16k_zx81
Well-Known Member
- Reaction score
- 54
- Location
- South Australia
A long standing domestic customer of mine referred me to his son who owns a car import/export company.
They had an existing IT guy, but were having problems with the computer, culminating in a smashed keyboard and a phone call to me.
I went to the site and had a look at their pc, which is a dual core with 2gb ram running x86 XP
The OS was diabolically slow, and after all the usual tricks (defrag, chkdsk, autoruns, check services, SFC, malware check, page file settings, disk space/useage, registry check, etc etc) and 2 hours on the job there was no real improvement, so I opted to go back and do a fresh install.
They were using a gungy old external 80gb 2.5" hdd for manual backups (didnt even have the capacity to back up all their data which is well over 80 gb). The last backup was run 6 months ago (!) because they had changed admin staff and the new person hadnt thought to do it.
No offsite backup at all
No surge protection or power failure protection
... and a number of other things needing attention
I went there yesterday (saturday) and spent an hour setting up a backup of the machine. When the ETA on Laplink got to 7.5 hours I arranged with the Owner to leave the machine running and come back today.
Today I installed fresh copy of XP, set up a UPS, set up a 1tb ext hdd with an automated backup schedule, set up offsite cloud backup system, carried over all their old programs, and got under the desk and tidied up all their cables, which were a real mess!
While doing that, I identified two phone chargers with bare wires hanging out of them (fire risk!!!!)
I also did some checking of their website which there are multiple problems with - whoever is handling it for them hasnt registered it properly and the only keyword searches it comes up under are for the company name itself
SOO
Sorry this is a long post - trying to keep it short but I think the details are relevant
3 visits. One 2 hours with no real result, BUT was able to discern what problems they were facing and proposed what I think is a good way forward for them
One one hour. And today, about 7 hours.
Normally I charge $80 per hour on site, but cap that at 2 hours labour because most jobs that would take longer than that I would take away with me. Nuke and pave I charge $160 or $210 if I have to carry all the programs across.
This job had to be done on the weekend, and finished by monday. Im working onsite on sunday which is usually my day off.
No idea what to charge, but I can see that I have provided a significant contribution to this company, and want commensurate reimbursement. At the same time I dont want to overcharge because this guy now wants me to do all his IT stuff including 4 maintenance visits a year.
If you were working from $80 ph or $160-$200 for most offsite jobs, what would you charge for this?
They had an existing IT guy, but were having problems with the computer, culminating in a smashed keyboard and a phone call to me.
I went to the site and had a look at their pc, which is a dual core with 2gb ram running x86 XP
The OS was diabolically slow, and after all the usual tricks (defrag, chkdsk, autoruns, check services, SFC, malware check, page file settings, disk space/useage, registry check, etc etc) and 2 hours on the job there was no real improvement, so I opted to go back and do a fresh install.
They were using a gungy old external 80gb 2.5" hdd for manual backups (didnt even have the capacity to back up all their data which is well over 80 gb). The last backup was run 6 months ago (!) because they had changed admin staff and the new person hadnt thought to do it.
No offsite backup at all
No surge protection or power failure protection
... and a number of other things needing attention
I went there yesterday (saturday) and spent an hour setting up a backup of the machine. When the ETA on Laplink got to 7.5 hours I arranged with the Owner to leave the machine running and come back today.
Today I installed fresh copy of XP, set up a UPS, set up a 1tb ext hdd with an automated backup schedule, set up offsite cloud backup system, carried over all their old programs, and got under the desk and tidied up all their cables, which were a real mess!
While doing that, I identified two phone chargers with bare wires hanging out of them (fire risk!!!!)
I also did some checking of their website which there are multiple problems with - whoever is handling it for them hasnt registered it properly and the only keyword searches it comes up under are for the company name itself
SOO
Sorry this is a long post - trying to keep it short but I think the details are relevant
3 visits. One 2 hours with no real result, BUT was able to discern what problems they were facing and proposed what I think is a good way forward for them
One one hour. And today, about 7 hours.
Normally I charge $80 per hour on site, but cap that at 2 hours labour because most jobs that would take longer than that I would take away with me. Nuke and pave I charge $160 or $210 if I have to carry all the programs across.
This job had to be done on the weekend, and finished by monday. Im working onsite on sunday which is usually my day off.
No idea what to charge, but I can see that I have provided a significant contribution to this company, and want commensurate reimbursement. At the same time I dont want to overcharge because this guy now wants me to do all his IT stuff including 4 maintenance visits a year.
If you were working from $80 ph or $160-$200 for most offsite jobs, what would you charge for this?
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