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I took part in Hawkeye Dynamics' HEIST course in 2024, in preparation for medical NGO/humanitarian deployments.

The team at Hawkeye tailored the course to my specific learning needs, risk profile and travel destinations, and over the 5 days we covered a wide range of content from risk-management and mitigation; vehicular safety; communication and de-escalation (and what to do if that doesn't work); as well as preparedness for high-stress situations.

Every day was packed full of theoretical and practical learning, and there wasn't a moment wasted (even going for lunch was an opportunity to apply scene-safety and surveillance techniques!)

I found David and his team to be very open and personable while also maintaining high standards as instructors. For me, this was the perfect course to give me more confidence for future deployments, and since completing it a year ago I have used several of the travel-safety tips I learned while working and travelling overseas, but also around NZ.

I would highly recommend the HEIST course to anyone looking to work in humanitarian/disaster response settings, or simply those who want to feel more confident when they travel around the world. I wish i had done this training earlier in my career. Finally, I would commend David and his team as excellent instructors who created a very positive learning environment and made what could at times be quite high-stress training into an enjoyable and certainly very valuable experience.

I had been debating between custom-building with PC Specialist and buying a stock PC for a while but eventually decided to take a leap and go for it.

I'm glad I did. The PC Specialist site is clear and automatically checks your components for compatibility before allowing you to buy them. the customisation options are good too, with a wide range of components to choose from.

The PC took about 10 working days to arrive (excl. delivery date change) and the courier service was exceptional. They sent me an email reminder a day before it was due to arrive, after which I requested that the delivery be postponed to the following week. They did this with no problem.

The box it came in was sturdy and the chassis itself was well packed. PC Specialist use an inflating foam bag within the computer chassis itself to keep the components safe and while this was a little fiddly, it didn't take too long to remove.

All the manuals and cables/screws that come with the original individual component packaging were included, as were some cable-ties.

While I would say that I am Tech-minded, this was my first custom-built PC and I'm glad I chose to go with PC Specialist.

All in all, I would highly recommend PC Specialist as I have found them to be a professional and reliable company who take pride in their work.