CareTech Computing is a husband-wife partnership based in agricultural Huron County — “Ontario’s West Coast.” I do the tech work, and my wife helps with the bookwork, and provides the moral support I need when technical challenges weigh me down. My interests are broad-ranging, but generally involve computers in some way or other. I’ve dabbled with web design, digital photography, audio recording, basic programming, custom computer builds, and more; and as of 2017, much of my time is dedicated to the maintenance of the Security Appliance project, an internet content filter that has grown from humble beginnings in 2006 or so to a fully-featured, SMB-ready internet filter that rivals or exceeds many other big-name options. But, loving diversity, I still take time to help clients find solutions to various technical challenges. If I find the time, I may blog about some of our experiences; some of my discoveries and mistakes may help somebody else! To God be the glory.
-Joel
Below is a little timeline of events that has helped to shape CareTech into what it is today.
Summer 2010
A friend who knew I liked messing around with computers contacted me to see if I could build a website to advertise his small-engine shop. I happily consented, and began studying HTML and CSS.
October 2010
My first website went live! It was a several-page static site, coded manually in Dreamweaver CS5. That first site has since been re-designed and is no longer up, thankfully — by today’s standards it would look awful and be downright embarrasing!
March 2011
We designed another static website for a family-owned small engine sales and repair shop. This one looked much better than the first try, and was functional for quite a while, but I’m still not going to show it off to any designers out there!
Summer / Fall 2011
Through various circumstances I got introduced to the Security Appliance project, which needed more technical administration manpower in South-western Ontario.
September 2011
Needing a business name, and building on Joel’s interests in audio recording and website design, after considering various options we registered Reverb Graphics and Audio.
November 2012
We traveled to New Jersey to meet Dave from Compass Foundation, LLC (then Thinkwell Designs) and get training related to Security Appliance administration — chiefly how to effectively create and tweak content filtering rules. At that point, the Redwood content filter engine was still in early beta testing; we were still using Dansguardian.
July 2013
Another Reverb Graphics-designed website goes live — this time for a local welding shop.
December 19, 2013
Seeing the potential for good content filtering at affordable pricing for small users / families, we purchased our first cloud VPS, installed Security Appliance on it, and began offering cloud-based internet filtering as an alternative for folks using Safe Eyes.
Fall 2013 – Spring 2014
I went back to our private school classroom as part-time teacher for Grades 9 & 10. We moved to another house in early 2014. Between work, moving, teaching, and family life, there wasn’t room for anything more. (Did I also mention that we were running a sideline lawn care business, called Steiner Lawn Care?) The computer business was run in evening and weekend spare time.
Fall 2014
With our growing interest in computer / filtering tech and lessening interest in web design, Reverb Graphics now seemed a poor fit for a business name. After more deliberation (I hate picking names!), CareTech Computing was registered as a business name with Service Ontario. We also registered the caretech.io domain name.
2015 general
Life goes on, business goes on… tech work is crowding out other sideline interests. Steiner Lawn Care is no more; we are simply doing too much, and the computer business is growing. We handed off our grass-cutting clients to a friend who also mows lawns for others.
December 2015
We’ve outgrown the VPS! Migrated all cloud filter users to a new dedicated server.
2016 General
Busy, busy, busy.
Spring 2017
CareTech Computing agrees to amalgamate Canadian content filtering customers with Compass Foundation LLC so it’s just one name, Compass, both north and south of the border. CareTech Computing agrees to sell off its entire subscription-based content filtering business to Compass.
July 2017
Compass Canada, Ltd. is incorporated.
FAll 2017
Joel is staying on with Compass Canada, doing much the same work as before, but now our Canadian customers can enjoy a larger pool of techs available for internet filtering sales and support.
