that how computer take care of their pcs dictate whether or not computer hardware will fail. (For example, if you never clean your case and you allow dust, dog hair, cigarette smoke clog your CPU fans and Power supply, then well your just asking for it. At the place where I work, my co-works and I always joke around about the classic ID-10-T error that most clients experience in their computer problem, but in most cases it is made clear that they simply just don't understand nor do they care to understand. For example, a client came in to the store and told me her computer was constipated but when I tried to help her with the correct terminology she did not understand to help identify what her problem was. In looking over the years in the technology that has come out in which is supposed to fix simple problems such as "plug-in play" or "system restore", I have found that these same tools are what cause the majority of the user problems. Too many people rely on these tools in which they do not understand the logic behind what they do and because of it are ready to pull their hair out when all their data is gone. Though the simple solution is backing up your data as you go about your week, computer users do not see a need in doing so because they think the big red panic button is going to make things right. I guess all in all, what I find humorous and clearly do not understand is that when my technical staff fixes the computer problem, and in most cases we have to remove those programs that got them in there in the first place, clients will complain about it because we prevented them from doing what they want to do which is get something for nothing. Though I try to explain to them what these programs do, they don't want to hear it and call you incompetent.
I fix my friends computers and get paid beer and dinner. My usual repair methodology is to back-up their important word, photos and music and remove the malware infecting the computer. Once Windows is removed I install the Linux of their choice, run the Bastille script and give them a quick tutorial on the basics of the file structure usually setting up a download, documents, music and photos folders for them. I show them where Firefox, OpenOffice.org, gaim and how their multi-media works. Then how to keep it patched. I have done this for everybody from an 80 year old neighbour to a Philipino family who just been introduced to computers. Once the system is up and running I rarely get called. I suppose if I was a good businessman I would reinstall windows and get more beer. But they are my friends after all!
"Flags are bits of colored cloth that governments use first to shrink-wrap people's brains..."
88 Dollars an Hour? Do the users end up in 1955 a lot?
"I Know You Are But What Am I?"
So afraid to make a judgement either way ;-)
"He then flames the whole world of computer repairmen as 'a bunch of unqualified amateurs"
imho that's a great TV show right there, not setting up dodgy builders and plumbers and exposing them as fraudulent money-grabbers, setup your average IT worker who earns 20k point-and-droooling their way through Windows Updates all year long.
Suttree, a weblog about casual games development
Computers and software have got away for far too long with shoddy design practices. "iti is good enough" has been the mantra of this industry for far too long.
I have got a life. I don't have time to download and inztall the firewall, the antivirus, a new browser, a new email program (you don't use Outlook I hope).
I bought a computer. it is suppossed to be fit for its purposes. Why it is not?
When a certain item was new it was OK to demand more involvement of the final users since the technology was not fully understood.
Now the computing industry is a mature industry, the end user should not need to be policing his machine, the manufacturers should provide the necessary tools to ensure the machine is safe to use.
That is why I like Linux. Install and ready to go, firewall configured, viruses unlikely.
What you are requesting is that people continue their masochist relationship with their tool. Sorry, but I don't buy it.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
When you own a device - regardless of it's complexity or sophistication - you owe it to yourself to learn, at the very least, basic maintenance for that device, and it's not just computers or cars.
Go back two hundred years. Any man that owned an axe would either know how to look after it, lest the handle split, the head fly off, the edge became dull, or some other issue.
That axe was important, as any tool is in a society where DIY isn't just a hobby, and people knew how to look after their tools.
Today we still have axes and hammers and other manual tools - and good crafts/tradesmen still look after their tools - and we also have more sophisticated devices like VCR's, Televisions, Computers, Cars, etc...
And today, perhaps even more so than yesterday, it still pays to learn the basics of maintaining your PC, car, or VCR, if not in time then in money.
How much does it cost to take a computer to repair shop near where you live, or have someone come and fix it? What if you knew the problem was as simple as defragmenting the hard drive?
I am still amazed by people's apathy towards the devices they use in everyday life, and even more incredible, their general lack of a plan in case something fails.
When the photocopier "breaks", and no-one knows what to do or who to call, the amateur who knows the answer is the hero to the ignorant.
His name is Robert Paulsen...
You all are way too low. Last time I was for-hire, it was $360 per hour, two hour minimum. Parts extra. Time and a half for service outside of 8-5. That kept most of the pesky relatives and neighbors off my back unless there was a thesis paper on the line. Of course, by my standards, 4G of ram and 8 processors is a cute little box.
The number of people who treat a car that way is WAY smaller than the number of people who treat computers this way. And if they really thought it was just a tool to let them email, write a resume and play some games, they wouldn't install comet cursors and desktop strippers and all the other retarded shit they install that has nothing to do with email, resumes or games.
The little bitch is lucky no one has strung him up by the balls and beaten him like a piñata at a 7-year-old's birthday party. If he wants to spit on our careers, I'd like to reciprocate and call his journalism at least one of the following:
1) "birdcage liner"
2) a submission for a "glorified essay contest"
3) a misplaced "back page column"
4) "shredder food"
5) a "desperate plea for attention"
6) something I would read in the bathroom just before realizing I'm out of toilet paper. (think about this one...)
7) "waste of ink"
8) "confetti fodder"
9) "blurb"
10) something slightly more vivid and exciting than high school biology notes.
-- Game Developers: Stop porting badly-textured games from crappy console systems!
He talks about sending your car to a professional garage, your washer to the "Maytag man" or whatever, but then when it comes to computers, he gets mad that it's not something your average idiot can fix? What a double standard.
This article is worthless, and the writer has no skill in logic.
Wow
.com crash I could not find anywork. I only have 2 years of experience and I am both A+ and MCSE( shudder) certified.
I should get back into the computer field. After the
I now work 6/hr and live off food stamps while I go back to school.
I wonder if the demand is back?
http://saveie6.com/
HEll compared to what I am making now I would happily accept 10/hr!
It beats minimium wage anyday.
I am wondering if the IT industry has any demand for us again after I got laid off in 2001.
People here are whining about 40/hr. Its unreal. I know people who make under $10,000 a year and support a family where I work. Really 12/hr is a ton of money and is luxury compared to what the rest of America makes.
http://saveie6.com/
BTW, nice to see you're posting at -1 now. I guess what goes around comes around.
I'll take for example, my grandparents' computer. They needed a new CPU fan, so I sent them up to the local shop with a written description of the type of motherboard/CPU. Of course, the shop-monkey, instead of giving them a small heatsink+fan combo at $12.99 for their P233MMX, gives them a nice big one meant for a P3/P4. And of course, rather than waiting for me to install it like I told them to, they try themselves.
/w it on (flat grey thing being the CPU), and the oversized heatsink bent/scraped several caps near the CPU. Luckily none were destroyed completely, so I was able to repair the outer sheathing, get a proper heatsink/fan, and have the thing working again.
End result: "We tried to fix the computer and now it doesn't work."
It seems they removed the "flat grey thing" because the new heatsink wouldn't fit
Yes, it's harder to put a cord in upside down, but I'd not underestimate the many ways somebody can screw up a computer. Remember, these same people can't even program their VCR's
I was entirely self-taught and as a non-programmer (before I learned programming) I knew how to use dos like the back of my hand because I persisted and spent the time necessary to learn the foundational concepts of how file systems and programs worked.
:)
Um, do you understand that you really, really *wanted* to do all this? That it was a hobby for you, something you were interested in? Because that's really how it looks like (from my arm-chair).
And then you call people lazy when they don't share your passions. Hey. Not everybody is a born slashdotter. (Thank several gods.)
There is nothing natural or intuitive about DOS or other CLI systems. There is no reason why people should crawl through those hoops. People should have systems that are easy to use for all kinds of creative (productive or just fun) stuff, while easy to keep secure and running well. Oh wait, Apple sells those.
You have a rather deep-reaching concept of "learning to use computers"... and perhaps you were a lot more of an enthusiast (thus, a rare type of person) back then than you make out to have been... no offense, I hope
RTFA Dork!
:-)
He's calling the people with the cards in the newsagent windows unqualified amateurs, not people with MCSE's
The demand never went away, Billly. You just have to market yourself and your sk1llz. As long as small businesses have Windows servers and Windows workstations, they're always going to need someone to take care of them. And those two certifications are gold (provided the customers understand what they mean and how hard you had to work to earn them).
Most of my clients' biggest headaches involve the integrity of their backup systems, preventing viruses and cleaning up spyware. I can automate a lot of this stuff, so I only have to go into the clients' offices once or twice a month, but it is always good to keep an eye on things. If you set up remote management on your clients' systems, and you monitor what's going on, you can see a problem before they call you in a panic.
There is plenty of business out there, but you need to network within user groups and small business organizations to build up a client base. Chambers of Commerce and local business associations (such as Rotary Clubs, Kiwanis clubs, etc.) are great opportunities for this. What often happens is one business will refer their partners to you, since they all face more or less the same IT problems. When a circle of small business owners get to know you by reputation, you will find you are in great demand and you may even have to turn down clients because there aren't enough hours in the day to service them all.
I hear ya brother... I think alot of us hear ya. Let them hire the little geniuses who think running neon tubes in their cases makes them a l337 dude or whatever. Seriously, I had one of those boneheads tell a client(back when I still did individual user contracts) that I was ripping them off, that he could do it cheaper. After several phone calls where the person was talking to me with heavily guarded anger, the person finally called back and said his nephew really didn't know what he was talking about.
that's just one of many BS stories. Let the little home users and small businesses who won't sign contracts deal with the rice boys. They'll do it for 20 bucks an hour all cuz it makes them feel l337.
One bit of advice going forward(though you're probably past this point), there are few businesses I will do business with on a handshake anymore, precisely because of the experience you described. Put a contract together and make them sign it. Also take retainers if they want a price quote up front for a big project. I had one customer take my spec for an application(I do DETAILED specs that even a ricer could follow), to someone else. There way of saving money I guess.
No more of that. To quote from goodfellas "fuck you, pay me." This may not sound like a customer service attitude, but honestly, until they pay you, they aren't customers. And if you do work and they won't pay, they're thieves and don't deserve a customer service attitude. That's the way it is. I don't care if they talk like bleeding heart liberals or staunch conservatives spouting platitudes about principles. Don't trust anyone until you get a feel for them. Honestly, so far, doing business with former bikers are the only guys who handshakes I trust. Not a biker AT ALL here. Just so far in my experience, they know what their word is worth.