Need New Computers Quick

[MovedGoalPosts]

A well organised groups of toe rags (polite phrasing 'cos what I really mean won't remotely get past the obscenity sensor), raided my office last night. In the middle of a busy high street, they must have driven up at around 3:00am, parked a van outside the office, busted down the front door, smashed the burglar alarm, and then calmly waltzed off with a pile of PCs and flat screen monitors (If you get offerred a job lot of Dell 4600 Desktops, Dell 17" monitors, HP Compaq desktops and 15" monitors, Surrey Police might be very interested). Now Iv'e got to get the office bakc up and running a.s.a.p.

I could go to Dell, or indeed any manufacturer direct by experience says that will take a few weeks, that I haven't got.

I could buy premade out of date PCs off the shelf somewhere. Our policy is only to go for recognised brands, as a few older PCs we used to have made to order, just fell apart. Isn't there a Dell outlet for the returns stuff - can't find a website.

The master software disks were left behind. Most though are OEM. Do I have to get my replacement PCs with software preloaded (i.e. pay again for something I still have) including windows, or can I load this stuff onto any new PC (which by definition is going to have come from an OEM source like Dell). It'll be a pain to get the PC preloaded with XP home, when I then have to waste time reloading XP Pro, necessary for our network to operate.

Anyone know anywhere you can hire a few PCs for a week or two, if I do have to wait for a long lead in order to delivery?

[Ramrod]

pc's for hire and in Surrey

[MovedGoalPosts]

Originally Posted by Ramrod

pc's for hire and in Surrey

Ooooh, Interesting, thanks

[swoop101]

MGP you can find the Dell outlet at http://www1.euro.dell.com/content/de...=uk&l=en&s=dfo

[Ramrod]

More links:
http://www.itrentals.co.uk/viewrenta...&OVMTC=content
http://www.computer-rentals.co.uk/?O...&OVMTC=content

[TheBlueRaja]

Spot on idea - hiring a PC until its all sorted.

Good call Ramrod.

[Ramrod]

Originally Posted by theblueraja

Spot on idea - hiring a PC until its all sorted.

Good call Ramrod.

Sorry m8, wasn't my idea. It came from MGP's post #1

[greencreeper]

It's called "business continuity" - usually you have a contract with people who get you going again within hours in the event of disaster or theft. There's a company near me (well, near Ikea in Wakefield) that has a big truck full of networked PCs that just polls up and hey presto. So even if the office burns down you can still carry on. I think it's amazing what can be done these days

Any company supplying a business should supply to your specifications - neon pink with fluffy trim shouldn't be a problem. Don't entertain them if they're not prepared to work for your custom.

Invest in more security while you're at it - or have a security review done.

[MovedGoalPosts]

Originally Posted by greencreeper

It's called "business continuity" - usually you have a contract with people who get you going again within hours in the event of disaster or theft. There's a company near me (well, near Ikea in Wakefield) that has a big truck full of networked PCs that just polls up and hey presto. So even if the office burns down you can still carry on. I think it's amazing what can be done these days

Any company supplying a business should supply to your specifications - neon pink with fluffy trim shouldn't be a problem. Don't entertain them if they're not prepared to work for your custom.

Cheers for all the advice given by everyone so far

Invest in more security while you're at it - or have a security review done.

I doubt that as a small firm there was much more that we could have done to prevent this. We'd had a couple of "attempts" in recent weeks. Dunno now it seems like co-incidence if someone was not trying to probe for weaknesses. As a result all windows had had security lokcs upgraded - only way in would have been to break through them.

Our burglar alarm company now says they visited us 3 times that night The first, late evening, we now know they cut the phone lines (security company monitoring service called a keyholder saying there was a monitoring fault, it needed an engineer to fix, who would come in the morning). The belief was the alarm was still active, but from now on when triggerred noone would know. Stage 2, sometime around 2:00 am, they returned and pulled off the external alarm sounder. They niked a wheelie bin from someone to do this.
Stage 3, over an hour later they would have returned en masse, to literally smash and jemmy open the external deadbolted door (needs new door and frame), jemmy off all foour alamr keypads and internal sounders, and then calmly unlplug all the PCs on three floors that they wanted, leaving behind keyboards mice, leads, etc, and waltzing off into the dawn. All of this right under the nose of a local authority CCTV camera that has 24hour monitoring, but for that night conveniently pointed the wrong way.

So now we get ourselves sorted, buy loads of replacement PCs, and wait to be retargeted, cos now they know that everything really will be brand new and worth having

Well you haven't seen my offer in the Seti thread I gather.

I WILL use my witchdoctor beads to curse them but I need you to tell me what sort of curse or plague you want me to use.

I think the prolonged bouts of diarrhoea and vomiting coupled with frequent bouts of cystitus might be very effective.Oh and a boil right on the end of their...............

Let me know if I can help?

Incog.

[greencreeper]

Originally Posted by MovedGoalPosts

Our burglar alarm company now says they visited us 3 times that night.

So that was three occasions on which they could have prevented the burglary. Shocking. To dismiss something as a fault without even checking

Bolt everything to the desks - should delay them a bit.

Sounds like you're going to have turn the place into a fortress They never catch the scroats responsible unless they arrest them for another burglary and in court they confess to any other crimes (ask for them to be "taken into consideration" aka TICs) to stop them being arrested again at a later date I know who did my flat (twice) but people were too scared to talk to the police, who couldn't be bothered investigating and just marked it as "undetected"

[danielf]

Originally Posted by MovedGoalPosts

<snip>

So now we get ourselves sorted, buy loads of replacement PCs, and wait to be retargeted, cos now they know that everything really will be brand new and worth having

Originally Posted by greencreeper

<snip>

Bolt everything to the desks - should delay them a bit.

£30 will get you a cage that can be bolted to the floor or desk.

http://www.pcsafe.co.uk/

Sounds like a good investment, as they probably will be back

Edit: Prices might vary depending on the amount of cages you order, but they really are not very expensive considering the price of the computers. And the cages are very effective. You need a professional grinder and a few hours (plus lots of noise) to get to the machine.

Here's another link:

http://www.toptec.co.uk/

[Ramrod]

Originally Posted by MovedGoalPosts

So now we get ourselves sorted, buy loads of replacement PCs, and wait to be retargeted, cos now they know that everything really will be brand new and worth having

****ing ****holes

[swoop101]

Originally Posted by greencreeper

I know who did my flat (twice) but people were too scared to talk to the police, who couldn't be bothered investigating and just marked it as "undetected"

I got burgled a 12 years ago, police couldn't be bothered so I put the feelers out. A mate checked a local flea market and saw my stuff, we rang the police who were reluctant but went and they found 90% of my bits and also enough to clear up 200 other hits when they searched the homes of those *******s. Also they got a shock when they came out as 'friends' had a word with them (no violence though).

[greencreeper]

Originally Posted by swoop101

I got burgled a 12 years ago, police couldn't be bothered so I put the feelers out. A mate checked a local flea market and saw my stuff, we rang the police who were reluctant but went and they found 90% of my bits and also enough to clear up 200 other hits when they searched the homes of those *******s. Also they got a shock when they came out as 'friends' had a word with them (no violence though).

First burglary I disturbed them - I'd only been gone 10 minutes at tops. I saw one kid (he's 15) running with something of mine. I recognised him but didn't know his name. Made enquires and gave his name to the police who arrested him but he had nothing of mine at his house (his parent's house) so they let him go. Nothing else could be done. I moved my valuables to my parents - I knew they'd be back. The following week they came back - the Asian owner of the newsagents next door heard them kicking the door down and watched them. He knows exactly who did it but was too scared to say anything. So nothing else could be done. When the chips are down you really find out what people are made of. I was trying to make a stand against the kids, who were also responsible for a lot of anti-social behaviour in the area, but when I realised that I stood alone, I moved out. Shame really.