Question 1

What size business is this for?

Accepted Answer

Sweet spot is 3–25 employees: too small for a national MSP to take seriously, too large for the owner to keep doing IT in their head. Professional offices (legal, accounting, medical, dental, real estate), trades businesses, small e-commerce, nonprofits. If you have 30+ users we should talk about whether a fractional CIO arrangement makes more sense.

Question 2

Are you a managed service provider (MSP)?

Accepted Answer

Functionally yes, but smaller and more direct than a typical MSP. You get one person — me — instead of a ticket queue. No call centers, no offshore overnight support, no "please open a ticket" when you can just text. The trade-off is I'm not 24/7. If you need around-the-clock NOC monitoring, a larger MSP is the right call and I'll tell you that honestly.

Question 3

What's included in the cybersecurity piece?

Accepted Answer

Baseline included in every contract: endpoint protection on every workstation, a managed password manager rollout (1Password or Bitwarden), MFA enforcement on email and critical systems, backup verification, and quarterly phishing simulation training. Standard and Plus tiers add managed firewall rules, dark-web credential monitoring, and incident-response playbooks. Compliance-specific work (HIPAA security risk assessment, PCI-DSS, NIST 800-171) is priced per project.

Question 4

Can you handle HIPAA compliance?

Accepted Answer

I help small healthcare offices with the technical safeguards required by HIPAA Security Rule — access controls, audit logs, encryption, backup, BAAs with cloud providers. For the full HIPAA risk assessment and policy documentation, I work with a Maryland compliance consultant; I'll connect you. I won't claim I can do parts of compliance work I can't do well.

Question 5

What if we already have an IT person or vendor?

Accepted Answer

Fine. A lot of businesses keep their existing vendor for one thing (line-of-business software support, for instance) and bring me in for everything else. Or I work alongside an internal IT employee as backup and second opinion. We don't have to be the only ones.

Question 6

Do you support Macs / mixed environments?

Accepted Answer

Yes. I work natively in both Mac and Windows environments, plus Linux servers and Chromebooks where they show up. Mixed offices are normal — your accountant's iMac, the front-desk Windows PC, and the warehouse Chromebooks can all be managed under one contract.

Question 7

What happens during an incident — say, a ransomware hit?

Accepted Answer

Day-of: I help you isolate affected machines, assess whether backups are clean, decide whether to pay (almost never the right call), and coordinate with your cyber insurance carrier if you have one. Days 2–7: recovery from clean backups, root cause analysis, hardening so it doesn't happen again. For breaches affecting more than one workstation or any regulated data, I'll bring in a specialized DFIR firm — I won't pretend to be one.

Question 8

Can we start with just an assessment, no contract?

Accepted Answer

Yes. The $299 IT and security assessment is a one-time engagement. You get a written report and prioritized recommendations. If you decide to sign a contract within 60 days, the $299 is credited toward the first month. If you don't, you keep the report and the relationship is over — no high-pressure follow-up.

Small Business IT Support & Security in Columbia, MD

Tell me what's going on

A straightforward process

Common starting prices

Serving Columbia and nearby Maryland areas

Common questions

Other tech help I offer in your area

In-Home Computer Repair in Columbia, MD

In-Home Virus & Malware Removal in Columbia, MD

Wi-Fi Troubleshooting & Setup in Columbia, MD