Our Technical Friends Get Involved.

When we talk to other technicians both in and out of our state we hear many of the same questions about security concerns, infrastructure design, policy and network monitoring. The same concerns I have many of you have.

The issue is when we find IT Administrators that aren't concerned. It's not good enough to run just your monthly GFI scans or if you have setup with an outside source to scan remotely you'll just burning money.

If you came to this page via the XCtM Project let me tell you that every system listed is a cracked / hacked / trojan infested / zombie computer. How can I be so sure? If I told you the truth you'll laugh so I'll lie to you and say my script finds all the information I need.

The best part of having a Hacked / Cracked / Trojan infested /Zombie computer list is I can actually pick up the phone and call the IT admin and tell them just what to look for in the students lab or on their server. Most all the scripts run on idle time and most IT people don't review logs after hours. (That's why I have my script SMS my phone with the info.) I'd rather have 17 alerts to my phone than 17 misused for hours computers.  

I am setting up the members section and once you see the Free Referral Sources disappear from the XCtM project pages you will know it's time to get down to business. Schools back in session which means more computers and more issues. The Alert notices based on industry will be about $5.00 to $25.00 per issue for the Network IT Admin in house. Outsourced but in country service will be $80 to $140 per reported issue. These figures are based on a 3 hour service call. Most sites will have more than one system infected which will require security audits which are normally 8 to 16 hours in length. 

Not bad for monitoring online abuse if you ask me. I've referred out hundreds of systems over the years and this time I plan on doing a thousand times more. It's all about the number of technicians that join the project and the number of sites the XCtM Project monitors. 

XtremeComputer.Com is a DIY website for beginner to advanced users. With only a handfull of help guides online the phone and email service requests have been coming in. Many of them out of state in which I need to refer them on to valid working technicians. (No 800-Geek Call centers pleases.)

You might get 3 or 4 referrals each month and then again you may never see a referral from us. It's all about getting the word out and having an up to date resource and referral list online for our visitors. 

• What should we do if we need assistance?
• How do we increase our customer base?

The answer is right in front of us and is very clear. We work as a group and offer support to each other.

But how would you control the costs to the main person or group offering support to other technicians was the main question we had.

Xtreme Computer has offered support to technicians in the past but stopped when we found franchised techs and the Geek 800 service technicians calling us for support without offering anything in return.

Because of the success we have had a customer referals we are going to start by offering support with only referal customers. The compensation will be from the referal fee for up to 3 issues or 30 minutes. It might not sound like much but when working with techs troubleshooting shouldn't take more than 10 to 12 minutes. The total repair time might be longer but that's your job in the field.

The main concern technicians have is keeping knowledge under control and how to be compensated for helping other technicians.

If we offered support to one technician and that technician earned income as a result of our support how would that technician compensate the second technician?

We thought about how often those Geek 800 technicians called years ago making it sound like they were the customer and asking for hints to get things going again. We always have offered a quick tip or two to customers calling in especially when we couldn't schedule them for atleast a day or two. Now we qualify the caller before offering any tips.

Because the IT industry doesn't have standards covering "Honesty amoungst Technicians" like the Communications we thought it would be time to start treating technicians as RF engineers. 

Here's our first mission plan.

• Sign up as a Technician.
• Send us a note using our contact page.
• If you have a website include that.
• Do not use FREE email accounts. No technician today would use Yahoo or GMail as a business account.
• Get your Business Technical Resume together.
• Take pictures of your service vehicle, yourself, support systems and tools.
• Make a detailed list of tools you have but not so detailed you list 40 6-point sockets just list them as a set.

We will be only working with professionals in our industry and not those that are looking for second incomes or work part-time in our industry.

Referrals will be sent when customers request a technician. We do not offer telephone technical support or remote technical support when we know we have a friendly technician in the area.

This is not an offer for business owners that do not have technical support backgrounds or businesses that focus on telephone and remote desktop support services. You must offer directly in your local service area field technical support.

More details in our Service Technicians section.


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