On 4/10/22 21:48, Roger Blake wrote:
> On 2022-04-10, T <T@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>> Same with me. Referrals are my best source.
>> Unfortunately starting last year, a number
>> of my older customers have died on me.
>
> I also have customers I've worked with for 20-30 years.
>
>> To get new customers. I have to walk in, shake
>> hands, and hand out cards. It is not very effective
>> and I have to visit about 40 business to land one.
>
> I haven't been actively soliciting new customers. (I have boxes of
> business cards that will never get used.) As old customers retire,
> pass away, or sell to new owners who have their own computer support
> I'm not soliciting replacements.

I am about five years away from that.

> I figure when I run out of customers
> I'll retire from this and do something else if I get bored. The only
> new customers I consider taking on are referrals from long-time trusted
> clients IF it's a good fit. (There are some things for which I refuse
> to provide support for in any case, like Outlook or Exchange.)

I do provide support for them and I DO OT BLAME YOU.
What garbage.

>
> I haven't decided yet whether to bail out on customers who run Windows 11.
> On the one hand it is an abomination and in my limited contact with
> it a pain in the ass to work with. However not many have it yet.

W11 is trying to make a desktop into a tablet again.
It is poorly conceived.

I install Open Shell and Explorer Patcher and W11 becomes
more usable.

> For now
> I'm advising my people not to accept Microsoft's "generous" free upgrade
> if it is offered and to buy new PCs with Windows 10 whenever possible. In
> time there may be ways of dealing with the steaming pile of obnoxious crap
> in Windows 11 to make it more palatable.
>
>> And if a business does not have an I.T. consultant,
>> there is always the risk of finding out just exactly
>> why no one else will work for them. The tip off is
>> when I have to chase after them to get paid and/or
>> they accuse me of causing what I was called in to
>> fix and did fix. There are some real ass holes
>> out there.
>
> I got rid of the asshole clients a long time ago. At this point I only
> work for people I like or projects I'm interested in.

You can only do that when you are not seeking new clients.
Once they show me who they are, I stop working for them
as fast as possible.

I dropped a long time client about six months ago becasue
her most valued employee kept back stabbing me. I
stayed working for the client as I had the clients trust. But suddenly
when the employee's bile started coming out the clients mouth, I told
him I had to have his trust, which
I obviously no longer had, and I could no longer work
for him. It sucked, but I could not work for him under
those conditions.

>
>> Can't find any Linux work though, other that what
>> I generate myself.
>
> It's out there. A good part of my business is maintaining Linux and BSD
> servers on the internet (web servers, mail servers, etc.). Nice thing
> about those jobs, aside from not having to work with Windows, is they're
> done remotely so I can just slouch about and not even shave if I don't
> feel like it.
>

Hmmmmmm. I wonder where I could pick up some web servers.

On 2022-04-11, T <T@invalid.invalid> wrote:
> Hmmmmmm. I wonder where I could pick up some web servers.

They're obviously all over the place and most run some kind of *nix
operating system. Since I hail from the early pre-web internet, as people
and businesses starting getting interested in "thuh web" in the 1990s I
pretty much just fell into doing that. (People who knew anything about it
were relatively few and far between back then.) It's just been word of
mouth since then. I'm really not sure how one would get started in that
space at this point now that it's well-established and largely saturated.

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On 4/11/22 15:08, Roger Blake wrote:
> On 2022-04-11, T <T@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>> Hmmmmmm. I wonder where I could pick up some web servers.
>
> They're obviously all over the place and most run some kind of *nix
> operating system. Since I hail from the early pre-web internet, as people
> and businesses starting getting interested in "thuh web" in the 1990s I
> pretty much just fell into doing that. (People who knew anything about it
> were relatively few and far between back then.) It's just been word of
> mouth since then. I'm really not sure how one would get started in that
> space at this point now that it's well-established and largely saturated.
>

That is pretty much what I am seeing.

Thank you for the advice!