Troubleshoot PCs

Troubleshoot PCs After years spent fixing their kids' computers, Donna Gaynor and Maria Luskin decided they could earn extra income doing just that for people in their San Diego neighborhood. So they took classes to become certified through the Computing Technology Industry Association (comptia.com), an international IT trade organization. In 2002, Gaynor and Luskin formed PC Divas, a mini-business that brings in about $3,000 a month. They try to work no more than 20 hours a week -- usually from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. while their teenage children are in high school. "We called ourselves PC Divas so we'd always remember that this is a side venture and that we have families and lives," says Gaynor, laughing. They have about 250 clients, charge $75 an hour, and limit repairs to computers within a 10-minute radius of their homes. A growing part of their business is diagnosing problems remotely -- provided the client has Windows XP. With the client's permission, Gaynor and Luskin use software that lets them see the customer's desktop from their home computer and even control the client's mouse to resolve problems. "We have a client in his 70s who regularly calls to say he can't find a file or that his computer is acting strange," says Luskin. "I connect to his PC while he's sitting in front of it, and I use his cursor to show him what's wrong or where a file is located. It freaks him out a little -- it's like watching a piano play by itself -- but we're on the phone together and he trusts me." Gaynor and Luskin's advice: Review a service contract from a major computer-repair company and use it as a model. Then have a lawyer draw up a tailor-made contract that advises the customer of the risk to his data and limits your responsibility to the agreed-upon repair. It should also specify a time limit to any guarantee of your work. "We make our own schedules; we work only a few hours a day and provide good service," says Gaynor. "We're computer divas."