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Truly Erasing Your Hard Drive

Deleting is not Erasing

Most people delete their important computer files before they throw away their computer or donate it to charity. The problem is that file deletion does not overwrite files. Deletion just removes the operating system’s link to that data. Until the files are overwritten, they can still be recovered. This could give someone your valuable bank and credit card information from your web browser cache. It could give someone enough information to commit identity fraud.

While you could physically destroy the hard drive, there are software tools that will securely erase the hard drive so that there is no chance of reconstructing the original data. Software tools are even accepted by the US Government for most deletions of sensitive data.

Darik’s Book and Nuke

My favorite tool is Darik’s Book and Nuke disk. This is a free tool that boots your computer into Linux and then overwrites your drive in multiple passes. Depending on the level of erasure you choose and the speed and size of your hard drive, the deletion can take minutes to a couple of days.

You need to follow instructions to create the CD or DVD yourself from the iso file you download. Then you need to make sure the computer will boot from the CD drive, which could include going into the starting setup (BIOS) to make sure that the CD is first in the boot order. Then just put in the CD and follow the easy instructions.

Once you have Darik’s Book and Nuke disk, you can truly erase your hard drive and keep your information secure.

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Buy Dell, buy Mac, or build your own?

It is often claimed that Mac computers are simply far more expensive than their PC counterparts. Some also say you might as well buy Dell now because they are so cheap? So what is the truth? Should you buy from a big PC seller like Dell? Should you go with the stylish Mac? Or should you just buy parts and build your own computer by hand?

I am using Dell as the example of the big PC maker. Plenty of other choices exist such as HP, Acer, and Gateway that are all similarly priced. The Mac is only made by Apple. For build-your-own computers, I will be using prices based on parts from newegg.com which almost always has the lowest priced computer parts. I will target 2 different system concepts. The first will be a home desktop where you can either go with a tower that is powerful or an all-on-one solution that is easier to hookup and more stylish. The second system will be a notebook.

Tower Desktops
The most common home/office desktop computer is a tower. I designed towers from Dell and NewEgg that consisted of Core 2 Quad 2.66GHz CPUs, 4GBs of RAM, 1TB hard drives with 32MB of cache, and with video cards that were very powerful such as the GeForce 9800 GTX+ for the build-your-own computer and an ATI Radeon HD3870 for the Dell. That makes these systems almost identical as far as specifications and performance.

The resultant price for the Dell was $1674. The build-your-own was $1361. The build-your-own price assumes you already have a copy of Windows XP which allows you to buy the much cheaper Vista Home Premium Upgrade version. If you need to buy Vista Home Premium full version, that adds $128 more to the price which yields a final total of $1489. The build-your-own saves $185 and you can save even more if you already have your OS or have a copy that allows an upgrade Vista version.

Now what about the Mac? Unfortunately, Apple makes absolutely no tower in this category. This is a big complaint about Macs since this is the most common choice for home desktops. Your first Mac alternative is the very expensive Mac Pro which is overkill for almost anyone since it has server components. These higher quality server parts are also very pricey. The pricing for a Mac Pro starts at $2299 which pretty much rules it out for most sane people. Then you are left with the under powered, over priced mac mini or the iMac. The mac mini is cute and good enough for most users but the price just isn’t worth it unless you specifically need a super tiny desktop.

All-in-One Desktops
It is this design that Apple pushes as what people should want in a desktop. It is certainly simpler for most people to hook up and a more stylish and elegant solution. However, if something breaks you almost always need to get a specialist to open up this harder-to-work-with case. These tend to be more expensive as well since they include an LCD monitor and some laptop components since they are so thin.

The Dell XPS One starts at $1299. The Apple iMac starts at $1199. The iMac has a slightly faster processor but you need to add 1GB of RAM to the iMac to bring it up to the RAM of the Dell. Getting the RAM from crucial is going to add about $30 after tax and shipping which brings the comparable iMac price up to $1229. The iMac also has a better video card with dedicated memory whereas the Dell uses up some of the 2GB system RAM for video. The end result is the iMac is hardware superior in several ways so if you want to run Vista or Mac OS X on it, the iMac is clearly the way to go.

Notebooks
Apple has had huge success with their notebooks mainly because they are very sturdy yet stylish. They also include a built-in camera which has become very popular these days for video conferencing. I will compare Apple’s most popular Macbook to the Dell XPS M1330. Again, you need to get some extra RAM from crucial for the Mac bringing it’s total up to 2GB for an extra $30. It can support up to 4GB but Mac OS X simply doesn’t need that for 99% of users out there. Vista on the other hand needs all the RAM it can get. The Dell comes with 4GB probably for that very reason. The price points are then $1149 for the Dell vs $1129 for the Macbook. The Dell has one other big hardware advantage of a 320GB hard drive. The Macbook only includes a 120GB. Moving the Macbook up to 250GB adds $150. So as far as a direct hardware comparison the Dell is the better value. Despite this, Macbook sales are growing at a much greater rate than any PC notebooks because they are so well designed and have the often preferred Mac OS X.

New Macs Soon
One point that is almost always left out in comparisons is that companies like Dell are constantly adjusting their prices. Apple only changes their prices when they release a new version of a model which they typically only do every 6-8 months. The result of this disappointing practice is that Apple hardware only tends to be a good value when a new model comes out. New Macbooks are expected out next month and new iMacs and Mac Pros are also due out soon. I have often found myself having to wait many months to buy a Mac just to wait for the better hardware value. It is this and the lack of a true Mac desktop tower that are my biggest complaints about the Mac lineup.

Operating Systems
I have barely mentioned the differences between Vista and Mac OS X but they are typically the biggest reason someone goes with a Mac over a PC, despite any price advantage a PC may or may not have. Vista is sluggish and needs 3+ GB of RAM. Besides that, I don’t think it as quite as awful as many people claim. The Mac has always been the more elegant OS and that is what really keeps Mac sales growing at twice the rate of PCs. The fact that Macs can run Windows but PCs can’t run Mac OS X also make the Macs more attractive.

Conclusion
If you want a powerful yet good value home desktop tower, building it on your own is much cheaper than Dell.  This is the best choice for gamers as well.  There is really no Mac alternative for the tower. If you want an all-in-one desktop solution, the iMac is the clear choice. If you want a notebook, Dell has an edge on hardware but I’ve never needed 320GB in a laptop before. The MacBook’s design, sturdiness, and OS tends to put it as the best selection and it is the one I recommend. Next month’s new Mac portable lineup should strengthen their hand even further.

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Geotagging to arrive on Nikon Compact Camera

Nikon Coolpix P6000

Nikon recently announced their new flagship digital compact camera called the Coolpix P6000.

Expected in September for $500 list, this camera has a 13.5-million-pixel CCD. It can shoot in raw mode, meaning that it does not have to apply any lossy compression at all. It has a feature called d-lighting which fixes otherwise underexposed images caused by excessive backlighting. The P6000 even has an ethernet jack.

Geotagging

But the feature that interests me most is geotagging. The camera has a built-in GPS which allows it to embed the location of the camera in every shot.

Geotagging will allow you to look at a photos of your trip on a map. You will always be able to find out exactly where your pictures were shot.  You can embed the pictures in Google Maps or in Flickr with the location link.  Eventually applications such as iPhoto should be able to sort photos by location instead of just by date taken.

Until now, we needed to go through a complex process if we wanted to add GPS information to photos. Ricoh and some pro cameras have offered this feature as an add-on, but it has never been built into a mainstream camera. Hopefully we will see geotagging in more cameras to come.

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Digital TV Converter Box Scams

The FCC has ordered all local over-the-air broadcasts be digital by February 17, 2009. Taking advantage of this, scammers are putting up ads and commercials claiming to offer free digital converter boxes. The FTC should shut down these misleading ads. One ad says:

The United States Deptartment of Commerce is preparing everyone for the switch to digital television by authorizing payment coupons for certified brands of these special TV boxes.

But the government process has us all tied up.

That’s why Universal TechTronics is providing these Miracle ClearView TV boxes immediately to the general public for free for everyone who gets the 5yr. warranty.

There are two problems with this. First, the device is only “free” if you don’t consider the mandatory warranty and shipping of $100.

But the main reason this is bogus is that most Americans don’t need to do anything. If you have satellite or cable TV, you are not affected. And if you are one of the rare Americans that uses a rabbit-ear antenna for over-the-air broadcasts, your TV could have a digital tuner built-in if it was purchased recently.

If you do need a digital converter box, it should cost about $60. You can get a $40 coupon from the federal government that lowers your cost to around $20.

For more on the Digital TV Transition, see the FCC site:
http://www.dtv.gov/

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Russian Gang Hijacking PCs

This NY Times article talks about how a gang in a Russian town is using Microsoft administrative tools to infect private and government computers. A few excerpts:

The gang was identified publicly in May by Joe Stewart, director of malware research at SecureWorks, a computer security firm in Atlanta. Mr. Stewart, who has determined that the gang is based in Russia, was able to locate a central program controlling as many as 100,000 infected computers across the Internet.

The system infects PCs with a program known as Coreflood that records keystrokes and steals other information.

“The great thing about this system is that from one computer it is possible to push out updates to all machines in a corporate network at once,” Mr. Stewart said. “This is a useful tool that Microsoft has provided. However, the bad guys said, ‘We’ll just use it to roll out our Trojan to every machine in the network.’ ”

The gang then uses the passwords to access your bank account and transfer out money. Scary stuff.

This only affects Microsoft operating systems, so Macs are safe. In order to protect PCs, I suggest using:

  • hardware firewall (included in routers)
  • Windows Vista or XP with Service Pack 3 (latest)
  • Anti-virus software such as AVG Free or Avast.

If you get infected by something like this Coreflood virus, you should do a complete re-install of your system.