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Four techniques for erasing your old hard drive

a disk
photo credit: Jason Schlachet

When you replace an old computer, you need to take steps to protect the data that was on that computer prior to donating it, selling it or even throwing it out or recycling it. Too many computer degenerates use the data that can be found on old hard drives to try and steal your identity. You can avoid this by using one of the following four options:

  1. One free program that will completely cleanse a hard drive is called Autoclave. You can download and read the instructions here.
  2. Darik’s Book and Nuke also provides a way of thoroughly cleaning the data from an old hard drive.
  3. A third option to cleaning your old data form a hard drive is Active KillDisk. They offer a free and a pro version of this software.
  4. My last, and probably easiest, fastest, and safest method of guaranteeing your old data doesn’t fall into the wrong hands is to to open the computer and Read More »Four techniques for erasing your old hard drive

Curbside Recycling

When I help people setup a new computer, camera or printer, the standard question asked by the new gadget owner is; “What shall I do with the old one?” I think that the value of tech curbside recycling is highly undervalued.

Curbside recycling involves hauling your old hardware out to the curb and just leaving it there. In most moderately busy neighborhoods (HOA’s rules aside), a piece of technology on the street will be snapped by a collector or hobbyist in less than 48 hours and often much quicker. The item gets reused or put to work in someway, you didn’t have to fret about where to take it and haul it long distances, and the device more than likely won’t end up in a land fill…a win-win-win situation.

Smoother Internet Audio and Video – Video Tip

The Internet is firmly a multimedia haven now. Video and audio make the Internet a much richer experience for everyone…providing you have a fast Internet connection OR learn the technique I describe in today’s tip.

When it comes to online audio and video, you need to know about streaming. Without a knowledge of streaming, you will continue to have choppy audio, stop and start video and overall be frustrated. Streaming means that a little of the audio and/or video is fed to us at a time.

Because audio and video make huge file sizes (10-20X that of photos), they cannot be sent via the Internet in one chunk. Instead, they are broken down into smaller pieces and fed down the Internet pipeline little pieces at a time (streaming). If our Internet connection can’t decode and play the little pieces of information fast enough, we interpret that as slow, jerky, choppy, and or stuttery (stuttering) audio and video.

The key to correcting this lies in this week’s video tip. You can thank me by leaving a nice comment or better yet, hit the donate button on our site. Either way, you WILL enjoy audio and video on the web more after learning this little trick.

Solution for computer that can’t change desktop wallpaper / background

This solution WILL fix your problem, but don’t run away afterwards and forget about us.

HelpMeRick.com contains hundreds of tips (and video tips) that YOU can use as a reference for yourself and
especially as a reference to send links to your friends/family so you don’t have to write out or explain the steps yourself!

I love PayPal

I have been raising a little money by selling stuff on eBay so I can buy my wife a Ferrari for Mothers day. As it turns out, the items I sold only went for about $50, so I will have to find her something else.

EBay is amazing, but PayPal is amazing-er (a little Bushism).

Both items closed yesterday and by this morning I had the money in my PayPal account. I took the items to the post office and I used my PayPal debit card to pay for the shipping.

When I got home I took a look at my PayPal balanced and saw that I was earning 4.62% on my PayPal money market account which requires no minimum balance and has no limits on withdrawls.