New Story for Everyone of another converted

[o0splitpaw0o]

So Saturday, I had an old customer of mine bring a PC in for repair. After cleaning up found 119 pieces of malware, viruses and trosians. I cleaned it up, and gave him a copy of Ubuntu 6.10 and told him to demo it and keep the disk. 4 hours later I get a call. He said he installed it and wanted me to help him sign on to Netzero. In a "uh oh!" I relized he's using dialup and was sure Netzero would work. He brings it back later and says he wants to use it. So I check his modem which was a Intel v92 modem, but it was not responding and suggested he buy one of my serial zoom modems I had. Well I had the modem, but no more serial cable on hand. I showed him since it setup dual boot how to get back into Windows from grub so he could sign in and suggested he can have both. Since I didn't have a serial cable on hand and it was late, I didn't want to put him through any more troubles, so I passed on the external modem until I had some more serial cables come back in.

Today (Monday) he has his wife bring it back in with a note from him that says "I'll buy the modem. Import my address book and documents over, and have my wife buy the cable." I tell her what to buy at Radio Shack. She comes back and I set it up. Works just fine and call them to pick it up.

He calls me 2 hours before I close and states he can't get online with Netzero. Reading through, yea Netzero has it's own special dialer which is a .deb package on their site, but only support Linspire. Now I am freaking, because I want to just get him online. I walk him trough setting the modem up in XP, and he clicks on sign on, but as soon as the browser comes up, it locks up... surprisingly xxxtoolbar (which was removed) is attempting to load, resulting in locking the browser up at it TRIES to install a broken activex plugin. I then walk him through a Windows restore from his XP CD and tell hi to call me back once the install was complete.

20 min until closing, calls back, not his modem needs to be reinstalled... ok I do it and while walkign him through he says " Hey. I really appreciate the work your doing, but I really like that Ubuntu. If this means I have to switch dialup providers just to use it, I will." I tell him OK. and he's bringing it back tomorrow. Wants a FULL disk just for Ubuntu. I told him I'll look for a caparison priced dialup ISP for him when he gets there tomorrow.

amount of converted in 2 weeks so far... 6

BWAAAAAH!!!

[slayerboy]

awesome! I love stories like this! When I repaired computers I tried desperately, but being how I worked in a setting where we also sold computers and MS products, recommending Linux was a no-no, and helping to install was even more of a slap on the wrist.

I tried converting friends and family but my selling skills must have slipped the past year because nobody wants to hear about it! LOL. Gratz!

[johnc4510]

That's great. Here's the dialup provider I used a while back before I got cable. Linux compatible and a very decent price. Download speeds were not bad for dialup. Also had access numbers for V.90 and V.92 firmware.
http://www.highstream.net/

[Seekker]

I'll keep this in mind as most of my customers are still on dialup, too ...

Thanks for sharing your experiences, guys! Greatly appreciated!

[o0splitpaw0o]

That's great. Here's the dialup provider I used a while back before I got cable. Linux compatible and a very decent price. Download speeds were not bad for dialup. Also had access numbers for V.90 and V.92 firmware.
http://www.highstream.net/

Thanks, I emailed him the link. You made a happy customer, plus possibly a customer for life .

[hardyn]

there cant be any price advantage for dialup anymore, can there?

i don't think dialup is even available from the big players in canada anymore.

[slayerboy]

there cant be any price advantage for dialup anymore, can there?

i don't think dialup is even available from the big players in canada anymore.

Might not be any price advantage where you are, but I live in a semi-rural area, and the other ISP's I can get are either dial-up or Cable. My cable internet costs me $40/month. Dial-up would cost me about $20.

BUT! I don't have a home phone line since I use my cell phone as a home phone as well. So, coupled with having to pay for a phone-line and the dial-up ISP, no there is no price advantage. But if a household already has a land-line phone, then yes there is an advantage.

[o0splitpaw0o]

there cant be any price advantage for dialup anymore, can there?

i don't think dialup is even available from the big players in canada anymore.

I live in a part where many people have:

A: jobs in Factories
B: Jobs as Farmers

So if they don't live near dense populated areas they don't have nothing but dial up to choose from, or they are living on small budgets. So dialup is the only choice they have.

By the way - That customer is switching the highstream ASAP and gave a big thank you yesterday - Another one just came in today asking about getting a CD. And I'm out! uhg! hoping to get my CD's soon! I'm drawing a buzz in town!

[Vorian]

B: Jobs as Farmers

My bread and butter