For all of the time I have been using computers my son, Sean, has been my guiding light and my technician. He started with computers at a very young age with a Commodore 64 and has graduated to more equipment than I can understand and even writes professionally for technical blogs. We have seen the computer world evolve from dial up modems and clunky consoles to wireless connections and sleek portables like my iPod Touch.

But all of the improvements don’t mean that everything has become easier or necessarily simpler to understand for new or older users. On the contrary some improvements present a whole new set of problems.

On a recent business trip my husband, who occasionally accompanies me, met his frustration wall. He is fairly new to the world of computers and age wise he could even be considered an ‘old dog’. He checks his e-mail and plays games and that is about the extent of his day—anything more takes guidance and patience on the part of my son and myself. We almost always stay with one particular hotel chain and Wi-Fi is almost always their connection of choice. Passwords are necessary with such Wi-Fi service as generally there are clusters of hotel around offering wi-fi service and you need to connect to the right one. Sounds simple-huh? Well it is generally pretty simple but only when the hotel help at 11:00 o’clock at night give you the full password. No matter how many times he tried the ‘pass word’ wouldn’t work. Multiple calls were made to the front desk—is the modem working? Is there a problem? Is the password correct? Finally it hit the boiling point—the desk help was rude, we had to threaten to call their corporate office about the rudeness and my husband ended up yelling at me. I was all of the sudden the reason his limited grasp of the situation made the password not work. Confusion, stress and hurt feelings ensued. I finally convinced the help to call the night manager and guess what? The password wasn’t right.

This is how StarterTech was born. I do not feel it is fair to anyone –no matter what age or involvement in computers to be so frustrated that their head hurts or their blood pressure rises. I know there has to be a better way—this is a place to make that better way happen. If you are frustrated please come here—ask questions, ask for help. Believe me—we understand and if we don’t know the answer we find it for you. Welcome to the family!