Something lighter
The Time Machine
We built these pages in the interfaces we grew up supporting. Each one has a joke on top and a real IT problem underneath, because every era of technology left something behind that businesses are still running today.
The computer arrives in the office
One machine sat in the corner, running one program that somebody had taken the trouble to learn properly. The spreadsheet and the answering machine became technology a business couldn't work without, and each one was a single person's responsibility with no system designed around it. A lot of what we're asked to look at still works that way.
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1983
Lotus 1-2-3
A worksheet from 1983, doing the one calculation most owners have never actually run: what a day of downtime costs.
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1985
Answering Machine
An answering machine from 1985, playing back the messages a business phone system leaves behind when nobody has looked at it in ten years.
A machine on every desk
Computers multiplied and a network arrived to join them, but nobody drew a picture of the result. Security at the door was a keypad with a code everybody knew and nobody changed. Much of what we're called in to untangle now was assembled in these years, one sensible decision at a time.
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1991
DOS Prompt
A command prompt from 1991. Type a few commands and find out why "the internet is slow" takes three days to answer.
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1992
Oregon Trail
A trail game from 1992, about the supplies nobody thinks to pack: the backup somebody has actually restored from.
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1994
Door Keypad
A door keypad from 1994. The worn keys give the code away, which is the smallest version of a much larger problem.
The office goes online
The business got a modem and a website somebody's nephew built, and the inbox quickly started carrying real work. Then came a deadline everybody could see coming. In these years the concern shifted from what a computer could do for you to what happened when it stopped.
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1996
GeoCities
A homepage from 1996, about the question most owners cannot answer: who controls the domain, the email, and the website.
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1996
Dial-Up
A modem handshake from 1996, and the four things that have to go right before wireless actually works. Five bars only proves the first one.
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1998
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1999
Ask Jeeves
A search engine from 1999, answering the questions people really ask before they hire an IT provider.
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1999
Always on
The connection stopped being something you dialed and became something you assumed. Machines stayed on and mail arrived by itself. Profile pages started showing who exactly you were dealing with, and that's still the most useful thing to find out about an IT provider.
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2001
Windows XP
Old equipment and unsupported software, and what it takes to replace them on a schedule instead of on the day one of them stops.
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2005
MySpace
A profile page from 2005, with a serious point underneath it: you should know who's answering when you call your IT provider.
Each page carries the same offer as the rest of the site, and its form reaches the same people. If you'd rather skip the nostalgia, book a free 15-minute call or use the contact page. Each problem on these pages has a full write-up among our managed IT and cybersecurity services.