Curious about my thinking here...

Was looking at your website. Thanks for linking to the article about Amazon putting satellites up. Read that and another one PC Mag linked about SpaceX doing the same thing last year. Got lost in it all :D

Then I noticed your PC build for $700.

https://retired-guy-computer-repair.business.site/posts/3364231313890089497?hl=en-US

So a Pentium with 8GB RAM and a 2TB spinning drive for $700.

You know Dell sells a system that will provide some really stiff competition to that? 8th generation i5, 8GB RAM, 256GB NVMe SSD, Windows 10 Pro, for $679? They even have a smaller version of it on a special deal for $579 right now.

https://www.dell.com/en-us/work/sho...stations?~ck=mn&appliedRefinements=1362,13531

vostrodesktopssd.png


vostrosmalldesktopssd.png
 
I can never compete with Michael Dell. lol

I cant recall specifically what CPU is in that $700 model. I recall the parts adding up to like $500 but then I added $200 on top. Thats my recollection
 
I have just built two systems for a business client costing $AUS1,029 each (MS Office adds to it) - I end up profit of $1,200. Sick of only adding minimal profit for the work required. It was including upgrading MYOB from ancient XP to current and networking/security etc.

8th Gen Mobo
Intel i5 8400
8GB DDR4 RAM
500 GB WD Blue SSD
Win10 Pro
MS Office Home & Business 2016
10m Cat 6 Cable
x2 5m Cat6 Cable
X 2 Switches
 
RetiredGuy1000 said:
got to love the business clients.

how do you determine your profit on a computer sold? meaning...what drives your decision to make X on a computer?
Click to expand...

Components I add cost to profit, then labor onsite and offsite as stupid taxation systems here in Aus has changed things. Est was 4 Hours onsite @ 600.00. It depends on the job required, this one was lengthy as included cost talking to MYOB in consultation with client. As was coming from XP to Win10, included networking shares, POS setup, Email setup to integrate with MYOB..was a nightmare really lol.
 
timeshifter said:
What extension is that? I'd like to check it out!
Click to expand...

@timeshifter it's a unlisted extension a friend of mine picked up on the fly somewhere on the net (I know I'm careless I should ask before letting people add things to my PC :rolleyes:) I'll ask him for the link and send it to you to have fun with I know I do. The irony for his use was to see if a facebook profile was real or fake, as for the extension what it does basically is if you leave the mouse on a image for x time it holds the "S" key and right clicks and gives me a feel lucky find in a complete new window first site that shows up I used to have one with a floating thumbnail window but that was before the big changes on firefox and chrome on extensions.

Edit : With a bit of setup this official extension almost does the same thing https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/search-by-image-by-google/dajedkncpodkggklbegccjpmnglmnflm however I'll still manage to get you the link for the other extension.

Shawn W. Dion
aka GreyWolf
 
Last edited:
RetiredGuy1000 said:
UPDATE: the new RAM they sent me from Amazon is bad. So I had to leave existing RAM in there.

Hard drive replacement went well. Still the OS is slow. Now I’m reinstalling the OS in hopes of a clean install improving performance.
Click to expand...
I believe 2009 Mac needs 8500 speed ram. New ram isn’t bad it is just not compatible with that system.
 
RetiredGuy1000 said:
got to love the business clients.

how do you determine your profit on a computer sold? meaning...what drives your decision to make X on a computer?
Click to expand...


Most people here consider the demographics of the region they are in, demographics of their likely customer base or the customer base they target, where their income streams come from (break / fix, MSP, subcontracting...) and then how much they like / don't like doing that.

Some don't like building systems from parts, and supporting them when the customer who buys them expects life time warranty and tech support on the house. Those people mark up significantly. Not because they don't want to sell the machines, but because they know whats likely to come down the road.

It's like that roofer quoting $10K on a job that you could probably find someone to do it for a few thousand less. That's their "I don't want this job but I'll do it for this price" price.

I'll also agree you can't hope to beat dell on cost. No one who sells systems here usually does unless your talking really high end where most OEM's tend to gouge a little. But where you can get that extra money is the fact that your customers can bring that machine right back to you and get it sorted out, where as with dell it's one hell of a crapshoot on how it's handled... especially for consumer grade stuff.
 
Can’t wait til I sell my first machine.

Seems to me that there is a lot of hardware being sold by the big boys. And from what I read in these forums, the business is changing and going away in many respects.

So who is going to service the hardware? I can’t see all of it being tossed in the garbage in favor of a $300 laptop from WalMart.

And lots of complexity exists, technologically-speaking. So someone will need to navigate that for people.
 
You don't want the people who would even consider a $300 WalMart laptop. You want to target the people with money.

Think of it in these terms... do poor people get their properties landscaped? Not really.... so most landscapers tend to make
decent money if they do things the right way. Why? Because it's the people who are better off that tend to pay someone thousands
and thousands of dollars year for landscaping work. Most landscapers don't need to land all that many contracts (in terms of a single
worker) to be able to stay busy most of the year. They build their client base up to where it keeps them going full time, and then if
demand starts to creep up they can afford to raise prices or simply take on newer better paying jobs.

That's what you want to do. Find customers with money. Take the good money jobs. Build up that customer base until you have
your income where you want it. You don't need a large stream of contentiously new customers. Just a good base of regulars.

Just get the word out there. Buying a new computer is an option, but buying a ford escort because your ford mustang needs 7K worth of repairs doesn't seem to make a lot of sense. Your left with a lot less of a machine. The analogy gets even worse because for a fair amount of people a new machine means needing to rebuy some software licenses. It means either losing all your data, or paying for transfer. It means setting yourself up to need a new machine within the next year or two after that $300 crapper bites the big one. It means dealing with god awful third world tech support. Suddenly fixing that old "ford mustang" seems like a pretty reasonable path.
 
brandonkick said:
Some don't like building systems from parts, and supporting them when the customer who buys them expects life time warranty and tech support on the house. Those people mark up significantly. Not because they don't want to sell the machines, but because they know whats likely to come down the road.
Click to expand...
True.
 
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