Business IT Support in Port Dover and Norfolk County

Who this is for

Dental and law offices. Restaurants and takeaways. Shops with a till and a card machine. Contractors running the books off one laptop in the truck. Roughly two to fifteen computers, in Port Dover, Simcoe, Delhi, Waterford, Jarvis and Vittoria.

If you have a server rack and forty staff, I am not your man, and I will say so on the phone rather than waste your afternoon.

You get me, not a call centre

When you ring, you get the person who will be standing in your office. No ticket number, no queue, no reading a script to someone three provinces away who has never seen your setup and never will.

That matters most on a bad morning. You should not have to explain your own business to a stranger while your customers are stood there waiting.

I come out to you

I work on site, in your shop or your office, with your machines in front of me. That is worth saying plainly, because most IT firms will not come. They set a minimum number of computers before they will take a client on, and a four-machine office in Simcoe sits under it, so they do not quote the job at all. What is usually left is somebody’s nephew, or nobody.

I will drive out to a business the same way I drive out to a house, anywhere in Port Dover, Simcoe, Delhi, Waterford, Jarvis and Vittoria.

Most businesses call someone only once something has already broken. It is the dearest way to do it. A monthly arrangement is calmer and it costs less over a year. Here is what it covers:

• I check the machines on a schedule instead of waiting for them to fail — updates, disk space, drive health. Most computers give you warning before they die, if somebody is looking.
• Backups. Set up properly, and — the bit everyone skips — tested to make sure they actually restore. A backup nobody has ever restored is not a backup.
• Security and anti-virus on every machine, kept current. Not installed once in 2019 and forgotten.
• You ring me first when something is wrong, and we are not starting from scratch, because I already know what you have and how it is wired.
• A written record of your setup — which machine does what, what is plugged into what, where the accounts live. In most small businesses this exists only inside one person’s head, and it walks out of the door with them.

“The printer has stopped.” “The wifi keeps dropping at the back.” “Nobody can get into their email.” “The till and the card machine are not talking to each other.”

That is the call I get most. It is usually not a big thing — but it is stopping you trading, so today it is a big thing. I come out and get you running again.

When I can get there. I am on the tools during the day, so computer work gets picked up mornings and evenings. In practice that means it is often the same day, and the next business day at the latest. That is how it usually goes rather than a promise I am selling you — if a day is going to be tight, you will hear it from me when you ring, not afterwards.

I will be straight with you about where my end stops. If it turns out to be your card processor, your point-of-sale supplier or your internet provider, I will tell you that rather than charge you to poke at it — and if you would rather not sit on hold with them, I will make that call for you.

• A computer that will not turn on. Black screen, power light on, nothing happening. Or it starts and never gets to Windows. I find out why.
• Windows stuck after an update. The blue screen, the automatic repair loop, the machine that keeps restarting. I repair the system files and get it back on its feet.
• Malware, pop-ups, and the computer that has gone slow all of a sudden. Cleaned out properly, then set up so it does not come straight back.
• Getting the files off a machine that has died. If the computer is dead but the drive inside it is healthy — which is most cases — I can usually get your data back. Invoices, records, the folder nobody realised was not being backed up.
• SSD and memory upgrades. The cheapest way to get another few years out of a machine that still does its job. An old computer that is slow because of a spinning hard drive is fixed by a new drive, not by a clean-up, and I will tell you which one yours needs.
• Overheating and fan noise. Years of dust and dried-out thermal paste. Cleaned, repasted, tested.
• New computers set up, and the old one moved across. Files, email, printers, the lot, so whoever it is for starts Monday working instead of waiting.
• Printers, wifi, and the network in between. A printer that will not talk to every machine. Wifi that drops at the back of the building. A router that wants sorting out, a dead spot that needs covering, a few computers that need to share files properly without anyone emailing themselves a document.
• Macs and phones, not just Windows. A Mac on the desk, or the phone that has stopped picking up the work email. Same job, same visit.
• General help. A laptop for someone new starting. An email account that stopped. A program that needs to go on five machines. The thing that has been annoying everyone for a month.

What I do not do, so nobody finds out the hard way

• Servers. If you run a proper server, you need someone whose trade that is. It is not mine.
• Big networks. I will get your wifi and your printers behaving. Designing and running a network for a whole building is a different job.
• Running cable through walls. I will get your wifi right and get the machines talking to each other. Pulling wire through a building is a different trade, and I will say so.
• Cameras and security systems. I do not install them.
• Screens and batteries. Not yet. I will point you at someone who does them.
• Board-level and soldering work. No.
• Drives that have physically failed — clicking, or not showing up at all. That is a clean-room job at a specialist lab. I will tell you that rather than have a go and make it worse.

I would rather you knew what I am not before a bad day teaches you.

How it works

Ring me and tell me roughly what you have got. I come out and look at it properly — what you are running, how it is wired, what is most likely to bite you — and then I tell you what shape it is in and what I would do about it. You will know what that first visit costs before I set off.

If a monthly arrangement makes sense, you get the price before anything starts, in writing, and you can stop it whenever you like. If you would rather just have the one thing fixed, that is fine too. I am not going to sell you a plan you do not need; I would rather have you for ten years than for one invoice.

The same honesty applies to the machines. If a computer is old enough that you would be better off replacing it, I will say so, even though it means I do not get the repair.

Some of it does not need me in the room. If the machine still starts and the trouble is software — email that will not connect, a program that has stopped behaving, Windows playing up — I can often sort it out over a screen share while you carry on trading. If it cannot be fixed that way, I come out. Anything to do with hardware, or a machine that will not start at all, is an on-site job from the outset.