IT Freelancing

Thanks to both Craigslist, myspace & Dice, I've been doing a lot of freelance work. I usually try to target small companies that can't afford a full-time IT staff, but needs someone to setup all their computers, shared drives, user accounts, do maintenance & troubleshooting from time to time, and such & such. It's a great experience as I get to meet with individuals, get to learn about their business & sometimes consult them on the kind of PC or software they should invest on. My first priority is to make sure the client has a reliable system that won't break all the time. It should be also affordable. It's better to spend few extra hundred dollars on a Dell Latitude over Inspiron. I'm also a big supporter of open source. I always advice people to try Open Office over Microsoft Office, Thunderbird over Outlook, Avira AntiVir over Symantec Norton, or Ubuntu over Xp, and definitely not Vista. Most people give me a blank look the first time I mention Open Source and that's when I take out my laptop & give a little demo of the things they would normally do on a proprietary software.

When working as a freelance I meet many different kinds of people with all kinds of unimaginable businesses. Like the time, I met a woman who called me around 12.30 in the morning to invite me to play tennis with her at UCLA next day. Excuse me, did I miss something here...??!! I never even talked about tennis with her before, ever.

I always try to get as much information possible from the clients before going over & working on something. This gives me the opportunity to prepare myself whether if I need to carry any extra hardwire or software with me. Alas, that doesn't happen all the time. No matter how much I ask about their particular problem, you can always expect something to creep up on you. For instance, the time someone asked me to help with her laptop. I showed up to not only her laptop, but her boyfriends desktop in the next office & the wireless internet as well. Now there's no wire running to his office but he wants to go online. I get on the phone with his boyfriend & tell him the alternative to running wire would be an USB Wireless adapter. Next question:

"Well, do you have it with you? How much is that gonna cost?"

"I don't have one on me, but you can get one at Office Depot..."

Well, isn't that a waste of my money. What's the point of you coming out & you can't fix the problem?..."

I respond angrily, "Most techs don't carry this kind of stuff with them unless you had mentioned beforehand. Beside, I was called to work on laptop with virus issues."

Right then his girlfriend takes the phone from me & talks to him.

Yet, at the end of the appointment just smile at them, give 'em a business card and ask for future appointments & referral to their friends. Chao.

Well, enough of freelance junk. Here's a cool video I came across recently. He's got few other nice videos on YouTube. Check 'em out.