What is the going rate to charge for computer services?

patman99

The one thing you have to cater for is that your customer may know two IT bods.

I'm a member of a camera club and one fellow member had bought a new HD, but had no idea how to fit it. I popped-round and connected it up for him, leaving his small old HD as the boot drive.
I explained that it is always best to keep the o/s on a seperate drive or partition as it makes it easier to deal with when things go wrong.
2 months later, another club member (and long-term friend) phones me from this guys house because he is having issues with the PC booting. The HD is failing. Fine, I tell him, you'll have to install it on the new larger drive. He then informs me that it IS the new drive that is failing.
What he didn't tell me was that 3 days after I had fitted the new drive, he had called-round and put Windows on the bigger drive and in the process removed all the carefully created partitions.

At this point I told him he was on his own with this one as I was no longer interested. I told the club member that I can no longer be bothered to look at his PC if he then gets the other guy to come and fiddle with my work.

sarahdd

put all important data onto external drive that way you got now problems when problems happen. You can but laptop for £200 even cheaper second hand. The only time you would need repair is when you have left data on the computer or laptop.

Blackpool_Saver

sarahdd wrote: »

put all important data onto external drive that way you got now problems when problems happen. You can but laptop for £200 even cheaper second hand. The only time you would need repair is when you have left data on the computer or laptop.

:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

Ooooh i need a wee now

dan_l

All these people knocking the Microsoft exams, they aren't really aimed at your local virus removal/memory upgrade type PC engineer so it's a bit unfair to bring them into a thread that seems to be mainly talking about home PC repairs.

I know about all the crash courses/braindumps etc that are out there that have lessened the value of the MCSE but if studied properly then it can be a good addition to somebody who works in a Microsoft corporate/domain environment.

Hammyman

dan_l wrote: »

All these people knocking the Microsoft exams, they aren't really aimed at your local virus removal/memory upgrade type PC engineer so it's a bit unfair to bring them into a thread that seems to be mainly talking about home PC repairs.

I know about all the crash courses/braindumps etc that are out there that have lessened the value of the MCSE but if studied properly then it can be a good addition to somebody who works in a Microsoft corporate/domain environment.

I have a MCSE and the only reason I had it is because one of my business clients required it. Actually, thats a lie - I think one or more modules has lapsed now.

Anyway, now that they have tightened up the criteria it has moved TOWARDS being valuable however it cannot replace experience. There is a whole load of stuff that you learn with experience which never ever makes it into the MCSE modules but I can guarantee you will come across more than once in an IT career. The problem is those looking at the MCSE think it teaches you everything - after all it must do because it is a Microsoft certification. Meanwhile the IT industry know better.

I'm not saying it is a bad thing to do - it isn't. However it doesn't mean you know what you are doing.

TrickyDicky101

I am of the opinion that the only MS accreditation that means a damn is their MVP award (but you can't buy that so it is harder to come by)...