What is Digg?149 Comments
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -6/+138I do agree though... I would be a better article if one were to document the whole process, but we all know how to infect a PC with garbage... give it to your wife for a couple of weeks. =D
- Bara, on 10/12/2007, -7/+96I dont think it was meant to be an "enlightening" article... more like something to do just for fun and amuse us geeks out there.
Bara out - CJHtxGeek, on 10/12/2007, -3/+56As a Geek Squad agent, (Sr in high school, excellent summer job compared to working in fast food), pay is 11.67/hr and the main things we do are when they buy _new_ computers we do some registry tweaks and install anti-virus/anti-spy ware, we don't particularly have any "special tricks" of course for getting spyware off, besides just scraping it off with a nice batch file we have for just about every anti-spyware anti-virus sweep out there... Anyway, if it isn't worth Best Buy's time, we suggest a wipe, (along with data backup operation... /gg) Pricing is a bit high, but if I think Geek Squad is more customer friendly than your average comp repair shop.. That said, thats 1/3 of our job discription, when the customer brings in a camera or psp, and they want it repaired, we make sure it actually broken, then send it off for service elsewhere, the other 1/3 is simply helping the floor people out where we know more about the technology than they do...
In conclusion: good part time job for a geek in high school... - hipnerd, on 10/12/2007, -6/+41It was so bad that the Geek Squad wanted to wipe the hard drive? Big deal. That's all they ever want to do. Lord knows they aren't very good at actually fixing problems.
Pay technicians $13 per hour.
Charge customers $100 per hour.
Profit. - chrono13, on 10/12/2007, -5/+39He should do a followup article:
"18 days of Reckless Computing in Linux", including agreeing to everything. Going to google? Oh, it says I should get Google Toolbar for Firefox! So on and so forth...
It would be interesting to compare. - perral1, on 10/12/2007, -5/+36joke - n
1. Something said or done to evoke laughter or amusement, especially an amusing story with a punch line.
2. A mischievous trick; a prank.
3. An amusing or ludicrous incident or situation.
4. Informal.
a. Something not to be taken seriously; a triviality: The accident was no joke.
b. An object of amusement or laughter; a laughingstock: His loud tie was the joke of the office.
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=joke
for those who don't know... - Chompy, on 10/12/2007, -1/+32"In conclusion: good part time job for a geek in high school..."
Man, you missed out on the glory days of PC retail by about a decade. Back in my day (95-00), the money was on the sales floor at CompUSA/Computer City. Spiffs a-plenty and a good 50% of folks bought those $450 service plans, it was glorious. Overprived extended service plans put me through college. - puffarthur, on 10/12/2007, -6/+34Especially horny adolescent kids. If I had a nickel for every time I had to clean up my 15 year old brother's laptop (and any other computer he touched in the house)...
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -6/+33or the kids for about 3 hours.
- strictnein, on 10/12/2007, -3/+27Because your average user who would actually do this wouldn't go to a real computer repair shop. They would go to Geek Squad because they have the pretty commercials!
- noGoodNamesLeft, on 10/12/2007, -9/+31@puffarthur: If I had a nickel for every time I had to clean up my 15 year old brother's laptop
When you say "clean up", I hope you mean viruses, and not physically removing the horrible sticky white residue left over the computer after he'd been downloading porn all weekend.
Uurrgh... :-6 - robbh66, on 10/12/2007, -1/+22Reckless computing? That just about describes normal computing habits for everyone else in my family. :/
- jer2eydevil88, on 10/12/2007, -4/+22I love it!!! This is the kind of experiment I haven't found the time to complete but its funnier not having to browse for all that crap.
Why Geeksquad though? Why not a self-respecting IT company? - SerialMartini, on 10/12/2007, -5/+22Your family regularly downloads sickening amounts of the wierdest porn and goes to advertisements for 'cheeapp Viiiaagra'?
Interesting family. - Juano11, on 10/12/2007, -6/+22@fetusface...
in that case fetusface, by using "fag" as a derogatory term you're obviously a bigot, homophobe, or both... - ucbrave92, on 10/12/2007, -1/+16welcome to my world, i formerly worked in IT at a university where we repaired student pcs for free. needless to say, i saw computers in the same condition at least 20 times a day.
- Kypt, on 10/12/2007, -3/+17That would be neat, not just for linux but any other OS and compare how the average porn-craving joe would have his pc after a little while of use.
- deadbaby, on 10/12/2007, -9/+23You can't really fix most Windows problems so a format/reinstall is almost always the best bet. I find that making people lose all their data is the best way to teach them the importance of security. I'm not going to waste my time cleaning up a mess they will just make again in a few weeks. It's better to teach them the cold hard facts of Windows security problems so they are aware of the dangers.
- tdogg241, on 10/12/2007, -1/+15The writer should have taken it to more than one company to try and get it fixed, just to see what could be done. Sort of like getting a second opinion, since the computer was terminally ill.
- schrodingercat, on 10/12/2007, -0/+13I am currently a student employee at one of those university computer service centers. You'd think that the average joe wouldn't have that much crap on their computer as this guy did, but even Ivy League students like the ones i deal with have that much, and more. Sometimes, there just isn't anything to do except call it a total loss and tell the customer the only solution is to wipe the HD. Think of it this way: you could spend hours, days, weeks, trying to clean the system, and you can't ever be completely sure you've gotten every bit of virus or malware, or you could spend a definite 2-3 hours wiping the harddrive, and be completely certain you've gotten all the crap out. Wouldn't you rather be completely sure?
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -2/+14Not supprising to be honest. Here inside the "Windows XP never crashes" bubble at Digg where every one is a knowledgeable user, has AVG, Spybot and maintains their installation, nobody realises what it's actually like.... out there.
Every machine I fix has three things:
1. Norton: Already a year out of date, unsubscribed, and dead
2. On average 100 spyware
3. On average 100 - 250 Viruses
If I want to recommend a computer to someone that needs to do basic internet tasks, then I tell them about getting a Mac, because even your $400 cheap Dell is useless at doing the task it's been bought for after a week. It's just not worth the hassle. - hipnerd, on 10/12/2007, -3/+14So I estimated $1/hoiur too much for the wages they pay. Figures.
I am a computer consultant, and I've seen clients that used Geek Squad charged $650 to remove a virus, and I've seen clients with relatively minor problems lose all their data because their hard drive got wiped to fix a spyware problem.
High prices + bad judgment = Geek Squad - crexor, on 10/12/2007, -2/+13Im 19 years old, i got my first glimpse into unix and linux at age 12, if a 12year old can figure it out, then so can a 45 year old, especially with the ease of apt-get, synaptic/etc in ubuntu/fc5 these days, im not saying xp is for morons, im just saying that when using linux, as long as youre not doing everything logged in as root, its harder to make system-threatening choices, and then you learn/realize from this, and dont do those same things in general, regardless of what OS you use, also you want to do something simple, you ask someone , or google it, "why is network manager hanging my system" you spend 10 minutes diagnosing it youself, and learn from it, etcetera. and then continue to build on this experience, and carry it everywhere you go.
- brandonking, on 10/12/2007, -1/+12Ah yes. When I was in high school I worked at Computer City. Just as a cashier/floor helper. But the real gold was telling people as they checked out and waived the service plan that I would make house calls for the low low proce of $90/hr. I had about a dozen 'customers', and felt the richest I have ever felt in my life! Sure I've made plenty more money since then, but a hundred bucks an hour in HS? Thems were bragging rights.
- dbr_onix, on 10/12/2007, -4/+13If linux was more popular (say it was supplied with Dell computers and the likes, instead of Windows) all the spyware/and other crapware stuff would be made for it..
Yes, it's [linux] more secure, but as with any OS, the security is only as good as the user.. If they randomly type their root password every time it's asked, and all the viruses on Kazaa etc were written for linux, it'd be the same situation..
- Ben - astrotrain, on 10/12/2007, -1/+10Why in the depths of Hell would you allow Best Buy to repair a system, let alone CompUSA.
You take it to these stores when you really want kill your computer.
I've worked on systems that went originally to Best Buy to be fixed. Received the machine, the IDE cable was on upsidedown and jammed into the hdisk connector as far as it could go. Another system, the left the ATX Power Connector unplugged from the mobo!
Want your computer broken more then it is... take it to Best Buy. - cblalock, on 10/12/2007, -16/+25@bloodylip
In your correction, one does not need the comma. Only if you name the uncle with the horse fetish do you need the comma.
I helped my uncle off the horse.
I helped my uncle, Jack, off the horse.
Please, for the sake of the poor sods that come across your pathetic writing, proofread. - Thorlord, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9oye you are lucky, every person i convert to linux calls me up with VERY similar problems:
1: how do i get my software installed
2: How do i get my PDA/Printer working
Linux is great, its just getting it set up for each person is the challange, after that they are set for LIFE (unless they buy a new printer.. man CUPS is worthless on my CANON ip4000) - brandizzle, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8Actually, falling off the cliff IS how the birds learn to fly.
Newbies are great with Linux. Especially if it's their first OS. The only people who have the problem with it (learning it, I understand people know how to use it but just don't like it) is the people that say they "know computers" but only know Windows, and can't be bothered to learn anything so they just say "this is gay" and go back to Windows. - sonmiles, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8Totally agree. and then after you reformat and configure the PC the way the user is used to, grab an image of it. If/when they need help again, all you'll need to do is slap on the image and you can get paid the same!
- astrotrain, on 10/12/2007, -4/+12Ehh...clicked the wrong one.. this is in response to jer2eydevil88's post
LOL!... Yeah the Geek Squad recommended the $60.00 NAV, and a $40.00 AntiSpyware application, Geek Squad also failed to tell them that both applications require a yearly fee.
They had some very "colorful metaphors" for Best Buy and Geek Squad, after I showed them the free utilities
they could get offline. - crexor, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8i generally find this is true because the average intelligence of a linux user is significantly higher than that of an xp user, on average, even if they started off as a newbie computer user on xp, then migrate over, they learn much more quickly by using linux out of necessity, and develop a sort of street sense while using it by default.
- deadbaby, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7Hey don't forget the cascade of error messages you get at startup. Missing something.dll, cannot register whatever.ocx. This program has encountered and error and will now close, etc, etc. What a nightmare.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -6/+12And OS X too, since it's now 'suceptible to viruses and botnets' and that all that security was just a marketing gimick. </sarcasm> Internet Journalists wouldn't know what research was if they had to look it up in a dictionary :/
- deadbaby, on 10/12/2007, -2/+8I already sort of do this. I refuse to support Windows but I will happily help people switch to OSX or Linux. Just the other day I gave an older lady at my office (very much set in her ways) a guided tour of OSX. I showed her iPhoto, Safari, Mail, etc. She's totally sold.
- robbh66, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Notice the quantifier "just about."
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -6/+12in other words, falling off a cliff is a quick way to learn to fly.
If you gave Linux to a normal joe-dell, they wouldn't be able to 'get a website working' and then turn it off and never try again. Some people like a challange from their computer, other's actually want to get something done. Smarter people use Linux not because it makes them smarter, it's because they don't mind going bald at 30. - theone2Punch, on 10/12/2007, -6/+11Hey it was a funny article, you think you nitpickers could stop being anal and just laugh and move on?
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5You obviously don't work in a large company.
My boss can pay me to sit around and clean up spyware for 6 hours on someones machine
OR
I can backup all the files they shouldn't be storing on their local disk anyways to the network (20 minutes) and then reimage the machine (15 minutes).
Now what's a more effective use of my time? Wasting 6 hours waiting for status bars on spyware scanners to finish running, and hacking around in the registry or taking a known fixed good software configuration and reloading it?
I'll take reloading the image. - BrewedInTexas, on 10/12/2007, -3/+8I've converted about 50% of my dad's friends to using Linux. They're mostly musicians and party dj's and there's a good amount of FOSS tools available for them to use out of the box and a lot of these are better than their commercial counterparts.
I converted one guy just by showing him Solfege. (Yes, there's a windows build. No, I didn't tell him till about 3 weeks later)
I've converted 99% of them to Firefox. The one that I haven't "has an A+ and almost got an MCSE". I don't talk to him much anymore.
When the rest of my dad's friends bring their computer's to my house to get fixed, I ask them if I can put Linux on it in a dual boot setup. A good number of these like it for all the eye candy I put on it and start using it fairly regularly or ask me to remove Windows so they can have more disk space. (I do have to do remote administration on their computers to install software and the like. I don't give them root access for the obvious reasons and they don't miss it.) - JJ, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6Sadly, as a hospital tech I don't have the easy choice of re-imaging a machine. I can't count the times I sat at a spy ware infected PC and had to waste twice the amount of time cleaning it since it was a Doctor's PC. Although it's annoying to deal with, at least it keeps us in business.
- inajeep, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Why 18 days? I bet I could do the same thing in under 8 hours.
- gyrfalcon, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3You've never run into spyware that couldn't be removed? So how many hours do you waste on these peoples computers...
A real tech knows when to throw in the towel and reload the system. I generally consider that point the moment it's compromised.
I really, really doubt you have the experince to track down rootkits, and all the possible exploits that could be on a system hidding from your utilites. - bloodylip, on 10/12/2007, -22/+25Here's to proofreading! Your first statement "I helped my uncle Jack, off the horse" does not make any grammatical sense.
For instance, remove the word "Jack" from the sentence:
I helped my uncle, off the horse.
Please, for the sake of the poor sods that come across your pathetic writing, proofread. - VipeNess, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3i remember back in the day, you could load your buddies computer up with stuff, and freak him out with the popups. you cant really do that anymore, cuz they will kill you now ;)
- JJ, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4If I could play World of Warcraft on Linux, I'd switch over in a second.
- ahhell, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4That's pretty funny. Althought his system wasn't near as bad as some of my customers.
- Phaedruss, on 10/12/2007, -9/+12@deadbaby
The only time I ever have had to do a reinstall with windows is from a complete hardware change (i.e. the only thing that remained the same was the hard drive), and even then a windows repair usually works. As far as making people lose their data... that will just teach them that you're an ass, not better security. If you want to teach them better security, charge them hourly, then tell them what they can do to avoid having to bring their computer in to you in the future. - Hakai, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I've found that when fixing machines as part of a business, the more "fair" you try to be about the price, the more the customers will throw it at you in gratitude.
I've done jobs for $30 an hour that were worth upwards to $90 any other "established" company (i.e. Geek Squad...etc) and the customers would literally not let me leave until i accepted an extra $100 in thanks (AND future business).
The key part when running a business is to be as nice as possible, explain what you're doing, and let them know you're available for them in the future.
Getting mad that they'll come back only means you're gonna dry up your well. - phool, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3The solution the geek squad gave was probly the best solution in regards to time and money for the customer.... with that said they still charge way too much for there service.
I know I own a computer repair store in the Boston area and would love even 5% of there business! -
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