OK, so maybe OT: Computer Techs...I am on of these...I am losing my job...bad company, bad managment decisions, bad ideas.  I know there are a lot of people on this forum from all walks of life...I live in a decent size town with a lot of large company offices and a lot of crap.  I know what small companies do...they call me and I fix or set up their computers and networks.  I know the large companies outsource all their work to companies that basically offer nothing.  I am at peace with this system..even though all 3 of my neighbors work for large companies and work in thier Infomation Technology Support Systems division and make over 3 times what I make, but they call me when they can't fix their home computer.  There has to be a happy medium between  turning me down for a job because I don't have experience rolling out something on the scale of 10,000 computers and answering phones for stupid outlook questions at $12 an hour with no benefits..  I am the "Swiss Army Knife" of computer techs...10 years of actual experience...I manage linux servers, unix servers, AD and windows servers...I can set up and cable networks...I can deal with cisco equiptment, although not certified...I can build servers, workstations, networks...I could install windows 3.11 or windows 7 and everything in between.  I can upgrade your entire network or just one terminal...I can set up virtual OS's...I know Apache and IIS...although not a pro, I understand mySQL and SQL.  The closest I have ever seen was a job at a car dealership that wanted all of this plus graphic design experience...this I do not have...I am a tech, not an artist.  Does anyone hire techs anymore?  I am not looking for a job...but where do people waste their money these days?

Next time start charging $100.00 per call plus $25.00 gas fee for over 25 miles.

JJK

 Not exactly what your wanting but have a read anyway:

I know of one nich in the money making world right now that could be exploited by you. Seems everybody with a General Motors truck type vehicle from 03 to 07 is having trouble with the instrument cluster going coo coo. The speedometer quits working properly is usually the first thing to fail. IE: showing 120mph when your really only going 55. Anyway I just had this exact problem with the wifes Tahoe. Dealer wanted $400.00 to fix it with a cluster swap. So I start reading on the net that you can swap the stepper motors behind the gauges and that will fix the problem. Sure enough I found a full set of steppers on Ebay for about $30.00.

I then followed the instructions I got with the motors which were basically: Pulling the trim, pulling the cluster, disassemble, mark needles, desolder, resolder in all new motors on the back of the clusters circuit board, reinstall everything, presto it was done. Took me about 2hours and $30 to do it myself. I see other outfits doing it for $200.00.

Now this was unexpected: I have had two other people call me from my wifes work (as office of 8 or so people) to see if I would repair their clusters and how much. If I didn't already have enough irons in the fire I would be really temped to give this a go. You certainly could make some dollars doing it if you can follow instructions and desolder/solder pins on a circuit board. 

 Sorry to hear.  Unfortunatly, my tiny little company is not in a position to hire a computer technition.  What little IT we need to do, we have a technition on hand to cover it (and in fact, just about any of us there has the experience necessary to cover most IT tasks).  More major stuff, such as upgrading a server (like we just recently did to handle automatic backup across the network), we call in some guy that does it independently and contract it out.  Admittedly, we primarily do it because it is actually cheaper to contract it out than getting one of us software engineers to do it in-house, plus we don't want to take away from the actual engineering projects to handle IT issues (considering the kinds of salaries we are actually commending).  I am one of the senior software engineers there (with over 16 years of experience).

If you had any software engineering experience, even on a junior level, than I might be able to help you, since we are looking for another software engineer.  Even in this economy, you'd be surprised how difficult it is to find even a decent junior software engineer around here. 

Like was alluded with the "charging $100.00 per call plus $25.00 gas fee for over 25 miles" post, perhaps look into going into it as your own independent.  I would imagine there are plenty of companies, like mine, that would need those kinds of services.

Thanks for the advise all...I was in the mood to rant and got some good advise too.  I was thinking there might have been some sort of industry I was overlooking during my job hunt.  I am going to try to keep the ship afloat with some independant work, but I don't think that is an answer to a career choice.  IT is frustrating that every business has computers these days...I know most small companies can not afford to keep an IT staff on hand...most large companies contract work out, which in this economy is a horrible place to look...no benefits and low pay since so many people are out of work they can get low level help for next to nothing.  Two days left of work and things are not looking good.  Thanks for all the advise and listening to my rant haha. ACE