A Frightening But True Story - Happy Halloween

This story is from an actual client:

I have been recommending computer monitoring and backup to all of my clients for the last 18 months, why?Here is my real story of what happened to me and my company.

I run a small business consulting firm with a heavy focus on Internet practices. In 2008 we had over 40 clients, as we had grown from a 2 person operation to 8, a great deal of the proprietary and contractual data (contracts, marketing materials, and even web sites) were on my computer.
My computer also had my complete email history for several years, and as many of the decisions we made with clients were completed or approved over email, this history was mission critical. I even had employee reviews and tax documents stored in my every secure documents file.
/*You know were this is going right?*/
I had never had a computer problem I couldn't fix on my own, or with a call to the Dell support group. I considered myself a pretty decent computer fixer.
I updated the anti virus software, ran a defrag on all the computers from time to time, and made sure updates were installed. The fact that I was spending 8 hours a month doing it did bother me a little, but then, I figured I was saving a bundle in repair fees.
/*You still know were this is going right?*/
One Monday my old reliable computer goes absolutely nuts. I am not making this up. It seemed to be possessed. Web sites were opening every half second until I had about 40 open web browsers. Then it just stopped. Quiet. Cold.
Frozen like my heart at that moment. I had a feeling trying the defrag wouldn't help.
So, I turned off the electric for a minute and sat and watched as it tried its hardest to start up.... I could hear its hard drive whizzing...but nothing but a few flickers of this and that on the screen. So, I tried it again. Same thing. And again.
The end of the story is I spent four days with out access to a lot of information I needed , and I spent twice what the computer had cost to recover the data.
I don't know how to value the lost productivity. I spent at least 8 hours of the three days dealing with the problem... so when you add up lost productivity, actual expenses, and the value of peace of mind, its in the thousands for that one little event.
I should mention that the computer repair company I used (from Craig's list) was nice enough to install a bunch of non licensed software, and over 200 albums on my computer as a "gift". The owner (and only employee) told me he had been an Auto Repair mechanic and got into computer repairs as a hobby. He had burned all the music he installed on my computer from CD's in customers cars when then were in for repair. He looked like he had not slept in 3 days when he told me his story, and handed me the bill. I am not making this up.
Needless to say (yet I will anyway) on that day I fully realized the value of both backing up your computer, and monitoring and maintenance and working with a reputable IT company. By spending a few dollars you can have every computer and server remotely monitored and maintained. You don't spend a day a month playing I.T. guy. All the basics are taken care of, and with monitoring, the I.T. company can see if we have any issues that need to be addressed before the computer blows up.
I value my time, and I am sure you do to. My time is billed at $150.00 an hour. But even if it was only $50.00 an hour, I would be saving $400.00 a month in those 8 hours of  I.T. stuff  I use to do with 8 computers.

*So do yourself a favor, sign up at $20.00 *a month per computer for the J.P. Schwartz (a great local I.T. company, and client of mine) monitoring and maintenance program. They are even giving away 2 hours of repairs per computer or server you sign up. see the details here.

If you are in need of immediate assistance, or have had a frightening, but true situation like mine, call J.P. Schwartz, Inc. today, 303-482-1242.

This true story is courtesy of:
Mike Bayes

President, My One Call LLC
12303 Airport Way Suite 200
Broomfield CO. 80021
720 254 1234
303 808 1734 (cell)
www.linkedin.com/in/mikebayes
Twitter: @mikebayes
Blog: www.myonecall.wordpress.com

Promotional Offer from J.P. Schwartz, Inc.

Why more and more small and medium businesses are paying to much for computer repairs, and what you can do about it.

We don't mean to be an alarmist, but strictly from a financial prospective, keeping your computers, servers and network running efficiently has become a financial burden on Denver area businesses, while at the same time keeping your I.T. network safe and running smoothly is more important than ever.

That is why I thought you would be interested in learning about the newest program from J.P. Schwartz Inc. specifically designed for small and medium business in the Denver area. It's a new concept designed to give your computers an "insurance" program to keep your repair and maintenance costs low.

Businesses in Colorado can not afford the staggering bills of even one data loss event, or their network going down. These costs to even the smallest company can be in the thousands of dollars, and do not include the possible loss of revenue, and the expense of employees with nothing to do.

Our unique solution is our new monitoring and maintenance plus system. We monitor all of your computers (and servers) to make sure there are no issues that could cause a problem, and we give all of your I.T. network weekly and monthly maintenance for things like Virus protection, updates, disc space, defragmentation and more. All of this keeps your computers running smoothing, and you sleeping soundly at night.

The average repair bill to a small and medium business for one computer failure with data loss is over $425.00. With our M/M Plus program you pay as little as $20.00 a month for full monitoring, weekly and monthly updates and maintenance, and for a limited time, through October 31, we give you up to 2 hour of free repair services per computer covered during your contract term. If you have 10 computers, that alone is a $2400.00 value!

Let's Do The Wave

My Google Wave Experience -

I was one of the lucky ones to receive a Google Wave invite. If you aren't yet familiar with Google Wave yet, I would suggest checking out this YouTube video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_UyVmITiYQ

It is a long video, but it is very cool as it shows so many of the features of wave, some of which are not available in the preview version.

Wave is a way to communicate and collaborate in real time. For chatting, it acts more as a real conversation would, I can see what the other person is typing and actually formulate and start typing my response as I am reading their message. Drag and Drop features, API's, Extensions, and mobile abilities are some of the features that make Google Wave so user friendly, fun, and useful.

So here I am, I am producing this document in Google Wave. If I wanted, I could colaborate on this document right here in Wave with my friends or co-workers.

Wave is real time, so as I am typing this paragraph, they can be editing the last one for me! What a great time saver that can be! The video above was as easy as pasting a URL into this document and Wave asked me if I would like to embed the video, it actually detected that it was a video link all on its own. Smart, huh?

I see how this will be a great tool in the workplace. The ability to collaborate on any document with such ease, make travel plans complete with Maps together on line, update your blog from a wave, leave a tweet on Twitter, play games together, search and organize your waves, combine bits and pieces of waves together to make a new document, even chat with others that speak a different language than you, the possibilities are seemingly endless with Wave.

Come along on my Wave journey. I will update frequently on my experiences with Wave and how you may want to use it when your time comes:) Let's make some Waves!
For all your computer needs call  J.P. Schwartz, Inc.  at 303-482-1242.

Can You Really Get Computer Repairs for Free?

Our customers get their computer repairs for free. Shouldn't you?


Don't let computer or server problems slow down your company. Sign up for our Monitoring Plus Program
and you receive up to two free hours of computer repair work for every computer or server on the program.

Monitoring:
Complete remote monitoring of all of your computers and servers.
Notification of issues that could adversely effect your computers' performance, and save you down time and lost productivity.
A professional I.T. Company as your service provider.
Free computer repairs (up to program limits).

Scheduled System Maintenance:
Daily shutdown of systems for power savings.
Daily restart of systems or services as required.
Weekly delete of temp files.
Weekly defragment of hard drives.
Weekly windows updates.
Weekly system restore point creation.

This is a limited time offer. After October 31st we will not be giving away the free computer repair with our monitoring! Contact us now to get started. Click Here