I am an amateur compared with many of the guys on here, but I AM able to poke around with these things a bit. Generally if anything goes flooey with one of our machines here at home, I'm able to correct it. Occassionally friends or family might call me to resolve some little glitch they're having, and I haven't been stumped yet. I'm certainly no "Guru", but I'm also able to read and understand stuff which can go a long way.
The other day, a fishing partner of mine came over looking for PC help. Seems he needed to print out some excursion passes for a cruise vaca he's taking and his printer wasn't working (new printer on a new PC). He has a guy he uses who charges him 100 bux/visit; the guy who originally set the PC up for him.
When I got to my friend's house, I found a PC loaded with adware and spyware, and an expired copy of MS AntiSpyware. I uninstalled the MSAS, D/Led a fresh copy, manually unistalled some PUPs, and took more out and quarentined some with the MSAS.
The HP Deskjet printer wouldn't even power-up properly. One thing it would do, was when the power was turned on, the cart carriage would zing wildly back & forth all the way from one side to the other. My friend said that his "Guru's" solution to this problem was to physically grab hold of it on it's way by! I had to uninstall the hardware & software a few times, and got it all working. I don't charge because first off, this is my fishing partner, and I'm not really a tech guy.
While I was working on his machine, he told me about another friend of ours who has never used a PC and bought one for his girlfriend for Xmas. The first friend recommended the Guru to set it up for him. Guru explained that a phone jack was needed for internet access. The guy said he'd have one installed. Guru says, "Hey.. no problem, I can do that for ya." Guru goes into basement and starts cutting into wires down there, apparantly gets PC working, collects his hunnit bux, and leaves. Later on, guy notices that furnace isn't kicking on and calls heating contractor. Heating contractor says no heat because furnace wires have been cut.
Hybrid Mode
