“Nuke and pave” is a slang term used by computer technicians to indicate the complete deletion of a hard drive, followed by the reinstallation of an operating system. Rather than fixing what was already installed on the computer, the system is “nuked” (i.e., the hard drive is reformatted or initialized) and a new operating system is “paved” over it.

Before the Nuke process begins we will test your hardware to make sure it is free of errors. Compressed air will be used to remove dust and debris from the inside of the computer which can hamper performance and cause overheating. Optionally at this point we can backup your data to our redundant server for safe keeping while your computer is being paved for an additional fee.

The USER PROVIDED Operating system is installed along with software drivers to support the hardware (network, audio and display devices) in your computer. We then update the operating system with the latest updates from Microsoft.

Once the system is up to date we remove all temp files and adjust visual settings to maximize performance and install the following collection of free software to protect and organize your data. In addition we will include the installation and update of Microsoft Office if supplied by the user or the Open Office Suite.

Free AVG Antivirus & Antispyware -A free, quality antivirus software from Grisoft for the home user. Software automatically updates and scans on a regular schedule in addition to a proactive component to prevent virus and spyware installation.

Open Office - An office application suite available for a number of different computer operating systems. It supports the ISO standard OpenDocument Format (ODF) for data interchange as its default file format, as well as Microsoft Office ‘97-2007 formats, among many others. Can easily replace the need to purchase Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint or Corel Wordperfect and Quatro Pro

Picasa - A software application for organizing and editing digital photos, originally created by Idealab and now owned by Google. Picasa has file importing and tracking features, as well as tags and collections for further sorting. It also offers several basic photo editing functions, including color enhancement, red eye reduction and cropping. Other features include slide shows, printing and image timelines. Images can also be prepared for external use, such as for e-mailing or printing, by reducing file size and setting up page layouts. There is also integration with online photo printing services and free online album websites.

Firefox Web Browser - Created by the team at MOZILLA, it is second most widely used web browser behind Internet Explorer. Firefox includes tabbed browsing, a spell checker, incremental find, live bookmarking, a download manager, and an integrated search system that uses the user’s desired search engine. Functions can be added through more than 2,000 add-ons created by third party developers. Advertisement blocking, picture viewing, and a weather radar extension are included.

Thunderbird Email - Simple to use, powerful, customizable, full-featured e-mail application from MOZILLA. Thunderbird supports IMAP and POP mail protocols, as well as HTML mail formatting. Easily import your existing e-mail accounts and messages. This open source software allows for many Add-ons to to enhance your email experience including ENCRYPTION.

Acrobat Reader -The free software from Adobe to view their Portable Document Format (PDF). Each PDF file encapsulates a complete description of a 2-D document (and, with Acrobat 3-D, embedded 3-D documents) that includes the text, fonts, images, and 2-D vector graphics that compose the documents.

Flash Player - Free software from Adobe for viewing Flash animations, the most dominant format for displaying animated graphics on the internet.

Quicktime - A multimedia framework developed by Apple Inc., capable of handling various formats of digital video, media clips, sound, text, animation, music, and several types of interactive panoramic images.