Every once in awhile, while we’re out on a call around Portland, someone asks who we’re insured by. I figured I’d just put this out in the open, for everyone, and I’ll add it to the website as well.

Protocol16 is insured by The Hartford. They fit the requirements of our business for on site and in shop insurance requirements and they offer more protection, in terms of computer repair work, than any other insurance company out there.

The next response is normally: “Oh, I hear they’re expensive…” Yup…
Justin

Shopping local these days is a mantra many are repeating over and over. While Protocol16 competes with larger named companies, one of which mere blocks away from the home office (and it’s got a lot of horrid reviews…), there are several national companies that are franchised locally. You may not know it, but several of the other computer repair companies are franchised national companies (read: behind the scenes, there are Corporate bean counters, full marketing departments supporting a few people, etc).

Unfortunately, this mess is about to get just a little larger. It seems that Wal-Mart has decided to dive into the computer repair market to compete with the Geek Squad and other local businesses like Protocol16.

While there a few Wal-Mart’s in Oregon, there are several other competitors that I consistently hear complaints about. With Wal-Mart jumping into the fray, it shows a trend that I have been noticing as well – people are much more thrifty now. Many of my customers are opting to fix older computers rather than buy a new one – and I have no problem with that. Spending a little less money to limp a computer along another year is worth it for a lot of people in Portland, especially those still job hunting.

My main problem with the national competitors is that I’m seeing a huge trend of misinformation or a lot of installs lacking quality. While I don’t want to be specific on the things I’m seeing or who did it, there is a huge difference in quality depending on who works on your computer. It seems that the quality is directly related to two things:

1. Quality of employees. This is actually directly related to the amount of pay someone is getting. Myself, as well as other business owners, have noticed that the quality of applicants takes a nose dive at a specific dollar amount. Any company operating under that dollar amount is opening themselves up to a huge amount of applicants that are under-qualified to work on computers. Oddly, many of the companies operating under that dollar amount charge MORE than Protocol16 does.
2. The size of the company. The amount of employees causes a few problems. The environment is not cohesive to new and brilliant ideas – they get lost in the general chatter of the company. The other issue is that the more employees you have, the more likely you are to get someone that has no clue what happened last time you called or brought in your computer. So, that weird issue you get randomly when you open Office, you have to repeat the whole story to the next guy you talk to. If that next guy wants to get more money in commission off of selling you a computer, he just might ignore what you’re saying and tell you that the flux capacitor at checkpoint charlie is broken (note: neither of those exist in computers) and you need a new computer…

While we’d love for you to become a customer and use Protocol16 as your desktop or computer repair company, do your research and decide if one company in Portland or Beaverton or Hillsboro is the right company for you. I’ve been shopping local more and more, sometimes it’s more expensive, but in the end, it’s our community that I’m helping, not one a thousand miles away.
Justin

While roaming the internet, I found that there are a lot of sites listing the ins and outs of nearly everything, but I couldn’t find anything locally that reviewed software specifically from the business aspect. So I thought to myself “Would I suggest a business use something like a free anti-virus program like XXXXX?” The answer was “no”, but how would your typical business owner know about that? Why would they go out looking over the internet at 6,000 sites when they can just look at a local computer repair company to get some basic answers and perhaps talk to more to see about their specific situation?

Well, now you can look to a local computer repair company for those answers. So, Protocol16 now offers a Software Review Category as well as a Hardware Review Category.

With the Software Review category, I’ll start with a review a popular “free” antivirus program and explain why your business should shy away from it. I’ll also go on to suggest a product Protocol16 has been testing recently and am very happy with.

For the Hardware Review category, I’ll discuss the pricing difference between building a custom server or buying a named-brand server. I’m actually in this exact situation right now with a client. Believe it or not, the difference between a name-brand vs a custom built server can be a huge amount of money – but there are downfalls as well.

The Review categories will probably be a once-a-month post, but depending on time, I may post more. If you’re a business, or consumer and you would like something specific reviewed, please let me know and Protocol16 will do it’s best to review it.
Justin

PS: First post is tomorrow, and I’ll discuss that free antivirus software…

One of the questions people usually ask me, especially when they find out I can put on 500 or more miles a week (on our REALLY busy week), is what types of things I see throughout the day.

Well, for non-computer stuff, I see a heck of a lot of traffic violations. There is a reason I hesitate when lights turn green – I check both ways before crossing. I also see traffic accidents. I’ve seen rolled over cars, cars scrunched like an accordion on both ends, cars in ditches and I missed the big motorcycle pileup on I5 by about 3 minutes (it happened behind me by about a mile or so). It’s gotten to the point where I now carry a camera and two first aid kits. I’ve also considered some safety/emergency lighting for the Protocol16 truck.

The absolute worst area I’ve seen is the on-ramp at the Westbound Highway 26 tunnel (aka: Vista Ridge Tunnels) in Portland. That specific spot is particularly nasty, especially when it rains. My advice – stay in the left hand lane around that spot and don’t rubberneck when their is an accident as I’ve seen several accidents further up the road from people not paying attention or trying to watch behind them as they drive away.

For computer and repair related things, there’s all kinds of things that I see, and contrary to what people think of my industry – Protocol16 don’t make fun of customers. That being said, we’ve seen all kinds of nasty things inside cases that cause heat problems for customers.

Note: If you have any pets, you can have problems. As much as I love my girls (I have 2 dogs at home), they can cause all kinds of issues with my computers if I don’t watch out. If you feel comfortable enough, a helpful hint is to open your computer case when it’s off and use some of the canned air you can buy from Protocol16 or other stores (We’re cheaper…) Just as long as you don’t turn the canned air upside down, you’ll be fine. If you’re not comfortable doing this, Protocol16 can do it during any normal visit.

We’ve seen all sorts of things jammed into CD and DVD drives as well. Good people of Portland, please inform your children that Legos are not supposed to go into the CD/DVD drives… As much as I loved to play with Legos as a child, computers just don’t like them as much.

Lastly, if you smoke, it effects your computer as well. The tar from the smoke gets sucked into the computer case by the fans. That tar ends up sticking to the internal components of your computer and can cause all sorts of issues. Through the year, all that adds up. I’ve even had a personal friend that quit smoking after seeing the goo inside his computer – it literally scared him to think that could be inside him as well. One good thing here is, I don’t see this as much anymore…

Yes, there are crazy and wacky things that happen while we’re on calls, but those stories are ours. We really do not make fun of customers and we try to turn every call into an educational experience for the customer. I haven’t laughed at a customer yet.
Justin

A heck of a lot of businesses around Portland and Beaverton seem to think that once they get a few employees, that they’ll need someone specific to handle their internal IT needs. More often than not, this usually turns out to be the person that knows the most about computers. Occasionally, a business owner will panic and attempt to hire a full time IT/Computer guy. Well, I’m here to tell you, that’s not needed.

We completely understand the need to save money. We know, unlike the phone company, the phone book companies and other types of companies, that businesses are not made of money. That’s one of the reasons why Protocol16’s prices are so low compared to other competitors. Some of the big-boys charge TWICE what we do, for the same qualified people. I know first hand, I use to work for that type of company and I would be brought in as a technical expert. I was even flown to a foreign country once to install a network. It’s not fun installing a network in the dead of summer, in Sicily…

There’s a secret in Portland, though. You don’t need to hire a computer guru, you don’t need to worry about problems and if you’re thinking of upgrading your computers, you have someone to call. Protocol16 offers consulting for small businesses.

Consulting through Protocol16 means we show up and take your requirements and offer several types of scenarios that can solve that. That does not mean that we show up, be pushy and tell you what you need to do. If you EVER hire a company to come in and this happens to you – throw them right out the door. On top of that, any company you hire should give you the option of which hardware you move to, or give you multiple offers as to which hardware provider you wish to choose. This is all unless you contact a specific hardware company and request a consultation.

Even if you have an internal computer guy, we can still help take on a bit of the workload for larger projects or suggest options for bringing in new hardware or software.

As always, if you have any questions, please let us know and we’ll be more than happy to help out. Don’t worry, we don’t speak geek, we talk in your language.
Justin

It’s not secret that we provide on call and on site services throughout the Portland Metro, but what excatly does that mean?

Some people have seen our truck driving around, others haven’t, but it’s what that truck carries that makes the difference between a friend fixing your computer or a professional.

We are not only qualified to work on your computers, laptops, workstations, and servers; we carry a small inventory of parts and tools to make that job easier for everyone all around. We carry extra hard drives, fans, power supplies, memory and more – every day. Even if you know what you’re doing, getting parts can take upwards of an hour or more, depending on where you go – time that you can save by calling Protocol16.

Even if you need a specific part and we don’t have it, we’ll let you know and we’ll even offer to pick it up for you.

And for shops that still have older equipment, we carry older parts as well. When was the last time you saw an AT power supply? Most 18 year olds these days wouldn’t even know what that is! To put it in perspective, it’s like a rotary phone in this new high-tech world. For those that don’t know, an AT power supply is a a really old power supply that is mostly used on specific machinery these days, like CNC machines. Why think about scrapping a machine worth thousands of dollars due to an old power supply?

Whether you have a new, or old, computer – Protocol16 has you covered. Portland’s fastest on call computer repair service.
Justin

Today’s Post is Brought to You By the Letter V.

We all know there are viruses out there, at least we should. We also know that you should have your anti-virus software updated on a normal basis (you DID renew your anti-virus subscription, right???). Well, we see a lot of virus problems on top of spyware (spyware is a program that watches what you do, sending personal info across the internet, etc. It can also serve advertising up, and generally muck things up.) here in Portland and it’s a curious thing.

The number one call we receive is “My computer is slow, what can I do?” I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again: “It depends”. But, I will say that many times it turns out to be viruses and spyware on the computer. The easiest way to get rid of these programs is to use a program like SpyBot Search & Destroy or anti-virus software. While I use to recommend AVG for home users, I’m actually starting to change my mind.

Over the summer, it seems, the AVG Free Edition has been failing to catch many types of viruses. While I don’t like saying that out in the public eye, I see this more as a warning to those using it. Just be careful.

If you read the report on AV-Comparatives, you’ll see several anti-virus (ok, I’ll call them AV’s from here on out) companies that are reviewed. Unfortunately, AVG earned 1 out of 3 stars (there is a zero-star category too..) We’re currently working on yet another partnership with an un-named AV company that I feel is worth the installation. While I would love to talk about it for now, I can’t until we finalize everything. As always, if we partner up, that means we can pass on savings to our customers.

For now, I would renew your licenses for what you currently have installed. If you don’t have anything installed, read the report from the link above and decide for yourself which one you would like to install. If you want to skip through the rough stuff, scroll down to page 8 of the report for the ratings.

If you’ve got an infection that just won’t go away, we can help out with that as well since we have the software to help out. If your AV software is up-to-date and things are still slow, give us a call at 503-524-9047. We’ll be more than happy to help out.
Justin