How do you deal with people who ask you to fix their computer?

Usually I just fix it, because I think of it this way: the amount of time I'll spend fixing this is (usually) trivial compared to the amount of time they'll waste trying to fix it - if I'm someone's friend, and I can take 10 minutes out of my day to fix something that they would struggle with for an hour or two and make their life a little better, shouldn't I do it? Today you, tomorrow me.<p>That being said, I'm not particularly bombarded by these kinds of requests and I could definitely see it wearing on me if people were constantly asking me to fix their machines.

If they're on Windows, I send them to www.ninite.com to get antivirus, anti-malware, and Firefox to browse with. All their selections will be packaged into a single, slick installer by the site. This handles a lot of problems. I often have them do it themselves while I supervise. This reduces dependency.

I don't mind doing it for family or close friends, but if it is some tangentially related person I tell them I charge $90 an hour. This really cuts down on the leechers, and you'd be surprised how many people will actually pay you.<p>p.s. I came up with this rate because it's the same amount that the local Subaru race shop charges to work on your car.

I don't mind fixing some friends' computers. I draw the line when they are running a pre-2001 computer with 2011 software in, you guessed it, 2011. My family is incredibly frugal so they don't understand why a computer from 2000 is now slow, and that buying a new one would fix their problem.

I'm surprised at how bitter those responses are. Of course I will help friends and family with their computer problems -- they are my friends and my family! When I run into trouble and need their help I would hope they'd be there for me...

<i>It's obviously not real work because you're just sitting at a computer.</i><p>This is what most people think. The only response to charge an absurd amount of money. If they shut up, you win, if they pay, you win.

I have a stack of printouts of xkcd's tech support cheat sheet [1], that I just hand to the person.<p>[1] <a href="http://xkcd.com/627/" rel="nofollow">http://xkcd.com/627/</a>

"What's a computer? Is that like a copier? I tried to fix one of those once and then this black stuff went everywhere. Yeah, and it doesn't really come out of carpet, either!"

I refer them to friends that do that for money. I've helped a few really broke friends though.