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[SOD213]

I\'ve given out lots of advice for people upgrading PC\'s on this forum and elsewhere, and I\'ve also upgraded a few systems for people, and was wondering if people would be interested in a service specifically for doing that.

I had an idea that people could send me their machines, I\'d upgrade them to current technology, move all their data over, etc.. basically get the machine running the way they\'re used to for the cost of the parts plus a small fee, and then they\'d give me their old parts, and I could build systems and donate them to my old grade school (underfunded private school).

Granted, I\'d prefer the machines I\'d donate to be 700MHZ or more, but I bet there\'s a lot of people out there with machines between 700MHZ-1.5GHZ that are running out of steam, and could benefit from this. (Not to mention my old grade school struggling with 6-7 year old computers right now.)

I have over 10 years of experience working with computers and audio (I started recording VOC files with an original Sound Blaster), and have been doing system builds and repairs for the same company for the last 6 years.

If you\'re interested, feel free to reply here or drop me a private message.

Thanks in advance!

[Owel]

You know what... if you can do this service in-person, that will be great. People don\'t want to send their PC somewhere and wait for 2-3 weeks. People want the tech visiting their home and fixing it. You can make a ton of money doing this personal service to musicians!

It also helps if you live in an area where there are lots of musicians. In my case, I live in Brentwood here in Nashville where a lot of artists/musicians live (Shania Twain used to be my neighbor until they moved). There are lots of recording studios here too.

This month, I fixed my next door neighbor\'s PC (he\'s the lead guitar for a famous band) because he found out I know something about computers. I just replaced the CPU fan. He then wants to pay me for the fast and good service but I refused since I\'m just being a good neighbor. So he gave me the phone number for another artist friend having computer problems with his Mac. Well, I\'m not in the PC repair business so I haven\'t called that other artist. I have my own business to run.

So I think there is a market for a specialized tech for musicians! I think musicians would not want to bring their PC at CompUSA where some kid don\'t even know what a Delta 1010 or ADAT lightpipe is, or your MOTU interface doesn\'t work. They want somebody that speaks their lingo.

[SOD213]

Originally posted by Lee Blaske:
You might want to proceed with caution here. What you propose might be great for local people that you know, but providing such a service for the general public would be risky. You could incur a lot of liability, plus a lot of headaches if people got their machines back and something went wrong.

There\'s a reason why people providing a premium service charge premium prices.

Lee Blaske <font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana, Arial\">Valid points, I\'ll have to create some legalese for that.. I guess I could borrow the wording from my workplace, we\'ve got a good one here. Another thing I was planning on offering was data archival, while I\'ve got the equipment, I could back up the data to DVD-R, not only being an insurance policy for me, but also an added attraction for the user.