saunter on over to MSFN.ORG look around the forums and you'll find the files required to make an OEM version of the OS with the OEM key and everything! Goodness why do I keep reading this crap all the time! educate yourself people, you talk about being smarter than the average user, show it!
I've been doing this for my customers for years!!! it's not hard, it's not rocket science, all the hard work has been done for you, all you have to do is get a windows disk Home or Pro add the correct files, use the OEM key or the key on your computer case (most of the time) and burn! simple! sh*t it takes longer to cook a good meal than to get an OEM copy of XP working.
The same goes for the guy who ended up installing ubuntu server on a HP server machine, cry me a river, if you knew your sh*t you'd have burnt a disk with the sata drivers included and moved on instead of crying about how f*ck*d up it was, XP is over 5 years old! so learn to work with it.
Don't get me wrong I'm not overly enthusiastic about XP (heh ask some of the people I've worked with) but you learn to work with the tools your given, I've already tried the switch to linux, I learnt I could do it but for my games!, plus the video driver support sucks! ATI NVIDIA I'm referring to you people! and Game designers Please start supporting Linux it'd make a heck of a lot of people happy, Wine and Cedega just don't cut it for me!!!
Don't go incorporating straight away, first thing to do is canvas the local area with simple print-out's of your soon to be company name with little tear off strips with the phone number and name, do this until you start to get a bit of business, then just gauge how much your liking the work, I mean seriously don't incoporate UNTIL you've had 2 problem customers at least, trust me they will come, if you really like the work and the hassle then incorporate both with your State and Federal, once you have your business number then you'll be all set, in your local town you may need to get a permit to have an in-home business make sure you find out.
Things to be aware of:
if you take a customer PC back to your "LAB" be very carefull not to scratch or mark it, use an bench for all customer PC's keep them off the ground or wrap/cover them with old blankets.
always backup your customers HD, even if they don't want a backup, why? because most users think the screen power button is the off-switch, so do you really believe they backed up their pictures too?
an earlier poster said it best, don't undercut your competition, you'll just get the bargin-bin customers who want to get everything for nothing, charge what your worth and let word of mouth sell your service ( TRUST me on this, where i'm running my business i've gotten more business from 2 of my customers "word of mouth" then i have from my 1 bi-weekly ad )
Open-source is your friend, think NAS fileserver, firewall for your network, automatic patching for your re-installs, think free software for AV firewall spyware.
personally i couldn't be happier with making the switch from working for others to working for me, i just have a few ongoing projects that i need to take care of before i go full tilt into my own business.
Lastly I read this on lifehacker and it holds very true, do it all on the cheap, don't go over advertising, don't go and buy all sorts of new equipment and software, look to do things for free or cheap until your very established and making profit.
Bah, Iowa telecom have been cutting their users off for some-time now, they get a warning and then they cut you off, i know cos once these people get cut off they come to me to fix it up for them, it's a lucrative deal for me as my small company is building a reputation for getting it right first time, but i personally feel that we should be hitting HP, Dell, etc to stop installing crap spyware infested software to begin with, and to build pre-installed clean computers with adequate protection right out of the box, still the users themselves are to blame too, as well as MS for leaving all the doors open in the name of useability!!!
it's funny reading this article as i have another 2 computers waiting to be re-installed and setup cleanly!
I contract full-time (IE i sit around waiting for someone to phone me with work)
For side work i run my own computer repair business, hey it's what i know best!
And as an added extra i bought a Masonic Temple and am renovating it to be my house, so i need to do everything as i'm on a tight budget, i know something about the building trade as i grew up in a working family, building, bar work and generally get your Sh1T dirty work!, my next big project is electrical wiring in the place, not my most favorite of subjects, i don't like the idea of getting a shock!!!
So in answer whatever it takes to get a buck my son!
thanks for the reply, good to hear that you do take redundancy seriously, and just for your knowledge thanks for the article in the first place it has given me a few ideas to mull over, and will be of some assistance in setting up something like this if it comes to pass.:-)
after reading some of the posts about this i can only say, man you people are spoiled!;-)
Last time i was anywhere near telco equipment in a big financial institute they still had 386's running the damn stuff ( this was Australia, u know what i'm sayin if you know about telstra/optus ), the comm's guy asked me if we had something else to put the software on and put some cards in, i suggested a nice P3 and he chocked and said it was too new, i ended up giving him an old pentium 66 or the like and he was chuffed!
As for these guys, i didn't see mention of Battery backup's, raid or redundant backup's so i'm thinking they like living on the edge! kinda scary for a banking environment, although they are saving on local to local bank call's etc, but still, not the kinda bank i want to trust with my cash!
they you go, you can have this $0.02 for free.
Slashdot Mirror
Oh please!
saunter on over to MSFN.ORG look around the forums and you'll find the files required to make an OEM version of the OS with the OEM key and everything! Goodness why do I keep reading this crap all the time! educate yourself people, you talk about being smarter than the average user, show it!
I've been doing this for my customers for years!!! it's not hard, it's not rocket science, all the hard work has been done for you, all you have to do is get a windows disk Home or Pro add the correct files, use the OEM key or the key on your computer case (most of the time) and burn! simple! sh*t it takes longer to cook a good meal than to get an OEM copy of XP working.
The same goes for the guy who ended up installing ubuntu server on a HP server machine, cry me a river, if you knew your sh*t you'd have burnt a disk with the sata drivers included and moved on instead of crying about how f*ck*d up it was, XP is over 5 years old! so learn to work with it.
Don't get me wrong I'm not overly enthusiastic about XP (heh ask some of the people I've worked with) but you learn to work with the tools your given, I've already tried the switch to linux, I learnt I could do it but for my games!, plus the video driver support sucks! ATI NVIDIA I'm referring to you people! and Game designers Please start supporting Linux it'd make a heck of a lot of people happy, Wine and Cedega just don't cut it for me!!!
Sry just my $0.02
Don't go incorporating straight away, first thing to do is canvas the local area with simple print-out's of your soon to be company name with little tear off strips with the phone number and name, do this until you start to get a bit of business, then just gauge how much your liking the work, I mean seriously don't incoporate UNTIL you've had 2 problem customers at least, trust me they will come, if you really like the work and the hassle then incorporate both with your State and Federal, once you have your business number then you'll be all set, in your local town you may need to get a permit to have an in-home business make sure you find out.
Things to be aware of:
if you take a customer PC back to your "LAB" be very carefull not to scratch or mark it, use an bench for all customer PC's keep them off the ground or wrap/cover them with old blankets.
always backup your customers HD, even if they don't want a backup, why? because most users think the screen power button is the off-switch, so do you really believe they backed up their pictures too?
an earlier poster said it best, don't undercut your competition, you'll just get the bargin-bin customers who want to get everything for nothing, charge what your worth and let word of mouth sell your service ( TRUST me on this, where i'm running my business i've gotten more business from 2 of my customers "word of mouth" then i have from my 1 bi-weekly ad )
Open-source is your friend, think NAS fileserver, firewall for your network, automatic patching for your re-installs, think free software for AV firewall spyware.
personally i couldn't be happier with making the switch from working for others to working for me, i just have a few ongoing projects that i need to take care of before i go full tilt into my own business.
Lastly I read this on lifehacker and it holds very true, do it all on the cheap, don't go over advertising, don't go and buy all sorts of new equipment and software, look to do things for free or cheap until your very established and making profit.
Good luck
Pebbles.
Bah, Iowa telecom have been cutting their users off for some-time now, they get a warning and then they cut you off, i know cos once these people get cut off they come to me to fix it up for them, it's a lucrative deal for me as my small company is building a reputation for getting it right first time, but i personally feel that we should be hitting HP, Dell, etc to stop installing crap spyware infested software to begin with, and to build pre-installed clean computers with adequate protection right out of the box, still the users themselves are to blame too, as well as MS for leaving all the doors open in the name of useability!!! it's funny reading this article as i have another 2 computers waiting to be re-installed and setup cleanly!
I contract full-time (IE i sit around waiting for someone to phone me with work) For side work i run my own computer repair business, hey it's what i know best! And as an added extra i bought a Masonic Temple and am renovating it to be my house, so i need to do everything as i'm on a tight budget, i know something about the building trade as i grew up in a working family, building, bar work and generally get your Sh1T dirty work!, my next big project is electrical wiring in the place, not my most favorite of subjects, i don't like the idea of getting a shock!!! So in answer whatever it takes to get a buck my son!
thanks for the reply, good to hear that you do take redundancy seriously, and just for your knowledge thanks for the article in the first place it has given me a few ideas to mull over, and will be of some assistance in setting up something like this if it comes to pass. :-)
after reading some of the posts about this i can only say, man you people are spoiled! ;-)
Last time i was anywhere near telco equipment in a big financial institute they still had 386's running the damn stuff ( this was Australia, u know what i'm sayin if you know about telstra/optus ), the comm's guy asked me if we had something else to put the software on and put some cards in, i suggested a nice P3 and he chocked and said it was too new, i ended up giving him an old pentium 66 or the like and he was chuffed!
As for these guys, i didn't see mention of Battery backup's, raid or redundant backup's so i'm thinking they like living on the edge! kinda scary for a banking environment, although they are saving on local to local bank call's etc, but still, not the kinda bank i want to trust with my cash!
they you go, you can have this $0.02 for free.