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Filed under: Guilt-free IT

Weekly Guilt-free IT Maintenance

Regular maintenance for a better computer!

As always, I continue to assess and improve the maintenance process on my client's computers. There are three goals I've been working this past month to achieve:

  1. Transfer some maintenance tasks to the middle of the night to reduce maintenance duration at peak usage times (evenings). I'm paying some money for each of my client's computers to automate certain weekly maintenance tasks. It's pretty cool stuff! :)
  2. Provide the computers with the maintenance they need at the frequency that is best for reliability and performance. Some tasks are best performed monthly with my hands and eyes, while others are best performed weekly and can be automated. So there are really two frequencies. Before now, I didn't have the capability to do this.
  3. Provide better reporting about maintenance tasks, their status, and any problems identified.

As a technology consultant / IT support professional / computer enthusiast, I'm always looking for ways to utilize technology to improve processes. Efficiency AND improved quality are usually the result.

I can't wait to see how our lives are improved by technology in the future. Hopefully the Terminator version of our future won't happen. But I know one thing for sure, there's no stopping the advancement of information technology.

IT support resources and software for clients

Frequently I have a need to download and install the same software on all my client's computers. I'm forced to repeat the process of downloading the software from various sites and then installing on each computer. I've fallen in love with ninite.com for the software that they've conveniently compiled, but their list is not complete and sometimes I just want to install one or two which makes Ninite feel kind of bulky.

I've decided to utilize dropbox.com to host the installation files right from a folder on my computer. Now all I have to do is download the software once to that folder and it will all be accessible in one place (from this blog post)!

Occasionally, I can update the installation files with the latest versions. As long as the file names stay the same, the following links will continue to work without any adjustments needed.

See notes at bottom*

Maintenance and Tuning:

Security and Backup:

Updates:

Useful and Free:

Info and Fixes:

Removal Tools:

Benchmarking:

*I didn't make any of this software and am not liable if you decide to install it. This list may not include the most recent versions. Occasionally I may prefer an older version of a program or to wait until a new version has had time for any kinks to be ironed out before installing on my client's computers. For the most recent versions, please check on the software developer's sites.

What is Guilt-free IT support?

Terms of service

Guilt-free IT support costs $30 per month per computer and provides:

  • bi-weekly maintenance
  • dedicated support
  • no hourly fees

Dedicated support is for questions, issues that can be fixed remotely, and consulting. Other work is fixed at $89 per major job whether remote or in-person.

Computer issues are things like bugs, popups, errors, or anything that affects the user's ability to perform everyday tasks like check email, access the Internet, print, type a document, etc.

KM Authorized provides free consulting for the purchase of new computers, accessories, or upgrade components. Also provided is free consultation and setup for solutions like file backup and recovery (Backblaze), useful cloud services with smartphone setup (Google Apps, Dropbox, Mailchimp, LastPass, Freshbooks), and photo management (Picasa, Flickr).

Examples of services that are not covered (not all inclusive) and would incur an $89 charge:

  • install, update, or configure specialized or industry specific software
  • hardware replacement or upgrade
  • install and configure the operating system
  • attempt repair of non-functioning computer due to virus or malware infection
  • physical setup of a new computer
  • software training
  • computer issues or bugs that can't be fixed remotely

What's good for you is good for me

My business, KM Authorized, provides small businesses and individuals with dedicated Information Technology (IT) support. This includes computers, peripherals, and nearly every device that deals with storage or communication of information.

I call this service Guilt-free ITTM, which is a fixed-fee support model designed to make it less stressful for people to call or email me with questions or support issues.

A consequence, or reward depending on how you look at it, of not billing hourly is that what's bad for my business is also bad for my client's business.

For example, if I do a poor job of recommending a new computer to fill a certain function in a business, and that computer is overloaded, freezing, or otherwise not doing it's job, then that computer recommendation can end up having consequences for both businesses. My business is affected because I have to put in extra hour s of work to keep the darn thing working, and the added downtime or lost productivity is expensive for any business.

On the other hand, if I recommend a computer with components designed to meet or exceed the workload that will be placed on it and a warranty that includes next business day repair/replacement from the manufacturer, then my business (and my client's business) will benefit from a reliable, efficient computer system that requires less support.

Since it is the tendency of business to do what ultimately serves to benefit our own business, Guilt-free IT is designed from the start to align the benefit of those tendencies in favor of both parties.

 

More on today's Gmail issue

Gmail's web interface had a widespread outage earlier today, lasting about 100 minutes. We know how many people rely on Gmail for personal and professional communications, and we take it very seriously when there's a problem with the service. Thus, right up front, I'd like to apologize to all of you — today's outage was a Big Deal, and we're treating it as such. We've already thoroughly investigated what happened, and we're currently compiling a list of things we intend to fix or improve as a result of the investigation.

Here's what happened: This morning (Pacific Time) we took a small fraction of Gmail's servers offline to perform routine upgrades. This isn't in itself a problem — we do this all the time, and Gmail's web interface runs in many locations and just sends traffic to other locations when one is offline.

However, as we now know, we had slightly underestimated the load which some recent changes (ironically, some designed to improve service availability) placed on the request routers — servers which direct web queries to the appropriate Gmail server for response. At about 12:30 pm Pacific a few of the request routers became overloaded and in effect told the rest of the system "stop sending us traffic, we're too slow!". This transferred the load onto the remaining request routers, causing a few more of them to also become overloaded, and within minutes nearly all of the request routers were overloaded. As a result, people couldn't access Gmail via the web interface because their requests couldn't be routed to a Gmail server. IMAP/POP access and mail processing continued to work normally because these requests don't use the same routers.

The Gmail engineering team was alerted to the failures within seconds (we take monitoring very seriously). After establishing that the core problem was insufficient available capacity, the team brought a LOT of additional request routers online (flexible capacity is one of the advantages of Google's architecture), distributed the traffic across the request routers, and the Gmail web interface came back online.

What's next: We've turned our full attention to helping ensure this kind of event doesn't happen again. Some of the actions are straightforward and are already done — for example, increasing request router capacity well beyond peak demand to provide headroom. Some of the actions are more subtle — for example, we have concluded that request routers don't have sufficient failure isolation (i.e. if there's a problem in one datacenter, it shouldn't affect servers in another datacenter) and do not degrade gracefully (e.g. if many request routers are overloaded simultaneously, they all should just get slower instead of refusing to accept traffic and shifting their load). We'll be hard at work over the next few weeks implementing these and other Gmail reliability improvements — Gmail remains more than 99.9% available to all users, and we're committed to keeping events like today's notable for their rarity.

Posted by Ben Treynor, VP Engineering and Site Reliability Czar

via gmailblog.blogspot.com

I'm glad to see that this problem is not too difficult and some configuration changes should prevent it from happening again.

Guilt-free IT - Time Not Billed

Clients of IT support services can attest, billable hours are not a fun thing to see on an invoice. IT support typically costs mucho dinero per hour.

For example, getting a new computer ordered, delivered, setup, and configured so that it’s ready to go to work would cost $450 through a traditional IT service company that charges $75/hour.

Not so with Guilt-free IT since it’s a fixed charge at $89. Clients get the benefit of ‘time not billed’. Here’s the same scenario of getting that new computer with a Guilt-free IT support plan:

  1. Pre-install – $89 includes (about 4 hours):
    • Consulting to figure out what kind of system is needed.
    • Procurement of that system which includes submitting the system configuration to Dell, receiving the Dell quote, ordering the system, tracking the order progress and shipping, receiving the system and verifying that the correct system arrived and all parts are there.
    • Pre-install work includes a whole four page list of tasks for updating, configuring, and installing new software, operating system, and settings on the new system.
  2. Install system – $89 includes (about 2 hours):
    • In-person setup of the new system
    • Installation of any addition software not included in the pre-install setup.
    • Transferring of data from the old system to the new system
    • Configuring basic software settings like email.
    • Getting started training on the new system.

How can Guilt-free IT clients get essentially $450 worth of work for $178? Answer: They pay a fixed monthly fee for remote maintenance and support.

 

Lead with customer service

Human perception is a funny thing. I used to provide free support for the work I did for my clients. Like if I installed a unified communication system, I would support it and any problems from that point on. I could tell clients sometimes felt guilty calling me for help knowing I was supporting their system for free even though I made it clear that I stand behind my work.

It was difficult to get clients and prospects to call me for free support, which could lead to an additional project for me to do. They felt guilty or even unsure if they would see a bill in the mail.

Now that I’m charging a (very minimal) fee for support, I’ve received many positive responses like:

  • “I can’t believe your prices are so low!”
  • “You should raise your rates.”
  • “Your Guilt-free IT service takes a huge bogeyman out!”

I’ve completely reversed the way in which my business is marketed. Rather than lead with solutions and provide support later, I lead with the support and provide solutions later. I call it "Guilt-free IT." It’s about proactively maintaining my client’s systems to prevent problems and improve reliability. I think people like this kind of service because there’s a lot of perceived value in a fixed monthly service. Even if their entire system were to crash and burn, they know exactly how much it’s going to cost for Guilt-free IT because they’ve already paid for it.

Now I’m a savior rather than a salesman. I like that!