@dustinb3403 said in I am going to start an ISP:

@irj Try and change her mindset that just because that one is more, is it that much better quality to pay more for it.

I've been winning battles throughout our relationship, but I have yet to win the war. I have gotten her shopping at thrift shops and second hand stores which I know she would have never done before we met.

I have gotten her to see the big picture and she will now buy something for $200 instead of $300, but not $2 instead of $3. Which actually add up to be alot more money in the long run.

@technobabble said:

Anyone else have deja vu here? I could have sworn I have read this post months ago!

I bet you are thinking of my thread

http://mangolassi.it/topic/1952/i-need-to-gain-access-to-my-webroot-account

@bigbear said in I am going to start an ISP:

@irj said in I am going to start an ISP:

@bigbear said in I am going to start an ISP:

@irj said in I am going to start an ISP:

@scottalanmiller said in I am going to start an ISP:

Right, what is bad for the consumer is good for the vendor. And loads and loads of consumers actually like being taken advantage of. Don't disappoint them.

Absolutely. Some consumers get mad when you dont rip them off since they have become so used to get shafted.

There are a lot of maxims at play, but you'd have to agree that most customers equate price with value.

To that end, lets say he inherited a WISP network and deals were in place to make the internet free and power free. So perhaps he can offer internet for $5/month and still be profitable.

He would have an easier time selling it at $50 than $5 per month. Even I would just assume it wasnt going to be reliable.

To the other extreme of being taken advantage of I agree. That may not realize it, and sometimes we see it on our end.

Customers are often terrible buyers, and it can be to your advantage in internet/voice and much to your dismay if its IT services.

I have been with my girl for about 5 years and I still struggle getting the generic brand of anything. I have shown her multiple times that they come from the same factory in china, but to her if it isn't the name brand it isn't as good. She determines the name brand by looking at which price is higher.

She will buy stuff that isn't name brand now, but she would rather not do it. Not because of quality or anything, but she has the mental block that if it is less expensive, it is worse.

They make Kellog's Cereal not far from me, and at the same plant the make and even box the Krogers and other generics brands... the truck then takes them directly to Aldies, Krogers, Meijers etc.

I took my kids down to show them and there minds were blown all day. Not since their grandpa showed them his TV antenna and how he gets free HD TV out of thin air have their minds been this blown.

That is where she struggles the most. She will buy cereal that is name brand, but not the generic stuff. When it tastes the freaking same!! In fact, sometimes I take the bag out and put it in the name brand box. Nobody ever knows

@ajstringham said:

@IRJ said:

@ajstringham said:

@IRJ said:

@ajstringham said:

I use it between my home PC, my dev work PC, my "download" server, my DHCP/DNS server at home, and my phone. I feel like I should get it working on my web server again. Debating on it atm...

You have a DHCP/DNS server at home? Why?

Because I don't use my router for that. I have more power using a server. Router has DNS Forwarding and DHCP Relay setup on it. I have the licenses for Server so why not? Lol

What power do you have?

Easier management of IP leases, visibility of what devices have what IPs, etc. Plus, I get experience playing with Windows Server.

Ok I'll give you the server experience one. One day you will have too much Windows Servers to play with and you wont want to use DHCP at home lol

Google is now watching this thread....

@garak0410 said:

@scottalanmiller said:

This is how Dell specifically ships PCs.

Good to know...never knew this...

Yeah. Don't worry about those PCs because you can easily prove they are licensed. Microsoft isn't going to challenge an OEM license on a Dell box anyways.

You can find decent people on up work, but you have to wade through shit first. Expect 9/10 people to either blatantly lie or attempt to learn on the job.

You also need to pay someone a decent rate as ones that's charge $20 an hour or less are useless and ones within the $20-45 hour range are a mixed bag. Only if you pay $50-80 an hour will you find someone somewhat decent and even then it's a risk.

At $125 an hour you should be able to find a decent MSP. Now don't get me wrong you can find somoene cheaper, but the question is how much shit are you willing to wade through before finding someone?

This is reported to work on Windows, Linux, Mac, and Chrome OS

Overview
www.omgchrome.com/run-android-apps-on-windows-mac-linux-archon/

Instructions
https://github.com/vladikoff/chromeos-apk/blob/master/archon.md

Buying and flipping on eBay is your best bet with $500.

Just pick random things up on Craigslist and flip on ebay

Features that aren't available in my current helpdesk that I would really like.

User updates via texting- Users can signup for a texting service that allows them to update tickets via SMS or MMS. They can also receive ticket updates this way

Attachments via MMS - I have users that don't know how to take screenshots on their PC. However, they can take a picture with their phone and send it. This would be also very useful for troubleshooting mobile devices

Ticket Grouping Suggestions - This is so simple, but I have yet to see it implemented. Wouldn't it be nice to see a list of similar tickets when viewing a ticket? Kind of like shopping at Amazon and you see similiar items to the one you are viewing. It would be nice to be able to link and re-categorize similar tickets on the fly as well.

Upwork isn't a terrible idea for him. He doesn't need a website out of the gate, even. Although it definitely wouldn't hurt.

I'd really work on making some really nice looking proposals more than I'd work on the website. Build yourself some nice watermarked templates like you'd see an MSP do in person. Obviously you want spend the same amount of time making these proposals, but even plugging into decent templates will give you an advantage. Not many freelancers are willing to go thy far. In reality, if you have templates pre made, it isn't much more effort than writing up a text proposal.

Here is a good article to read to understand how password policies affect users.

http://blogs.technet.com/b/askpfeplat/archive/2013/10/11/active-directory-password-policies-when-does-a-password-policy-change-affect-a-user.aspx

Sleep in your car until you get that first paycheck. You will be alot better off in the longrun

A sales person being wrong about something technical. I've never seen that before

I would love to have AJ in our IT department. Of course keeping him calm in most situations may be a full time job

Are you users using PCs 24/7? I have Windows update reboot all of our PCs between 12AM and 2AM

@Carnival-Boy said:

I'm recruiting at the moment and the job ad asked for a covering letter. Despite this being a requirement in the ad, pretty much no-one included one, which has pissed me off. Basically, either people couldn't be bothered to write one, or they couldn't be bothered to read the ad properly.

My POV is I have tons of experience and this is a tech job not one that needs elegant writing. I don't need to beg for your particular job when I have others I am applying for. Look at my resume and interview me and you will see how valuable I am.

I believe we've had discussions on WSUS Deployment groups before.

I have over 20 different groups each with 7-20 PCs. This makes staggering deployments easy because I can tell them to reboot at different times via GPO. I can also allow updates for specific PCs and not allow them on others. Its much easier to manage this way.

This also makes testing easier. You dont have to rollback everything when there is an issue. Only 7-20 PCs at a time.

I am sure @scottalanmiller will come in at some point and tell us how important cover letters are....lol