1/3 of Discarded Hard Disks Contain Sensitive Data

Inc. magazine recently published an article stating that 34% of discarded hard disks contain either someone’s personal data or commercial data that a company would not want released.  The study was conducted by purchasing random used hard disks and computers from EBay.

 

Many people believe that simply deleting files from a hard disk is sufficient.  Unfortunately, this is not the case.  When you delete a file from your hard disk the data is actually still present on the disk.  The operating system just does not “see it” anymore.  Even reformatting a hard disk does not actually remove the data from it. Anyone with an inkling to do so can still retrieve information from the disk.  We do this often to help clients recover files they have deleted by accident.

 

The next time you are ready to discard an old computer, make sure it wiped clean.  One tool that will do this is a solution called WipeDrive.  Or, you can just call Nexxtep.

 

Ryan Williams

The Future of Mobile Internet Browsing

Below is a video of a Mobile Augmented Reality browser.  Basically, while you are walking the street, you can pull out your mobile phone and point it at anything.  Then, using images recognition, a built-in compass and GPS the browser looks up information about whatever it is pointed at.  The video shows pointing the browser at different buildings to see how much they cost.  Then, it shows pointing the browser and buildings to see if there are any job openings within the building.

 

The video below shows this functionality in its infancy but you can imagine the things we’ll be able to do with this technology in 5 to 10 years. 

 

This description does not do it justice.  Watch the video below.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b64_16K2e08

 

Ryan Williams

Petabytes

Interesting fact: every single day 15 petabytes (15 zeros) of new information is created.  This is 8 times more information than exists in every U.S. library combined.  That much information is created every day!

 

I think my email inbox is responsible for about ¼ of that total. 

 

Dedicated to your success,

 

Ryan Williams

Google Tasks

If you are one of those people (like I am) who likes to work from a task list, you will want to check out Google Tasks.  Google Tasks is a sub-component of Gmail.  It is by far the simplest task organizer I have ever used.  Just start typing to add a task, press enter to add a new task and press tab to make a sub-task.  Tasks can also be rearranged on the fly. 

 

If you are looking for a simple task keeper to help you manage your day, Google Task is worth checking out.  To enable Google Tasks, click Settings from your Gmail page and then click on the Labs tab.  Then, enable Tasks.  The tasks link will appear on the left of the Gmail page.  You can pop-out the task window to create a standalone task page that is always easily accessible or you can embed Google Tasks within your iGoogle home page. 

 

NOTE: This feature is also available to Google Apps users.

 

Ryan Williams

Google Wave

Email is still the dominate medium for online communication.  In 2008, there were over 210 billion emails sent EVERY day.  Despite this enormous volume, email really has not changed much since its mainstream adoption in the early 1990’s.  That is about to change.  The next generation of “email type” communication is being developed by Google and it is named Google Wave.  If you would like to watch a video demonstration of Wave visit this URL:  http://wave.google.com/

 

The video is pretty lengthy (over an hour) but you can clearly see that the next generation of online communication will be real-time and freeform. 

 

Ryan Williams

Hiatus

Greetings.  We’re finally back from a brief newsletter hiatus.  Things got busy, I skipped a week and before I knew it several weeks had passed.  I think we’re back on track now, however. 

 

Whenever I need interesting content for this newsletter, I can always count on Google.  They always seem to have something new worth reporting.  Both of this week’s tech tips are from Google.

 

Ryan Williams

Conficker Work Update

The Conficker worm has been spreading since November 20, 2008.  The estimated number of infected computers range from two million to the tens of millions.  No one has an exact number.  Many people mistakenly think that the Conficker worm was programmed to wreak havoc on the 1st of April, and since it did not, the threat is over.  This is not the case.  I hope to briefly clarify what is known about Conficker in this entry.

 

As was reported by the media, Conficker had the date April 1st programmed into it.  Contrary to what was conveyed, however, the April 1st date was not necessarily the date the virus would unleash its wrath on the world.  This was certainly a possibility; however, the April 1st date was really just the date the worm would begin “calling home” for further instructions, which it did actively begin to do.

 

On April 1st no further instructions were provided; however, on April 8th the creators of the worm began delivering updates and other malicious payloads to infected computers.  Among the malicious payloads being delivered is a fake AntiVirus program which fakes a virus detection and tricks the owner of the computer into purchasing fake antivirus software for $49.95.  Another of the malicious payloads being delivered is a keylogger used to capture passwords and other personal data.  The keylogger then sends the data to the virus creator.

 

The purpose of this entry is to make clear that although the April 1st date has past, this does not mean you are now safe, and you no longer need to update your computer and keep your antivirus software up-to-date.  The worm is still active and no one knows for sure what it will do next.

 

Ryan Williams