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HAVE I HELPED?
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ARE YOU REALLY GONNA TRUST THIS GUY??
In another life I hope to make a living at helping people manage their PCs and their home networks. This page is setup to explain my services. At the present time [late 2003/early 2004] I am contracted full time, so am unable to respond to many actual requests.
This is what I propose to do for people. I intend to concentrate mostly on setting up home networks and PCs, but I can also work in small business environments:
1. Basic Network/PC consulting. I spend whatever time it takes talking with you (an hour or two) and a small amount of time on your PC, determining your wishes in the realm of PC, networking, etc. and gauging the basic health of your PC. I will produce a written diagram and proposal to bring your PC/network up to your wishes. It will include a range of things you can do, from the simple to the more complex. It will also include a list of things that you can probably do yourself if you feel adventuresome. I charge $100 for this service. This consultation may be all that you need if you are a do-it-yourselfer and want to learn about this technology. Perhaps the best part of this service is that I will answer simple emails about questions you have once you pay me the $100 for the report [for 1 year only]. To the best of my ability of course, and given my work load - I hope to respond within a day. I can consult for $50 an hour at various stages of events if you need help along the way. This is a sample.
The list of tasks proposed in the above proposal may include some of the following. The following fees are approximate of course, and will vary depending on the exact situation!
2. Cleanup of single PC . Spyware/trojan removal if possible. Removal of junk programs from startup. Virus checking, subscription to virus checking service [price additional]. Install of zonealarm personal firewall, or a firewall of your choice. Registry cleanup. If it is determined that a complete reinstall is necessary, a fee of $100 will be charged instead of the $200, and the attempt will be abandoned. Reinstall of Windows is a separate item below. It is possible to keep existing data in many cases. A second disk drive may be added to facilitate this price additional. $200. The customer is HIGHLY ADVISED to have a backup in place before I attempt this. If the customer desires it, I can perform item 4 BEFORE this is attempted to preserve the existing environment.
3. Installation of Router and configuration of a single PC. This presupposes a working ADSL or Cable modem connection. This will include basic browser and email setup on the PC if necessary. $100. Additional PCs are $50 apiece. Cabling will be added and run as appropriate along the floor, but will not be installed in the walls. All materials extra at cost, or using your materials.
4. Setup PC for image backup. I will install Drive Image on your PC and install a second disk drive, assuming there is a spare IDE slot. Cost is $50 plus the costs of Drive Image copy and a second disk drive - about $150 [the last I checked, Drive Image was $50 and 30GB drives were less than $100.] You will be able to perform a full backup of your OS and your applications as often as you wish by booting the image backup DOS disk and entering a few commands. This procedure takes 15 minutes to an hour, depending on how big your data is.
5. Disk wipe and reinstall of your OS. This would be a complete new install, NOT a windows reinstall on top of your existing Windows [you should be able to do this, but it is not always successful in cleaning up a PC.] This would include restoration of your networking abilities, but not your applications. If it has been arranged beforehand, a second disk could have been installed and a lot of your old data from the old installation transferred to it. More and more, this looks like an OEM reinstall. That is, using the system restore disk you got with your new PC. Fewer and fewer times are you provided with a SEPARATE copy of the Windows OS that we can install. $150 If you do not have this system restore disk, we have to use an original Windows OS disk [We actually have to borrow one - this is legal since you already have the OS on the PC], and THEN install the additional drivers if the Windows disk cannot provide them. We may even have to find them on the web from the manufacturers. This could get a little difficult. And the additional complication of the XP licensing has not been figured out yet! Make sure you save all those disks that come with your PC!! $300
6. Ongoing technical support after installation can be provided, on an as-used basis, $50 per hour. If the customer wishes to enable this, remote control of the desktop must be enabled, as discussed in an accompanying page, and your NAT/router must be setup as well. This will be $50 to set this up. You can then call me and we can arrange for remote control of your desktop so that I can troubleshoot your problem. If you do not wish to do this, then a house call is necessary. $25 plus $50 per hour.
7. Consultation on wiring of your house for the network connections. We can look at your house structure and gauge the difficulty/ease of adding wall jacks for ethernet connections. I can consult for $50 an hour on this task, including installing the connectors [or instructing you how to do it], testing the connections, setting up the hub and routers, and verifying connectivity to the PCs. I will not personally do any of the wiring runs.
8. I personally avoid wireless networks, but will consult in the network setup to get PCs running and connected in the wireless infrastructure mode, once they are in place for $50 per hour. Actually this doesn't look hard at all - I have played with it. The only problem is that there are no guarantees with wireless, and I would certainly worry about the security [just don't do your taxes on your wireless PC].
9. Cleanup/Tuneup of PC and network connection. This will involve a broad range of PC health determinations and corrections [how many programs are running in background, spyware and virus checking, etc], and will involve checking network parameters such as MTU, RCV Window for Win98, and a quick snoop of the actual ethernet network for any ethernet physical layer problems . If you have ADSL, I will check the ADSL statistics of your line to gauge just how healthy your connection is. Make sure you have at least 250 MB of RAM for XP or Win2K, and 128MB would be nice for Win98/ME. $250
10. I don't do Macs, but I certainly understand the TCP/IP networking which will occur between MACs and routers and your network connection. I can consult in this area for $50 an hour.
11. Ethernet sniffing on your network using a network sniffer to investigate just exactly what is going on in your ethernet network. I may need to replace your switch with a hub to see all the network activity. $50 an hour.
12. Setup/subscription to your own domain name and setup of the personal web space. Bellsouth.net is the only one I am really familiar with, but they should all be very similar. $50 an hour. You can actually acquire your own domain name for about $20 per year, and then point it to your personal web space on bellsouth.net. So you could for example, refer people to your home page of www.the-einsteins.com. The space on your ISP is free for modest access.
13. Port scan your Internet Connection and interpret results to check the security of your Internet connection. I will use a variety of tools, from nmap to netscantools. $50.
14. If you feel intimidated by the whole process of ordering, setting up a PC, I will consult with you up front as to the PC you need or want. I will order it, set it up in the desired mode, and deliver it to your house and spend an hour with you to show you your new PC. $250 plus the cost of the PC, which generally ranges from $500 to $1500.
Guarantees/Disclaimers/Limitations
There is no way I can guarantee to completely satisfy you. If you have no backups of your personal data, I will try to work with you to create same, but you in the end must be responsible for any backup of data that you need. If you are completely unsatisfied with anything that I do, I will certainly refund any money I have assessed you. I can guarantee that at least.