* Bob Tanner <tanner at real-time.com> [011116 21:27]: > > What sort of equipment do i need? > > laptop > yes. Depending on what your doing, perhaps. Ive done things without a laptop, it can be pretty hard, though, if its sysadmin stuff. > > cell phone > yes. Or 2-way pager. I would actually recommend not using a cell phone for support calls, its horrendous to have to interrupt people over a client who cant figure out how to print or somehting else minor. This can be (partially) solved by overdocumenting. > > desk somewhere, with office supplies > no. I can and do "live" on my laptop. Agreed, I would at least have a laptop if your going to be doing lots of sysadmin like stuff. Its hard without the right tools. > > computer 'toolkit' [crimper, cat 5 clips, screwdrivers...] > yes. Belkin kit. We all have them at Real Time. Yes, if your doing networks and stuff. If your programming, no :) One hot market off the top of my head is finding companies going from peer-to-peer networking on win95 to client-server on w2k. Find these places and offer a good support contract if you can get them to have a (slow is fine) 24x7 internet connection. Then have a firewall and a server at their location, the server running samba, the clients all running TightVNC. You can then most likely fix much of the nasty problems from home or on the road (GPRS, voicestream.com) and only have to worry about hardware problems. It more runs into a one-man-asp. (GPRS is expensive, though, so you might want to offer different levels of turn-around time (4hr, 6hr, 24h) to beable to only use GPRS and VNC when necessary, unless its just tweaking a server over ssh) I would advise on 2-way pager and a req-like system for that. Avoid having to do lots of syncronous comms if you want to provide cost-effective and less stressful service to clients. Clients might hate it, but them tell them to go ask how much some lots-of-people shop will charge them an hour for phone support. If the load gets bad, find some hired goons to man the email system and fix things in parallel with your physical work. Pay them less, charge the customers more. (con: deal with crappy employment laws or whatever crap youve got to deal with in that situation) I've tried convincing places to have a deticated modem line up instead, too often they would rather multiplex you on the fax line and switch over the line to the computer when necessary. This is a PITA. My .02. I've avoided going back because I didn't have the toys nor a willing employer to want to go to this model. I got sick of going out of my way (40+min drive) for dumb problems and helping them on the phone since they refused to work over email. I really do love where I work compared to consulting. :) -- Scott Dier <dieman at ringworld.org> <sdier at debian.org> http://www.ringworld.org/ #linuxos at irc.openprojects.net So I ran up to him, and the exchange went something like this: Me: Oh my god! You're Larry Niven! Him: Oh my god! You're Wil Wheaton! -Wil Wheaton, in a Slashdot interview