21st Century Alchemy

Slightly less snarky intro

When I was in college, I always asked my parents for extra food money. “Why can’t I have whatever I want? All the other kids’ parents probably give them lots of money,” I protested. Well, I’m glad they told me to figure it out on my own, because now I have over 12 years experience selling junk online. (If only the kids on Wall Street had such parents!)

One man’s trash…

Do you have a pile of junk that you don’t want anymore? Have IBM laptop with a cracked screen from 2002? How about an AM/FM radio with weather alert? Beanie Babies? Toys? Record albums? Someone out there wants it, and you’d be surprised what that someone wants to pay you!

Likewise, do you need banana-seat bikes from 1970? Gift cards? Lunchboxes or ashtrays? People have weird stuff, and people want other weird stuff.

Where can these buyers and sellers meet? Flea markets are really fun, but the offerings are neither specific nor searchable nor national… and none of the electronics you buy actually work. HOWEVER, the Internet has a gravelly parking lot out back, which is home to a 24-hour worldwide flea market… known as eBay.

eBay was founded by Pierre Omidyar, a computer programmer who wanted to see what would happen if average Joes could sell things online as easily as big businesses could. The first item sold? Pierre’s broken laser pointer – and it went for over 14 bucks. Read a short history here.

ANYTHING and everything can be found on eBay. Beyond that, there are some things you just can’t find anywhere else! The one thing they do well is bring people with random clutter together with people who need it badly.

At one point I sold a ball of dryer lint for 3 bucks! For a few years I was selling Mac laptops where each part was 100% guaranteed to be damaged, cracked, or otherwise broken… and got $100 each for them. Back in its infancy in the late 90s, people were getting in trouble for posting things like human kidneys!

Weird Al even did a great song about it; take a break and enjoy it here.

Signing Up

First, visit www.ebay.com (If you’re using Internet Explorer, promptly download Firefox, otherwise your computer will explode). On top, it says “Welcome! Sign up or register.” Click Register and fill out your info. (For more detailed information, click here.)

You’ll also need a PayPal account: eBayers used to mail each other money orders for payment, until PayPal came out. Think of it as your online bank account – you can add money to it via your bank account or credit card, and send payments to anyone instantly! PayPal (a subsidiary of eBay) takes a commission of 3% on most transactions. Here’s the problem – PayPal is now REQUIRED on most eBay transactions – meaning eBay is double-dipping commissions on these transactions!

Buying is Exciting!

Buying on eBay is truly exciting, and the company knows as long as there are excited buyers, the sellers will still show up. Entering into a bidding war for a Hess truck, model train, or remote-control airplane can be thrilling. Searching for laptops that only need minor repair to double their value is one of my favorite hobbies. Finding something very rare that you desperately need to fix a car/boat/laptop/meatloaf is really awesome.

The Selling Process

Now that your eBay and PayPal accounts are set up, you can start searching your closets for junk. Take a couple of good photos of each item on a clean surface such as your table or floor, like this:

Then, you log in to your ebay.com account click SELL up at the top. First you’ll type in what you’re trying to sell, and eBay will try and suggest a category. I usually click Browse and select my own category. After that, it’ll probably take you into Simple Mode to create your listing. You can either click “Switch to form with more choices” or continue in Simple Mode until you get the hang of things.

Create a title, such as “Lot of 2 Scooby Doo Lunch Boxes, Vintage, EXC COND” – meaning excellent condition. Be extremely careful – if you write “like new” or any other words on their capricious banned list, they will freak out.

Next, write a description – make it short and sweet yet accurate. Note the condition (mint, poor, scratches, etc.) and make a note if it comes in its original box or lacks accessories. Check out some other people’s descriptions for ideas. Furthermore, IF YOU TYPE IN ALL CAPITALS OR mispel evrthingg than nbodly’ll buy YER STUFFF.

The next steps involve uploading your photos, setting a starting price (bids start at that amount and go higher), setting a reserve price (meaning the sale isn’t valid unless the price is greater than $X.00), as well as a “Buy it Now” Price (The first bidder has the right to buy it for an amount you specify- but eBay triple-dips on those). If you’re a business, you can set Sales Tax rates. Also, make sure your shipping estimates are accurate – I’d highly recommend starting a free account with FedEx to ship items over 1 lb, as they give huge discounts to account holders.

Finally, if you’re using Simple Mode, eBay has this saccharine sentence at the bottom that says “Block buyers who’d make it difficult or more expensive.” What the heck does that mean?

According to the little help bubble, if you enable that option, eBay conveniently blocks those nasty rebels out there who refuse to use PayPal. Obviously they’re terrorists and/or forget to hold the door for old ladies.

Note that as a new seller, eBay/PayPal may keep the money you’ve made in custody for up to 170 centuries, just to ensure you’re not a scammer. My buddy Billy started selling on eBay back around the time of Columbus and he still hasn’t received a Doubloon for his efforts!

Questions

That’s it! For the rest of the week you can sit back, comforted by the fact that someone wants your clutter. Check my.ebay.com daily, watch the price go up, and answer questions. 99% of all questions will be from idiots or scammers.

All eBay buyers are psychos. End of story.

I could write a book (or article) on the experiences I’ve had with eBay buyers! Many eBayers want brand-new quality for less-than-used prices. I sold a MacBook Pro to a girl in Australia who wanted to return it because it had a scratch on it!! Anytime I’d sell the top lid for an Apple laptop, auction winners would assume it was an entire computer that I just happened to sell them for $10! Nowhere is the “gimme” society more evident than on eBay.

I’d highly recommend selling only to the US and Canada. Selling to customers in Europe is cool and broadens your reach, but it can be hairy, too! As of 2011, the Greek post office is completely dissolved, and the Italian one has never delivered a single package to anybody in its existence. I once had a customer from Norway who wanted me to send his item to him in good faith, promising to pay his postman cash when he received it! I told him I couldn’t offer that service through his undoubtedly-horseback-riding postman.

Each morning, you will receive at least 70 billion emails from factories in Asia, such as this zinger:

We are professional MP3 Player,MP4 / MP5 Player,MP6 Player,E-book Reader,I-Pud accessorie,IPHOE accessories and factory and supplier in China. .. E-mail to welcome: admin@ factorygrobal.com is ability, strict manufacturing process management and rich stable sensual experience, we consistently pay attention to the quality control and continuously innovationn! !

Despite their promotional skills, some of those guys sell really neat gadgets!

However, all stories pale in comparison to that of my Hungarian friend… let’s call him “Borat.” Borat was a pretty nice guy who wanted one of my parts, but thanks to the Babelfish translator website, never could tell me exactly what he wanted…

Hello, taking into account the time insight would have paid given. Do you like to know, if the referred to above and the period of grace your hospitality, I know when I fight, that the new! Please give me the period of time, and the quality time do you want! Thank and salute.

And later on…

Why not you intrigue for the given to my date? I can pay, for why you send not country! Quality forbade to have in the intimate retraction bid situation! Why, for one instance the verification of when scratches were discovered in the settings finest! I embrace.

I actually printed his letters out and taped them to my office wall!

Salt in the Wound

Ever since the dawn of Mankind, we have been trading with each other. Stones for sticks, peas for carrots, horses for land, and now Ninja Turtle action figures for electronic cash. In all of these transactions, both parties had the right to complain about each other… until 2008 A.D.

Originally, eBay buyers and sellers could leave a 1-sentence comment about how their experience was with each trading partner. Positive feedback could be along the lines of “What a guy! Paid promptly, A+, would deal with again” and negative feedback something like, “Buyer took 2 weeks to pay, BEWARE!”

Thanks to a decision in early 2008, though, SELLERS CAN NO LONGER LEAVE NEGATIVE FEEDBACK FOR BUYERS! Maybe the buyer took too long to pay, maybe he was a jerk, maybe he ruined your product and demanded a refund? Maybe he just felt like it? TOO BAD for you. eBay’s feeble reasoning: You might leave retaliatory negative feedback for that buyer. WELL THAT’S THE POINT! If he’s a jerk, you should be able to warn others! Check out this article for more info.

Beyond that, buyers may now rate sellers using 1 to 5 stars, on aspects such as promptness of delivery, fairness of shipping costs, and accuracy of description. If a disgruntled buyer gives you less than 5 stars on any category, eBay hires Dog the Bounty Hunter to show up at your doorstep and give you an atomic wedgie.

Because of this, some eBay sellers are including cards in their packaging, such as the one below, begging for your clemency!

Sometimes buyers don’t even bother emailing you asking where their product is. Some of them go straight to PayPal and cry that it’s been a whole 6 hours and they haven’t received their package in the mail yet! At that point, PayPal suspends the money in the seller’s account until the buyer decides he’s satisfied.

I had [luckily only] one occasion where a buyer demanded a refund, and mailed me an empty box! Since he provided PayPal with a tracking number, that was proof enough for them, and I lost the money. In summary, both eBay and PayPal have no regard for their sellers.

To quote Omidyar, “Remember that you are usually dealing with individuals, just like yourself. Subject to making mistakes.” Unfortunately, eBay and its buyers fail to keep this in mind.

Other stuff to watch out for

Again, your description could make or break your listing. A poor description means people will be asking you more questions and your auction will end at a low price. Concise descriptions with a little color (maybe a Christmas tree theme) inspire confidence in consumers. It’s staggering how many 7-year old laptops are sold for WELL over fair value because an uneducated buyer simply sees the words “BLAZING fast and Internet ready!”

Also, don’t distract yourself listing items worth $1. I used to spend too much of my valuable time listing items that only sold for $1 – hoping I could make a few bucks on the $7 shipping fee. Well, that’s all you get, a few bucks. Not worthwhile. Your best bet is to make “wholesale lots” or “grab bags” of the small parts.

Finally, if you’re going to sell software on eBay, make SURE it’s in the retail box. (Likewise, don’t sell counterfeit purses.) In a Cyclopean effort to curb piracy, the watchdog group BSA (http://www.bsa.org/) scours eBay all day long, looking for software auctions. If they see an auction for a piece of non-retail-boxed software, they command eBay to take disciplinary action (including but not limited to humiliating “tutorials”). In all seriousness, I knew a company that was selling tens of thousands of dollars per month on eBay, but because of an accusation from the BSA, their account (and most of their income) was destroyed.

Not just your stuff

Pretty much everyone in my hometown of Rochester stays home all day and buys trinkets on Home Shopping Network. That makes for a LOT of junk to sell! I used to sell for family, as well as a small business in Iowa. Small businesses with a lot of valuable surplus equipment are a great find.

If you’re good at photographing/describing, responsible with packing/shipping, and diligent with appraising/listing, you can make a lot of money selling things online for others, and it can be very enjoyable. If you do sell for others, be sure to download a PayPal statement every month so you can claim your profits as income! Since I can’t provide tax guidance, talk to your accountant.

Alternatives

As eBay continues to erode your freedoms, you’ll be glad to know it isn’t the only way to sell your junk online:

• The most similar competitors are Blujay.com, Onlineauction.com, and Webidz.com.
• YardSellr.com (really cool) and Axadax.net look VERY PROMISING! Definitely check them out.
• Craigslist online classifieds (see my article on the Craigslist experience here).
• Stootsi was a really cool site where small businesses could sell items, but it has since shut down.
• Ubid! – my favorite site for refurb big-ticket items such as TVs and laptops (only businesses may sell on Ubid and a similar site Woot).
• Sell.com - The world’s largest collection of bootleg Seinfeld DVDs, with a sprinkling of eBay ads.

Finally, if you’re a business looking to buy large quantities of parts, you can become a paying member of either BrokerBin (more US-based) or Alibaba (more Asian-based sellers).

All of these alternatives are much more lenient toward sellers. Unfortunately, for selection, price, and buyer audience, nothing beats eBay. They know it, and that’s why they act like the only girl at an RIT party. If you sell something they deem questionable, they know there are millions of sellers waiting to take your place!

One Mooo Ting

Bid-tainment sites such as Quibids and Bidcactus: Pour 1 cup eBay, 1 cup casino, and 1 cup scam, shake well. You’ve seen the ads online: “ZOMG YOU CAN WIN A MACBOOK FOR $29!” Basically, these sites charge you 60 cents every time you put in a 1-cent bid, then the auction randomly ends at some outrageously low price. Even when they arbitrarily end a laptop auction at $29, that amounts to 2,900 60-cent bids, or $1740, for a laptop that’s worth around $900.

These sites are okay ONLY if you know how it works and just want to have some fun. For further reading click here.

Nevermind

If you’ve got a few things you just want to get rid of fast, then go ahead and list them online. However, your best bet is just to find an eBay lister in your area! They’re becoming fewer and far between lately because of all the outrageous seller pressure, but if you’re lucky you’ll find a dude who can get rid of your stuff fast, take a percentage, and hand you a check soon after. (Contact me if you need some names!)

As always, thanks for reading, folks, and happy bidding!

The Unhealthy Relationship

Another Snarky Intro

Have you ever had one of those relationships? You know, one that starts off with a few nice dates, but you know it’s going nowhere… then it gets worse… yet you still feel the need to be in constant contact with the person?

That’s pretty much how my first tablet experience went…

Mini Monolith

Everyone’s buying a tablet nowadays. I remember being at the Apple store for the iPad’s debut in the Spring of 2010. My buddy (and guest blogger) Ian bought an iPad that day, and brought it to my barbecue that night. Our friends crowded around it and we watched funny videos on YouTube, wondering if the device would ever serve any other purpose.

That night, it was dubbed the “Internet Joke Machine” – in essence, one of the first non-computer devices to roam the Internet. At the time, the industry was still speculating on the iPad’s success, but it was also asking the same thing we were… what exactly are people going to use it for?

I knew right off the bat that there was NO way anyone would write articles with that awful touchscreen keyboard. In the first few months, the iPad and subsequent clones became known as “content consumption devices.” Read the news, watch videos, maybe even listen to a song or two… but no, nobody’s going to write the next Mutiny on the Bounty on one of these babies.

Newspapers such as The New York Times are betting heavily on the tablets. Printed subscriptions have dropped dramatically, and these guys now have to compete with the many free news services and blogs out there. So, they are betting they can charge monthly fees for “premium content” in a digestible format specifically designed for tablet navigation.

We’re in the future

So, great, the world buys a bunch of these “fondleslabs” (as the British are, er, fond of calling them) and we enjoy videos and articles on them. Is that the only thing they’re good for? As Ian put it, “Apple makes stuff you didn’t know you needed until you use it.” The ever-increasing number of tablet Apps means you’ll always find new uses for it.

The first few times I used one, I felt like I’d arrived in the future! After all, the 1985 sci-fi novel Ender’s Game predicted the use of hand-held electronic tablets. Tablets are definitely the first in a wave of “Internet appliances” – devices that allow you on the Internet without constant error messages and long waits. (Note that there’s still huge opportunity for an appliance connected to your TV!) They definitely make you feel… futuristic.

So, what do we have in the market so far?

Here’s the deal. You have Apple, Google, and Everyone Else.

On one extreme, you have the Apple iPod/Pad/Phone App Store. It’s very draconian in what kind of apps it allows for sale, yet all apps are guaranteed to actually work. You have one brand of hardware: Apple. Every 6 months it comes out with new guts inside its products, but to the consumer it’s very simple: iPad, iPhone, iPod. No wacky model numbers to remember. (One of my gripes with Apple devices was their dependence on a computer in order to do anything, including turning on for the first time. Luckily this limitation has been removed recently!)

On the other extreme, you have the myriad devices running Google Android software. You have the Acer Iconia, the Samsung Galaxy, the Velocity Micro Cruz, the Dell… It’s really great that you have the freedom to choose from many brands of hardware, many devices, and multiple app stores. However, there is a good chance that some of them won’t be able to run certain Android apps, or in my case, the App Store itself!

However, you shouldn’t have to face such a dramatic tradeoff.

On the fringes we have HP’s TouchSmart – a great product with the excellent WebOS (from the makers of the original Palm Pilot) but killed before its prime by HP. You also have BlackBerry and its PlayBook tablet. Note that these two tablets run their own software as opposed to using an Apple or Google platform. Finally, a recent entry into the field is the Amazon Kindle Fire tablet, which runs a modified version of Android.

I wish the PC industry were just as rich with choices.

Many of these sport integrated webcams for face-to-face chatting – reminding us that we’re coming dangerously close to the Jetsons’ boss reaching into our homes and pulling us by our shirts!

Out of sight, out of mind

In business school, we learned that even if you have an excellent product, if it doesn’t come to mind, nobody’s going to buy it. From my research, there’s only one tablet that’s powered by Microsoft available, and it’s the HP Slate. Unlike the rest of the tablets on the market, this one doesn’t run an OS made for mobile use. It features the “familiar Windows”, replete with viruses, popups, and Norton messages… except you can now use your finger instead of a mouse to swat these alerts away.

The Wall Street Journal has a lot to say about the subject.

Meanwhile, sales of smartphones running Google Inc.’s Android software and Apple Inc.’s iPhone have surged this year, giving both companies greater sway among independent software developers. Demand for Apple’s iPad tablet is eating away at sales of laptops, most of which still run Windows. By one researcher’s measure, Windows share of the PC market in the latest quarter was at its lowest level in two decades. [...]

Microsoft is counting on the next version of Windows, dubbed Windows 8, to restart sales growth. But the operating system, which Microsoft has redesigned to run better on touch-screen computers, isn’t expected until the autumn of 2012 at the earliest. [...]

[Notice how Windows 8 isn't going to be a mobile OS - just like the Windows 7 that runs on the Slate, it'll be an all-purpose OS, which will contain the desktop PC experience - at the very least, this implies buttons that are too small to press with your fingers!]

The supremacy of Windows, particularly for business, isn’t likely to go away anytime soon. While Apple has sold 28.7 million iPads since the product was introduced in the spring of 2010, Microsoft has sold more than 400 million copies of Windows 7 since the product came out in 2009, a record for the company. [...]

[I can definitely see Microsoft tripping over itself (or buying webOS or Blackberry?!) in the mobile market. As far as the desktop market, they do have a lot of money coming in from businesses that are stuck in 1991 and think Outlook is a secure email program.]

Executives at the company have also begun to use their iPads instead of Windows laptops for slide presentations because the devices turn on more quickly than PCs, says Steve Jourdan, Hospital Housekeeping’s chief information officer.

[That's true. Tablets turn on instantly, as opposed to PCs, no matter what the brand. Appliance-like behavior is the future.]

(Segments in italics are excerpted from The Wall Street Journal: “Microsoft faces the post-PC world” Aug 16, 2011)

So I bought one.

I didn’t need one, but I figured I could familiarize myself with the technology. People are going to buy these things and ask me how to use them!

I always thought it’d be nice to have a small appliance to leave around the house for surfing the Web while on the couch. However, I wasn’t about to invest $700 in an iPad, or $500 in one of the many Android tablets out there.

I first checked uBid, my usual source for good, cheap stuff. They had plenty of Chinese knockoff Android tablets for $100-$150, which would in theory serve my purposes, but none came with a warranty longer than 2 weeks. Why? Like carnival goldfish, few knockoffs survive beyond a few weeks.

While buying parts for a customer one day, I found what I was looking for at Radio Shack! Recently they have undergone a very positive transition. What used to be a stockpile of overpriced virus-ridden Compaq computers has become my retail store of choice for good parts at attractive prices.

The Cruz tablet caught my eye as I was leaving the store. $150, basic Android tablet, and best of all, 1 year warranty. Sure it didn’t have a camera, and wasn’t the fastest, but for most of my customers it would suffice. What could go wrong?

Everything

The hardware was fairly well designed. it was simple, sleek, attractive, and my favorite part, UNCLUTTERED. It had a headphone jack, a USB port, power, and volume buttons, and that was it. It didn’t require a computer at all. It’s a truly independent Internet appliance.

I quickly became comfortable with the Android tablet operating system. It’s intuitive, clean, and simple. Here’s the issue though. Every new smartphone and tablet is part of an App Store ecosystem. To my surprise, though… the official Android Marketplace was missing. In its place was something called the Cruz App Store. It only had a handful of apps, and there was no Angry Birds! My little Internet Joke Machine could not be complete without it!

The Cruz App Store allowed me to install AndAppStore, which crashed during a “background update,” and since it’s a Cloud service, requires its OWN account to be created. So at this point I had 2 cloud accounts and still no worthwhile apps.

Here’s where it gets bad

I went to the official Android Market website and it contained a link to install the Android Marketplace App Store. I click on that link and it says “Sorry! You can’t install the App Store until you register your device!” – I go to register my device and it says “Sorry! You can’t register your device until you have the App Store!” And so it went, ad infinitum. At this point I wanted to break the thing. Imagine senior citizens trying to figure this thing out!

I gave up and tried AppBrain, which was YET ANOTHER app store that required me to create YET ANOTHER ACCOUNT. I couldn’t log in via the tablet’s browser. So I logged in via my desktop computer. I then went back to the tablet and went to apprbain.com/install as it told me to do and voila: “You do not have permission to view this page.” The frustration felt like small bits of metal coursing through my body.

I eventually settled on the Amazon App Store, since I already had an Amazon account, and more importantly, it was the only app store that didn’t crash on the Cruz. However, it was horrendously slow and insisted on nagging me for updates.  The first thing I try to do on it was download Angry Birds: “Sorry! Couldn’t install!” NO explanation. Even after attempting an update on the Amazon store, it wouldn’t work. So I downloaded one or two apps and got a semi-usable stock app working.

Return to Forever

So, in the end I just used it as a Web browsing device and ignored the apps altogether. For that, it worked reasonably well, aside from the slowness, constant crashes, and the fact that the keyboard hardly ever typed what i wanted it to… Since then I’ve used other Android devices and they performed much better.

Once I realized that I had 60 days to return it, I did so, gladly accepting the restocking fee. The guy at the counter noted that many of these tablets were coming back. I told him it was too bad; it was almost a good product.

My Job

Apple and Google software doesn’t break per se – but they are based on the logic bomb that all of your apps, DRMed music, stored documents, EVERYTHING depends on your account and the cloud.

You can’t just download an app anonymously. Every app you run is tied to your account, and if heaven forbid you lose your password and are unable to recover it, or if the company owning the app store goes out of business, all of your purchases are entirely useless.

Imagine your car spontaneously combusting the day Pontiac closed its doors!

The Cloud isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, folks.

My job is going to change over the next few years. Currently I spend my days uninstalling Bing Bar and Yahoo! Toolbar from people’s computers, and occasionally recovering a dead hard drive. Those issues have stayed with PCs, but there are new issues with tablets.

Many of my billable hours come from Cloud-related woes, such as forgetting your password or trying to figure out how in the heck to synchronize your calendar across 5 devices!

The End, for now

This has been my experience in the tablet market thus far.

In summary, the Cruz tablet crashes like it’s Windows 95 in an airplane with one wing. NEVERTHELESS, I found myself using it constantly!

I love the idea of having a small appliance thingy that I can carry around the house when i’m trying to flirt with girls keep up with my stocks and emails. I imagine it’d be fun if I bought an Acer tablet.

As always, thanks for reading, and tell your friends!

One of the many blog posts about Steve Jobs

Last night, Facebook and news websites exploded with RIP Steve Jobs messages. I would like to join everybody in remembering Steve.

This page contains statements issued by Steve’s peers, such as Bill Gates, the heads of Google, and even President Obama:

http://techland.time.com/2011/10/05/ap-reports-apple-says-steve-jobs-has-died/

The following video clip captures very well the spirit of the computer industry and how Steve Jobs bucked the system. A computer engineer implies that Steve is technologically incompetent and then rattles off some minutiae about Java programming. To this, Steve responds with the statement that technology shouldn’t be designed in a way where features are pushed on consumers. Technology should be sold as the solution to a customer’s problem, regardless of the underpinnings. Anyone who knows me will know I base my career on that concept.

Marc

 

Spy vs. Spy

A Serious Intro for Once

We all know the saying about power and absolute power. Recently we’ve witnessed politicians falling like dominoes in the face of scandals: There is something about success that gives one a feeling of invincibility, and those in that state of mind are at a great risk for careless behavior.

Not taking advantage of others, doing what’s right when nobody’s looking, admitting your mistakes… such is the stuff of middle-school classroom discussions.

The Specialist’s Job

It is especially easy for someone in a technical, financial, or mechanical field to take advantage of his clientèle; it stems from the fact that some customers are simply terrified of the unknown. I’ve seen the most successful doctors, lawyers, and candlestick makers turn to pudding when they mention their computers. “I can’t even turn mine on!” or “My machine is so slow; I need to buy a new one!” Those of us in the PC repair industry [with social skills] will readily admit that technology is intimidating.

Alas, even product manufacturers can become guilty of taking advantage of their consumers. Today’s discussion will focus on software that installs itself right under your nose, and hopefully beginners and techies alike will learn something new today!

Mystery Machines

At one point in my career, I worked as a contractor for a Very Large Organization. Twenty-five times a day, I received tech support calls from its well-educated workforce, flustered and frustrated with their PCs. The computers were very capable ones, but for some reason they were all running as slow as molasses. Some users assumed the machines were slow because they were three years old. Others didn’t think to mention it until I asked how their machines were running. Most wanted to throw their machines out the window.

Upon further inspection I discovered that among many other things, the slowest machines had one thing in common: They were connected to HP OfficeJet printers. Could the simple fact that they were connected to a certain model of printer slow the machines down? Not… quite.

If you read last month’s article, you’ll know how much I love toolbars. My first step was to query these computers to see what software they had on them, and sure enough some toolbars came up. Some had the HP Yahoo! Bar, and some had something called HP BING BAR. Interesting: Why would HP install a third-party toolbar on someone’s machine? That wasn’t all I found. There were a few other programs with names like Orwellian euphemisms, such as HP Customer Participation Program (the customer is just nagged to no end, and their computer “phones home” to HP, to report printer usage statistics). All this just to print a darn book report?

Marketers Gone Wild

In all actuality, the only thing needed to print or scan is something called a driver. A driver is a tiny piece of software that tells your computer things like:

• Hey, this is how to talk to my printer.
• Hey, here’s how to receive an image from my webcam.
• Hey, this is how to control that new scanner I just plugged in.

Unfortunately, when you buy an HP printer (especially the newer OfficeJets), you also get some stowaways. Here’s what you get:

• HP Customer Participation Program
• Again, this program renders the consumer an unwitting participant in some sort of mass research project driven by HP. Nobody knows what it is, nobody cares, nobody wants it.
• Note that “Required Disk Space” is only 15MB. That is absolutely inaccurate. If you check out Add/Remove Programs (as I did in the picture above it), you’ll see that it takes up over ten times that amount.
• In all seriousness, as you can see in the description, HP wants its customers’ feedback. Are you ready, guys? Here goes: STOP MAKING FLIMSY PRINTERS. GO BACK TO MAKING GOOD ONES. ALSO STOP PUTTING BLOATWARE ON PEOPLE’S MACHINES. There! All set.

• HP Solution Center
• Arguably benign and (as legend has it) useful, HP Solution Center isn’t damaging in and of itself. However, it’s been known to have mini-meltdowns where the software corrupts itself at random. If it stopped there, that would be great. However, it then erupts into an endless loop, attempting to reinstall itself over, and over, and over, and over, and over, popping up at random throughout your workday. Uninstalling it remedies the situation.

• HP Share-to-Web
• A few years ago, HP printers came with adware known as Share-to-Web. STW placed an advertisement icon on your desktop that was basically impossible to remove, and caused your computer to hang/crash if you right-clicked it in an attempt to remove it. Hardly anybody knew what it was or cared to use it, but the amount of frustration it causes is scandalous.

• HP Smart Web Printing
• SWP adds unnecessary buttons and items to your Web browser (including Firefox) – and slow it down in the process. Word around town is, the Smart Web Printing button allows you to print out websites in a manner suitable for your HP printer. However, most users have no idea what the feature does or that it even exists.

• HP Update
• All day long, HP Update calls home, checking and checking and checking for new updates. There is absolutely no reason HP needs to update the driver. If it prints and scans, you’re all set! Imagine your car salesman following you on a motorcycle for the next ten years, sticking pieces of Bondo and duct tape onto your new car!
• It also nags the living hell out of the user. Every 30 or 60 minutes it would come up and harass my clients at VLO. They had no idea what it was, and worse yet, their technicians unwittingly installed it! They were confused, annoyed, and perturbed.
• HP also admits that this program introduces security holes into your computer – so, get this! – it claims you need AN UPDATE to HP UPDATE!

• HP Yahoo! Bar, HP BING BAR, or Search Toolbar
• These monitor everything you do on the Web and slow your browsing experience down immensely. See my article on toolbars if interested.

• myPrintMileage
• Monitors how much ink and paper you’re using. Whoop-dee-doo.

• Shop for HP Supplies
  • HEY DID YOU KNOW YOU NEED INK? You’re too stupid to realize when your pages come out dry, that you need new ink!
  • Newer versions of Shop for HP Supplies and Customer Participation Program together waste ONE AND A HALF GIGS on your hard drive – that’s just counting those two programs.

Again, all of the software mentioned above is entirely superfluous and, at best, slows your computer down. There are one or two programs in this package that are harmless and may be useful once in a blue moon, such as OCR (used for scanning in textual documents), or HP Image Zone (if you want to edit photos but have masochistic tendencies and have never heard of Microsoft Paintbrush).

Maybe a powerful machine can handle all of this garbage (again, even the powerful PCs at VLO suffered a noticeable degradation in speed), but most Average Joes have older machines at home and are overwhelmed by this and the many other pieces of bloatware they have.

How to clean it up

If you’re never going to use the printer again, and you have the original CD, pop it in and simply click Uninstall. Actually, it’s not so simple. After removing all of the garbage, HP conveniently forgets to remove BING BAR. You have to go to Add/Remove Programs and remove that yourself. Nice!

If you are going to use the printer again, but don’t want all the garbage, just go to Add/Remove Programs and remove all the garbage discussed above, such as Customer Participation Program and Shop for HP Supplies.

THEN, Go to your Start menu, then Programs, then Startup, and check for Digital Imaging Monitor. If it’s there, right-click and delete it. It monitors your printer ALL THE TIME, slowing your machine down even if you only print once a year. Perform this service on any computer you touch for the rest of your life. They’ll thank you for it.

Installing HPs properly in the future

I teach intermediate techies all the time (Including the tech staff at VLO!)  how to prevent this in the future. Luckily, this bloatware is easily preventable by you, dear Teknosophy reader:

1: If you’re Using Windows 7, there’s a chance you’ll get away easily. Many of the HP OfficeJets I’ve used With W7 are detected properly and “just work” when you plug them in – for both printing and scanning. No need for any HP software whatsoever. Ahhh, that’s better!

2: Basic Driver on HP’s website – If that didn’t work for you, and you’re connected via USB (no fancy networking), you can visit support.hp.com, and type in the product name.

It should then show you the product, and you can click Software & Driver Downloads, and select your Operating System (e.g. Windows XP or Windows 7). In the list you’ll see “Basic Print Driver” (see second entry in the example below) – Check the details and make sure it allows for scanning. It may also be called “Basic Print and Scan Driver.”

Obtaining the Full Driver

If installing that Basic driver didn’t work, or if your printer is a Wireless/Network printer, you’ll need the Full Driver. In this case you must use the driver CD, or download the Full Feature Software and Driver from the website.

Again, in order to download a driver from HP’s website, simply go to support.hp.com and type in your product name. Pick your Operating System, then select the Full Featured Driver and let it download.

Here We Go

After you pop the CD in (or begin the Full Featured Driver install), it’ll come up and ask you if you want to download updates. The answer, of course, is Absolutely Not:

Next, it will ask you to choose Recommended or Custom Install. Make sure Custom is selected.

Unfortunately, the newer printers are MUCH SNEAKIER. They won’t ask you if you’d like to perfom a Custom Install – you’ll have to look for the very fine print:

If you’re faced with the Where’s Waldo page window above, locate “HP software* to be installed, click here to customize” and click on it. From there, you’ll be able to disable all the bloatware:

For fun, get a pair of binoculars out and try and read the fine print at the asterisk. Scary ain’t it? After it’s all unchecked, hit OK and proceed with installation as normal.

As always, I like to enlighten my customers as to what’s going on. If the details are too overwhelming, no sweat, just call me for an appointment.

Conclusion

In recent years HP has maintained its position as the leader in PC sales, and is a giant in home printer sales. It’s a given that home printers nowadays are shoddy, hollow pieces of throwaway tech. (I miss my HP DeskJet and OfficeJet from 1995 – those things were built like tanks!) However, not every printer company so boldly takes advantage of its customers like HP does with its suite of bloatware. Think about that next time you’re in the office supply store. I know I will.

Take note, marketing bobbleheads. Take many notes. I work on the front lines; I know what customers ACTUALLY experience.

UPDATE!!!

Check out all the crap HP has to open up ports for in Windows Firewall – In other words, all of these HP programs call home for the purpose of letting HP into your machine!

The Zombie Apocalypse has already begun.

Snarky Intro

There are some things that will happen a few times in your life – you fall in love, you lose yourself in the music, you get a cavity, you lose a loyal pet… you’re approached by a Pyramid Schemer.

Pyramid Schemers, like Zombies, are friends who have lost their minds. They resemble their former selves, yet they approach you with a crazed look in their eye, ready to wag their chins unstoppably about a new magical economic panacea they’ve discovered. They’re hoping you’ll join them in their new quest, but today I’m going to teach you how to defend yourself from them.

Huh?

It all starts with the compliments. One of your acquaintances (or Heaven forbid close friends) approaches you and tells you…

I just wanted to let you know what I’m up to these days.

At this point they’ll talk your head off for an hour about the joys of being your own boss, and then invite you to a clandestine meeting.

You seem like a smart guy. Do you want to go to a Legitimate Business Meeting with me? Trust me, it’s a Legitimate Meeting. With Business People and everything! And it’s Legitimate!

This can mean only one thing: They’ve gotten themselves tied up in a Pyramid Scheme. Here’s how Pyramid Schemes work:

1. One wily person (We’ll call him Wile E. Coyote) makes a few moral compromises and/or convinces himself that he’s out to help people. He sits at Level 1.
2. Wile E. promises a group of people the world on a stick if they each pay him ~$800. They become Level 2 agents and begin selling some ethereal product that people already have, such as vitamins or electricity.
3. They approach everyone they know and try to sell said products.
4. Interestingly enough, they’re MORE interested in signing people up as agents than they are in selling their products.
5. Any friends who sign up have to pay the fee to become Level 3.
6. If these Level 3 people can manage to sell a few products or enlist people into the scheme, Levels 2 and 1 receive a percentage of that, simply for being higher in the pyramid.
7. Later on, when Level 3′s new underlings (4, 5, 6, ff.) sell either products or memberships, the people at Level 3 (and all levels above them) make a percentage of that sale.
8. Ergo, our friend Wile E. makes a cut of everything ever.
9. One day, your friend signs his life away as the newest Schemer in the Pyramid.
10. Your friend realizes what a mistake it was.
11. Rather than admit it was a mistake, your friend tries to make up for this loss by asking others to join him. The system is perpetuated like a garden weed.

My experiences

The reason I chose this topic is because I’ve been approached by many, many schemers in my life. Unfortunately it’s a sign of bad times, an economic Horseman as it were. When people can’t find good jobs or create real businesses, they can get sucked in quite easily.

The first time I attended a Pyramid Scheme Meeting, I quickly noticed something was fishy. (Ironically enough, it was being held by Egyptians!) 90% of their argument for me to join lay in the fact that one of their higher-level people drove a Mercedes… and that they had seen the car for themselves. Nice going, guys.

On a few occasions, I sat through a Magical Legitimate Own Business Whatever Mega-Presentation. They were all led by a charismatic, quasi-exciting guy with a fancy laptop, and all the audience members were Boomers who were scared for their future and had never seen a website in their lives, yet hoped to own one soon. Cheers and chants ensued. It felt like a cult.

During my last year in college, I co-founded a juice bar in the school gym. It was the first student-owned business on the campus, one of the first protein-smoothie bars in the area, and every last aspect of the business (including the drink names) was dreamed up from scratch. Some Schemers had the nerve to approach me and tell me that I…

• Could sell their Magical Vitamin Health Supplement Stuff
• Seemed like a nice guy
• Seemed like I could run My Own Business if I tried
• and
• Could make money from My Own Legitimate Business

So, I told them that’d be like asking Ronald Reagan to run for office of Dog Catcher and then chased them away with a broom and some garlic.

Differentiation

In business school, properly educated students learn how to differentiate the businesses they’ll work for. For example, Wal-Mart differentiates itself from the competition based on price. Cadillac promises prestige, and Volvo is synonymous with reliability.

Every last one of these zombies is trained to vehemently deny that he’s in a Pyramid Scheme.

Oh, no! TRUST ME, this isn’t one of those Pyramid Scheme thingies! This is different, this is MLM: *gasp* Muuultilevel Maaarketing.

MLM quickly became a dirty word.

Oh no! TRUST ME, This isn’t one of those Multilevel Marketing things. Oh no, this is the real deal. This is Neeeeetwork Marketing.

Surely next year a Zombie will approach you and say something like…

Don’t worry, this isn’t one of those Network Marketing things! Pshaw! This is new… this is a… Magical… e-Money, uh, Friend… Tree.

Thus spins the eternal euphemism treadmill…

Hit me like a slow bullet (As usual, bonus points if you get the reference!)

Don’t try to talk them out of it or otherwise heal them – you’ve lost that person to the Economic Zombie Apocalypse and there’s no convincing them otherwise. Just remember the good times you had together before somebody bit them!

Their excited arguments will fly at you like blunt bullets – senseless, unrelenting, and oh-so-ridiculous to those outside their bubble. With eyes spinning, they spout off half-truths and irrelevant data:

We grew faster than GM or Sony in the first 27 minutes of our existence!

We’re a 54906 gazillion square foot e-green-company! That’s more revenue than 50,000 hot dog stands per minute!

They then turn the argument on you:

Wouldn’t you like to make more money?

Wouldn’t you agree, that if you sell this, you’ll make money?

Wouldn’t you agree, that you’re a smart person and good with business?

Don’t you want to fire your boss?

They know not what they do

Look, I’m not criticizing Schemers here. They just don’t realize yet that they’ve been bamboozled:

1. They just paid someone a large sum of money for the opportunity to sell that person’s stuff.
2. They’re now just a sales force for that person.
3. They’re selling the same crap everyone else in the pyramid is selling.
4. There’s absolutely nothing original about that which they call their “own business.”
5. Their “Magical Inter-Web-iCommerce-Internetcashmachine E-website” is just like everyone else’s.
6. Hardly anybody wants their products/services!

Perelandra

So what to do? If you’re trained in Aristotelian philosophy, you could have some fun by pouring these questions down their throat like an antidote:

So could you agree, then, that you’re not actually adding any value to the economy?

So what happens when everyone in the entire world is trying to sell each other ginseng-flavored toothpaste and tanning butter?

How did you help that guy who gave you his last $1000 and realized nobody needed more arthritis cream?

However, in most cases it would be wise to follow the path of Elwin Ransom, hero of the novel Perelandra. Elwin is charged with protecting an Eve-like character from the Devil at the beginning of her world – and the Devil’s mouth doesn’t stop running. Eventually after failing to refute all of the half-truths and the taunts, our hero decides to simply shut him up. Problem solved.

Just as you’ve learned to do with loud TV commercials and flashy Web banner ads, you can now tune these zombies out or distract them with shiny objects. You can only hope that one day they’ll find a more wholesome form of income.

Okay, calm down everyone.

Before everyone starts sending me hate mail and/or stops talking to me, let me do my usual disclaimer. Selling acne cream and cheap long distance is fine with me. If you’re legitimately selling something through these means, and you’re not preying on anyone, more power to you. Just realize that someone’s making money off of your hard work, and worse yet, you give true entrepreneurship a bad name.

To my readers who aren’t already involved in one of these, now you know what they are, and how to protect yourselves from them. That’s all I have for you today. Have a great week and we’ll see you next time on Teknosophy!

Mafia Fronts

Another intro about food?

Back in college, I would visit my friends in the Buffalo area every once in a while. Most of the time we’d catch a bite at our favorite late-night taco stand, which had a really generic name like “Really Good Tacos” or something. Sure, the place wasn’t the newest establishment in town, or the cleanest, but the staff was really friendly, the food was great, the pinball machine was really fun, and that was that.

We always wondered why there was no sign on the building and why all of their business came from word-of-mouth. Oops. Rumor had it the place was just a Mafia front. Who knows, maybe people were playing cards in the back? Nevertheless, I really miss those late-night taco runs…

What I’m getting at

Where was I? Oh yes. Toolbars. Have you ever gone to a website such as Yahoo! Mail or AOL and been propositioned with a toolbar? Worse yet, have you ever just randomly noticed a toolbar showing up on your computer one day? Today I’m going to expose toolbars for what they are, and teach you how to protect yourself from them.

Just like “Really Good Tacos,” toolbars pose as things they’re not. Toolbars are nasty little bits of software that latch on to your Web browser (e.g. Internet Explorer or Firefox). They pass themselves off as legitimate software, offering to help you store your bookmarks, find coupon deals on the Internets, block pop-ups, find out the weather or sports scores, and many add a search box for Google, Bing, etc.

The worst part, in my opinion – they’re not even made by kids in stereotypical Eastern European basements… most of them are made by [very misguided] legitimate organizations!

This is no way for a computer to greet its owner.

Why they’re bad

Redundancy

When I mention to a client that they’re infected with a Toolbar, sometimes they’ll say “But wait! I need Google/Yahoo/Bing/Dingaling/Whatever!” My reply is twofold: First, any modern Web browser will have a built-in, customizable search box on the top-right. (Super new ones such as Chrome and Firefox 4 have one address bar that knows if you’re typing in a Web address or a search term.) Second, you can STILL go to Yahoo.com, Google.com, Aol.com, or any other site for that matter, and do what you have to do, without a toolbar latched on to your browser the entire day.

Privacy

If a toolbar latches itself on your Web browser, it has the ability to monitor everything you do. Every web site you go to, everything you buy, everything you type. Most of them claim they don’t, but we know for a fact that MyWebSearch and Dealio are two of the nastiest toolbars ever created.

As per their website, MyWebSearch claims that they do not spy on your computer or send you advertisements. They do admit, however, that their software hijacks your searches and redirects them through MyWebSearch servers. That redirect can live on long after you remove MyWebSearch from your computer in the form of a Default Search Provider (in order to remove the provider, you have to go into Search preferences in your browser… it’s tricky). Did I mention they hijack your homepage and send your browser to their website instead? It’s really funny to watch Yahoo! Toolbar and MyWebSearch duke it out and claim each other is trying to hijack your homepage settings.

In another example, Skype Toolbar (stows away with every Skype install – should be removed IMMEDIATELY after installation of Skype) forces itself on to your computer, slows down your Web browser, and scans EVERY web page you go to, hoping to find phone numbers on the page. When it thinks it finds a phone number, it floats a little “CALL THEM WITH SKYPE” icon next to the number… we can expect more of this behavior out of them now that Microsoft owns them…

Speed

So you wake up in the morning and turn your computer on. Let me guess, your Web browser takes 5 minutes just to appear. Sometimes you click on it again to push it along, but that only results in a longer wait time followed by several copies of the browser window showing up. This is because many toolbars in with their “publishers” for updates… wasting your valuable time. (Again, as per MyWebSearch’s website.)

If you have one toolbar, it may take a few seconds, but I’ve seen some poor souls infected with 5 or 10… (The record number I’ve seen so far is TWENTY NINE.) It takes forever to open their machine. That’s not to mention the time it takes to load each Web page you click on.

Interference

I won’t get into software update nuisances too much today, but I will mention that when your toolbar (or your browser) is updated, one may cause the other to crash. It happened last winter with Yahoo! Toolbar, and as much as I love AVG, their Security/SafeSearch Toolbars causes Firefox to crash after many updates.

In summary, toolbars are just as useless as GadgetBox.

Where they come from

The developers of these toolbars don’t respect you as a user. That’s what it boils down to. Toolbars can pour into your computer at any time, whether it’s AOL foisting it on unsuspecting AOL.com visitors (it happened to one of my customers and he couldn’t for the life of him explain how it got there), or adware stowing away with Adobe downloads (<- click that link for some entertaining words from frustrated victims).

The reason why you see so many of these is the fact that some free software (remember Snood?) has to be subsidized to remain free – enter stage left, the toolbar.

Examples to watch out for

• Dealio Toolbar
• Yahoo! Bar
• BING BAR
• HP Bing Bar (Stealthily implanted in your computer during HP printer software installs. More on that in a future article.)
• MSN Toolbar
• Search Toolbar (Microsoft)
• MyWebSearch
• RadioBar
• AOL Toolbar
• AOL Mail Toolbar
• AIM Toolbar
• ASK Toolbar
• Translator Bar
• Skype Toolbar
• The Weather Channel Toolbar (and the eighty other ones it introduces into your system upon install)
• AVG Security Toolbar
• NORTON Security Scan Toolbar
• McAfee Security Scan (stows away with Adobe downloads)
• Google Toolbar (Stows away with both Adobe software and the otherwise-cool Google Earth.)
• GameVance Toolbar (really nasty)
• Zynga Toolbar (Connoisseurs of Facebook games will be rewarded with extra game points if they inflict this on themselves.)
• and many, many more…

Exterminating them

How do I know if I have any toolbars?

It’s really easy to find out if you have any toolbars- look at your Web browser! If your screen looks like any of my screenshots, then you have toolbars.

AOL actually splatters itself all over your browser

Will buying a bunch of spyware scanners take care of them?

The answer is no. Not only will the spyware scanners slow your computer down considerably, but most don’t protect you against toolbars as a genre. No cop in the world is going to walk into “Really Good Tacos” without some sort of probable cause, and the same goes for these things. Security software publishers can’t really go around accusing blue-chips such as AOL, Microsoft, and HP of creating malware.

Okay Marc you convinced me they’re harmful. How do I rid myself of them?

Here’s what you do:

• In Windows XP, Click Start>Settings>Control Panel, or Start>Control  Panel, then double-click Add/Remove Programs.

• In Windows Vista or Windows 7, Click Start>Control Panel then locate either Programs & Features or Remove a Program.
• Up comes a list of your programs. Go through the list and make sure you click Remove for any of the toolbars I listed… or any other toolbars for that matter. Furthermore, highlighted below is one of the pieces of “bloatware” that AOL Toolbar invites over (and won’t go away until you tell it to):

AOL told its friends there would be punch and pie at your house

• That should take care of the majority of them. However, I’ve seen some toolbars stick around post-extermination, so we have to do a bit more work.
• If you use Internet Explorer, spray your computer with RAID immediately click Tools>Manage Add-Ons to see if any toolbars are enabled. Disable any you see.

• To be absolutely sure you’re clean, you can also try Tools>Internet Options>Advanced>Reset. This can be found in most newer versions of IE. Click the “delete personal information” checkbox for good measure. It resets IE back to factory settings, disabling all toolbars in the process:

• If you use Firefox, click Tools>Add-Ons>Extensions and Disable (or if possible Uninstall) any toolbars listed.

• In a few cases, if the toolbar really won’t go away, see if you can find a Settings/Wrench button on the toolbar and politely ask it to go scre Uninstall itself.

Note: Don’t be alarmed if some of these toolbars send you to the publisher’s website after you remove them. They basically want to exit-survey you about why you removed it. The funny thing is, they know why! They offer multiple-choice answers such as: “It slowed down my computer”, “I’m concerned about privacy”, “My browser crashed”, etc.

Unfortunately, Macintosh and Ubuntu computers can come down with a case of toolbar, since toolbars are usually created to run within a browser. The good news is, I’ve yet to see Safari or Chrome infected with one, so on Mac/Ubu the only thing you’ll have to do is go through the Firefox cleanup process outlined above. 

Prevention

 

My goal here is to inform, not to scare. If you’ve removed some toolbars already, feel proud of yourself. If you can’t, give me a call and I’ll take care of everything for you. 

 

So let’s say they’re all gone. How do you prevent this from happening again? Simple.

• Stop searching for “free screensavers” and “free games” online! They inevitably come with some species of toolbar.
• Whenever you install any legit software, see if there’s a Custom install where you can disable the toolbars. This is necessary when you install Java, AVG, and many HP printers.
• Never, ever touch The Weather Channel software. Not even with a 10-foot pole. It’s digital filth.
• Be VERY careful when checking Yahoo! and AOL mail. They have tiny links that say “Install Toolbar” sprinkled around their websites that catch you off-guard.
• Never let your kids touch your computer. Ever. A good chunk of my income is from customers who let their kids spend 5 minutes on their computers. Come to find out they’ve put music piracy software all over the place, or searched for a way to download YouTube videos. Back in my day, we had Etch-A-Sketch, baseball, and CB radios.

It’s your PC

As always, I’d like to emphasize that it’s your computer and your prerogative. If you really really like how Google Toolbar keeps all your bookmarks or whatever, that’s fine, keep it. Again, my job is enabling you to make informed decisions about the software you use.

That’s it for today, folks. We’ll see you next time right here on Teknosophy! Remember to tell your friends.

Embracing oneself

Peak's Island, Maine - Summer 2008

I Like a Challenge

We were told as kids that we could be whatever we wanted. It’s true; the Obama administration hasn’t (yet) told me what I should do for a living. However, the other thing we were told was that if we were smart and went to college, someone would hand us money when we graduated.

This, for my generation, is not so. I have a business degree from a good school… where’s my money? My fancy job, a secretary perhaps? The truth is, educated or not, people in my generation have to be creative, and make their own moves. (No, not you, pyramid scammers.) That is my challenge, and after much thought, I wouldn’t have it any other way.

The Mirror in Space (Bonus points for those of you who got the reference.)

Rewind to the summer of 2008. In a time of extreme confusion about where my career was going, and having just euthanized a startup business gone sour, I headed to Maine, where my brother was living at the time. While I was there seeking his advice about what to do with myself, I received a phonecall from one of my dad’s friends. Though I can’t remember what the exact issue is, I still remember the scene well. He had a computer question of some sort and I diagnosed and explained the reasons behind the issue. We set up an appointment for me to check it out when I got back.

After I got off the call, I went right back to worrying about myself. In response, my brother noted the ease with which I walked my caller through some troubleshooting steps and made the recommendations.

“Why don’t you embrace who you are? You were really good just then. It’s easy for you, but to most people this stuff is really intimidating. They need you.” I half-listened and half-agreed. I flew home, went back to work at my normal, stable day job, selling computer parts on eBay. Then suddenly, two years passed.

Right Under My Nose

By this point I was making one appointment per week to fix somebody’s computer. People called me all the time because I was just “their computer guy.” What was once an aggravation was now a slightly annoying but welcome addition to my income. As time went on, I absorbed the tools and skills to turn even the most difficult close-call stumpers to simple fixes. I had a briefcase, a travel/test laptop, a portfolio of legal OEM reinstall discs, tons of advanced diagnostic software such as Memtest 86+ (takes all the guessing out of RAM issues), and the knowledge of what’s good and what to avoid.

At that point the weekly recipe became, Hey Marc my computer is slow/Okay no problem/Purge any spyware/Give some pointers/Add a dash of Ubuntu/Serve chilled/Your computer will now last you five more years/I get money.

One of my friends noticed the constant influx of calls and challenged me: “If you’re in this much demand, why don’t you make a serious business out of it?” Up until that point (and even at the time of this writing), none of my pie-in-the-sky business plans had taken off, and I realized it would behoove me to start out a bit smaller. I printed some business cards and started mailing them out to everybody I knew.

Here we are in the Spring of 2011 – I’m now the President of Teknosophy, LLC – The Computer Exorcists (SM). While I haven’t been able to quit my dayjob just yet, I’m getting closer every week, and have built up a pretty regular evening business.

Why am I different from any other jamoke fixing computers? Well, that’s where my education comes in. I’ve differentiated myself based on the observations of my clients – and here’s what they’ve said:

• I make things “just work” – I remove most of the constant security and update warnings that bombard users while they work.
• I can teach you new things, show you how to get the most from your equipment, in plain English.
• Most of the time I come by referral and have plenty of references. I’ve got over 10 years experience, as opposed to your neighbor’s cat’s aunt’s nephew who pirated MS Office for you.
• I cut to the chase – I’m not restricted by a corporate script and am not afraid to warn someone of a bad product.
• I enjoy chatting about things other than computers and try to make the business relationship about more than just maintaining your computer.
• I don’t smell funny.

In summary, I pride myself on being the layer of abstraction between you and your virusbox.

Short Term Promotions

The flight of business cards from my desk to my friends’ mailboxes continues. I also donated two gift certificates to a fundraiser for my alma mater, and am giving away a total of $2,011 this year to anyone who refers me new customers. Beyond that, I’ve contracted with Facebook for regionally-targeted Web advertising, and am planning on calling Groupon next.

At this point, I know people out there need me, it’s just a matter of time, effective advertising, and eventually expanding to other cities! Come to think of it, this article should form the basis of the Teknosophy business plan!

Future Plans

I’ve embraced my calling and would like to make Teknosophy my full-time job this year, but I know I can’t do just this forever. The good thing is, this business will give me the freedom to move onward and upward – starting the next TiVo, Google, or simply going back to school.

When I was a kid I thought about becoming a meteorologist, or a Spanish teacher, or a car restorer.  Later on, I added cigar monger and smoothie-maker to that list. I might end up being one of those one day, but not before I’ve given my calling a fair shake.