The Danger of Relying on Google for Your Computer Repair Business
Google controls well over half of the United States' search market share. Your computer repair businesses may rely pretty heavily on it to bring in new customers. What happens if overnight your business is removed from Google's search results? Unfortunately, there are ways that your competition could get you banned or significantly punished in the SERPs.
Google deals with billions of websites. Most of the sites it sees are spam or garbage. Google (and other SE's) have automated systems to classify and penalize websites. If a smart competitor understands the classification system, then he can make you look like you are using Black Hat techniques to promote your site, getting you banned or penalized.
I won't get into the details, but I will state that I have been the target of an obvious attack - I suspect by a competitor - and that my rankings suffered immediately. When I tried to reach Google, I received the usual corporate cut-and-paste reply that says "Google cares", but means "Google doesn't have time to deal with you". This is your warning that a competitor could take you out. Bottom line: diversify your advertising, and try not to rely too heavily on Google. Find out ways to get new customers other than the web. Small businesses are at the greatest risk - Since Google has decided that they do not have the resources to speak with the little guy, you are out of luck if you run into trouble.
BSOD Virus Recovery
After a virus removal, your computer may BSOD on the next boot due to registry changes that the virus made. Windows is looking at a corrupt registry, and it may point to a virus-infected file that was removed. At this point, restoring to the earliest registry backup on the system can be a quick fix.
Update: Thanks, drew010 for suggesting the Ultimate Boot CD's Registry Restore Wizard: "It just looks for registry backups taken by system restore and in two clicks allows you to restore the registry to any available restore date. It has saved me many times."
MS Security Essentials vs AVG vs Avast
Is it time to begin recommending Microsoft Security Essentials over AVG and Avast? AVG is easy to use, but the free version is somewhat crippled (no rootkit detection). Avast includes rootkit detection, but does not seem to scan the registry and has a user-unfriendly UI.
Microsoft Security Essentials screenshot
MS Security Essentials won't nag users to upgrade, has minimal required user interaction, and includes rootkit protection.
Get More Business with a Computer Repair Coupon
image credit: http://www.sxc.hu/profile/mrceviz
Although your margins will decrease when a coupon is used, you can still increase your overall earnings by charging a bit more and offering a coupon at the same time. Those who care enough about getting a deal will find and use your coupon. Others start their search for a service with a coupon, and might never have found your business in the first place if you did not offer a coupon.