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Insights
Straight answers about IT, websites and search.
Guides written for business owners, not engineers: what things cost, what to ask before you sign, and how to tell a good provider from an expensive one. No jargon, no sales pitch.
Latest guides
Guides marked with a star are priority reading for our clients: security and office essentials, not buying advice. If you are on a care plan, start there.
Story · Data recovery
Twenty-three years of photos on one old hard drive, recovered after the bigger shops gave up
A PC in Southern California froze with twenty-three years of photographs on a password-locked drive inside it. The large recovery companies had tried and stopped. The drive came to us by mail, and within hours every file was back.
Case study · Our own website
We rebuilt our own WordPress site as a static website first
Our old site ran the same WordPress and Elementor stack we help clients leave. The rebuild scores 99 for performance and 100 for accessibility and SEO on desktop. Every number is public, including the one that is not 100 and why.
Priority read for clients: security or office.Guide · Email security
Why your emails end up in spam
A quote that lands in junk is a job you lose without knowing it. SPF, DKIM and DMARC in plain English: what changed in 2024, and how to fix your records without breaking anything.
Guide · AI · Security
Private AI for small business
Your team is already using AI; the question is where your data goes. What private AI is, when it beats the cloud chatbots, and when it honestly does not.
Accounting & CPA firms · Guide
AI for accounting firms, without leaking client data
Your staff are already using AI on client work. The three honest routes, the one-page policy every firm needs, and what the rules expect.
Priority read for clients: security or office.Guide · Office moves
The office move IT checklist
Internet ordered late is how office moves go wrong. The six-week sequence we use, from circuits and cabling to number porting and the day-one test list.
Case study · Makyson Building Company
A custom home builder website, with six seconds of waiting cut by nearly half
A South Shore builder’s portfolio site, measured before and after with Google’s speed test: 67 to 84, and the page looking finished in 3.4 seconds instead of 6.0, on the same 135 photographs.
Case study · SDC Container LLC
SDC Container: three booking systems replaced by one
A Massachusetts dumpster company had a WordPress site running three overlapping booking systems that still could not take a single order online. We replaced all three with one page and a live Stripe checkout. Updated with what the dispatch app gained since: customer emails, a payments ledger, commercial accounts and QuickBooks exports.
Web design · Measured
Rebuilding a WordPress site without WordPress
We measured a real 32-page Elementor site against its static rebuild: 432KB of HTML down to 48KB, 35 scripts down to one, ten plugins down to none. What changes, what you gain in automation, and when to stay put.
Priority read for clients: security or office.Compliance · Massachusetts
Massachusetts WISP requirements: what 201 CMR 17.00 asks of you
Who the law covers, which is probably you. What has to go in the written plan, the controls behind it, and the one rule almost everybody misses.
Managed IT · Buyer’s guide
How to choose an IT provider
Seven questions that separate good providers from merely confident ones. The contract terms worth arguing over, and the warning signs worth walking away from.
Priority read for clients: security or office.Microsoft 365 · Guide
Microsoft 365 and Copilot: what small businesses should actually do
Which plan you really need, the security settings you are already paying for and have not turned on, and whether Copilot is worth the per-user cost.
Managed IT · Buyer’s guide
How much does managed IT cost for a small business?
Per-user, per-device or tiered. How managed IT is priced, what drives your number up or down, what should always be included, and how to compare quotes without getting burned.
Web design · Buyer’s guide
How much should a small business website cost?
The seven things that actually drive the price, whether to pay up front or monthly, the costs that appear after launch, and the red flags worth catching before you sign.
Priority read for clients: security or office.Cybersecurity · Guide
Small business cybersecurity: what you need
How attacks really start, the seven protections that stop most of them, and four questions that reveal whether your current IT provider is genuinely handling security.
Search visibility · Guide
Your new website is not ranking yet
There is no Google sandbox, but new sites really do take months. What is actually holding yours back, and five checks that tell you whether it is too new or genuinely broken.
Local SEO · Guide
Local SEO for North Shore businesses
Why the map pack matters more than your website. How to fix your Google Business Profile. And the order to do it in, so nearby customers find you.
Switching providers · Guide
Fed up with your IT provider?
The signs it is genuinely time to move, what a switch involves week by week, the two things that trip people up, and the questions to ask before signing with anyone.
More guides are added regularly. Got a question you’d like answered about your IT, your website, or why you’re not showing up on Google? Ask us directly and we’ll usually just tell you.
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