That isn't what "door to door" means though.
Fixing Macs door to door
61–70 of 213 posts
Re: Fixing Macs door to door
#62Great story! This had me confused though: > Often I'd show up only to tell them their hard drive was dead and everything was gone. This was just how things worked before iCloud Photos, nobody kept backups and everything was constantly lost forever. Why not suggest sending the drive off to a recovery service? They certainly existed back then, wealthy clients could afford it, and you could add a nice markup.
Expensive (even for the wealthy, a lot of the time), not guaranteed to work, inviting more ire if it doesn’t work.
Doesn't help you now, but often data recovery companies such as DriveSavers only charge a fee if they are successful.
Re: Fixing Macs door to door
#63The experiences of people who meet a wide range of customers are always interesting. I had read a similar story of a man who worked at car showrooms of various brands (such as Honda, Toyota). > Look it's important that if you see Oprah, you act normally, please don't ask her for an autograph or a photo I never understood why people drool when they see celebrities. Movie actors, musicians, sportspersons etc — I like w…
The trick, and I say this as someone who's gotten to meet a fair number of musicians, including some semi-famous ones, is that they're people. Plus they're also huge music nerds. Just mention Cheap Trick and you're in... (Although at the same time, do know how to read the room - it's not that hard to tell when someone just wants to be left alone.
Those genuine interactions are better than any autograph or selfie.
Re: Fixing Macs door to door
#64This takes me back. Way back in like 2004-2006 or so I was working a computer repair desk at a big retailer and did a ton of side business. The side business honestly paid more than my job did. I would travel around NYC fixing things for mostly clueless people. People attempting to screw me on payment was common. The frequent move was to offer drugs or sex in lieu of payment after the work was done. The only sane res…
I did that too, worked for a computer shop and often got hired by clients.
Never got offered sex on lieu of payment unfortunately, I would have taken it :) Nor drugs but I don't do those.
Re: Fixing Macs door to door
#65I did this in the mid 90s. It was really fun to see inside a lot of rich people's houses, the sort that have libraries so big they need those ladders with wheels on to scoot around. I was hit on by several bored housewives, including one that answered the door in her open robe. One American woman had brought her inkjet from the USA and I hooked it up to a decent convertor, but it wasn't one that converted the frequen…
Just a PSA (not trying to harp on parent commenter, just taking their comment as an opportunity to soapbox) but never, ever, every go into a room or building that is getting smokey from something burning. It's how you N+1 the casualty/death count in a fire. Unlike the heroes in films and movies, you don't have Plot Armor.
It is incredibly common that people think they can just go back in holding their breath or stay low or cover their mouth with their clothing like in hollywood...but they take a bit of a breath, cough, and suck in lungfuls of the smoke, and are almost immediately incapacitated.
A lot of things, like PVC for example, release chlorine gas when they burn, which immediately turns your lung mucus into hydrochloric acid. All the other things in the smoke is incredibly bad for you both short and long-term, too.
The smoke is also flammable. Opening a door lets in oxygen, and oxygen + fuel + heat = a fuckton of heat, very suddenly.
I really wish that writers would suffer legal liability for shit like showing people entering a building with their shirt over their mouth - it's where people get the idea that they can so that sort of stuff.
Re: Fixing Macs door to door
#66Great story! This had me confused though: > Often I'd show up only to tell them their hard drive was dead and everything was gone. This was just how things worked before iCloud Photos, nobody kept backups and everything was constantly lost forever. Why not suggest sending the drive off to a recovery service? They certainly existed back then, wealthy clients could afford it, and you could add a nice markup.
Expensive (even for the wealthy, a lot of the time), not guaranteed to work, inviting more ire if it doesn’t work.
Yeah. Not photos at the time but I’ve lost inadequately backed up hard drives at a time when online backups and external drives weren’t really a thing. Annoying but not something I was going to spend thousands of dollars to try to get recovered.
Re: Fixing Macs door to door
#67This takes me back. Way back in like 2004-2006 or so I was working a computer repair desk at a big retailer and did a ton of side business. The side business honestly paid more than my job did. I would travel around NYC fixing things for mostly clueless people. People attempting to screw me on payment was common. The frequent move was to offer drugs or sex in lieu of payment after the work was done. The only sane res…
I did that too, worked for a computer shop and often got hired by clients. Never got offered sex on lieu of payment unfortunately, I would have taken it :) Nor drugs but I don't do those.
It's almost never the attractive, talented, or regularly-tested-for-STIs-and-STI-free ones that offer the sex...
Re: Fixing Macs door to door
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not an American city thing. It’s a bad neighborhood while carrying an iMac box thing. There’s plenty of cities worldwide with rough neighborhoods where I would absolutely not want to be lugging apple branded stuff through at night.
That's why I feel safer rocking Chinese branded electronics. Who's gonna rob my Lenovo and OnePlus?
Junkie can. They will hit you first and then figure out what is in the box.
Re: Fixing Macs door to door
#69I did this in the mid 90s. It was really fun to see inside a lot of rich people's houses, the sort that have libraries so big they need those ladders with wheels on to scoot around. I was hit on by several bored housewives, including one that answered the door in her open robe. One American woman had brought her inkjet from the USA and I hooked it up to a decent convertor, but it wasn't one that converted the frequen…
> That job put me in contact with a criminal gang who went on to supply with me dozens of GBs of stolen hard drives that I used to create what was probably the largest warez FTP
Statements like this seem to agree with the anti-piracy groups' narrative about piracy being closely related to organized crime, a claim that initially seemed questionable to me.
Re: Fixing Macs door to door
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
> When I got out and realized it was dark, I started to accept something bad was likely about to happen to me. This was the only part that really got me. I have visited a few major US cities but never really lived there, but now I’m wondering how common it is for American city dwellers to be afraid of the dark.
Entirely place dependent, these days (30-50 years ago, crime was seriously pretty bad). I live in a huge American city, and I have virtually no fear of personal or property crime when I’m out at night. But in many cases, if I shifted my path a half mile in a different direction, it’d be a different story. Like anywhere, I would suppose, being aware of your surroundings, keeping your wits and not making yourself into…
Its very important to know the area. Because I grew up in Detroit I know where to go and where not to go. Downtown the billionaire Dan Gilbert owns a huge chunk of buildings. He has his own security force and cameras literally covering every square inch. It's worth it to know exactly where those cameras end because the criminals do and that is where you are most often to encounter them.