Computer Repair (Port St. Lucie, St. Lucie: how much, house, community college)

[PortStLucieWater]

Hey everyone,


After finally getting settled into the Treasure Coast area I decided it's time to start up my computer repair business. I'm a corporate experienced Senior Systems Administrator with over 10 years of experience doing everything from local computer support to managing high traffic web servers.

I'm going to try to keep this brief as I do not want to "spam" too much here but if any of you are in need of any computer repair or help feel free to shoot me a message and I will give you my contact information and pricing.

Thanks!

[pslhomie]

Don't make the mistake I did telling people that 90% of their issues could be resolved by doing windows updates and having their antivirus software up to date. And if their computer is over 4 years old it is not worth fixing and rule number 1 is always have a back up and don't keep anything on your computer you ever want to see again such as pictures and videos.

Oh no that put me right out of business.

[MarkSwanson]

Sorry, if you don't have a real business in PSL, no thank you.
I called a guy that was posting on Craigslist. The promise was $70 bucks and however long it took to solve the problem.
4 hours, lunch, and a ton of talk my problem I thought was fixed.
He left and 2 hours later my problem was back and it was worse.
I could have sat there and done what he did myself.
Plus, come to find out a book of my checks where missing.

Later on I thought about it, why would I invite just anyone into my home without having the backing of a company or a state business license.
Something, so if needed I could track back the person.
When I went to report my missing check, they asking me who came and serviced me..... And I had no idea.
Lesson learned

[PortStLucieWater]

Mark,

I totally understand where you are coming from. This is not my main source of income -- in this economy sometimes it's not easy to just rely on one source of income. I work for a large online hosting business doing Linux Systems Administrator work.

You are definitely on point with the state business license however I am just starting up around here so that will come in time. As far as being able to know me -- you can come to my house and drop it off or sit in my office and watch me fix it I own my home in Port St. Lucie so you can easily "back track me".

As far as pricing -- I understand that a lot of computer repair can come at a price. Because this is not my only source of income I am pricing my services at extremely competitive pricing and none of my services are higher than $50.

Anyway -- I definitely appreciate the criticism. It's needed in life to keep us on the right path.

[pslhomie]

I have been in the computer business for close to 30 years and I know how frustrating it can be. Small computer issues are not worth the time of most people to fix so that is why the Geek Squads of the world popped up. A virus can take hours and hours to work out and you can imagine how much a person's time is valued at.

Before Microsoft ruined things by making their OS so expensive I was building comptuers for people and was making a good living at it. These days I don't waste my time to try and fix OS or software issues. If you read the directions that come with your computer you can completely restore it back to factory settings in just a couple of hours.

When you take it to a shop that is what they charge you $80 to $150 to do. You have to understand that their time is valuable. Right now I have over 1100 computers and 10 plus servers that I maintain by myself. I could never do that if I treated every issue as something I had to investigate and untangle.

Backing up your files, doing windows updates and having your AV program up to date including Microsoft Windows Essentials is a must. There are lots of programs out there that will back up your files for you. Investigate Cloud storage for your files.

If you really want to, I would bet any local community college has many computer classes you can take.

If I were still doing home repairs I would have you bring me your computer and charge $35 for diagnosis to be absorbed into what ever repair woudl be made and a minimum of $50 to restore a computer without backing up your files. If you insisted I come to your house then the charge would be $100 minimum. I don't put myself into the position you described. Again if your comptuter is more than 4 years old and it just isnt running after you restore then get a new one.

[alsidw]

Anyone teaching how to get the most out of your Apple?Mac?

[pslhomie]

Yeah the higher you drop it from the more pieces there will be.