Back when I was in grad school I had a friend who told me that a friend of his wife’s was having spyware issues. She was getting all sorts of random pop up ads and her computer was basically becoming unusable. So to fix the problem, instead of bothering one of her knowledgeable computer friends (and she apparently had quite a few), she called Best Buy’s Geek Squad.<\/p>\n
For an absurd amount of money (I forget how much exactly), they drove to her house and spent a few hours installing the freeware versions of Spybot and Adaware. And to top things off, that didn’t even completely fix the problem. I believe she ended up getting a friend to help her straighten everything else out, but I can\u2019t remember because I was too in shock after hearing the first part of the story. Though maybe I’m such a computer geek that things that seem obvious to me aren’t really that obvious to others (when I have a problem, the first thing I do is google for a solution).<\/p>\n
I don’t think I’d ever trust a computer repairman. I know people who fix computers, and some of them I wouldn’t feel comfortable handing my computer over to. Granted, there are quality computer repairmen, but there are a lot of duds (and yes, I do know some \u2013 none that read this blog though). Luckily, whenever I have a computer issue I can’t handle, I just talk to my dad (former President of the Las Cruces computer club). Most people aren’t that lucky, so for them they’re stuck with either trying to convince one of their friends to help them or to take it into the shop.<\/p>\n
I’d personally recommend getting a friend to help you \u2013 offer them free pizza. And it might interesting to try and get two or more to come look at it. Computer people are usually pretty egotistical so if there\u2019s more than one working on the problem, they\u2019ll be more motivated to be the one who solves it. The only exception to this would be if you have some kind of warranty issue. Then you should make the company\/store fix it for free.<\/p>\n
This may seem somewhat cynical, but I\u2019ve always had a distrust of repairmen \u2013 especially in the computer industry. So what brought on this mini-tirade today? A disturbing video I just saw on youtube:<\/p>\n