We, or rather I (explanation coming soon…), have been very busy over the last week. It seems someone turned on a virtual faucet this Monday and I’ve been running around like a chicken with it’s head cut off! While work is getting done, and on time, I may not be in the office 100% of the time.

I’ll also say, that due to this situation, I will personally bend over backwards (Ok, I’m not quite that flexible) to ensure that you get seen as quickly as possible. I’m known to stop by your location on the way to or from the office or schedule a pickup time (pickups are always free) that is convenient to you.

Our normal office hours are:

Mon-Fri: 8AM to 6PM
Sat: 1030AM to 5PM

We are always on call for businesses and there is no additional fee for middle of the night calls.

With that said, please call ahead before heading to our office, as we don’t want to miss you. There are some changes afoot, an explanation here and there and a few odds and ends that we’ll talk about in an up-coming post.
Justin

Goodness we’ve been busy recently – calls out to Portland proper, West Linn, Tigard, Beaverton and more! The Google stats for the website have been picking up, and so has business. On top of that, the office in Beaverton is just about done, so things have been more than hectic to say the least.

This week, I had a customer request something that I didn’t have, so that’ll be offered here shortly – in the next post, in fact. I also managed to do a little charity work on a computer as well.

Anyway – we haven’t gone anywhere, we’re just busy!

Perhaps one of the most common questions I’ve been asked recently is “What’s the hardest thing for your business to do?”

Well, oddly enough, “Search for an office” is at the absolute top of the list right now.

While I’ve maintained a home office, it’s time to move up and out. Unfortunately, there is currently a misconception on how much many “for lease” spaces are worth right now. On top of this, many of the real estate agents and management companies listing these buildings just don’t want to do any leg work. In one example, I watched an office get listed over and over again on Craiglist. I finally drove by and pretty much liked it, but wasn’t sure about some things, so I decided to email the agent that listed it as I see email as a great way to judge the quality of a business – especially someone that might be a landlord. In saying that, most companies contacted via email don’t reply, they just flat out ignore you or you get to wait in line with 100 other people for weeks before they get back to you.

I find it interesting that you can leave a message via email or phone and some companies don’t bother calling you back. You pretty much have to hound some companies to just call you back… What’s the point of being in the business?

Protocol16 has been taking the office search slow, looking here and there over the last 2 or so months. While we could move all the way across town to get more space for less money, I would really like to keep Protocol16 here in the Beaverton community. It’s where I live and it’s near my main customer base.

While taking all that into account, finding the right office proved to be a challenge, and a big one.  We require 24/7 access to any building we’re in, security systems with lasers and flesh-eating hamsters (ok, so lasers are optional), and enough power to light up your typical neighborhood due to all the computers we fix.

With all that said, WE FOUND ONE! Protocol16 has signed a lease for an office on Farmington Road in Beaverton! We’re very excited in our expansion and even more excited to be able to have the option of staying right here in Beaverton. I’ve been crawling the web for all the old addresses since the new one is: 14025 SW Farmington Road, Suite 165, Beaverton. We’re on the bottom floor, to the right.

While the office is smaller than I would ultimately like, I think it’s good that Protocol16 stays frugal, especially in this economy. Sure, there is a larger space in the same building that we could occupy, but packing ourselves into a smaller office achieves the same result – helping customers.

Now, for the phone system, internet setup, furniture buildout (yep, we’re BUILDING our own shop benches!) and all the other “neat” and “fun” things to do when moving. Don’t worry, we’ll still be here for you all!
Justin

There are a lot of people in Portland that have asked about alternatives to Microsoft Office. While I personally like Office, I know it can be a burden to those that can’t afford the licensing costs. Even businesses have problems meeting the licensing costs.

Alternatives
Well, there’s the Open Source alternative called OpenOffice and then there’s Google Apps. Some companies report decent success using both OpenOffice and Google Apps. Personally, I would move to OpenOffice out of the two. I would rather have the documents on my computer than on the web. Perhaps I’m paranoid about security, due to my training and what I’ve seen.

Office Web Apps
Well, now there is another option for you all: Microsoft’s Office Web Apps. You can test drive them, in limited form, at Skydrive.live.com (you’ll need a Windows Live account though.)

I played with it on Sunday evening while I had some downtime at home and liked the little bit that I was able to play with. Excel, looked just like Excel, even though I’m on a Mac using Firefox… If you create a new file, after you log in, you can play around in said file, just like the real program. While playing around, I noticed that Word isn’t working, but Excel is. I didn’t attempt anything else.

According to Microsoft and other news reports, Office Web Apps will be free to users of Windows Live. So, when it’s fully released, it might be a viable alternative to the Office Applications that you install.

This release of free Web Applications may also drive the price of Office down, but only time will tell.
Justin

The title might scare you a little, but in the computer industry, a UPS is an Uninterruptible Power Supply. This is basically a batter backup for when the power goes kaput…

I personally use these at home for my computers and I recommend that my clients have at least 1 in the office for the most important person or computer. The most important person may be the secretary in the office since they effectively run the day to day operations. They’ll still be able to send email (as long as your router is on a UPS as well), still be able to get information off their computer, etc – all while the power is out.

For the most important computer, this is normally the office computer that runs the accounting software or is a server that everyone connects to. If that goes down, it could spell disaster for the entire office if the plug gets kicked. Computers don’t like being kicked off when the power dies, it can do very bad things to servers. Servers are unique due to the way due to how their disks are setup. If you have RAID on a server, you absolutely REQUIRE a UPS. The more expensive RAID enabled servers can survive a shutoff without major issues, but a UPS could mean the difference between a “can” and “will”.

UPS’ generally allow for automatic shut down in case of a power failure. This means your server or workstation can be automatically shut down if the power doesn’t kick back on quickly. If the power is off for 5 minutes, you’re still ok. If it’s off for 2 hours, find something for the staff to do, because a UPS will not handle that long of an outage, you’ll require a generator.

I would love to recomend a UPS online, but we’re still waiting on some paperwork to get back to us from a specific company. If you would like to know more about UPS’ or what type we would recomend, feel free to email us or give us a call.
Justin