This is important, a must-read for all of my customers...

Over the last few months, a number of important changes have taken place here at Dellea.biz. Most of you are aware of some of them, but it's unlikely that you're aware of them all.

My Hourly Rates

I had to raise my standard Weekday Rate to $40 per hour, due to increases in my operating costs, thanks to our poor economy and inflation. Due to customer demand, I've introduced a Weekend Rate at $80 per hour, and I only make weekend house calls if I happen to be available. My weekends are dedicated to my family, my household, and my church, which makes weekends more precious than weekdays to me. I've also introduced a Holiday Rate at $120 per hour. I may work on some federal holidays, for example, where others do not, for your convenience. But holidays when I probably would not be available would be Christmas, New Years, Easter, July 4th, and Thanksgiving.

Increments & Minimums

In the past, my “secret” policy was that I would not charge anything if I could not fix the problem at hand. Unfortunately, I cannot afford to make free house calls any longer, primarily because I have to offset the cost of the "new-used" vehicle that I just bought, on top of my other usual expenses. Now my bare minimum for every house call is ¼ hour, and the rate is based on my rates noted above. My bare minimum is $10, even if I cannot fix the problem at hand. The positive side of this is that I used to have a 1 hour minimum, so if the problem is minor and only takes ½ hour to fix, then I only bill for ½ hour.

Reduced Hours In Warmer Months

This one is not really news, it's more of a reminder. I am deeply invested in my town. I do computer work for the town, and I host and maintain my town's web site on my own business hosting for free (as well as our church's web site). But, I also work for my town's Highway Department. In previous years, I worked for the town part-time from spring through autumn, however, the last couple of years I've worked for them about a half dozen weeks in the spring, and another half dozen in the autumn. This is because they were able to get someone else to fill in the summer months, which has opened up the summer for me to do computer work full-time. However, this can change on a year to year basis. It depends on if they can hire a summer worker or not, it also depends on how successful my business is in the winter and spring months.

Many Web Site Changes

I've spent numerous hours on revamping my web site to be more logically organized, to have more updated content, and to have some added features for your convenience.

• About Dellea.biz used to be divided up into several searchable documents. I've combined them into one single page on the site, so that everyone can find out everything about my services in one place. You should read it to see if there's anything that you don't know about my business.
• Call Dellea.biz used to be named Contact Dellea.biz, and it had an email form. Thanks to spammers, I had to eliminate the form from public access. So Call Dellea.biz simply shows some basic info about my services, and my phone number in bold. If you want E-mail Support, you need to Register as a user at my web site, which also unlocks more features and info.
• Computer FAQs is a database of frequently asked computer questions and answers. Whether you're new to computers or somewhat of a veteran, the Computer FAQs database may offer answers to many of your simple questions, like “what is spyware”, etc. When you Search Dellea.biz, results may also be drawn from the FAQs if your keywords are found in this section.
• Dellea.biz News features all of the semi-regular informative articles that I post on the site. I write articles on all kinds of computer and technology topics, that affect us all as a whole, or that are related to our area.
• Weather Forecast, a new feature on the site with “up to the hour” weather info for my service area, which can help to show you if I may be running late due to poor weather conditions. You'll also notice a small current weather update in the upper-right corner of my home page, above the Newsflash.
• Monthly Newsletter is another new feature. I recommend that all of my customers subscribe to the newsletter. I will no longer make bulk emails to my customers, it's too time consuming and it can falsely target me as a spammer.
• News Archives, which is currently empty, will contain expired articles from the Dellea.biz News section. This is also searchable, and results may show up when you Search Dellea.biz. At the moment, my news articles expire one year after posting.
• Newsflash Archives provide you access to expired Newsflashes. Newsflashes are shorter, immediate articles of important information featured on the right side of the home page. A Newsflash is expired and archived as soon as I post a new one. For example, lately I've been posting news about my mother, who's been very ill since October, so friends and loved ones can keep up on her progress.
• Other News Feeds are news syndications from other sites that I feel may offer related information to the types of articles that I post on my site, or to our local area.
• Search Dellea.biz is an important component of my site. Any keyword or phrase searches you perform in here will search all of the content throughout my site for relevant information.
• Computer Store brings you to a page showing an excerpt of some of the latest deals offered in Dellea.biz Computer Store, with links.
• Music by Arthur features some of the music I've composed and published over the years, along with some background information and links.
• Photos by Bruce features info and a link to my father's online nature photography gallery.
• Favorite Links features links to some of my favorite sites, businesses, charities, and more.
• Sitemap is a new feature that shows an index of all of the current public pages and articles on the site.

Well, that about does it for all of the changes here at Dellea.biz. If you want the latest news about my business, I urge you to visit my site often, and to subscribe to my monthly newsletter. I'm truly blessed to have supportive people like you as my customers. Thank you for your continued business!