Computer Repair & Maintenance

Q. Describe the most common types of jobs you do for your clients.

A. The most common type of job we preform is reformatting a computer back to the way it came from the factory.

Typically, the computer configuration from the factory has a lot of trial software that does nothing but slow the system down.

I remove most if not all of the trial software, and then fine-tune the system with a professional touch!

Q. What advice do you have for a customer looking to hire a provider like you?

A. Check with the Better Business Bureau (BBB) and ask for references.

Q. If you were a customer, what do you wish you knew about your trade? Any inside secrets to share?

A. Communication with customers to where they understand all the details without confusing them with advanced technical verbiage.

Q. What questions should a consumer ask to hire the right service professional?

A. Are the technicians trained within the scope of our job?

Q. What important information should buyers have thought through before seeking you out?

A. Based on the users experience with their own computer, and the fact that the computer is not preforming in a way they feel comfortable, may lead a person to spontaneously just pick up the phone!

If at all possible, run a few queries across Google to see if they can fix the problem, and avoid having to contract out a professional.

Q. Why does your work stand out from others who do what you do?

A. Our work is based on over 12-years working in the industry as a Senior Programmer/Analyst for the City of Cleveland.

I have also gained quite a bit of experience working with database technologies, disaster recovery, software development, network administration, and help-desk support (level 2 through level 4) ranging from desktop computers, servers, printers, and routers.

Q. What do you like most about your job?

A. I enjoy meeting new people and helping them with their computer problems.

I also enjoy the challenge at times that force me to keep myself up to speed with the latest technologies.

Q. What questions do customers most commonly ask you? What's your answer?

A. I have quite a bit of customers who ask, "If I have installed a virus scan on my computer, why did we get a virus?" and my answer would be, "the virus scan is just that, a solution to scan a computer for a virus. If the user opts to visit websites that tend to infect computers, it's like having a burglar knock on your front door and you letting them in."

Q. Do you have a favorite story from your work?

A. One of my favorite stories is when my supervisor who was never interested in hearing about Linux, let me configure his laptop with a very popular Linux desktop at the time.

After one-week, he was like WOW, this is great, he couldn't believe it was free, and were so many free programs available that he could download at any time that were great as well.

Q. What do you wish customers knew about you or your profession?

A. I wish my customers understood how much of my own time I devote to learning and understanding technology (I read a lot).

I also wish, that they knew I was an instructor at one of the local community colleges teaching computer science.

Q. How did you decide to get in your line of work?

A. I used to work for my father as a crane operator and truck driver for over eighteen-years, and when he sold his business that was called (City Industrial Incorporated), he told me the wave of the future was technology.

I remember putting forth such an effort to try to understand technology at the time (my first PC was an HP Pavilion running Windows 95 with 16MB of RAM and had a 1.6GB hard-drive) that computer cost my father who helped me buy my first computer $2,800.00 (I miss my father, he died ten-years ago at age 69) he helped me a lot with where I am today, and who I have become...

Q. Tell us about a recent job you did that you are particularly proud of.

A. I am always proud when I setup whole home systems that connect to a secured wireless access point I setup and configured that handled all the internet communication and networking between each users computer's and the printer.

Q. Do you do any sort of continuing education to stay up on the latest developments in your field?

A. Yes, all the time, technology changes so much that it would be impossible to keep up with out additional training.

I also have my own systems that I work on that allow me to preform work I would normally do on a customers computer.

Q. Describe your most recent project, what it involved, how much it cost, and how long it took.

A. My last job was a Toshiba laptop that was so bogged down, that the user couldn't uninstall a program (it took so long).

The laptop was also overwhelmed with multiple virus scans, tools that appear to be good for your computer but are not.

Overall, the system was unusable and needed to be reformatted back to the factory specs.

The problem was, there was a lot of personal data on the laptop, and needed to be backed up prior to formatting the system.

At this time, I removed the laptop's hard-drive and slaved it onto one of our Area Computer Tech laptop's that had an additional 500GB USB drive to move the data from the customers hard-drive until the system was recovered and reconfigured to an operational state.

This job, that included running all the Microsoft updates and service packs took about 6 hours to complete (this laptop was taken off-site as well and then returned back when it was finished), and cost the customer $150.00 (they were very happy with the work, and how fast the laptop preformed).

The system was a Windows 7 - Home Premium 64bit environment with 4GB of DDR3 RAM and dual core processor.

Q. If you have a complicated pricing system for your service, please give all the details here.

A. My pricing is not complicated at all, I try to provide a great service at a very reasonable price, so I get repeat customer support and referrals.

Q. If you were advising someone who wanted to get into your profession, what would you suggest?

A. Don't rush into trying to be able to preform work that could lose a persons data, get a job working with others in the field (shadow another technician) so you can learn from them, and read a lot of good books and articles on technology.

Q. What is your greatest strength?

A. Being able to analyze and diagnose what is wrong with a computer fast.

I also feel, my ability to understand the importance of other peoples data extends my ability to get the job done right!

Q. Write your own question and answer it.

A. Why wouldn't a person be interested in finding out more about the Linux desktop environments?

Most if not all would be amazed at how outstanding the Linux desktop's run and are familiar with what they all ready know (Windows).

The Linux operating system is so secure it doesn't need a virus scan (well at this point I haven't had the need to install one)...