Rates
Our rates have been compared to sometimes less than 50% of that of our competitor's rates.
Most of our work is done on an hourly basis starting at £25.00 per hour (minimum 2 hours - cash payment). For estimates, we will calculate the time we believe the job will take, and estimate the cost from that. We sometimes do work for discounted rates for charities, students and other organizations.
If you would like an estimate for a job, please contact us. Make sure to describe your project in as much detail as possible. We will provide you with an estimate for your job. If you would like a faster estimate, please feel free to contact us directly.
The estimates provided are only estimates. Our estimates are generally very accurate representations of the final costs. However, a more accurate estimate can usually be given through an interactive discussion of your project, giving us a more specific idea of the project details.
Useful Tip
Security Alerts:
- Be Careful with Attachments
- Back Up Your Data
- Beware of fake security warnings!
- How to download the youtube.com videos on hard disk?
- XP SysKey Trick
- Email Security Scan
- Erase Your Hard Drive
- Fake Windows Update Email
- Google Security
- Hidden User Account
- How Firewalls Work
- How to Find What Virus was Removed
- Run Away Icons
- Safe Online Shopping
- Virus, Trojan, Worm
- Web Bugs
- What is a Trojan horse?
- What kind of attachments can contain viruses
- Scan Individual Files for Viruses
- Wireless Security
- Secure Website Problems
Be Careful with Attachments
There have been a number of really bad viruses just within the past 6 months. We've seen the W32.Beagle, W32.Netsky, MyDoom, and so on. Most of these viruses were transported or replicated from pc to pc-using email attachments. These are easy to spot if you're paying attention, simply because they are usually executable files, but not always.
Some attachments contain Macros (simple programs that run within other programs, all the titles in Microsoft Office use macros). If you're not that familiar with spotting file extensions, don't worry, that's what I'm here to talk about today. If you are a little hazy on the whole "file extension" thing then let's spend a few moments explaining it.
File extensions are what tell the program how to treat a particular piece of data. For example, most people are somewhat familiar with .doc or a .txt file extensions these are both text documents and when the user opens this file the Operating System looks at this extension and then knows how to open it.
Hackers try to use some sort of eye-grabbing ploy to get you to open their email and activate the virus, which is always an attachment. Most Anti-virus nowadays stops, or at least warns, you of these high risk attachments and even take measures to protect you. However, on the average 10-15 new viruses are created every day and I personally wouldn't count on any program to 100% protect my pc. That's why I scrutinize any email, if I wasn't expecting an attachment, I won't open it until I had a chance to talk to the sender.
Some of the more common file types used to hide viruses include:
- .scr - Windows Screen Saver - USE CAUTION if you receive a screen saver via email. They can contain worms or viruses
- .pif - DO NOT OPEN! This is most likely a virus. Clicking it will run a program or code that can mess up your computer.
- .exe - executable file - a program that contains a virus, Trojan horse, or worm
- .pps - MS PowerPoint (can contain macro virus)
- .zip - Zip (compressed) file
- .vbs - Visual Basic script
- .bat - Executable MS-DOS batch file
- .com - DOS executable command
- .asp - active server page - internet script
- .doc - Word document (can contain macro virus)
- .xls - Excel file (can contain macro virus)
This is in no way a complete list. Just because an attachment may have one of these extensions doesn't mean that it is a virus, but it should send up warning flags. Hackers use clever subject lines, and viruses can appear to come from a friend so keep on your toes and don't fall victim to their deceptive traps. Scan those attachments and verify with the sender before opening.
Beware of fake security warnings!
Sometimes you'll be surfing the web and a window pops up that looks like a legitimate warning from Windows. Before you click, read carefully and you'll find that it's just a pop up ad trying to entice you to a product site by clicking "Yes". I've even seen some with a shield that resembles the new SP2 Security Center logo.
Just click the X at the top of the window to close it and go on your way.
Erase Your Hard Drive
People give their old PCs away to family members, charities, and some end up at the local PC repair shop without ever being properly wiped clean. Everything stored on your PC is on the hard drive. There was a two-year experiment done by MIT graduates Ali and Eman where they collected 156 hard drives from various places (the web, ebay, PC shops, and businesses). Out of the 158 drives tested, 129 drives worked and hardly any of them were properly wiped clean. There were thousands of credit card numbers, private "adult" stuff, love letters, you name it, that was completely recoverable on these drives.
Most people believe that deleting data and then cleaning out the recycle bin does a sufficient job. This is NOT the case. When you delete something in windows, it just marks it to be overwritten. There is also a misconception that formatting a hard drive permanently erases stored data. This is also not true, a format just reconstructs the allocation table and checks the blocks on the disk. It does nothing actively to remove the data; it simply leaves it "unprotected". With both of these scenarios, if you have the right software you can recover data thought to be unrecoverable.
So, how do we erase this data on a hard drive for good? You can physically destroy the drive but that's not as easy as you think and you would be amazed at what people can recover data from. There are cases where people have drilled holes in the platters and it could still be recovered. You can take it to a PC repair store that has a Degausser that removes all the magnetism from the drive leaving it useless for good, but this can be way too expensive to justify the price for the common end user. You can write Zeros to the drive with the utilities at the hard drive manufacturer site and that will stop most people, but experienced users can still recover it.
If you don't want to destroy the drive, and are concerned about keeping your privacy then check out these two free programs that can take your hard drive to a state of non-recoverability...
Contact us if you need further assistance.
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(free diagnoses, free quote and we will repair and return your machine back to your address within 3 working days).