I really do hope that someone takes the time to read this, because this is something that all of us at LTOL or at least the owner is quite happy about.

LTOL has not raised it’s rates in over 4 years. I’d like to repeat that. LTOL has NOT raised it’s rates in over 4 years. This is in conjunction with higher salaries for employees, rent, overhead, gasoline, postage, office supplies and a host of other costs that we at LTOL have no control over but by being VERY frugal, we have been able to keep the cost to our very appreciated and loyal customer base, from rising.

We are not sure if you, our customers and potential customers have noticed but we have even been able to LOWER our fee’s to you our very loyal and appreciated customer base. When we first rolled out DSL, we were being forced by the Evil Empire, (you might know them as AT&T but Evil Empire is the only name we can use for them in this public medium) to charge 39.95 for DSL. We were thrilled that we were able to give this offering to the Truckee/Tahoe area. Then of course the Evil Empire started to sell DSL for 29.95 and slowly dropped the price. We felt that we were in deep, poo.

One of our staff folks did some checking, digging, begging, and found a way around the 39.95 costs and LTOL was able to find a way to sell DSL for the price we have today: 20.95. We then also were able to switch our existing customers through the course of a year from the 39.95 contract price and offer them the lower price. Yes, you read that right, instead of just keeping our most loyal and appreciated customers at a higher rate, we lowered, LOWERED, their DSL bill by 10.00 a month, that is a savings of 120.00 a year. Do you think that the Evil Empire is posting on a website how they lowered their customer’s DSL bills by 120.00 a year? We at LTOL don’t think so, just in case you were curious.

Did you also know that LTOL has the LOWEST service call charge in the Truckee/Tahoe area of all the company sized, Microsoft Partner type technical services? We charge 85.00 an hour at your home, 75.00 here at the shop. We have not found a shop that charges less, many that charge more, and fewer still that have the breath and depth of knowledge that LTOL has. That is not to say that there are not some fine, good, experienced shops out there, no. There are, what we here at LTOL is saying is that we don’t just fix your computer, no we go that extra step for the customer knowing that you appreciate that level of service.

What brought this on you might ask? One of the office folks read in the WSJ (Wall Street Journal, required bathroom reading) that Cable and Cable Internet companies have posted their smallest increase in years, YEARS! So, to our most loyal and appreciated customers, we at LTOL would like to thank you for your day, week, month, year, or years of support and we will continue to strive to be the best internet service provider, web hosting, web design, tech support, help desk, computer repair, consulting, domain registration, and storm door replacement center that we can be and please don’t hesitate to give us a call or an email for any questions, or anything else you might need to talk about.

Only Floss the Teeth you want to keep, backups too.

Were you like I and went to the dentist religiously as a kid? Did you see that same sign that said: “Only floss the teeth you want to keep!”? For some reason that memory has me associating that statement with backups.

A back up is just as important as flossing and probably should be done just as often.

Unlike flossing there are a lot of different ways to back up, flossing, well you more or less just floss and I won’t go into any greater detail as it might be TMI Too Much Information.

You can do backups with a CD, a jump or USB thumb drive, a DVD, a stand alone external hard drive or even a Networked Attached Storage Device (NAS). I am sure there are just as many different types of floss as there are backup solutions. I will just repeat a similar sentence. “Just backup the files that you want to keep.” I have found that only the really important files are the ones that get misplaced, erased, or over-written. I am at times amused when someone comes into the shop and their computer has crashed and one of the techs hears: “These are really important files I have to have them back this stuff is Mission Critical my whole business will be ruined if I don’t get these files back.” Well, then you ask the really important question: “When was the last time you backed these up?” And then you get that blank and then scared look on the customer’s face. “Back up? You mean the computer isn’t doing that all by itself; “I thought the computer was like, you know, smart?” Then the customer starts to cry as they realize that it really is their own fault for never doing or performing a back up.

So, this is the long and short of it: Only back up the files you want to keep, just like your dentist your computer tech will be quite happy for you.