A great way to think of Scott Buntin’s very, very local business - ASAP Mac and PC Services – is to just refer to him as our “community brother-in-law.
Not everyone has relatives in town to watch our kids or that brother-in-law or neighbor just down the street that knows all about computers. It’s great when we have a friend who is handy with . . . fill-in-the-
Scott, who has been managing our Swap Shop web site and all our computer gear in the Swap Shop office and in The Roost, is all around handy with computers: hardware, software, basic repairs, data recovery, virus extraction and protection, and basic graphics and web design.
Both for my own lap top that is older than the Swap Shop and starting to show its age and for all the rest of us trying to squeeze every last bit of use out of what we already have in these harder economic times, I spent a morning over coffee with Scott this week at his usual haunt – Tabor Space at 55th and Belmont – talking portable computers.
Theoretically, a lap top can run just fine for up to ten years. However, Scott, with his many years working at the Apple help desk in Sacramento and now three years helping everyday Portlanders and small businesses keep it all running – knows the real life of our techie best friends is more like 3-5 years.
If you are trying to stretch a few more years out of what you already have or are ready to figure out how to upgrade, Scott offers a number of low cost and a few no cost ways to find out what to do next.
If you have a hankering for community and time on a Wednesday or Saturday morning, Scott can meet you at Tabor space 9-noon either day – it’s good to call first but just dropping by is OK too. He can show you a few quick things at no charge and give you a ballpark quote for anything bigger than a coffee house make over will cover.
Scott enjoys not having to be that guy working on commission trying to sell you a certain thing whether or not it’s a good for you. He’s seen everything from the lap top that got run over by the car backing up out of the driveway (oops) to the power cord that won’t connect any more – a tricky little problem that may mean a need for a whole new machine or just a quick fix.
There are many people he works with just once or twice with a minimum charge of $80 and a committed maximum (so you know what you are getting into) of no more than $200.
If you are running a home or small business where you like to have fixed costs and also know that everything is going to stay running and connected year round, Scott can work with you for less than $80 per month if your needs are simple, up to $200 per month for larger systems, giving you ongoing trouble shooting, training, maintenance and repair.
So if it won’t boot up, acts like it’s infected with some hacker’s idea of a funny joke, can’t access the internet, crashes every time you turn on a certain program, or your toddler emptied a sippy cup onto the keyboard, your membership at the Swap Shop includes an extra computer savvy brother-in-law: Scott Buntin of scott
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