I generally trade favors with friends for computer stuff. Or sometimes I just do it for free. The thing is, I’ve stayed blissfully ignorant of a lot of hardware type things, so when I get the “I’m have problem X with my new Y”, I generally can say with a straight face, “I’m really not the person to call.” I mean I can figure out stuff if I have to, but generally there’s someone around who can do a better job.

Now every once in a while I do get requests like, “could you write me a program to do X?” Those I almost always do pretty much for free (if it’s a small task) because I just love to write code (I know, sick).

My saving grace is that we have no family on either side living anywhere near us and most of the people we know are computer savvy. So I rarely (these days) get much in the way of requests to fix stuff. And if I do, usually it’s a pretty interesting problem so it’s fun to do.

The one exception is the bass player in my band; he really isn’t savvy at all. But he has an incredible wood workshop and an amazing touch, so I have no doubt I’m going to end up owing him more than he’ll ever owe me!