I love my job. I really do, and I think of myself lucky to be as fortunate in business as I have been. However, there has been many times were I have really wanted to say something to a client but didn’t, because it would be unprofessional. This post is intended as a joke. However, all of these have really happened to me during my time as an onsite computer technician.
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A Pennsylvania man was caught possessing child pornography by a Circuit City computer technician. The technician called the police who seized the computer and arrested the man when he returned to pick it up. With child porn as evidence on the mans computer, it should be an open and shut case right? Wrong.

As you probably know, a policeman needs a warrant to search your house for any illegal items. This warrant allows the policeman to obtain the evidence in a legal manner. The big question is, was the child porn evidence in this case obtained legally? Should the technician have been looking though the files in the first place? Read on.
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One of our Technibble readers sent us an email and asked us at what point while repairing a computer do you decide it is time for a format? How do you determine wether you should keep spending more time trying to repair the system or just give up and wipe it clean? Heres our answer.
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There have been a handful of dodgy computer repair companies in the news these days. In these reports there are many shady or inexperienced computer technicians and they got what they deserved. However, keep in mind that these so called “news” reports are after ratings just like any fictional show .They will happily misreport or cut out critical parts of information to make the show more entertaining. In this article, I analyse the reports to determine whether the technician is dodgy, inexperienced or the media is just trying to make them look bad.
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As a computer technician, I often get clients asking what software I recommend to do a certain task or to fix a certain problem. There are plenty of freeware applications available to do such tasks, however, much of it is badly made or too difficult for the client to use.
Because of this, I have compiled a list of good freeware applications that I recommend after having used them in the field, and if your client asks you what software will help them, you have something to respond with.
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Occasionally when a user tries to run or install a new program, they may get an error message like like this:

Component “MFC42.DLL” or one of its dependencies not correctly registered a file is missing or invalid

This means that a certain file is missing (in this case, MFC42.DLL). Software developers often assume that the end user has these particular files when creating their software. However, a stock-standard Windows installation doesnt include them and therefor, when you run the new program it complains that the file is missing.

Here are the most common packages that third party software often requests when trying to run. Its probably a good idea for computer technicians to have these handy when going onsite.
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For the not-so-techie readers, not all Windows XP CDs and Licenses are the same. There are many different types of Windows XP CDs available:

• OEM - Which are usually sold with the computer
• Retail - Brought stand alone in stores like BestBuy, CompUSA etc..
• Upgrade - To upgrade from a previous operating system
• Branded - Specifically branded copies from large computer manufacturers like Dell
• Action pack - Was part of the Microsoft Action Pack
• Volume License - Typically used in large businesses, government and educational institutions

The problem with different versions is the license key from one version typically wont work on another version. If you have a retail license key, it wont work on an OEM disk.

To make things worse, lots of people lose their Windows XP CD. However, they usually have their license key attached to the side of their computers. So how does a computer technician know which XP CD they should use for their clients license key?
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In my last post I asked Technibble readers to ask me questions in regards to the computer repair business that they wanted to know the answers to. Here are the answers.

focuz asks:
I know you mention you make everyone paying with check sign a workorder. Once the check clears would you say its safe to throw the paper away or do, and just keep your invoice as a record of the job?

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No matter what your job is, there is a pretty good chance you have a story to tell. It might be a dumb customer or the time when something very weird happened. Most repair jobs for a Computer Technician are fairly standard but occasionally we run into something interesting. Unlike the seemingly dangerous job of the Pizza delivery person, Computer Technicians have to go inside of people homes and potentially stay there for hours which can often be frightening or funny. Here are some of our stories:

Robogeek writes:
Went to a house in the bad part of Bloomington.. pulled up and it was obviously a crack house. The call was for ‘couldn’t connect to the internet’ and they sent me out with a modem. I get in there and the place is full of clothes with tags on them, lawnmowers, chainsaws, baby clothes - you name it. All this in a tiny 2 room apartment.
I replaced the modem but that wasn’t the problem - there was a no dial tone error. I start to tell them I need other parts, and they say I’m not leaving till its fixed (with a hand in the waistband). I say I need another part I have to go get. They finally let me go out to my car and I got the heck out of there and called the cops. They went there and sure enough everything was stolen, they had lots of guns, and they were selling things on eBay.

Best part was the contractor that hired me to go there refused to pay because I didn’t resolve the problem. That was one of my very first national contractor WO’s

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In a past article called “giving away too much information and dealing with time wasters” I talked about the dangers of being too helpful on the phone, to the point where you essentially talk yourself out of a job. In this article I’ll show you how to do the opposite and make sure they decided on you as their computer guy.
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