Consultants generally have much greater expertise than in house employees. Full time employees cost more than their base salary. In addition to standard benefits such as health insurance, they usually are provided vacation time and have overhead costs such as office equipment and space. Consultants on the other hand are only used on an as needed basis. Although their hourly cost may seem higher, you use them for a much smaller duration. When the project is done the consultant simply goes away until needed for the next project. Consultants provide independent recommendations. Hewitt Associates Computer Consultants are platform neutral. We only recommend platform, hardware, or software that would be cost effective for our clients.

Generally, no. The client is expected to purchase the hardware or software recommended. If the client needs to aquire hardware or software, they will be instructed what to buy and where. Hewitt Associates Computer Consultants will buy the necessary hardware or software provided the client pays in advance. Bear in mind that consulting rates will apply to the time necessary to pick up the hardware or software.

There are a number of items that need to be taken care of:

• You need to either make a full backup of your old system or keep the old system around until you are sure all your data and applications are working correct on your new machine.
• Your email folders, accounts and settings need to be transferred to your new system
• All your documents need to be moved. For that matter all of your user data, contact lists, address books, spreadsheets, presentation files etc. need to be moved to the new system.
• You need to have your applications moved to the new computer. In some cases you may need to update the applications because the version you had may not be compatible with the new version of Windows that you received with your new machine.
• If your old system were part of a local area network, you need to make sure the new system will work correctly on the network.
• Your new computer should have an anti-virus tool installed. The virus definitions will need to be updated before the system can be used to access the internet (other than to update the virus signatures).

There are a number of high speed internet connections to choose from in some areas. You can use a cable-modem or a technology that uses your telephone line called DSL. These are the most popular high speed internet access media but there are important security considerations if you choose them. Most providers will check your system to see if file or printer sharing has been turned on. If so, they will turn it off. Unsecured file or printer sharing can allow a malicious user to gain control of your system. All systems that are connected to the internet using a high speed connection, also referred to as a persistent connection, should have some kind of firewall set up. There are both software and hardware solutions to the problem. A common solution is a firewall/router device which recently has become very inexpensive.