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How to Recover Data from a Crashed Hard Drive

September 25th, 2006 | 21 Comments | Posted in Hardware, How To, Software, Tools

If you are a tech, then you probably know that hard drive failures are inevitable. Chances are that sooner or later it will happen to someone you support or possibly even you. Even with a successful backup, you still may not have files that were created or modified after the last backup. Even worse is when you don’t have a backup at all. There is still hope however. I would like to show you how you can use a simple freeware utility to recover files even when your hard drive will not boot. More »

How to Permanently Wipe All Data from a Hard Drive

September 23rd, 2006 | 4 Comments | Posted in Hardware, How To, Software, Tools

My previous job was at a state university. Before sending our old computers off to auction, we had to wipe all hard drives according to Department of Defense 5220-22.M standards. This was to ensure the next owner would not be able to recover any sensitive files that were stored on the computer even through forensic analysis. Now I would like to show you how to wipe a hard drive following this same technique. More »

How to Automatically Back Up Your Hard Drive

September 17th, 2006 | 3 Comments | Posted in How To, Software

If you support users like I do, then you will know how frustrated they can get when their hard drive fails and they have no backup. Even worse is when this happens to you. That is why I would like to share with you an easy way to automatically back up your hard drive using a very powerful free backup utility. Just follow these simple steps. More »

Easily Repair a Corrupt Internet Connection

September 15th, 2006 | 12 Comments | Posted in How To, Networking, Software, Tools, Windows

Have you ever come across a computer that wouldn’t connect to the Internet after removing spyware or other network related software? Or maybe you can connect, but you can only visit certain sites while others time out. This problem is associated with winsock corruption in Windows XP. At this point most people reload the machine. Now you don’t have to. This utility has helped me a countless number of times so I would like to share it with you. More »

How to Host a Web Site from Your Computer

September 11th, 2006 | 58 Comments | Posted in How To, Software, Web Hosting

In the following article I am going to show you how to host a web site from your own computer. Why would you want to do this you might ask? Well for one, it’s free. It’s also great for hosting small web sites or sharing large files with friends. However, if you are planning on running a site with high traffic I would not recommend this. Just follow these simple steps and you will have your own web server up and running in no time. More »

Remote Administration Made Easy

September 9th, 2006 | 9 Comments | Posted in Software

Over the years I have used many different types of remote administration utilities to manage my remote workstations and servers. Some of these utilities have worked great and others not so great. For the past year or so I have been using a free utility that I feel has surpassed all of the rest. It is easy to use, has a very fast response time and the best part about it is that it works through your web browser so you can connect to your computers from anywhere. More »

18 Portable Apps that Every Tech Needs

September 7th, 2006 | 23 Comments | Posted in Flash Drive, Software, Tools

The title says it all. I am a tech and I have found all of these portable apps to be very useful so I thought I would share them with you. All of them can run directly from your USB flash drive. I hope you will find them useful too. More »

Prevent DS_Store and Trashes Creation On USB Drives

September 6th, 2006 | 1 Comment | Posted in Apple/Mac/OSX, How To, Software

If you are like me and you use your flash drive between your Mac and your PC then you have probably noticed some extra files that Macs leave behind when you open it up in Windows. These files are usually titled .Trashes, .DS_Store, and various other dot underscore files, which are called resource forks. After a while, quite a few of these pesky files can accumulate and you must browse through each folder to delete them only to have them reappear next time you use your device on a Mac. These files have also been known to cause problems with some MP3 players and cameras. Unfortunately OS X does not have a feature to prevent these files from being created on removable drives but there are some utilities that will remove them for you. More »

Put Your Hard Drive in the Freezer to Recover Data

September 5th, 2006 | 145 Comments | Posted in Hardware, Tips

Have you ever had a hard drive that just wouldn’t boot and all you could hear was it making a clicking noise? If you have then you know this is usually a bad sign. However, there is still some hope. In most cases you can use this little trick to retrieve your files. Just follow these simple steps. More »

Desktop Wallpaper for Techs

September 4th, 2006 | 2 Comments | Posted in Customization

Being a tech for almost ten years I have been asked many times about the best places to get wallpaper images from. So for my first post I decided to put together a list of my favorite wallpaper sites for techies. Here they are in no particular order. More »

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