For
30 years, Adam Frost has been helping people in the Greater Boston area to
plan, maintain and improve their computer systems. Together with a team of
experienced co-workers and enthusiastic students, Adam provides a rich range of
services that help people develop safe, reliable, and effective systems to make
offices of all sizes run smoothly and well.
One
good way of learning about what we do is to first read about the basics, and
then click on a link that describes your situation or business.
Emergencies--you
need your system fixed right away, or you have had a serious data loss
Helping
non-profit organizations
Helping
professionals with their home office systems
Helping health care
professionals
Helping families
take care of their home computers
Working together with the
disabled community
You
can reach us at 617-522-1049. We usually prefer to meet you for the first time
by phone or in person, rather than by email, but if email is better for you,
please click: email us.
We
are an experienced, professional, insured computer support company. We will
approach your computer situation with thoughtfulness and sensitivity, helping
you strengthen your office systems in a frugal yet high-quality way. We charge
businesses and organizations $140 per hour, and families, most solo businesses,
and individuals $100 per hour. We will work creatively with you to make our approach
affordable for you, by pacing and prioritizing the work. We also encourage customers
to join together and divide our fee. This method also gives you a support group, with
peers to share ideas and methods.
We
take detailed notes on the work we do, which becomes part of your permanent
computer documentation. We charge for creating these notes, which usually
amounts to about 10% of the time we spend in the field. We charge for travel
time, but hate doing so, and work hard to organize our workdays to keep this to
a minimum.
We
place the strongest emphasis on helping you keep your data safe, and as our
first task will help you develop and strengthen your backup and security
arrangements.
We
are very preventative in our approach, but emergencies do happen, and we work
hard to respond to them in a prompt and budget-conscious way.
We
have a long-term commitment to a well-trained computer support community, so we
have an active student learning program where we train people to do what we do.
Please
call us at 617-522-1049. We will work hard to return your call promptly. Each
situation is different, but what seems to work for most people is: take a deep
breath. Then:
Don’t
take chances with safety—any burning smells, hot surfaces etc. should make you
turn off the system and keep it off until we can come and help you.
If
you have erased data by accident, do as little as possible with your computer,
since any additional data you add could overwrite the erased data, which still
may be mostly unharmed.
If
the situation seems stable, wait for us to get back to you, so we can together
navigate through the situation as safely as possible. If your sense is that the
situation is deteriorating rapidly, then see if you can back up as much of your
vital data as the situation allows, to CD, flash drive or external drive.
Architects
almost always work under tough deadlines, and make exacting demands on their
computer systems. We can help you make your system more reliable and responsive
to the many needs of your staff. We place a particular emphasis on data safety
and using spare parts and machines to make sure all your essential systems are
available to you when you need them.
We
can help you with problems with the specialized software and hardware that you
need for design and presentations, and can help educate your staff to help you
make good use of your design and other tools.
We
place a strong emphasis on creating and using how-to documents so that your
staff can do computer procedures quickly and accurately.
We
can help you improve your communication with your clients, by making use of
secure and convenient data transfer methods. We can also help you shape your
website to be a better communication forum for you and your clients.
Our
varied practice allows us to bring to non-profits some of the lessons we learn
from the for-profit and government worlds. We can help you strengthen your
office procedures and equipment to serve your constituencies, addressing their
needs for good communication, security, privacy, accuracy, and
efficiency.
We
are particularly interested in helping you learn about and use some of the
splendid resources that good computer systems offer a non-profit.
We
can help you draw on one of your greatest resources, your committed and
dedicated staff, by training and supporting them in maintaining and improving
your systems. Our documentation practices help with staff orientation and
learning, and reduce the loss when a key staff person departs.
Some
non-profits have difficult budget challenges, which make computer life
difficult. We can help you develop a continuous improvement plan that moves
gradually enough to be affordable, and makes creative use of your existing equipment
and procedures.
We
can help you develop a strong, sensible backup system that meets your
professional responsibility to safeguard your work.
We
help you keep your equipment current, but avoid unnecessary upgrades.
We
can help you pick and modify software to meet your professional needs.
We
can help you protect your work, and working time, from intrusion by viruses,
malware, spam, and hacking.
We
can help you assemble appropriate spare equipment to minimize downtime.
If
you also work at an office outside your home, we can work with your office IT
staff to make sure your connection to work is safe and reliable.
We
help organizations which already have computer departments. We provide
respectful but firm guidance for departments that want to improve the way they
provide support. We do this by sharing our methods for providing efficient,
empathetic and economical help.
We
give advice about creating better How-to documents and other documentation.
Our
team can assist you with projects that require additional skilled hands and minds,
as well as the valuable perspective that people outside an organization can
bring.
For
members of your IT/IS team who seek professional development opportunities, We
also provide sensitive and creative coaching and training. We also offer our
student learning program, which is one of the few educational opportunities in
We
are familiar with the deadlines and time pressures that lawyers face, and how
equipment or software failure can cause great anxiety.
To help you prevent this kind of trouble , we
help you to choose appropriate spare equipment to cover you when failures
happen.
We help you make sure your billing records and
your other essential records are thoroughly backed up, both onsite and offsite.
We help your staff know your system well enough
to prevent or fix routine problems.
Our
understanding of storage and retrieval issues can help you comply with the
e-discovery rules. Our experience with document conversion can help you make
sure your documents are accessible, and that you can read those of your clients
and opposing counsel. Our experience with data recovery can help you obtain the
data you need from equipment involved in a case.
We
can help you implement security procedures that help protect you from external
threats, and from internal mistakes or malfeasance.
We
can help you carefully document your office machine procedures, to help train
new staff, make sure client records are properly protected, and allow for
continuous improvement.
Adam
has an intense interest in helping health care professionals do their job
efficiently and compassionately, with the office equipment being a help rather
than a set of obstacles. Adam and his team are also aware of the major
financial and system changes that have occurred in the health care field, and
we want to use our skills to help empower health care professionals.
Our
core job is to help you have a safe, secure, reliable, HIPAA-compliant system.
Beyond that, we will strive to help you use computers to foster communication
and learning with patients and other providers. We can help you make creative
use of secure email, websites, databases and other tools to help you.
We’ve
adapted our more industrial-strength methods to help people with their home
computers. We are particularly good at helping family members learn and help
each other with their systems—helping to create a healthy community of users at
home.
If
you keep any valuable information on your computer—financial data, precious
photos, music, address books, homework, private writing—we will help you
develop an economical, sensible plan for making regular backups.
We
can help you make a sensible, frugal decision of when to buy a new system, and
when to put effort into your existing system.
We
can help you reduce your risk of viruses, malware, spam, and identity theft.
We
can help you make sure your wireless network is as secure as this often
insecure technology allows.
We
can help create some boundaries, so different family members can enjoy the
computer without causing trouble for others.
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Working together with the disabled community
The eternal struggle of the disabled for internal peace, family harmony, and
external services requires that they maintain all possible alliances. We can be
a sturdy ally.
We give advice on the computer accommodations
necessary for different types of disability.