I am retired/disabled. I have 20 years experience fixing computers and networks.

I fix computers for free for anyone who is on public assistance or on a tight budget from being under employed. Anyone else can donate cash or defunct hardware or to a charity if they are fully employed.

I do it for fun. I miss the puzzles, and most of the computer users out there can no more clean up after a malware infection than they can remove their own tonsils.

Sure the tedious reloading and scanning is not as much fun as chasing down malfunctioning drivers and polymorphic trojans and rootkits but i get the bizarre puzzles the commercial shops can't invest the time to find and fix.

I have always done computer (and appliance, auto and electronic) repair because I love it. I hope some of you get as much enjoyment out of it as I do. Of course I still curse Bill Gates regularly as well as Steve Jobs (whenever I have to completely disassemble a mac laptop to replace the hard drive) but that (and knowing just how brilliant, demented and out of touch some programmers are) is part of the legacy of the industry. (Win 7 still crashes the copy command when it hits a too long filename)

An artist gotta paint even as he starves. I am grateful people bring their PC's to me to play with because ultimately, I win in the exchange.

Can already outlive their creators.

#dead

Now how to make a profit out of it for those of us still temporarily alive...

I have built data centers beginning in the days when 10 meg hubs were current state of the art. The only pre-made cable I have ever used were recent patch panel cables in a customers closet and I have made thousands of them while waiting for the emergency phone to ring or the Cisco courier to show up.

While it is possible to screw up cables and even graybar will happily deliver the wrong connectors in bags of 1000, there are basic testers and most current home office routers will do electrical length and throughput testing while you yank on the crimp.

There are thousands of miles of my cables and fiber splices passing these bits in this message right now. (My ISP is a former employer)

Your boss is a fool but don't think that is something new in the business.

Key information is...
Ted Stevens is for it. A co sponsor.
The Dem co sponsors are blue dogs owned by one corporation or another.

This means Ted can make a profit off it in some way.

Following a proven rule of thumb, this means it is going to be very bad for anyone who does not own either an oil company or a telco.