My philosophy teacher in college (Debra Nails, http://www.msu.edu/~nails/, used to teach at Mary Washington) swore up and down that Spinoza was a closet atheist, and that the only way he could carry on conversations with his comptemporaries was to discuss God.
There is some evidence. If you take the premise of his theory about God, then there is no perceived difference between a reality with Spinoza's God existing as the immutable whole of the universe, and a reality that doesn't involve God at all.
Certainly makes me want to break out my copy of Ethics again to see if I remember what I think I read about Spinoza correctly.
And if you ISP can't do IMAP, there's only about a million places on the internet that you can get basic hosting for $5/month or less. Add $9 a year for a domain and you can make your own damn rules about how you get your email.
They will stand behind you watching your every move
Out of hundreds of in-home repairs I did, very few people will actually stand and watch. Do you sit and watch the plumber while he unclogs your toilet?
their mouse will be gunked up with toxic fluid, their screen will be covered in grease
This does happen, though not that often. Most people willing to pay for PC repair are also intelligent enough to have a clean space to work in.
they will at no time have any os,boot or driver cds to hand
Most people do have this stuff, although some don't. But you will carry an OEM copy of XP Home and Pro (never to be installed unless they have their own license sticker), so what's the problem? If their discs are missing sell them a new copy of Windows.
it will be so clogged up with viruses and trojans that just getting the damned thing to boot into safe mode will take you an hour
It won't take that long, and clogged up with viruses is GOOD, it gives them a reason to pay you to be there.
you will then need to get out of safe mode to connect to the net to get a new driver version
You can run safe mode with networking.
It was rare that I needed more than some tools on a USB key and a screwdriver in my pocket to do most repairs. Keep a video card, sound card, extra hard drive and extra optical drive in the car, keyboard and mouse, and you're 95% covered. Carry some routers, a couple of cat5 and usb cables as well.
Most people at home have a dynamic IP address. You have to set them up with something similar to GoToMyPC (not free), dyndns, or get them to go to whatismyipaddress.com or something. Oh, and you'd have to configure they're router... you DID sell them a router before you left, right?
That kind of support contract is better suited for business customers in my experience as a field tech.
What you should really do instead is presell a block of hours or so that expires in a year for additional support or routine maintenance (spyware cleaning, dusting out the physical box, defragging, etc.).
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This is going way off topic.
My philosophy teacher in college (Debra Nails, http://www.msu.edu/~nails/, used to teach at Mary Washington) swore up and down that Spinoza was a closet atheist, and that the only way he could carry on conversations with his comptemporaries was to discuss God.
There is some evidence. If you take the premise of his theory about God, then there is no perceived difference between a reality with Spinoza's God existing as the immutable whole of the universe, and a reality that doesn't involve God at all.
Certainly makes me want to break out my copy of Ethics again to see if I remember what I think I read about Spinoza correctly.
And if you ISP can't do IMAP, there's only about a million places on the internet that you can get basic hosting for $5/month or less. Add $9 a year for a domain and you can make your own damn rules about how you get your email.
They will stand behind you watching your every move
Out of hundreds of in-home repairs I did, very few people will actually stand and watch. Do you sit and watch the plumber while he unclogs your toilet?
their mouse will be gunked up with toxic fluid, their screen will be covered in grease
This does happen, though not that often. Most people willing to pay for PC repair are also intelligent enough to have a clean space to work in.
they will at no time have any os,boot or driver cds to hand
Most people do have this stuff, although some don't. But you will carry an OEM copy of XP Home and Pro (never to be installed unless they have their own license sticker), so what's the problem? If their discs are missing sell them a new copy of Windows.
it will be so clogged up with viruses and trojans that just getting the damned thing to boot into safe mode will take you an hour
It won't take that long, and clogged up with viruses is GOOD, it gives them a reason to pay you to be there.
you will then need to get out of safe mode to connect to the net to get a new driver version
You can run safe mode with networking.
It was rare that I needed more than some tools on a USB key and a screwdriver in my pocket to do most repairs. Keep a video card, sound card, extra hard drive and extra optical drive in the car, keyboard and mouse, and you're 95% covered. Carry some routers, a couple of cat5 and usb cables as well.
Most people at home have a dynamic IP address. You have to set them up with something similar to GoToMyPC (not free), dyndns, or get them to go to whatismyipaddress.com or something. Oh, and you'd have to configure they're router... you DID sell them a router before you left, right?
That kind of support contract is better suited for business customers in my experience as a field tech.
What you should really do instead is presell a block of hours or so that expires in a year for additional support or routine maintenance (spyware cleaning, dusting out the physical box, defragging, etc.).