For those of you out there interested in ensuring data destruction via overwrites.

This is a great article about why old advice and worries may not be valid in data destruction.

To make a ubuntu cd-rom, go to www.ubuntu.com get the LTS 10.10.10 i386 version and burn a cd-rom from the downloaded ISO file.

Alternatively, go to Pendrivelinux.com and download the pendrive utility and make a ubuntu 10.10.10  bootable 1gb thumb drive to boot from.

boot from either, click try ubuntu

click system, administration, disk utility

click on the drive you are worried about and open it full screen and look at the smart status, or click on smart data to see the details.

Video explains how to save data/backup data using linux on a drive that won’t mount in windows (or causes blue screen of death when you plug it into any windows system to attempt recovery.)

In this case it’s a western digital 640gb 2.5″ SATA drive that has failed.

This is a list of awesome Add-ons for Firefox Comment below to add your’s to the list:

Ad Block Plus will remove annoying advertisements as well as check your site for what may be blocked by ad-blockers. You can even selectively block images or items on a particular site.

AddThis is a plugin that allows you to quickly share links that are interesting to you with a simple click and comment to Facebook, Twitter and more.

Webmaster tools:

Scribefire allows you to write articles, research information and keep it all organised in a tidy wsiwyg editor.
Firebug Is a handy tool that lets you break down how your html/php/css scripting is working and highlights as you drill down to find your problem.

Colorzilla is a color selection tool, if you ever wanted to know exactly what color orange the firefox logo is

Grease Monkey is a great scripting tool, allowing to to to almost anything, redirect video to a particular browser etc. Very useful on all platforms.

FireFtp is a FTP/SFTP integration for firefox allowing you to quickly index and upload files to the sites you are working on.

Instructions for white space wiping and reasons for this:

If you wish to wipe the data from a partition, Simply delete all the information you wish to destroy, remove all internet caches, delete all history, and all temporary folders, a good program for this is ccleaner from ccleaner.com.

Then download TrueCrypt, and make a file container as big as the rest of the hard drive that is empty.
Once complete, you will have overwritten your data with an encrypted empty drive, thus destroying any file handles and other objects.
Then delete the file container you created.

If you do this 3 times, it’s almost impossible to retrieve anything from the drive, however with an electron scanning microscope, or a special hard disk circuit board and a good head eschew program it is still possible to retrieve latent data from the edges of your overwritten data.

This is a quick instructional video on how to insert a youtube video into a wordpress post.

External media unable to read:

unplug all external sources from the computer (Eject all cd’s,Thumb drives, external hard disks, Printers, etc and see if your boot is quicker) You’d be surprised  how often a disk in a cd-rom drive will make the computer take 4 min or longer to even  display a boot screen.)

Not enough memory:

Check how much memory you have in the unit, if it’s less than 1 gigabyte for xp or 2 gigabytes for vista or windows 7 get some more ram.

Failing hard drive:

You can check your windows system logs to check for hard disk errors reading or writing to c:\

You can download hdsentinel.com hard disk sentinel is a program that will read the smart status of your computer’s hard disk, bad sectors etc from windows.

You can download an Ubuntu.com Ubuntu cd-rom 32bit version and boot the computer with it, try out linux, system, administration, disk utility, click on the disk in question and check the smart status is green.

Software issues:

Viruses/Malware:

Download bitdefender’s rescue cd and make a cd-rom to check the computer. http://download.bitdefender.com/ and click on rescue cd.

Instructions, make the cd. connect the computer to a network cable with internet access (while the unit is turned off) and boot the cd-rom you made and allow it to scan for bugs, then do a root kit scan as well (double click it)

Malware, plug in the external adapter into a computer with a good malware scanner and anti-virus and attach your hard disk for scanning. scan it for bugs with the scanning programs.

Anti-virus conflicts:

Often more than one anti-virus program will argue with each other bringing your computer to it’s knees.

Toolbars:

Remove all toolbars and desktop searches and the like, you can reinstall them once you are done if you need them.

use Ccleaner (http://www.ccleaner.com) to clean up all the http cache files/cookies/junk, then run a registry scan and save what you are deleting  so if it screws up you have a way to get it back.

Browsers:

To reset internet explorer to defaults, right click the desktop icon, properties, far right tab (advanced), reset, check the box to delete personal junk (not your favorites) and ok.

Firefox, you can uninstall and reinstall if need be.

available memory:

CTRL-ALT-DEL and click task manager and then performance, physical memory available is what you want to look at and swap file in use.

If the light is constantly on on the hard disk, there’s a good chance you don’t have enough physical memory in the unit to run windows and your software.

You can also check to see what memory hogs are in here as well.

You can also download malware bytes and do a full scan for malware, it’s a good thing if everything else checks out.

I’ve had need to install the Crossloop Remote support agent into my Linux box, I’m running 64 Bit Ubuntu 10.10.10 for what it’s worth.

Requirements:

Wine must be installed

To install wine in ubuntu, click applications, Ubuntu software center, Install Wine

Download the CrossLoop setup for windows (This is easier to download from a windows computer)

Put the file in your downloads directory and make it executable.

Right click the setup program open it with the wine windows program loader.

run the installer ignoring errors.

The application will be in the applications, wine,programs.

control drag it to the desktop and drop it.

right click properties, permissions,allow excecution.

double click the icon and you’re in. You need to sign into the agent to be “logged in.

2 Gigabytes of free Cloud Storage for personal files. If you sign up by clicking the logo to the left, I will get credit for the referral.

They have an app for android as well so if you use the same username/password after you sign up on your computer, your dropbox files will show on your phone for easy recall.

The Android app is really cool as well because you can drop photos, videos etc right to dropbox using the share button.

I used this the other day to get rid of malware on a client’s computer by downloading a removal tool to my phone and dropping the exe from my phone in my drop box account and then opening the link to the file on the client’s computer and removing the pesky malware.

I really recommend this for people on the go as you can install it on your desktop and actively work on your files in the dropbox folder and then when you pop the laptop open later, they are in my documents where you expect them to be. Really a cool service.

How To Install to Windows

How to Install to Linux/Ubuntu/Mint/Debian:

For those of you using android, shoot the screen with your qrcode/barcode reader or print this page out and shoot it later, here’s the code.

Once you’ve signed up, here’s the link to the android app.