January:

We were focusing on hardware by posting guides about RAID and upgrading your RAM.

Lorna, one of our past writers gave us plenty of business advice with her articles about marketing and self promotion, networking with people, finding your niche and laid down the ten commandments of a freelance techie.

Read on for the rest of the months.

February:

We talked about some of the more basic parts of business such as debt collections, branding and finding a business partner.

We showed you how to delete undeletable files and viruses with Killbox.

Also in this month, Technibble also turned 1 year old.

March:

This month Lorna focuses on recruiting staff for when your business reaches the stage where you need to take on more workers. She covers topics such as starting the recruitment process, placing job ads, shortlisting and preparing for interviewing and the actual interview.

Boris wrote a special report titled “a day at a tech job” where he write about his experiences, thoughts and concerns while onsite.

April:

One of our guest writers sent us the article “How to replace a power supply (and buy a good one)“.

Back on the recruitment trail from March, Lorna writes some guides on preparing for your new employee and training them.

I also show our readers how to format a computer like a computer technician.

May:

I wrote about the main mistakes that I had made in business to show that it happens to all of us and you usually come out the other side as a better business person.

I also wrote about how to properly secure a PC, and I am not just talking about windows logons, patches and firewalls. I’m also talking about physically locking it down.

June:

Though trial and error, I discovered a way how to fix the common problem of svchost.exe maxing out the CPU.

I also posted a guide on how to create a Windows XP virtual machine to testing purposes.

Back on the business side of things, I show you ways to gain client loyalty, spot advertising opportunities, create extra tidbits of income and I share some information about getting sued.

We also touch on the store-front side of the computer business with computer stores and liability, the danger of spoilage and becoming a reseller in the computer business.

This month I also learnt that in the world of advertising, bigger is not always better.

One of our seasoned forum members greggh, posted a very comprehensive list of what he brings onsite to computer repair jobs.

July:

In July, I lay down some of the things you must know in the computer business such as how to do computer work for your family, how to be responsible and giving away too much information and dealing with time wasters.

We also publish some handy computer business guides such as making a living with second hand parts and time management and motivation as a freelancer.

A handy thing to have onsite is a Installer CD which has all the commonly requested freeware applications on it such as iTunes, PDF readers, PDF creators etc. Speaking of being onsite, we posted an article on how to clean the inside of a computer case which has many comments about how this can be done out in the field.

It was also this month that Geeksquad was caught stealing porn for a customers computer.

August:

Technibble asks the question do I need to be qualified?

I had an hour long interview on the computer radio show “Computer America”. (I’ll see if I can find a working link for this).

We cover a little about maintenance contracts, variable vs fixed pricing, looking after your bread and butter client and how to question customers and get the right type of answers. We also show you how to keep an eye on your competitors.

For onsite computer repair work, we show you how to quickly deploy software with Win-Get, how to make the most of progress bar time and I drop the question whether marketing via bluetooth is smart or shady?

From one of my own experiences, I did a case study on a tech support call I did on that day.

September:

We write about the dreaded paralysis by analysis which is the process of doing too much reading and not taking enough action. I also show you how to successfully outsource computer repair work.

It was in this month when we launched our super-successful Computer Business Kit which provides business owners with forms and contracts frequently used in the computer business.

I show you how to drum up some extra business by talking about doing web development for clients, offering free second opinions and ask whether your staff can really sell, not just take down orders.

I asked if you have what it takes to be self employed, are you a business dreamer and whether wardriving advertising is smart or shady.

October:

October was the month we released our Computer Repair Utility Kit which is a collection of all our repair tools of the week in one easy download with a nice GUI. It was hugely popular, being mentioned on over 4000 sites.

This month we focused alot on the business side of things with articles like how to generate more work from your existing customers, keeping expenses down and what makes your business different.

I talked a little about advertising such as explaining the computer advertising trap and the secret of advertising.

We also wrote some how to’s such as how to land more callout jobs over the phone, how to fire a client, how to avoid getting burned and how to raise your prices.

November:

In November I answer the question “how much money do I need to send on marketing?” and once you get your customers though the door we show you how to sell to them. I also answer the big question which I am frequently asked; “why do people create computer viruses?”

I also touch on some relevant topics such as creating multiple sources of income and some advice if you have a great business idea.

I provide some helpful information such as mentioning our tried and tested software recommendations and where to download commonly missing files and components. One of our Technibble forum members also sent us an article showing us how to tell what type of Windows XP CD or license key we have.

For some laughs, we asked our technibble readers to send in their computer technician stories that they encountered onsite.

December:

In December we posted the somewhat controversial guides how to gain access to a windows user account and how to remove a BIOS password. Afterwards we posted a guide on how to spot stolen hardware so the above methods are only used for good, instead of evil.

I also posted a brief guide on how to setup your business legally.

I did some investigation into those “Dodgy Computer Technician Reports” to determine whether the technicians were really being dodgy, or the media was just criminalizing them to raise their ratings.

A Technibble reader asked me how do a decide whether to format a computer or attempt a repair.

We also asked the question “are computer technicians legally allowed to look though clients files?” based on an existing court case that recently happened in America.

For laughs, I wrote a letter to my clients saying all the things I never said, but wanted to say.

© Technibble - A Resource for Computer Technicians to start or improve their computer business
To get started with your own computer business, check out our Computer Business Kit. If you want to learn how to repair laptops, check out these narrated, high definition videos. These would pay for themselves in 1 repair job.

Technibbles 2007 Year In Review

nLite Slipstreamed and Unattended – A Technibble member posted his tutorial for how to make a slipstreamed and unattended version of Windows XP.

Dust Busting – Techies talk about the way they get rid of dust in cases. One techie posts his way to clean multiple computers and peripherals at the same time.

Newspaper Advertising (and other advertising) – A techie posts his experiences with newspaper advertising while some other techies mention their best advertising methods.

Pictures of your Work Areas – Technicians post pictures of their work areas.

Maxtor Hard Drives – Technicians talk about Maxtor hard drives and reveal which hard drive brand they find tends to fail the most.

Using Answers on Experts-Exchange.com Without Signing Up – I posted my tip on how to view Experts-Exchange articles without signing up.

Were to get those Silver Stickers?! – Someone posted that they were looking for those silver stickers that appear on computer cases.

What is the weirdest computer problem you’ve come across? – Technicians post the weirdest computer problems they came across. Lights that wont turn off even with the power unplugged, Melting routers etc..

The Best Virus Protection – This one is a large ongoing discussion about technicians experiences and recommendations with different brands of antivirus software

© Technibble - A Resource for Computer Technicians to start or improve their computer business
To get started with your own computer business, check out our Computer Business Kit. If you want to learn how to repair laptops, check out these narrated, high definition videos. These would pay for themselves in 1 repair job.

Favorite Forum Posts

• Increasing Client Loyalty – This is one of the best tips I have learnt in my 4 years of computer repair and it is probably the most simple and effective one.
• How to Handle Customers – There will come a time when you will face satisfied customers, confused customers but above all, angry customers. This is an article written out of experience for technicians who either have trouble with, or will be facing these customers. This article is about how to handle customers, not how to handle PC problems.
• Sexual Favors on the Job – (Ok, this one isnt an article about with dealing with clients… but it DOES involve clients. I’ll throw it in for giggles). Ok, now I have your attention. Recently on Craigslist someone posted an ad advertising that they will fix computers in exchange for sexual favors. Here is a screenshot of the Craigslist ad.
• Communicating with Clients: Making a silk purse out of a sow’s ear! – ‘Write an article about how techies can make themselves appear more human’, says the brief for my debutante freelance article for Technibble. AS IF! is my first reaction. That nugget has been floating about since I was at University, where they made us carry out a special course on communication – which was fine. After all, we only had to communicate with each other, and everyone in my class was fluent in stunted geekobabble anyway!
• Customer satisfaction…because they’re always right! – The customer’s always right. Even if you work in a technical area where the customer is actually (pardon me customers) CLUELESS! They are still right. Know why? Because if they don’t like what you do, they take their business elsewhere. So even if they weren’t technically correct, they’re still right, because they’re buying, or not, if you fall foul of one!
• Questioning Customers – Getting the Right Type of Answers – When a client calls you up for some tech support, you are obviously going to have to go though some questions to try and figure out what is happening with their computer based on their responses and find a fix. Once you have the details you need, figuring out the fix is often the easy part. The hard part is getting the rights answers out of your clients without annoying or insulting them. In this article we’ll talk about getting the right type of answers out of clients.
• Giving Away too Much Information and Dealing with Time Wasters – The phone rings and on the other end is a potential customer willing to purchase a computer from you. They tell you that they want to do some music downloading, DVD burning and some video editing. You are eager to impress and tell them that they would need a DVD burner, a powerful video card and lots of RAM and HDD space for the video editing. You give them a ballpark range of how much such a computer will cost and they say thankyou and tell you that they will get back to you.
• Want Loyalty? Get to know your Clients! – One of the great advantages of being a self employed computer tech is that you can choose your own hours to work. Two months ago, I did just that and went traveling around the world with my girlfriend for two months. Before I left I changed my answering machine and voicemail messages saying that I am traveling, will be back on X date and would love to help them with their problems when I return. When I got back… I found out just how loyal my clients are to me.
• Getting Sued – When things go wrong in business, one of the sentences you can expect from a customer is “im going to sue you”. I have personally been threatened once before in the past which you can read about in one of our previous articles titled making business mistakes. It is generally what a customer says when they have run out of other options and most of the time they are just blowing off steam. However, some do follow through and actually do sue you.

© Technibble - A Resource for Computer Technicians to start or improve their computer business
To get started with your own computer business, check out our Computer Business Kit. If you want to learn how to repair laptops, check out these narrated, high definition videos. These would pay for themselves in 1 repair job.

Blast from the Past: Clients