GuidePower Platform & Custom Apps
What I would build for a business with no Microsoft licences
You do not need Microsoft licences to get working business software. The layers, what I would build for a ten-person firm, and…
Insights
The questions that actually come up
Written for the person with the problem, not the developer.
Type
Topic
GuideAI & Consultancy
The AI tools worth knowing about, and what each is for
A short list of the AI tools a small business might actually use, sorted by the job each does, with where each…
GuideRunning a Small Business
Website care plans, and what should be in one
Two care plans at the same price can cover very different things. What a maintenance plan should include, what it usually leaves…
GuidePower Platform & Custom Apps
What happens to your app when the person who built it leaves
Software usually outlives the relationship that built it. The five things the next developer needs, who owns the code, and how to…
GuideRunning a Small Business
Buying software, renting it, or owning it
Software can be bought once, rented by the month, or built and owned. What each costs over three years, when each is…
GuideRunning a Small Business
Does your hosting run what your app needs?
Before building an app, check what your existing hosting can run. Five questions to ask your host, what the answers mean, and…
GuideAutomation
The app that runs while nobody is watching
Scheduled tasks send reminders, build reports and reconcile lists on a timetable. Often the cheapest automation a small business can buy, if…
GuideAI & Consultancy
Bring your own key: who pays for the AI
Every AI feature runs on an account with an AI provider. Whose account it is decides who sees the costs, who agrees…
GuideRunning a Small Business
Who do you call when your website goes down?
When a website goes down, the delay is rarely technical. How to tell which of four layers failed, who to ring for…
GuidePower Platform & Custom Apps
Do you need a database, or a spreadsheet that behaves?
Most businesses asking for a database need a few things a database provides. The options from smallest to largest, and three questions…
GuideAutomation
Stringing tools together without writing code
Workflow tools such as Zapier, Make and n8n connect software that was never built to talk. Where they are the right answer,…
GuideRunning a Small Business
What you are actually paying for in web hosting
Hosting renews every year and few businesses know what it covers. The four things you pay for, where the money quietly goes…
GuideAI & Consultancy
The twenty euro tool that replaces the project
Before building anything, check whether someone already sells it for twenty euro a month. When buying beats building, and when it genuinely…
GuideAI & Consultancy
An AI that answers the phone when you are closed
Software that answers calls after hours is now good enough to consider. Where it earns its place, where it does not, and…
GuidePower Platform & Custom Apps
What a small custom app costs to build and to keep running
What you are actually paying for in a custom app, which costs continue after the build, and the five questions that move…
GuideRunning a Small Business
Where your business software actually lives
Most businesses cannot say where their website is hosted or who holds the account. The four places software lives, and the one-page…
GuidePower Platform & Custom Apps
What Microsoft 365 automation costs once you have twelve staff
Much of Power Automate is already in your Microsoft 365 subscription. Where the paid line sits, the sums at Irish list prices,…
GuidePower Platform & Custom Apps
Do you need Microsoft 365 to automate something?
Somebody told you the answer is Power Automate. Sometimes it is. When staying inside Microsoft 365 is cheapest, and when licences become…
GuideAI & Consultancy
Using AI to recruit staff: when a small business becomes a high-risk deployer
Ranking applicants puts an ordinary business in the one high-risk category it is likely to meet. The date moved to December 2027;…
GuideAI & Consultancy
Who actually regulates AI in Ireland?
One coordinating office and a dozen sectoral regulators. There is nothing to register with, and your existing regulator matters more than the…
GuideAI & Consultancy
Do Irish businesses have to label AI-generated content?
Mostly no, and the rule is narrower than the claim. Four separate duties, most of them on the companies building the tools…
GuideAI & Consultancy
The EU changed the AI Act deadlines. What the 2026 Omnibus means
High-risk obligations moved to December 2027, AI literacy was softened, and transparency did not move. What still stands in a plan written…
GuideAI & Consultancy
The EU AI Act in plain English, updated for 2026
What actually applies to a small business, and what does not.
GuideAI & Consultancy
AI literacy is now a legal obligation. What that actually means
Article 4 has applied since February 2025 and its wording was softened in July 2026. What it asks now, what it does…
Quick FixRunning a Small Business
The contact form that was not sending
Enquiries had gone quiet over the summer. Everyone put it down to the season. It was not the season.
Quick FixAI & Consultancy
The Copilot answer that surfaced the wrong file
Nothing was misconfigured. The permissions problem was four years old, and the tool made it visible in seconds rather than creating it.
GuideRunning a Small Business
Should your business have a newsletter?
A newsletter is one of the few marketing commitments that gets worse if you do it badly. There is an honest test…
Case StudyWebsites
whichnewcar.ie: a review site its owner runs himself
A motoring journalist with many years of road-testing needed to publish weekly without calling a developer first. What was built, and how…
GuideAutomation
From an inbox to a process: a small automation pattern
Email is excellent at delivering messages and hopeless at holding state. One way in, one list, one acknowledgement, and what decides whether…
Quick FixAutomation
The report that arrived at one in the morning
Scheduled in UTC, read in Ireland, and covering the wrong week. An hour of drift matters when it moves a job across…
GuideWebsites
AI Overviews are taking your search traffic. What to do
Rankings have not moved but the clicks have gone. How to check whether this is your problem, what still gets clicked, and…
GuidePower Platform & Custom Apps
Power Automate, or another pair of hands?
Not competing purchases. One buys consistency on defined work, the other buys judgement. The question that decides it, and the costs left…
Quick FixRunning a Small Business
The domain nobody in the business owned
Paid for it for six years, never owned it. Almost never sinister, and it only ever surfaces at the moment you need…
GuideAI & Consultancy
What AI actually costs a small business
The headline number is rarely what you pay, and the gap tends to appear in month three. Tokens, seats, data preparation, and…
GuideRunning a Small Business
Developer, consultancy, or do it yourself?
All three are right sometimes. What decides it is not budget but what happens after the work is finished, and five things…
GuidePower Platform & Custom Apps
When a custom app is the wrong answer
The projects that go badly are the ones that should never have started, and they are identifiable in advance. Five signals, and…
GuideAI & Consultancy
The AI projects that quietly fail, and why
They rarely fail loudly. Six patterns behind the slow drift to nobody using it, all of them visible before the money is…
Quick FixPower Platform & Custom Apps
The app that only found the first 500 records
Staff said records were missing. They were there; the app could not see them. A delegation limit that passes testing and fails…
GuideRunning a Small Business
Windows 10 support has ended. What to actually do
The machines still work, which is why this gets left. What end of support really means, the insurance and GDPR angles, and…
GuidePower Platform & Custom Apps
SharePoint lists as a database: the option most businesses overlook
A SharePoint list can replace a shared spreadsheet at no extra cost on Microsoft 365. What it handles well, where it stops,…
GuideAutomation
Automation that breaks quietly is worse than none
A thing that stops happening does not announce itself. What actually breaks them, and the one question to ask about everything you…
GuideWebsites
Signs your website is quietly costing you customers
A website rarely fails loudly. It just converts fewer people than it should, and because there is no alarm for that, it…
GuideAI & Consultancy
What an AI agent actually is, and when you do not need one
The difference is permission, not intelligence. Where agents genuinely earn their place, and why most businesses asking have a rules problem instead.
Quick FixWebsites
The old URLs that went nowhere
A better site, the same domain, and a third of the traffic gone. Everyone tested from the homepage. Nobody arrives from the…
GuideWebsites
What a small business website actually costs in Ireland
Three quotes, three different numbers, and nobody explaining the gap. The bands you will actually be quoted, and the costs that never…
Quick FixRunning a Small Business
The confirmations that were going to spam
Every message showed as sent, and customers never saw them. Three DNS records, one day to recover, and no bounce to warn…
GuideWebsites
The European Accessibility Act and your small Irish website
Real, wider than most assume, and smaller than the anxiety suggests. Whether it applies to you, what needs doing, and why overlays…
GuideAI & Consultancy
Can you put customer data into ChatGPT? An Irish answer
Sometimes, under conditions, and not the way most businesses currently do it. The account tier that decides it, and the four questions…
Quick FixPower Platform & Custom Apps
The list that stopped showing everything
Working at 4,999 items and broken at 5,001, on an ordinary morning, with no change to blame. What the view threshold is…
GuidePower Platform & Custom Apps
Approval workflows: what actually makes them work
The most commonly automated process, and among the most commonly automated badly. Four reasons they fail in month two, none of them…
GuideAI & Consultancy
Copilot, ChatGPT, or something custom?
One question decides it, and most businesses get it backwards. Where each option earns its price, and when the right answer is…
Quick FixAutomation
The flow that turned itself off
An automation that ran quietly for a year, then stopped. Nobody noticed for three months, because the symptom was an absence rather…
GuideWebsites
Do you need a website redesign, or is your problem actually SEO?
A redesign and SEO cost very different amounts and take very different times. One question separates them, answerable from your analytics in…
GuideRunning a Small Business
The software you pay for and do not use
An hour once a year recovers more than most cost-cutting exercises. Where to look, the four things you will find, and how…
Quick FixWebsites
The images that were four megabytes each
Eight seconds to load on a phone, and a quote in hand to rebuild the whole site. The build was fine. The…
GuidePower Platform & Custom Apps
The spreadsheet running your business is a risk
It works, which is the awkward part. Where it actually goes wrong, the signals it has outgrown itself, and the cheap fixes…
GuideAI & Consultancy
AI adoption: where to actually start
Most businesses asking about AI need the cheapest option on the list. Here is how to work out which tier a problem…
GuideAutomation
The admin tasks worth automating first
Starting with the most annoying task is usually wrong. Frequency beats intensity, and the best candidate to automate is often the one…
GuideWebsites
Your website is slow. Find out why before paying anyone
Website speed is a measurable question with a specific answer. The four causes in order of likelihood, and the one you can…
GuidePower Platform & Custom Apps
Power Apps licensing, explained without the Microsoft page
One distinction decides everything: where the data lives and what it talks to. Why the bill surprises people, and what to ask…
Quick FixWebsites
The site that told Google not to index it
A relaunch that ranked nowhere, not even for its own company name. One checkbox left ticked from the build, and six weeks…
GuideWebsites
WordPress is not your problem, your plugins are
Nobody sets out to install thirty plugins. What they actually cost, an audit you can run yourself, and how to remove them…
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