What's happened??????????????

[sapphirescales]

The economy is not doing well for many. It's doing OK for others (That K-shaped economy).

Yeah no kidding. I got a guy in a few months ago who wanted to do a build with an 8TB SSD and 256GB of DDR5 and a 5090. The guy was insane to pay these prices but he just didn't care. Didn't even blink no matter what price I quoted him. Fricking $18,000 build.

When I think about it, I have 256GB of DDR5 and 2x 15.36TB SSDs in my personal system. I only have an RTX 3060 though LOL. I'd never pay these crazy GPU prices. I wouldn't have much choice with the RAM and SSDs though if I had to build my system today. Thankfully I built it about a year ago back when RAM and SSDs were cheap. The RAM was $600 and the SSDs were $1,600 for both of them. I went with a Core Ultra 7 265K because back then there were no AM5 boards that could handle 256GB of RAM and also had Thunderbolt.

If it were not for my recent large intentional pushes into business clients over the past 6-8 years, Biz Software and creating my Website and hosting business, I'd likely be out of business or severely struggling.

Do you do SEO as well? I've thought about expanding the web design part of my business but I'm very picky with who I accept as clients after having bad experiences with people thinking you could just throw up a website with no SEO and business would magically roll in. I tried to learn SEO but I was never good at it. I only accept clients who are already well established and aren't expecting the website to be the only way they get customers.

This may be due do very bad PC market : nobody buys computers so, nobody needs a Fab's licence. As simple as that...

In the past people would just buy a cheaper PC or a used PC. They wouldn't just not buy one. I guess more people could be fixing their old computers but you'd think repair shops like mine would see an uptick if that were happening. It's not.

 

[sapphirescales]

I agree with all of these but I feel 4 is probably the biggest issue now. People have found out they can do a large percentage of work on phones and tablets.

If it's taken them almost 20 years to figure that out, they must have been living under a rock. The people who could have completely transitioned to phones and tablets have already done so years ago.

 

[callthatgirl]

In May I was down $2800 compared to last May, but I'm up 12k this year total than this time last year, Jan - April was kick butt.

I'm also seeing my google analytics go down probably due to AI.

So guess what I'm doing all summer, more AI/GEO prompt marketing. I've been getting calls from AI, but now it's super important I really crack into it.

 

[Your PCMD]

I'm doing okay here, but I've adopted a new name for my MSP business after separating it from the break/fix services. As a result, my monthly revenue is consistent. Regarding the break/fix business of Your PCMD, which I handed over to my son, he performed fairly well in May, generating around $3,000 in profit. However, I expect June and July to be slow, as they typically are until we ramp up for the back-to-school season in August. After that, business usually slows down again until November, when we prepare for the Christmas rush, which lasts until about March. After that, we typically see a drop-off until the end of April.

 

[frase]

Oh the printer nightmares!

I had a good one a couple days ago. Long term customer is getting old. She disconnected her USB printer cable and let it fall down on the floor behind the printer. I even asked her on the phone before dispatching if she'd checked the cable!

Similar, a customer I had sold a laptop to in the first week stated it would not turn on. So I went through the standard procedure to reset the power charge etc. Asked if it was plugged in and turned on..yes..yes..sigh ok will be around tommorow morning.

I went over and went straight for the powerpoint, was not turned on "Inside head voice - FFS seriously!"
I was courteus and all to the client, I do not expect and elderly person to be scrambling under the desk.
Though at these times I wish I had a drone to seek.

 

[fincoder]

newer Telstra 4 5G Modems they supply to customers.
The issue is printers, as these devices are 5G so have had to split the channels via disabling Band Steering disabled to enable 2.4Ghz.

Thanks for this, good to know there's a way to enable 2.4GHz on those new mobile broadband modems.

 

[britechguy]

Thanks for this, good to know there's a way to enable 2.4GHz on those new mobile broadband modems.

I have yet to encounter one where you can't have 5 or 2.4 or both. The one I use here at home from T-Mobile has 5 and 2.4 running simultaneously.

 

[fincoder]

In Australia it's the new ones that use the 5G mobile network.