Wow, Kaido! This is really some great information! I do have some of this stuff covered, but you've given me a lot to go on. Thanks so much for taking the time to post all of this. Very much appreciated. And the drive docks are something I've been using for a few years now, and I picked up my first copy of ghost back in 2000 (now using Acronis)...indispensable! But you've piqued my curiosity...you mentioned that you "do pretty much everything with VMware now"...could I ask you to expand on that? Also, how important has advertising been for you? Again, thanks for taking the time to help.
Macrium Reflect is the new Ghost. You can also mount Macrium Reflect images (.mrimg files) as virtual drives for read-only access, which is super handy - that's the way I back people's old drives up so they can still access their misc saved files down the road. You can use Macrium to clone a drive, clone to an image file, or clone to a virtual machine.
So VMware lets you virtualize a computer. If you're not familiar with that, it's basically an emulator, like a Nintendo emulator, but for computers. You can virtualize a drive using a P2V conversion (physical to virtual) if you need to keep old software running for whatever reason. For example, I had one client who used a janitor/maintenance program with years of data in it, but the company that made the software went out of business & it only supported a max of 1GB of RAM, so it wouldn't run on the new computer. I virtualized the entire old computer so that they could continue to run the program since it already had all of their data & they had no desire to upgrade to something newer.
You can use virtual machines in a lot of other applications as well. For example, you can setup a Windows Server to do stuff like WSUS, which is a local Windows Update server (or Nitrobit, which is a cheaper Linux server for doing Windows Updates). That way, when you do a fresh install on a system, you can zap over the Windows system updates from your LAN rather than via WAN from Microsoft's update servers. There are some tricks for hacking non-domain computers to talk to a WSUS server. That's pretty advanced stuff, but it can be a real timesaver to do little tricks like that.
Going back to Macrium, you can also clone to a partition & have a boot option to restore the "factory image", so if you setup someone's computer with Windows & Office, activate their licenses, run updates, install their software, etc., you can clone it for a "perfect" image and then use that later on down the road for a quick full system reload. Pretty nifty!
I started fixing computers in college, so it was mostly word of mouth. A couple computers a week pretty much covered my expenses back then. I then got into it professionally, both freelance & as an on-site guy, both of which I enjoyed. Freelance is fun if you like to stay busy; you can make a lot of money if you're willing to work all the time. There were lots of 16-hour days - the pay is good, but it can be a lot of hours, and then it can be quiet for awhile, so you have to learn how to budget well to get through the thin times. Fortunately with computers, it's like HVAC or plumbing work - computers are always breaking & it's really handy for consumer & businesses to have someone swing by to fix their stuff.
I do have buddies who do storefront & do pretty well, because if you're a place that people can just dump their electronics off at, well, it's like being the McDonalds of computer repair. Especially if you get into stuff like solder repairs on broken laptop power supplies, BIOS chip replacements, smartphone screen repair & battery swaps, that sort of thing. I worked with a guy a couple years ago who was so successful at doing that stuff on the side (including game console repair, like the Xbox's Red Ring of Death) that he quit working at our main job site & now runs his own (very successful) computer fixit business a couple towns over.
A lot of it depends on what you want to do. I work for a few sites now, but I'm under a main company that has a steady paycheck, health insurance, company barbecues, etc. I got paid more as a freelance consultant, but I also don't have the crazy hours or paycheck insecurity or lack of inexpensive healthcare options (although that's better these days!), so that's nice too. Sort of depends on the type of person you are. I've found I do like having a routine & seeing familiar faces, but it was also nice going out & meeting new people, driving around the state, doing lots of random jobs, etc.
If you know what you're doing, you'll always be able to make money. Computers are always breaking & very few people are willing to invest in a Mac or learn Linux to have a more stable computing experience. Although computers are getting cheaper as well, so economically, it's not always best to fix someone's computer when they can just buy a replacement & have you do the initial setup & data transfer from their old system. Lately I've been setting up a lot of people on those $249 15" Toshiba's from Best Buy. They're great machines and can also hook into a flat-screen TV, so sometimes I'll pick up a Logitech K400 and have them use it as kind of an HTPC.
I don't do much sidework these days due to my schedule (fulltime job + still doing night classes + family) and quit doing it for awhile, but I still take jobs here & there if someone really needs the help. The money is always nice. Personally I do a flat fee of $100 for a full-service operation: clean out your computer physically (wipe it down & blow it out), backup your stuff using a drive image, do a fresh install, and make a new master image. That way I don't have to deal with their viruses or finding files saved in random locations or whatever, since I just reinstall Window & dump a Macrium image of their old computer on the desktop for them to access. Easy peasy.