Missing Link

I have no great love for Microsoft.   I can admit that some of their products are actually quite good, I generally despise the company itself.  This is no great revelation – anybody who knows me already knew that.  Some of my friends have heard me utter the words “I will never EVER buy an Xbox”.

As my Mom always told me: Never say never.

Last week, Ann and I came upon a $200 gift card to Best Buy.  We collectively decided that the best use of that would be to break down and get a gaming console.   We wanted something fun we could do with friends when they come visit, and another thing to pass time and relax.    Our options were a PS3 or an Xbox.   Both are good systems and I would have enjoyed either one,  but the main draw for the PS3 (the fact that it also plays Bluray) doesn’t really matter all that much since we already have two Bluray players.   The big draw for the Xbox – the fact that I have a handful of friends who have them and play online regularly – ended up being the deciding factor.

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What do you do when you’re finished with a document on your computer and need or want to get rid of it?   For most people the answer is to delete the file.  That is, after all, the most logical thing to do, right?   What a lot of people fail to realize is that simply deleting a file does NOT remove it from your hard drive.  A person skilled in data recovery can easily recover that data unless it has been overwritten several times.  Deleting the file only removes references to the file from the filesystem.  It does not physically remove the data from the drive, however, instead it just allows the computer to overwrite the space where it had been stored.

There are, however, ways you can securely delete files from your computer.  These tools will overwrite the space on the hard drive where the file resided,  usually 7 or more times (and often the number of passes is configurable).  This morning my boss brought to my attention the fact that one such utility is available by default on Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard).   The command, srm, is used via the command line and will securely remove your files.

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Back when I got my first mac,  a 12″ Powerbook G4,  one of the guys I worked with suggested that I get Applecare with it in case anything went bad.  I thought it was a bit pricey, but opted to heed the advice.   I’m glad I did, though, as two years after I got the powerbook – my hard drive died.  A call to Applecare and a week later, my laptop was back with a new hard drive (and has been running just fine ever since – still runs to this day.)    Now – a lot of people will say that the cost of a hard drive is much lower than the cost of applecare, and you’d be right.   In my case, though, it did end up paying for itself – though not the way most people would expect (or want).    A very long story short – I tripped over my power cord and caused my powerbook to fly off my lofted bed and crash to the floor, bending the case and causing some problems.   I sent it off for repair to be told it would cost me $700 because of accidental damage.   I tried – unsuccessfully – to cancel the repair and have it shipped back,  only to have them repair it anyways.   Since I had tried to cancel they never charged me for the repair – so I got $700+ in repairs for free.

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Unlike a lot of bloggers, I’m going to completely ignore the fact that last week was Thanskgiving here in the United States, a fact which seems to compel many to post about something they are thankful for.   That’s not to say I’m not thankful for anything (I am, quite a few things actually), but rather that I just don’t care to share that with you

Thanksgiving, along with the help of two days of PTO (Paid Time Off, for those who don’t know), allowed me to enjoy a nice six-day weekend.  I did thoroughly enjoy the time off as it allowed me to unwind quite a bit and disconnect myself from work.

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I’ve been fairly remiss about writing in this blog for the past few weeks.   Part of the reason for that is due to being busy doing other things, which is true up to a point,  but I think a far greater cause has been a combination of lack of motivation and the fact that I’ve been writing in my pen & paper journal almost every night.

Sometimes the things I write in my leather bound journal do find their way into an electronic format for you all to read – such as an earlier entry on here about Snapple.   Sometimes I just vent about events or people,  the result of which is not appropriate to put in such a public forum as this.  Lately, however, my entries in the leather bound journal are of the latter type – Things I don’t want on my blog.   Because of that, I’ve lacked the necessary motivation, and inspiration, to write anything on here.

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