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I just managed to sell my computer on eBay and want to make sure that I wipe the hard disk clean before I ship the machine. Is it enough to just delete my files?

It’s always a good idea to wipe clean your hard disk before you pass it on to someone. Can you just imagine the harm that someone could do if they got their hands on all your data? And this is even more the case if you’re passing it on to a complete stranger.

So, how do you get down to it? Deleting your files is a start; but it may surprise you to know that when you delete a file, your computer doesn’t actually delete it; it just deletes a pointer to it and marks the space as available. There are a number of tools on the market that let you undelete files; so you really need something a bit more aggressive; something that permanently wipes the data by overwriting it with garbage. One such product is Drivescrubber, a specialised product that overwrites your data up to 100 times. No way anyone can retrieve your data after that. Drivescrubber is currently on sale for around $10. That’s not a high price to be paying for securing your data.

I just managed to sell my computer on eBay and want to make sure that I wipe the hard disk clean before I ship the machine. Is it enough to just delete my files?

It’s always a good idea to wipe clean your hard disk before you pass it on to someone. Can you just imagine the harm that someone could do if they got their hands on all your data? And this is even more the case if you’re passing it on to a complete stranger.

So, how do you get down to it? Deleting your files is a start; but it may surprise you to know that when you delete a file, your computer doesn’t actually delete it; it just deletes a pointer to it and marks the space as available. There are a number of tools on the market that let you undelete files; so you really need something a bit more aggressive; something that permanently wipes the data by overwriting it with garbage. One such product is Drivescrubber, a specialised product that overwrites your data up to 100 times. No way anyone can retrieve your data after that. Drivescrubber is currently on sale for around $10. That’s not a high price to be paying for securing your data.

I use Firefox extensively, but recently it has been crashing. A “Crash screen” gives the opportunity to send a report to Mozilla, but I’ve never had a response. Is it worth sending the report in?

It is rare to receive a direct report from an error submission report. There is a trend recently, to try and suggest ways the issue can be rectified, but not many packages do this (Windows being a notable exception). You may get an automated response back, which can help you resolve your issue; so it’s worth sending in your report.

Your report actually does go back to the developers; whether it’s Microsoft or an Orange County computer support firm, though it is usually aggregated with the reports from other users. computers are complicated things, and the more clues developers get to fix problems, the easier it gets for them. It does help the company diagnose and repair the problem. You may not get an immediate response from the company; but your problem may be fixed in the next release.

Interesting post on the New York Times by Dick Brass who used to be a Vice President at Microsoft. He talks about what he believes is one of the downfalls of the company; that it stifles innovation when instead it should be nurturing it. He describes a number of cases where great ideas were sacrificed for personal ambitions; a symptom of an organisation that is politically motivated. This sort of organisational behaviour can be detrimental in the long run and it’s up to the company in question to solve these problems.

Innovation has driven a large part of our life. Without the advances in technology we take for granted today we wouldn’t have fibre optics, or high speed satellite internet. Heck, we wouldn’t even have a wii or Playstation to play on! Who knows what life would be like today if innovation was stifled everywhere?