We took PlumChoice for a quick test drive and were impressed with the results. The process begins with creating an account on the PlumChoice Web site and then logging in to the service. Once logged in, the user can select what type of service is needed, ranging from troubleshooting and repair to fixed-fee services, such as spyware removal and PC tune-ups. Once a service is selected, the user will select how to pay for the service (in our case, we had a discount code, so no credit card info was needed) and then schedule when the service will take place.

The trick here is to schedule an "appointment" that best suits your availability. We chose to have our appointment take place at the top of the hour and were informed that a technician would contact us via the phone number we provided within 1 hour of our appointment time. During our test, we received a call from the technician within a matter of minutes. One word of warning: Users must be available for their appointments and if a user misses the appointment, there will be a penalty fee applied to the account. Users also should give themselves ample time to reschedule or change any appointments to avoid rescheduling fees.

When setting up the account, users can also input the specifications of a computer and build an inventory of systems to be serviced. That inventory is populated via pull-down menus and predefined selections. We were surprised to find Lenovo absent from the list of PC brands, so we had to choose "other" for our subject system.

We requested spyware removal and a tune-up for our test system, a Lenovo ThinkPad T61p notebook system running Windows Vista Ultimate edition. PlumChoice offers dozens of service options, each with its own pricing structure, from a $129.00 system tune-up to pay-by-the-minute general services. The test system was experiencing slowdowns, pop-ups and other problems that indicated that there was a malware problem of some type.

After a service request is filled out on the site, users receive an e-mail confirmation for the service call and are given instructions on what to do. The technician will initiate the service call by contacting the user via the contact phone number selected.