During an unfortunate event, the client’s laptop was thrown approximately 20 feet into a concrete wall. The business-grade Dell was about 3 years old at the time, and the owner was primarily concerned with recovering the data on the hard drive.
On the bench, the computer was getting power, and the display (miraculously undamaged) would light, but there was no other sign of life, usually indicating major damage.
After disassembling the unit and testing the components, we found that the hard drive received the worst of the damage, somehow preventing even a hard drive error from being displayed.
This laptop, which retailed for around $800, was restored with a new hard drive for $249.
We referred the client to data recovery specialists to see if data could be recovered from the damaged drive. Often, we can recover data, but in the case of major damage, a specialist is recommended.
A multi-national company was referred to us when their website visitors reported unusual behavior and attempts to get visitors to download an application. Their site was built with WordPress several years before, but had not not been updated. Bad actors used exploits in outdated plugins to infect the site and attempt to spread to visitor machines.
It also prevented the Administrator from installing any plugins, such as a security plugin which may have identified the problem.
Ordinarily, it’s best to restore a backup to minimize downtime, however no backup existed, and even if one did, it was unknown how long the infection was present before the symptoms showed, because no security methods or plugins were in place.
To fix the immediate problem, we used server tools that we developed to identify malicious code in the theme itself, and wipe out the payload that was attempting to infect visitors.
We carefully monitored the site activity while we set up a new installation of WordPress with security plugins, and remote monitoring and alerting for any changes.
We were contacted by a company which we’d built a website for in 2020. The small business provides services only in their immediate area, and have been in business since the 1950s.
The business uses desktop workstations to handle accounting and appointment setting using a shared calendar. All customer information was in paper files.
Since the business services their customers at regular intervals, the staff had to keep up with when the last service was performed, and enter into the calendar future dates of service, then review constantly which customers would need service in the upcoming weeks or month.
We developed a database application that keeps track of all of this, and alerts the appropriate staff of everything they used to keep track of with post-it notes.
The application also tracks all changes to customer information, prints work orders and other reports as requested.