Need An IT Expert For Your Home Or Business? Try NerdsToGo! 

(L.-r.) NerdsToGo New Tampa operations supervisor Angie Bosley, owner Michael Varnadore and certified IT tech Abhishek Singhai look forward to serving your personal and business technical needs at the store in the Pebble Creek Collection. (Photos by Charmaine George)

In the New Tampa and Wesley Chapel area, there is no shortage of places that claim to be able to fix a broken device, such as mobile phone, laptop or computer. 

But, NerdsToGo is the only one owned and run by Michael Varnadore, a U.S. Air Force veteran with four decades of experience and education that have all dovetailed into his latest endeavor. 

Michael enlisted in the U.S. Air Force right out of high school, four days after his 18th birthday. Of his 20-year military career, he says that 15 were spent in computer service, including teaching his entire squadron how to use personal computers when they received them while stationed in Korea. 

Along the way, he earned a Bachelor’s degree and went on to receive a Doctorate degree in information systems management. 

After retiring from the military, Michael started his second career at an aerospace corporation. He served as director of personal computing, responsible for 80,000 end points (personal computers and laptops). After nearly two decades, he retired again, and that’s when he decided to take all of the knowledge he had gained to start something new, as the local franchise owner for NerdsToGo, located in the Pebble Creek Collection plaza on Bruce B. Downs (BBD) Blvd. 

“Everything I’ve done — starting with working on my first Tandy 1000 in 1986 — has led to where I’m at today,” Michael says, “it’s been a progression of skill sets and responsibilities, and I’m still learning.” 

He teaches, too, as a college professor teaching introductory computer classes at Hillsborough Community College and University of Maryland online. 

Those decades of experience and extensive education have given Michael the expertise to help both consumers and businesses with any computer or IT issue that may arise. 

Since opening the business in 2019, Michael says he’s proud that his small business has served the needs of the New Tampa area and has racked up more than 150 5-star reviews on Google, and an average of 4.9 stars out of 5. 

“As a small business, I don’t have any way to brush off bad reviews,” he says. “We have very few untrue or unfair reviews.” 

NerdsToGo is a growing franchise, with about 35 locations nationwide. 

Michael explains that when you hire NerdsToGo, you’re hiring an IT specialist, and he and his staff provide the expertise to fix your problem. 

Got a cracked phone screen? Bring it in. NerdsToGo can fix most devices and even has a special laser to remove the back glass off iPhones. Without that laser, Michael says, it can take hours to try to pry it off by hand because of the strong glue that holds it in place. At NerdsToGo, repairs are quick and you can generally get your phone back within a couple of hours. 

Virus on your computer? Michael says this is a big issue these days. You clicked on something you didn’t realize was a scam and now you’re having all kinds of problems with your computer? He and the other “nerds” at NerdsToGo know exactly what to do to get rid of any signs of the problem you encountered. 

Michael says he also often helps people upgrade computers that are running slow. It can cost hundreds if not thousands of dollars to replace a computer, but Nerds ToGo can offer upgrades that will keep your computer running efficiently for years without having to buy a whole new system. 

NerdAssure For Business 

But, don’t just think of NerdsToGo for your own personal needs. 

As a small business owner, Michael knows all too well just how many hats have to be worn and how many things small business owners have to become experts in just to get by. 

He promises that those who own small businesses don’t have to learn to be IT experts, as Nerds ToGo’s exclusive NerdAssure program will manage all information technology services for you. 

He says the service uses software to monitor machines for performance and fix hardware before it breaks, along with providing antivirus services, cloud backup to ensure all data and email is backed up and recoverable in case of a problem, and the administration of some kind of office productivity software, which could be Office 365 or something else. 

He says this includes making sure everyone has access to the things they should and not to the things they shouldn’t. 

“For businesses that have no IT department or person, we can remotely manage and monitor the environment,” Michael explains. “For those who have a person or small department, this service complements that and takes a lot of work off their shoulders.” 

That’s how it works at Ridge Manor Christian Academy, where assistant principal Nathan Puentes is responsible for the school’s IT but can’t do it by himself. 

“We’ve worked with five different companies over the last 13 years, and before NerdsToGo, no one was as accessible to us as we needed them to be,” Nathan says. “When something goes wrong, we can’t wait days for it to get fixed. Our students need their devices working immediately.” 

He says that, for the past three years, working with NerdsToGo has met all of the school’s needs and has performed beyond their expectations. 

“These guys are amazing,” he says. “They are performing updates, identifying issues in the system, getting the right people right away to solve problems.” 

NerdsToGo is located at 19651 Bruce B Downs Blvd., Suite C6. The store is open Monday-Friday, 9:30 a.m.-6 p.m., and 10 a.m.-4 p.m. on Saturday. For more information, visit NerdsToGo.com, call (813) 321-1700.

NerdsToGo Is On The Move For Small Businesses

Michael Varnadore (white shirt) and his team of nerds at NerdsToGo in the Pebble Creek Collection can solve almost any consumer or business computer problem.(Photos courtesy of NerdsToGo)

Michael Varnadore is a nerd, and he’s proud of it.

He says he’s been a nerd since the 1980s, when he first laid his eyes on an Apple IIe computer, bought his first Commodore 64 and got his first Information Technology (IT) gig in 1986, when the U.S. Air Force started using the new Zenith Z-100.

What a decade that was. The computer world has changed a lot since then, and Varnadore has changed along with it. Now, he directs an entire team of nerds at NerdsToGo Computer Services, located in the Pebble Creek Collection shopping plaza on Bruce B. Downs (BBD) Blvd. Varnadore’s nerds can come to you and solve your computing needs.

“First and foremost, we want to be known as the guys you can trust with your IT, with your business, and with your data,” says Varnadore. “All of my nerds are certified, background-checked and drug-tested. Everybody here is a professional IT specialist of one type or another.”

NerdsToGo offers a slew of services, ranging from replacing a cracked screen on an iPhone to serving as an on-demand mobile IT department for your small business.

“We basically do everything,” says Varnadore, who opened his NerdsToGo franchise in 2019. “Our motto is ‘We Make IT Work.’”

NerdsToGo was founded in 2003 in Guilford, CT by David Colella to provide computer service for residential and small business users, long before computers were ubiquitous. The concept hasn’t changed, and there are now 25 locations nationwide, mostly along the east coast but as far west as Seattle.

On the consumer side, Varnadore’s franchise does hardware repair, and can even replace the back glass on an iPhone (and other phones) with its new laser machine. In many cases, they can have your cell phone or laptop with a cracked screen back to you within a few hours.

Owner Michael Varnadore says his nerds can take care of your small business IT needs, too.

And, Varnadore promises that they will never put business ahead of honesty.

“This was my first time visiting NerdsToGo, but definitely will not be my last,” wrote one of the customers on Google, where the New Tampa NerdsToGo franchise has a 4.9 rating. “All of the staff here were super knowledgeable and pleasant. They were upfront and honest, did not try to haggle me for business. In my case, I had numerous devices to repair and they were very honest and told me which ones were not repairable. For the items that were repairable I received same day service.”

Varnadore says home networking, mostly involving setting up mesh networks to improve the WiFi range in homes, is popular, as well as options like setting up a new computer and transferring data off an old one, setting up printers, installing certain applications, removing malware and other issues with cyber security.

All of these are even more important issues now, in a Covid world, than they were before, because so many more people are working from their homes. 

There are enough computer conundrums to keep NerdsToGo busy. One of the most common complaints from consumers? “My computer is too slow!”

NerdsToGo specializes in tuning up your device by offering solid state drive (SSD) bundles, where they swap out an old hard disk drive (HDD) for a newer SSD, while transferring all your data to the new drive.

HDDs have moving parts, like a spinning “platter,” which can be broken when dropped or bumped, while an SSD is more like a large memory chip.

Varnadore says the difference in speed can be like trading in a station wagon with side paneling for a Porsche.

“The slowest thing on a computer these days is the hard drive,” Varnadore says. “Data is read and written to the disk so many times, people don’t realize how much that it slows everything else down. Now, with new solid state technology, there’s no moving parts. It’s very fast. You put (an SSD) in, it turns that slow computer into something running better than the day they bought it. People are amazed at the difference in speed, and that can save them hundreds, even thousands of dollars.”

NerdsToGo does most repairs in its office, but sometimes a trip to your home or business is all it takes.  

NerdsToGo also is bolstering and emphasizing its local and small business offerings for those who can’t afford a full-time IT employee or don’t want to invest in expensive managed service companies to monitor their networks.

Through its NerdAssure program, NerdsToGo can manage the IT services for small businesses, supporting anywhere from one to hundreds of computers.

“From the day we opened our doors, we’ve always provided services to small businesses,” Varnadore says. “The new NerdAssure is a new branded capability we are rolling out that can do stuff in the background.”

The service monitors more than 3,000 different elements of the business’ computer hardware and software to make sure it’s running effectively, and if there’s a problem, NerdAssure is alerted so it can take action.

Varnadore says that NerdAssure also provides a real-time antivirus, “that not only looks for bad guys’ signatures but actually has a security operations center watching for any events that might be taking place.”

One of the most valuable services is backing up your business’ data. “If you lose critical data you can be out of business,” Varnadore says. “Everything else can be replaced. But, your intellectual property can’t. We can protect that.”

NerdAssure provides hosting for a Microsoft 365 environment and takes care of email issues while offering other IT administrative support as well.

And, when problems do arise, NerdsToGo can be onsite the same day to fix them.

“We want to be the IT company for your small business,” Varnadore says. “When you need us, we are there, and we can be there onsite, so you’re only paying for the time you need us there. When you don’t need us, NerdAssure is monitoring and securing your network in the background.”

And, when you do need NerdsToGo, Varnadore says you won’t be passed through to a call center somewhere else. The New Tampa location phone is answered by a customer specialist, one of the technicians or even by Varnadore himself. So, give your local nerds a call for a free technology evaluation.

NerdsToGo is located at 19651 Bruce B Downs Blvd., Suite C6. The store is open Monday-Friday, 9:30 a.m.-6 p.m., and 10 a.m.-4 p.m. on Saturday. For more information, visit NerdsToGo.com or call (813) 321-1700.