Anyone with IT Consulting Experience?

[Stiker]

They aren't even lolA+ certified.

Shit, every Fry's employee is supposed to be and it was pulling teeth to get them to fix my mom's laptop. She picked the model that "looked pretty" (mistake number 1) and had all kinds of wireless networking issues. I did everything I could and then I finally found an article that said HP fucked up with her model and their BIOS would power the wireless card down just enough to not let it connect to the internet because the system would get too hot due to the fan not being at the proper speed. It was the damnedest thing I ever saw, because Windows would show it connected to the network, yet not to the internet...

In some cases, the motherboard needed to be replaced, so I just thought I'd save myself the headache and take it to Fry's for her since it was under warranty. I can't tell you how many times I dropped the thing off and had Fry's tell me "it works, it connects to our network", which was never the issue in the first place. I mean, this was after I literally printed out articles telling them exactly how to fix it and fucking highlighted it for them. Eventually they finally got someone that knew how to fucking read to get the replacement parts to fix the damned thing.

Thankfully it didn't cost me a dime, but holy fuck those people are thick...

[Mizango]

Shit, every Fry's employee is supposed to be and it was pulling teeth to get them to fix my mom's laptop. She picked the model that "looked pretty" (mistake number 1) and had all kinds of wireless networking issues. I did everything I could and then I finally found an article that said HP fucked up with her model and their BIOS would power the wireless card down just enough to not let it connect to the internet because the system would get too hot due to the fan not being at the proper speed. It was the damnedest thing I ever saw, because Windows would show it connected to the network, yet not to the internet...

In some cases, the motherboard needed to be replaced, so I just thought I'd save myself the headache and that it to Fry's for her since it was under warranty. I can't tell you how many times I dropped the thing off and had Fry's tell me "it works, it connects to our network", which was never the issue in the first place. I mean, this was after I literally printed out articles telling them exactly how to fix it and fucking highlighted it for them. Eventually they finally got someone that knew how to fucking read to get the replacement parts to fix the damned thing.

Thankfully it didn't cost me a dime, but holy fuck those people are thick...

rofl nice. I mean that in a shady fucked up sort of way.

[Stiker]

rofl nice. I mean that in a shady fucked up sort of way.

The best part was when the guy tried to act like I didn't know what the fuck.

"Sir, if it connects to the network, there isn't an issue, it is your configuration."

Me: "Look buddy, I work in the networking field and our home network has everything from Macs, XP laptops, PC towers and printers connected at this very moment and are fine. This is the only part of our network that doesn't connect to the internet despite it having identical settings to everything else. So which do you still think is broken here?"

"Well sir, all I can tell you is it connects to our network just fine" *he shows me*

Me: "Well, look there, it still doesn't connect to the internet, see the issue?"

"Sir, our wireless network can't connect to the internet."

Me: "...then how in the hell can you ever figure out if the problem is fixed? Re-read the ticket and what my complaint is. There is basic network connectivity, but no internet connection." *wait for him to read ticket and see my article* "Now read the highlighted portion of that article and tell me what it says about this model's networking card."

"It describes the exact problem you are having."

Me: "Exactly! Now, take the laptop back, actually fix the problem for once and don't call me back until you fix it for real this time."

Actual conversation, I shit you not.

[Mizango]

Oh yeah I love those. I run Linux on 3 of my boxes at home, Adv. Server on another and only do this for a living, yet I got this one kid who was like... "Yeah, it may be because of Linux you have running. Linux will sometimes change your network configuration around because its too strong and needs to be set as the master and not the slave for the network. Especially since they were originally geared to run only on Windows XP or later."

......

I was asking had he heard anything about a bridge they had in stock. You know the typical good/bad/alot of returns etc. Needless to say the conversation ended shortly thereafter lol.

Remember kids! If your job or company wishes to run a network run it on Windows XP or later!

[Mizango]

That was at Best Buy.

[Stiker]

"Yeah, it may be because of Linux you have running. Linux will sometimes change your network configuration around because its too strong and needs to be set as the master and not the slave for the network. Especially since they were originally geared to run only on Windows XP or later."

WOW. Master and slave for the network huh? I also didn't realize Linux was basically a network trojan and fucks with your settings.

That is the seriously the most amazing "I-don't-know-shit-about-Linux-I'm-going-to-pull-this-out-of-my-ass" answer ever.

[Mizango]

WOW. Master and slave for the network huh? I also didn't realize Linux was basically a network trojan and fucks with your settings.

That is the seriously the most amazing "I-don't-know-shit-about-Linux-I'm-going-to-pull-this-out-of-my-ass" answer ever.

Yeah I sort of just walked away.

[TummieGaruda]

Often times I would review tickets and find that units were being checked in that suffered only from minor Windows problems that might take less than 30 minutes to complete however on the ticket they were charged for an OS repair, malware removal and tune-up which at the time cost $118. The units often only had one tracking cookie or some temp files and there was no sign of a malware problem and no need for a tune-up.

I also found that many of my co-workers would intentionally remove the customer's anti-virus or tell that customer that in order for us to guarantee the work completed our anti-virus had to be installed. In addition to trapping many people with the threats of stolen data and virus infections causing further damage we were instructed by our managers to specifically target older customers, first time computer owners and the lesser educated.

Lol, I work tech support and we oftentimes have to deal with a specific ISP who uses our wireless USB adapters. They are pretty terrible because they install the wireless adapter on customers computers as part of their internet package, but they'd never leave the install CD. Whenever the customer needed to re-install the software, they wouldn't have the CD so they'd call the ISP who tells them to call us to get the CD, but we can't send it to them because they come in a package with the device. The techs from the ISP have the nerve to tell the customers that it would cost $150 as a service call to come out just to drop off the CD.

My favorite is dealing with Escalated cases from our Teir 1 techs, or calls that deal with IT guys having hardware issues with our firewalls. Sometimes they think they are bigshots saying they make 80k/yr and have all these certifications but cannot figure out why they can't pass traffic on the WAN of the firewall. Sometimes they do have legit issues, but there are times where you get those people who forget to check Layer 1 and it ends up being a bad Ethernet cable lol. Sometimes I want to see the look on their face when they realize they overlooked it and spent 2 hours trying to figure it out themselves.

[Furtwangler]

On the issue about people covering keys or not having them. Theres this awesome freeware tool called magic jelly bean keyfinder or something, and it will pull the windows key from any machine.
After you get the key as long as you have the proper cd (If it's a certain manufacturer) or if its just a straight XP key then you're all set for a reformat. I've used this method at least 5 times in fixing customers computers when I did it for a job.

Interesting and slightly similar story about porn, this lady came in to the store once with a dvd/vcr combo/recorder and had a vcr she was trying to dub into a dvd and the vcr was stuck. Our tech wasn't in the store at the time so we had her leave it here (even though she was really reluctant to do so for some reason) turns out it was a home-made porno of her with a guy and yea, that got turned off fast lol. (She wasn't attractive at all.)

[guartz]

virus/malware was probably the most common uneducated IT line of questions.

But here are the runner ups;

Basic networking, especially wireless.

This includes wireless printers, routers and USB receivers.

Most annoying questions are which 50 dollar router has the best range. Whats the difference between G and N router. Whats the difference between an access point, a switch, and a router, and my personal favorite;

"Hi, i'm getting internet from my apartment, and the signal is very low, I heard I can get an antenna to boost the signal?"

[Mizango]

a lot of the blacks: miz, chari, raggy, do IT. its very weird

HAHA how did I miss this? Now that you mention it, that is indeed weird isn't it?

Spam represent?

[AoE]

HAHA how did I miss this? Now that you mention it, that is indeed weird isn't it?

Spam represent?

Going to college for IT. I'll be up there shortly.

[Mizango]

Going to college for IT. I'll be up there shortly.

We will be waiting grasshoppa. btw I thought black chicks couldn't IT?

[Nuriko]

We will be waiting grasshoppa. btw I thought black chicks couldn't IT?

I thought that was just chicks in general...

[AoE]

We will be waiting grasshoppa. btw I thought black chicks couldn't IT?

Well the closest chick I've seen that was moderately attractive was asian so I'm guessing she's the exception. The other chick that was black, I think she's transferring majors. lol

[Stiker]

Going to give this a quick bump as I have something coming my way that relates to this.

A coworker of mine wants to help his buddy out and have me create a website for him. From the sounds of it, it will be fairly basic, just a few pages with all content provided for me. I basically just need to integrate it all and make sure all the links work and such.

So yeah, it's nothing too complicated and I want to make sure I give a damned good deal on this because the last thing I want to do is screw this guy over on bad pricing. I've been all over Google today to try to figure out web design costs so I can ballpark the price better.

I've seen everything from $30-$60/hour (and even higher) as well as flat rates ranging from $350 up to the thousands. It seems the most basic of prices is somewhere around the $300ish range.

Like I said, this seems to be an extremely basic project. Just straight HTML and nothing fancy needed. Of course, if I find out I need to do any kind of Java or PHP programming, the price will go up, but I do need a baseline. If anyone has any experience or knows of any pricing structures, I would be most appreciative. The more information I have the better.

[The Stig]

Website jobs are incredibly hard to get right, unless the customer is within murder range (i.e. you can actually speak with him face to face with a pen and paper)

Trouble is, the way I look at it is, if it's "basic" basic, they're gonna eventually try to do it themselves.

There's absolutely "no good deal" unless you're absolutely good in capturing what the customer wants. This depends on how anal the guy is.

You'll eventually get a lot of bouncing back and forths (nitpicking) on certain stuff and you'll want to think about the future (upgradability, adding new content) and it becomes quite annoying to manage.

Best thing to do is maybe do it for some low cost (in your case, I'd do it for £30 or so, equivalent to $50) and have a "few designs" but with the same content (as you said, simple ones).

Make him choose 1 and then see what other specifics he wants adding/changing, and add a bit more then. Then get it up for him, and run away, fast.

And beg to god that it is not a site which content that needs updating regularly. Even with Content Management Systems to get full use out of it, would be better to know the code, and not rely on people to do so.

[Stiker]

Thankfully, I am meeting face to face, but you definitely hit on a lot of my concerns. The claim as of now is that it is nothing more than an informational website that should remain rather static. So hopefully I can hit and run this job.

I doubt the guy is going to do it himself. It appears his knowledge of the interwebs and how they work is extremely limited which can be both good and bad for me. I think as of right now, I'm going to shoot for out pricing a web design program like Dreamweaver and go from there if the site really is as basic as they claim it to be.

[Kirbyprime]

Just make sure you have a contract written up that says something along the lines of

1 major revision and 1 minor revision free of charge

once the contract is signed. Everything else should cost extra. If you don't want your sanity tested, do this and stand by it.

[netz]

Dreamweaver is expensive. There might be other cheaper tools that work well on your platform of choice, like, say, a regular text editor if you can handle that. You might also want to think about what you need for image manipulation, because that's also part of the equation when designing websites.