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Worms Security Operating Systems Software Windows Hardware

Spyware Removal: Drop PC in Dumpster 705

Posted by timothy from the baby-bathwater-makes-a-fine-soup dept.
morganx writes "The New York Times is reporting that some users prefer throwing out their PCs and buying new ones to actually removing their spyware. Does this mean lots of free hardware for the dumpster-divers among us?"
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Spyware Removal: Drop PC in Dumpster More

Spyware Removal: Drop PC in Dumpster

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  • Cheaper? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by fembots ( 753724 ) on Monday July 18, 2005 @06:46PM (#13098676) Homepage
    I wonder why it is cheaper to buy a new $400 PC than paying top rate of, say $100 per machine, to get someone to insert the recovery CD and get everything back to factory defaults.

    I find people disposing affected PCs highly irresponsible. Would someone think of those homeless children who dumpster-dived and brought home (or somewhere whatever) such PC? It's like throwing out old smoke alarm with perfectly good Uranium bits inside, someone's going to get hurt.

    The friendly article mentioned that "people are increasingly unwilling to take out their 'software tweezers' to clean their machines", maybe it's time for manufacturers to install a HardReset button (like in a PDA) with a 1 GB ReadOnly Flash drive, which resets everything back to factory.

    • Re:Cheaper? (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Leiterfluid ( 876193 )
      I agree, how difficult is it to just do a basic OS install, and build from there. Or, as you suggest, use the recovery media from the manufacturer. I want to know who these morons are that are having their systems infected so quickly, and so often. I have a PC at home that is running Windows XP, that hasn't had a clean rebuild on it since I originally installed Windows 98 on it. I went straight from 98 to XP, and have never had a significant problem with viruses, adware, or anything else of that ilk. I

      • Re:Cheaper? (Score:5, Interesting)

        by emidln ( 806452 ) <adam4300@kettering.edu> on Monday July 18, 2005 @06:55PM (#13098797) Homepage
        I think it's pretty damn difficult. As a coder and techie, I cannot figure out how to install Windows XP on my only computer capable of running it. Windows just blue-screens while trying to format the hard drive. I assume it needs drivers for my SATA chipset, since my computer is newer than XP SP2, but my PC doesn't have a floppy drive, space for a floppy drive, or a power cable for a floppy drive. I'm tempted to read up on what kind of power a floppy takes and wire a floppy drive up to an external power source and connect it to the fdc (mobo supports the floppy, power supply doesn't). Oh, and Windows will not treat my usb floppy drive as an A: drive during the install, which is the only place where it will accept drivers from.

        • Re:Cheaper? (Score:3, Informative)

          by simcop2387 ( 703011 )
          it takes the exact same power as the other drives, though it'd be prudent to look up which order they are, i don't have them memorized

        • Re:Cheaper? (Score:3, Informative)

          by JohnFluxx ( 413620 )
          On the power leads, red is 5V and yellow is 12V, for both floppy and hard disks.

        • Re:Cheaper? (Score:3, Informative)

          by Michalson ( 638911 )
          All you need is a moltex to floppy adapter (it's basically the same cable, only with a different connector). For example here is one for $1.69 [newegg.com].

        • Re:Cheaper? (Score:3, Insightful)

          by pete6677 ( 681676 )
          I just wonder when Microsoft, along with some board manufacturers, will get their collective heads out of their collective asses and realize the 1980s are over and people don't use floppys anymore. We could officially consider the floppy disk to be dead and buried if it weren't required for certain system restores. It seems like a relatively easy fix to allow drivers to be loaded from CD or USB drives or something that holds more than a meg of data.

        • Re:Cheaper? (Score:5, Insightful)

          by Golias ( 176380 ) on Monday July 18, 2005 @07:37PM (#13099200)
          I'm sure everybody who replied was just trying to be helpful regarding your Windows install, but they managed to prove your point quite well. A typical non-techie hearing all that advice would be utterly lost and baffled.

        • Re:Cheaper? (Score:3, Interesting)

          by 1u3hr ( 530656 )
          I cannot figure out how to install Windows XP on my only computer capable of running it. Windows just blue-screens while trying to format the hard drive. I assume it needs drivers for my SATA chipset, since my computer is newer than XP SP2, but my PC doesn't have a floppy

          See nLite [nliteos.com], a method of customising Windows installers, that among other things lets you add your own drivers to the CD image. (You will need to prepare this on a PC running 2k or XP though.) There's a forum [msfn.org] if you have any problems.

    • Cheaper?-Service with a smile. (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      "I wonder why it is cheaper to buy a new $400 PC than paying top rate of, say $100 per machine, to get someone to insert the recovery CD and get everything back to factory defaults."

      Maybe the better question is: Why do service centers charge so much? Seems like there's plenty of blame to go around.
      • I think it's more an excuse to update their PC. (Like getting a new BMW when the ash trays are full.) Possibly one reason people don't just wipe and reinstall is that many PCs now come with some weird OEM installer that uses files stored on the harddisk; if that's screwed you have to buy a new OS at retail, and for not much more you can get a new PC with an OEM Windows and repeat. One might suspect planned obsolescence. I might have expected a mention of the Mac mini here; but it seems like many abusive rel
    • I remember a while back getting a PC that had no discs - it was all on the local drive.

      If you got something like that, you'd be screwed.

    • It's not uranium in your smoke detector... (Score:5, Informative)

      by PornMaster ( 749461 ) on Monday July 18, 2005 @06:56PM (#13098810) Homepage
      It's Americium-241.

      For more info on americium, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Americium [wikipedia.org]
    • I wonder why it is cheaper to buy a new $400 PC than paying top rate of, say $100 per machine, to get someone to insert the recovery CD and get everything back to factory defaults.

      Worse than that $400 + $100 for someone to migrate the data vs. $100 for someone to remove the spyware using generally available tools (including regedit) or at worst, back up your data, reformat, reinstall.

      It's like throwing out old smoke alarm with perfectly good Uranium bits inside, someone's going to get hurt.

      I think yo

    • ObQuirk! (Score:5, Funny)

      by overshoot ( 39700 ) on Monday July 18, 2005 @06:56PM (#13098816)
      I wonder why it is cheaper to buy a new $400 PC than paying top rate of, say $100 per machine, to get someone to insert the recovery CD and get everything back to factory defaults.

      Objection, Your Honor! Assumes digital media not in evidence!

      Last I heard, MS was prohibiting OEMs from shipping recovery CDs. That hard drive is all you get.

    • Anwser is frustration... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by John Seminal ( 698722 ) on Monday July 18, 2005 @07:05PM (#13098913) Journal
      I wonder why it is cheaper to buy a new $400 PC than paying top rate of, say $100 per machine, to get someone to insert the recovery CD and get everything back to factory defaults.

      I would guess most people don't see an OS, they see a computer. When they get pissed at the OS, they are really pissed at the computer. So they throw it away. In their thinking, the Compaq running Windows XP is very different from the Dell running Windows XP. After all, the computer boxes look different.

      Maybe people think of their computer like a VCR. If it stops working, you don't get the $2 cleaning fluid tape, you throw it away and buy another.

      It is too bad these people don't donate their old computers.

      I am a person who believes it is a SCAM when colleges buy bran spanking new computers every 2 years, and use property tax to do it. Whenever I have walked around a computer lab, all I see is Word and papers being written, IE and the web being surfed, and the very occasional comp sci student writing code. All this could be done on PIII's. Hell, PII's would work, although it would take a few minutes to load software.

      There is a saying in the advertising world. Don't sell the steak, sell the sizzle. It is a shame, because often people buy hardware they will never utilize. If someone wants to check email, what good is the newest computer? Salespeople don't sell based on your needs. They want to make the largest commision possible, or push whatever product their managers told them to get out the door. And they lie to do it. I was at Best Buy, just walking around. Most of the time, the salespeople in the Computer section are so busy that it is impossible to get one (good thing in my opinion). But this time one saw me, and came up. He said "What computer do you have?". I lied, I did not want a hard sell, I just wanted to browse, so I said I had a P4 2.0ghz with XP. The sales guy said "Oh, I guess that is okay, but if you want the latest security, and more speed, our P4's have XP with the latest security updates, and they will run the latest games better".

      The SOB tried to sneak in a "latest secuirty updates" in the middle of his sales pitch, to put a seed of fear in my mind about my current OS. Gee... thanks for saying anyone can download the latest patches. Gee... thanks for trying to sell me an e-machines.

      The friendly article mentioned that "people are increasingly unwilling to take out their 'software tweezers' to clean their machines", maybe it's time for manufacturers to install a HardReset button (like in a PDA) with a 1 GB ReadOnly Flash drive, which resets everything back to factory.

      Oh God NOOO!!!! Please, no! These assholes who sell computers are already sending CD's with images only. I have a laptop which the recovery CD's are not the OS which I can configure, but an Image of the hard drive, which sets up the partitions the way Microsoft wants. I can't install the OS with a partition left over for Linux.

      Give us the freaking OS we paid for. If I buy a computer, and the OS is forced on my, that I must buy it if I want the PC, then at least give me the OS on a CD and not an image.

      • Re:Anwser is frustration... (Score:5, Insightful)

        by AtariDatacenter ( 31657 ) on Monday July 18, 2005 @07:34PM (#13099187)
        Bingo! The people I've fixed their spyware problems for (all relatives, all for free) basically thought that they had a slow computer. They had no idea it was adware/spyware/malware causing the problem, no idea how to get rid of it. It was just that the computer was slow and it was time to buy a new faster one.

        The only time someone came close was when they noticed their Internet connection had a lot of pop-up ads. (And even then, they'd click on the "pop up ads" to close them, when in fact, they were image advertisements on the middle of a webpage, which when they clicked on it, would open up an ad. So then they complain that they close one ad and another comes right back up.)

        The worst Spyware that I saw was one that stuck itself into IE, I think it was eGames? Whatever the name, it would load all sorts of other spyware packages onto the computer. Malware loading malware!

        Truly. The whole thing is OUT OF CONTROL.

      • Re:Anwser is frustration... (Score:5, Informative)

        by alienw ( 585907 ) <alienw.slashdotNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Monday July 18, 2005 @07:49PM (#13099297)
        Colleges don't get any of your property taxes, and their computers are paid for directly by the students, often with a separate IT fee. The older computers often go to departments which don't have enough grant money to afford newer ones. If you go to a university surplus auction, you probably won't find anything faster than a P-II.

        Not to mention that new computers actually end up costing less, because they do not require as much repairs and attention from the IT people. Fans, power supplies, and hard drives start to crap out in massive quantities after a couple of years and are not very economical to replace when there are hundreds of machines.

        As far as the best buy thing: stupid people deserve to get ripped off. If you don't know anything about computers, you probably shouldn't be buying one.

        • Re:Anwser is frustration... (Score:5, Insightful)

          by thatguywhoiam ( 524290 ) on Monday July 18, 2005 @11:58PM (#13100779)
          As far as the best buy thing: stupid people deserve to get ripped off. If you don't know anything about computers, you probably shouldn't be buying one.

          Man, I was right with you up until this dumbass statement.

          You are conflating stupidity and ignorance. People who are simply ignorant do not inherently deserve to be ripped off. The (original) point of the sales person is to educate a customer on the best choice for their needs.

          You probably well know that keeping up with the latest email virus symptoms requires pretty much daily monitoring of IT news. Why the fuck should Joe Average have to track something that specific just to know that he can in fact download the security patch?

      • SCAM when colleges buy bran spanking new computers every 2 years
        A big reason colleges buy new computers instead of using acceptable donated machines is that having donated machines means they're all different. A lab full of random PCs is much more difficult to maintain. With identical models, if a machine dies, you can use 90% of what's left over for replacement parts. You have guaranteed compatibility and the drivers are already installed and updated to your normal standards.

        My uncle works for a tech

    • Yes, cheaper by far (Score:5, Interesting)

      by fleener ( 140714 ) on Monday July 18, 2005 @07:05PM (#13098923)
      You want people to return their PCs to factory defaults so that their PCs just get infected again while you takes hours to download all your Windows security patches? Not bloody likely. Are you being serious, or do you work for a spyware company?

      It's far simpler to buy a new PC that has a year or two's worth of security patches already in place -- less for you to download. My uncle has already replaced one PC because of spyware. He's on a dial-up connection. He's not going to sit for hours upon hours so his old PC can reinstall security patches.
    • because the geek squad @ Best Buy is charging little old ladies $300 to "fix" thier PC (when it needs rescueing from spyware) and simply add a spyware detector but not actually use it.

    • Re:Cheaper? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by JanneM ( 7445 ) on Monday July 18, 2005 @07:20PM (#13099082) Homepage
      I wonder why it is cheaper to buy a new $400 PC than paying top rate of, say $100 per machine, to get someone to insert the recovery CD and get everything back to factory defaults.

      Rather, it's either pay $100 to get the same two-year old machine back, complete with scuffed exterior, ugly/dirty keyboard, jerky mouse and, lately, a worrying fan noise; or for an additional $300 get a brand-new faster PC with the latest OS, more memory and bigger drive.

      Not a bad deal.

  • Dupe Removal (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 18, 2005 @06:46PM (#13098677)
    Drop timothy in the dumpster [slashdot.org]... along with Zonk, Taco, etc.

  • Fool me once.... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by BWJones ( 18351 ) * on Monday July 18, 2005 @06:46PM (#13098681) Homepage Journal
    It just boggles the mind that people would throw out a Windows machine and then replace it with another! Windows machine which is immediately susceptible and commonly infected within twenty minutes or so of being re-connected to the Internet. This happens often even before you have time to install updates. The old fool me once, fool me twice adage comes to mind.

    The smarter move would be to migrate to a system that is less affected by worms/virus/security issues. For the vast majority, I would think that system would be OS X [apple.com]. But hey, that's just me. If your time is that valuable that you would simply replace your system rather than wiping it and reinstalling the OS, you think that you would either be smart enough to think different. Of course clicking on the referenced article makes you sit through an ad for Dell unless you dismiss the ad, so what does that mean? :-) Interestingly in the linked article, Dr. Wong does replace her HP system with a Powerbook. This has been our [utah.edu] experience as well. We have replaced most of our Windows based systems with Macs running OS X leaving our Windows systems headless and sitting behind a Macintosh and a firewall with respect to the Internet. For grad student systems, giving them a Mac is the best possible solution. They can download all the software they want, surf the web and write their email all on the same system they use for their data analysis without worry and I'm not getting calls or visits to my office saying "Ummmmmmm. I think my system is infected" Time devoted to troubleshooting has gone to essentially nothing. Additionally, the last meeting I had down in our computer science department revealed that a good portion of the faculty were also switching from Windows/Linux/SGI to OS X. That was encouraging for a whole lot of reasons.

    • How does it go again?
      Fool me once, shame
      on -- shame on you. Fool me -- you can't get fooled again.

      See, can't get fooled again, you. What was the question?

    • Re:Fool me once.... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Linus Torvaalds ( 876626 ) on Monday July 18, 2005 @07:40PM (#13099225)

      It just boggles the mind that people would throw out a Windows machine and then replace it with another! Windows machine which is immediately susceptible and commonly infected within twenty minutes or so of being re-connected to the Internet.

      The smarter move would be to migrate to a system that is less affected by worms/virus/security issues.

      The majority of people have only been exposed to Windows. They think computers simply wear out. They don't see it as getting infected over and over again by dozens of worms, they see it as "oh well, computer's worn out, better replace it".

      In that context, it's perfectly reasonable to go and get something similar to what they already had. They don't think anything happening is wrong. They think this is normal.

      Until something happens to teach the average person that this isn't right and can be avoided by switching to something like Mac OS X, this will carry on happening. I have no idea what that something is. Maybe a virus that forces the person to read an explanation of the issues before it gives access of the computer back or something? I dunno.

    • If you want a system which isnt affected by worms/virus/security issues at all, you could always use a TRS-80 [wikipedia.org].

      definitely safer than OSX.

      there's no OS updates to have to fuss about with, either.

      They can download all the software they want, surf the web and write their email all on the same system they use for their data analysis without worry and I'm not getting calls or visits to my office saying "Ummmmmmm. I think my system is infected"

      You could accomplish the same thing with apple // [wikipedia.org]. The hardware i

  • *sigh* I tired.... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by tekiegreg ( 674773 ) *
    Saw this dupe article in the mysterious future....emailed the on duty editor as fast as I could, and it went anyways well *dons flamesuit* let's get ready to rumble....

  • The Dupes (Score:3, Informative)

    by kensai ( 139597 ) on Monday July 18, 2005 @06:47PM (#13098689) Homepage
    And the dupes they just keep a coming.
  • I don't see this as viable. Spyware may be somewhat expensive to clean, but so is patching windows and migrating your existing data. I guess if you never use it for anything other than surfing the web.... But then why not just install Linux?

    • Re:Aside from the fact that this is a dupe (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Mr2001 ( 90979 ) on Monday July 18, 2005 @06:50PM (#13098739) Homepage Journal
      Do you really think the kind of person who (1) lets his PC fill up with spyware, then (2) chooses to spend $500 on a new PC instead of spending a couple hours cleaning it out, is going to want to learn Linux?

      "OMG WTF happened to My Computer? Where's Internet Explorer? Why do I have to have a password?"
      • I have several customers who have migrated to Linux for similar reasons. They are all beginner consumers.

        The problem largely is that tech support people treat consumers as idiots incapabile of learning the system. I usually start by explaining spyware, how it gets on your computer, how to avoid it/prevent it, etc. Then if it continues, I start suggesting Linux. I show them via a demo system how easy it is to use, and they are usually sold on the idea pretty quickly.

        Computers aren't that hard to understand if we dispense with the tech talk and actually focus on communicating with the consumers.

  • Yeah. (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 18, 2005 @06:47PM (#13098700)
    I'm typing this from a dumpster right now. Thank you, spyware.

  • Dupes Overwhelming! (Score:2, Insightful)

    by MrMista_B ( 891430 )
    Okay, I'm new here, but holy crap, these dupes are almost worse than spam!

    Seriously. Do the admins just not even read /. anymore?

    Heh, guess they're just smarter than the rest of us then. :-)

  • More than a replacement (Score:3, Funny)

    by balamw ( 552275 ) * on Monday July 18, 2005 @06:49PM (#13098716)
    By the looks of it, "the doctor who replaced her infected computer", and "says she no longer clicks on pop-ups" did more than replace her comupter. She switched [apple.com] to a Mac (and spent a bit more than $500 for that 51" Powerbook ;-)). B
  • Is one of the benefits of being a Slashdot subscriber NOT having to see duplicate stories on the front page?

    Sooooo many solutions to this problem.
    -Text analysis built into Slashcode to detect potential duplicate stories
    -Having another editor spot check a story for dupeness (there are plenty of editors for this to work)
    -Have editors read the headline of every story every day.
    -Lynch editors who consistently post dupes
    • Subscribers get the article in advance and are offered a chance to submit any major problems with it before it goes live for non-subscribers. Does anyone submit dupe-ness as a major problem, and if so, is that not a good reason to pull an article?

    • Re:Premium subscription service (Score:5, Informative)

      by Monte ( 48723 ) * on Monday July 18, 2005 @07:01PM (#13098872)
      Is one of the benefits of being a Slashdot subscriber NOT having to see duplicate stories on the front page?

      As a subscriber I can answer this with an authoritive "no fscking way".

      You do get to see articles before they "go live" to the hoi-polloi, and you can even e-mail the editor if you think there's a problem with the article (say, if you know it's a dupe from about 48 hours ago).

      You can see for yourself just how well this all works out.
  • Before I get slammed...hear me out. I am a Debian user. I love Open Source and Linux. However, my wife didn't catch the Linux bug. However, after bitching up a storm about her Windows XP laptop she agreed to let me get her a MAC iBook. Two months later she's still Spyware and Virus free. My point....Linux isn't for everyone, but there are alternatives (as we all know). I was thrilled to get my wife hooked on her MAC. Now she won't put it down! Did I mention that we still have no Spyware or Viruses
  • I love how Slashdot editors keep pushing the boundries to bring us new cloning technology.

    For instance, not only was this posted two days ago [slashdot.org] (in the same section!), but this newer version has a shorter into, yet it appears to use the exact same article!

    The implications of this new cloning technology cou- what? This isn't a cloned article? It's a duplicate?

    What the #)%&#. What the hell are editors for, then?
  • This /. dupe smells of Wallmart/Dell conspiracy. And the dumpster is on it too!
  • So, some friends of mine are going dumpster diving. This is back in the middle of the tech bubble, so fairly cash-rich companies are continually throwing out good equipment as they buy more. Anyway, the experienced one is driving around looking for suitable places, with the newbie riding shotgun. They pull up behind a high end computer service business in a strip mall to check out the goods. The experienced one had told many stories (and provided proof) of incredible finds in places like this, and spurr
  • ...slightly scary for the uninitiated or those without the right tools. And for some, $199 for a new lawnmower every three years actually feels cheaper than three visits to the small engine repair place, where it always seems to be $89 no matter what they do.

    My point is, that's how a lot of people feel about their computers. Except, they don't store their kids' wedding pictures in their lawnmowers, so people are going to have to get used to actually doing something about their problems (or learning about
  • The problem is that it's a short-term solution.

    Like, about 12 minutes short. (Assuming you don't connect to your old data on a network, in which case it's even shorter.)

    At that rate, the annual cost is going to get ugly!

  • Do the Slashdot editors read? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by cytoman ( 792326 ) on Monday July 18, 2005 @06:54PM (#13098789)
    I'm quite shocked to see so many dupes posted all the time. Do the editors scan the stories being posted, at all? They seem to be so unaware of what is already posted... the worst cases being dupes occuring on the same day (not this story).

    Seriously, I think that given that Slashdot has become so big in terms of users, the editors need to be more serious about making sure dupes don't happen... if the editors are too busy, appoint a dupe editor who will catch the dupes before they are posted. All it requires is for the dupe editor to do a search on Slashdot to see if a story has already been posted...

    • Re:Do the Slashdot editors read? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by garcia ( 6573 ) * on Monday July 18, 2005 @07:36PM (#13099196)
      They have several... They are called "Subscribers". I have done by job multiple times and been thanked by the editors via e-mail at least a handful of times... Yet there have been just as many (if not more) times that I have submitted the story as being duped and it has been ignored.

      So, we are paying to do their jobs *and* we are being ignored.

      It's almost as good as being a Union employee! :)
  • ...some Slashdot editors have found it cheaper to just approve dupes rather than screening for them.

    Crow T. Trollbot

  • ... of dupe articles...

  • It is not just "people" (Score:4, Interesting)

    by geoswan ( 316494 ) on Monday July 18, 2005 @06:57PM (#13098830) Journal
    It is not just "people". The article says that Tucker, the internet executive who said he bought a new machine, and threw out his old one, because getting rid of the spyware was too difficult, has a PhD in Computer Science.

    Ordinary people getting frustrated is one thing. They lack the right skills. A PhD in computer science is a whole other question.

  • Reminds me.. (Score:3, Funny)

    by Idealius ( 688975 ) * on Monday July 18, 2005 @06:58PM (#13098836) Journal
    ..of a guy I was phone supporting whom lived in Queens, New York:

    Him: "Ahhh it's hopeless.."

    Me: "Nah, let's just try the next solution.."

    Him: "Ya know what would fix this up good?"

    Me: *chuckle* "What's that?"

    Him: "A 2 lb. sledge. I tell ya, 2 lb. sledge fixes EVERYTHING.."

    Me: rofl

    The accent was priceless.. the word 'sledge' must have been invented in NY..
  • Some Slashdot editors prefer to look at Slashdot stories from the last 2 days and post the one in the submission been that looks similar to the others.....noone knows why!
  • Two dupes in a row! We're on a roll!

    All we need now is a Roland article...

  • This really screams for a small Slax or Knoppix distro in write protected flash, which incorporates a hard reset with data retention (i.e. disable all added executables, retain data), coupled with removable hard drives (if the system is too beserk pull hard drive, put in new drive, reboot)
  • please recycle your spyware.

  • Cheap hardware makes for strange support options. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by wernst ( 536414 ) on Monday July 18, 2005 @07:02PM (#13098882) Homepage
    Among other things, I repair computers and Windows problems for a living. With the cost of new Dell Desktop PCs now at $299 (sometimes after rebate,) and with my rate being $75 an hour, the math starts to get interesting:

    If it takes 4 hours to totally clean off an severely infested PC, then they might as well get a new PC. If it only takes me two hours, then they're halfway to a new PC. Hmmmm...

    Suppose the hard drive fails, and (like a client) they haven't done a backup in a year. Suppose the PC is a 3 year old PIII PC. New hard drive: $60. Time to install Windows ME (or whatever) with all the drivers: at least an hour, but probably two. Cost: around $150 or a little more for a 3 year old PC. (Add more for software installation and network setup, and I do.) Again, that's halfway to a modern PC that is much faster, has a warranty, and has XP preloaded.

    Not that I wind up going hungry when the client gets a new PC: there's still networking, data transfer, and software installation and setup that needs to get done. But the cost of new PCs has really changed the cost-benefit of fixing versus replacing.

    Of coruse, the best part is when the client says, "Oh, and just take away that old, 'broken' PC. It is of no use to me now." Away it goes with me, because my time is free to me...

    And don't forget, my rates are CHEAP CHEAP CHEAP compared to visits from The Geek Squad. If a consumer has to go through them, then the math in favor of a new PC gets even stronger...

    I can't say I'm wild about this situation, but at least you can see why we're here at it.

    • Time to install Windows ME You install Windows ME, and you call yourself a computer repairmen?! [spits] Away with you!
    • I know what you mean. I work in the field, too.

      But what most people don't realize is how much work they'll have if they get a new PC.

      Consider all the things that you've accumulated on your system and how much you've tweaked it -- settings, bookmarks, documents, serial keys, music, etc. You've had it for at least a year. And in all that time, you've done a lot with their PC. Do they know how to get all those settings and data to the new PC?

      Secondly, what about software? Most customers lose their original

  • Geek Squad (Score:5, Interesting)

    by C4-GodH8sMe ( 67047 ) on Monday July 18, 2005 @07:11PM (#13098986)
    As a memeber of the Geek Squad, I must say you make some interesting points. Mostof our business is removing spyware and viruses from machines, which, most of the time, is pretty easy. It does take us a long time though (running a lot of scans, and testing the PC to make sure it's ok). Generally, at our Best Buy store anyway, you can expect to pay $59 for a diagnostic (which basically includes runing memtest86, some DFT, Lucifer, making sure your optical drives operate, and scanning for spyware and viruses), plus $79 for "OS service" (spyware & virus removal, a repair install if necessary + removal). Not really that bad of a deal for the average user really, who really wants his or her machine back, "exactly" how it was "before". We try to tack on NAV2005 or NIS2005 ($49.99 + $10 install/update, $59.99 + $10 install/update, respectively) and Webroot SpySweeper ($29.99 + $10 install + update). As absurd as it sounds, a lot of customers believe they can not install software, and trust us to do so. The prices for in-home worst is a bit higher of course, but brining your machine to a Best Buy or GS store isn't such a bad idea to most customers. And believe me, I recommend plenty of customers just buy a new machine (cost exceeds value).

  • what bothers me about this (Score:3, Interesting)

    by uncadonna ( 85026 ) <`mtobis' `at' `gmail.com'> on Monday July 18, 2005 @09:03PM (#13099858) Homepage Journal
    Hardware is cheap, but as we all know most of the margin from these sales goes to microsoft. Talk about unfair. The people responsible for the mess get the benefit.

    The other thnig that bothers me is this constant reference to Apple's "3 per cent" market share. I swear the *majority* of computer users I see outside corporate settings are on macs; this includes a significant sampiling of 1) open sourcerers 2) cafe denizens 3) academics and 4) self-employed/very small business people. So what gives?

    Well, Apples last a long time. Suppose Apples last 3 times as long as PCs. (On the basis of this story, the ratio is probably increasing.) Then the actual market share in computer-months is about 9%, not 3%. Now suppose that Apple people actually LIKE their computers, and spend three times as much time with them. Then the user share is about 27%. About a quarter of the actual minutes people spend with computers would be with Macs. Accounting for hidebound corporations and government agencies this looks more like real life to me.
  • (Use the Preview Button! Check those URLs! Check those fucking dupes!!! MORONS!!!)

    Important Stuff

    # Try to put *NEW* stories on the system instead of fucking dupes!!! MORONS!!!

    # Read other people's stories before posting your own to avoid simply duplicating what has already been said!!! MORONS!!!

    [Addition of the term "MORONS!!!" is my contribution to good user interface design.]

  • it's like this... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Sfing_ter ( 99478 ) on Monday July 18, 2005 @09:28PM (#13100006) Homepage Journal
    I tell my customers after a 15min. glance (free of charge), that they have 2 options:
    1) I clean it there (provided they have dsl), and it will take anywhere from 2-6 hours and after that it may still require a 2hr. re-install of the OS.
    OR
    2) I take it to my shop (where I can work on it and others and play Quake), and charge them a 2hrs. labor flat fee.

    Most choose 1, i don't know why I always recommend 2, because, hey, I love my Quake... :)

    When the bill is in the range that they could have gotten a new computer, they realize their mistake. However, I do set them up with a spyware blocker, MS' Official, Firefox for browsing (with a 5 minute WOW tutorial), and recommend them switching to Thunderbird for email, and recommend they purchase Norton for Anti-Virus (or update).

    (And yes, for most of them IE is their ISP... not kidding, 'I pay SBC, but Internet Explorer is my ISP...right?').

    I do what the customer asks, and when I point out that they are asking for the incorrect thing, they get indignant and demand their ignorance! So I provide them with that for which they ask.

    I have also had some who say 'Can't I just get a new computer and give this one to the kids?', why yes... or you could just have me get your data backed up, restore the os, and you can have it all back good as new for 2 hrs. labor... "NO, I want a new one", and so it goes.

    I got a free 1ghz. laptop that way, customer got angry said get my data off it and throw it in the trash. Passed my K6-500 compaq Lappy to my son,(Mepis 3.3.1), running good, and I get the new trash :)

    Saving data costs money and most people want that done even though they do not/will not do it before they have problems...

    What part of,"An emergency on your part does not constitute one on mine" do you not understand?

  • Dupe (Score:3, Informative)

    by ozbon ( 99708 ) on Tuesday July 19, 2005 @05:20AM (#13101804) Homepage
    Amazingly, no-one seems to have complained yet that this story is a dupe of this one [slashdot.org] from Sunday.

    That must be fairly newsworthy in itself!

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