Since my wife and I moved to Glendale, Arizona, two years ago, I really need to go back to work.  I’m just a tad too young to retire and we need a bit more income to make ends meet.  So, I’ve decided to start a local in-home computer business – Your Friendly Neighborhood Computer Guy.  I’ve been building and repairing them since 1998 and I’ve gotten pretty good at it over the years.  I’ve probably encountered most of the problems that can occur—sometimes simultaneously, which really makes it hard—and I believe I can troubleshoot and repair any computer.

I stay current with the state of the art and have observed many changes over the past fifteen years.  Since I bought my first 100mhz PC with a 1 gig hard drive and eight megabytes of ram, with Microsoft Windows 3.11, computers have been steadily improving.  They are quite often out of date virtually weeks after you take them from the store.  But that doesn’t mean they aren’t still effective.  My personal computer is three years old but it still gets the job done. Sure, I’d love a new one but I just can’t justify that.

My son finished computer training school in 1998 - myself recently divorced - and was living with me at the time. I had a few bucks and told him I would buy the parts and he could build them and we could make a little money. He accepted and we built and sold our first computer within weeks. I watched carefully, asked a lot of questions and learned quickly. Which was a good thing as my son soon met his present wife and moved out, leaving me to my own devices.

Fry’s Electronics had these major ads every Friday - still do - and I couldn’t resist a good deal. So I developed a habit of one computer per week; I enjoyed building them so much. Having a hard time selling them, I quickly built up quite an inventory. My hobby soon became a bit overwhelming and I had to kick my little habit. So, I turned to helping my friends and family with their computer problems, a great way to keep my hand in, so to speak. Occasionally, I get to build a new one and it’s still fun.

The most problems I had were with the brand name computers; Compaq, Hewlitt Packard, Gateway and others. It was because they were so damn proprietary. Some would only take that brand’s replacement parts and were tricky to get apart, and yet I prevailed. This is no longer the case as most company’s have come around—except for laptops. In my next blog I have chronicled the most horrific laptop story of all time… it’s a doozey, and in two or three parts yet, how ‘bout that?

I’m going to offer up for the fine people of Glendale, a most excellent in-home computer service because I love doing it so much. I plan to provide honest, reliable and reasonably priced service to all who give me a call. It seems a good way to get acquainted with my neighbors, and make a living at the same time. Now, what could be better than that?