If you are  trying to come up with a clever business idea, I’m both pleased and sorry to say that another one has just got away from you. Pleased because the rather brilliantly named Geek Team really does fill a gap in the market. As their name more or less implies, they are a mobile IT helpdesk who know all there is to know about computers. They bring the unofficial ‘Apple genius bar’ to you and your unwieldy desktop, or laptop too for that matter (they are also equally competent with non-Apple products I am told).

Lewis (above right) was my lovely ‘Geek’ who arrived last week along with Sean (left) to do something – anything – to cure my hopelessly slow mac desktop that makes me furious when it freezes…which is daily.

They also looked in to my incurably annoying, and on which I type this, Macbook Air which is regrettably the most basic model out there, with hardly any memory space.

After going into my desktop’s guts – for want of a better word…but you know what I mean…all those informative little boxes you never know how to access yourself – it turns out that the problem is blatantly clear: my iPhoto is clogged with photos stretching back to 2004 which constitute a whopping 180gb of space.

The other issue with a library this big, I now know, is that every time iPhoto opens, it loads the entire ten year library.

I am petrified of doing anything with my photographs myself incase I loose them but Lewis copied them all across on to an external hard drive that, in a fit of organisation, I already had.  He then wiped my pictures from my desktop to free up some much needed memory space and sorted them into four separate folders – enabling me to access small chunks of images without every single photo loading up at the same time. Actually very worth doing, regardless of whether or not you are low on space, for the simple reason that it’s just so much faster and more manageable.

He is also fitting some additional RAM into my iMac to make it run faster (it’s five years old) and collected it last night in order to do this at their office.  It will be a four hour job but by taking my computer away they’ll be charging for just two hours.

Very commendably, the purchase of any hardwear/RAM is not marked up. There is instead a $40 transport charge to cover its pick up.

All this was set in motion after a few highly efficient emails from Nat, the co-founder who organises the booking and follow up side of things. I also loved how she made sure I ‘e-met’ my technicians – who they refer to as ‘Geeks’…it’s not just me being rude – in advance of their arrival.

You’re also asked on email to complete a short questionnaire running though your main concerns so that they can match you with the most suitable IT chap. This was actually a really helpful stage for me so that I could be clear in my mind what I wanted to achieve.

Sean and Lewis were also great for practical tips like how to make my wireless Apple mouse work again. In my neanderthal state, whenever my mouse stops working I slam it down, hard, on the mousemat. Turns out, rather unsurprisingly, this only makes the problem worse as it serves to disconnect the batteries. All you need to do is pop some tin foil at the bottom of each battery to push them back in to position and…hey presto, you’re back in business.

Speaking of business, today the Geek Team are officially launching their 24/7, 365-days-a-year service here in Singapore, with a plan to roll out in both Malaysia and Hong Kong by the end of March.

My first hour of service was comped by the Geek Team; I paid for two additional/required hours

Featured image (very top of page) via the Geek Team