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IT, demystified.
Articles, calculators, and a glossary written for buyers who want to make an informed call. Edited by IT practitioners with real operational depth, written from practice rather than marketing.
Articles
New pieces published roughly weekly. Topic suggestions welcome — tell us what you would want to read.
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What cyber insurance actually requires (and how to read your renewal)
Cyber-insurance underwriting has moved from attestation to evidence. Most SMB stacks were built before that shift. This is what underwriters actually look for in 2026, in priority order — and how to read your renewal.
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How to evaluate an IT proposal in 60 minutes
Most IT proposals are written to be skimmed and approved, rather than compared. Here is a 60-minute due-diligence template — what to read first, what to ask the vendor, and the seven specific traps that cost the most.
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What backups for a 30-person company actually look like
Most SMB backup setups look fine on paper and fail on the day they are needed. Here is what a defensible backup program looks like in 2026 — and the four specific failures that produce the recovery-day surprise.
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The hidden risk of offshore IT support
A single sold Microsoft 365 admin credential goes for $500 to over $50,000 on the dark web. The offshore IT worker holding that credential earns roughly $200 to $580 a month. The economic temptation is not theoretical. The legal recourse, when temptation wins, very often is.
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Why most MSPs sell you the wrong thing
Most MSPs are not lying to you. Their incentive structure simply means they cannot tell you the truth. Here is how the money actually moves — and what an IT provider that works for you instead of for vendors looks like in practice.
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Compliance for SMBs in 2026: what is actually table-stakes now
SOC 2 used to be the bar. It still matters, but the bar has moved. This is what actually shows up in customer questionnaires, RFP responses, and cyber-insurance applications in 2026.
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The hidden cost of in-house IT for a 25-person company
An in-house IT generalist runs $130,000+ fully loaded. That is the line item you see. The four lines below the waterline usually add roughly half again — 45 to 75 percent more — and they are the ones that determine whether the in-house bet works.
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How much should an SMB actually spend on IT?
Most surveys give you a percentage of revenue. That is the wrong denominator. The right number lives in cost-per-employee per year — and the range is narrower than you would think.
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Migrating from your MSP without breaking everything
Most MSP migrations break in one of three places: contract overlap that costs you double, knowledge transfer that fails to happen, and the moment of cutover when nobody owns the next 72 hours. Here is how to avoid all three.
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Endpoint management, RMM, EDR, MDM: which do you actually need?
RMM, EDR, MDM, endpoint management — the marketing makes them sound interchangeable. They are not. Each does a specific job; getting the combination right is the difference between operational competence and security theater.
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