Episode 154: Securely Wipe Old Hard Drives, Free Anti-Spyware that Works, Prevent Technology Theft, HDMI Passthrough and You [Discussion]

[serafina]

Selling your old PC but need to wipe the HD first? Before you run a simple re-format we've got a much better solution. Free Anti-Spyware that works better than many pay for solutions. Why HDMI passthrough is something to look out for in your next Home Theater purchase. How to get the internet on the iPad from a wired internet connection. And win a Metal Gear Solid MP3 player from SonyStyle.

Watch or download this episode here

[johnnytturbo]

...and the title of douchebag of the week goes to Amin Banaeipanah! *Applause*

Veronica: I think his last name is pronounced "Banana-Pantie-Hhhh"

Patrick: You dealt with it quite well. Cheers.

[quagga]

Veronica has sort of an Audrey Tautou vibe when the sound and video aren't in sync as most of the episode was. I kept expecting that gnome to pop up.

The Macbook can share the Ethernet connection. Its one click and costs nothing. And you're only there for a year and then move off-campus to get away from absurd fascist BS that is common on college campuses. If all you are going to do is surf from the thing anyway, I'd say get a 3g model or mifi or something if you don't want to deal with the wifi swat team.

Mumble, mumble. pronunciation... "couch" street in Portland is my favorite. I finally the got the name of the river down but the street drives me nuts. However now I've been in the city enough I apparently look like a "normal" to the touristy folks who ask me for directions. Powell's really isn't that hard to find ...

[dustrick]

Thank you guys so much for having this show!

I think it is the most-awesomest tech show I've seen in a while and you guys are the perfect pair (try to keep together for as long as you can)! I LOVE the end credits and the bloopers...everyone should have bloopers.

Although I'm not as advanced as you guys (or anyone for that matter) in my 'tek'ing abilities, I sure am getting the hang of it, thanks to you.

ALSO, since I've gotten my free iPad (thanks ZoneAlarm!) I'm totally stoked that Revision3 has HTML5 videos available for me to watch ANYWHERE!

P.S. Tell someone to update the Revision3 app to work better with the iPad, thanks!

[fredbigapple]

Who give a dam how to pronounce ka-pair-skiii?

Hey men CHILL OUT!!!!

They are doing a great show!

FU....G snobbish moron

Have a great day

[davmoo]

Locks are to keep honest people out. And that applies to laptop locks too. As Patrick said, if a real thief wants your stuff, he's gonna get your stuff.

I'm anal about hard drives. Once my personal information goes on a hard drive that drive never leaves my possession until it has been properly introduced to Mr. Hammer and Mr. Torch.

And I must complement both of you, Patrick and Veronica. You handled the pronunciation twit a heck a lot more politely than I would. My response would have consisted of precisely two words, the second one being either "off" or "you", depending on my mood at the time. I speak with a fairly heavy deep south accent, and I take a rather dim view of people who make that big of a deal about something as stupid as how to pronounce the name of a piece of software. If you were talking directly to Mr. Kaspersky himself, then yeah, it might be nice if you pronounced the name correctly. But in any other situation it is totally irrelevant so long as people know what you're talking about.

Veronica, I remember the first time I saw "SOHO" on the box for a computer peripheral...I was like "You can only use this in part of New York?!"

Oh, forgot something, so I'm gonna add it with an edit...

In regards to the Revision3 store, it would be nice if The Powers That Be would offer the shirts in XXXL. I'm just sayin'

Originally Posted by johnnytturbo

...and the title of douchebag of the week goes to Amin Banaeipanah! *Applause*

Couldn't agree more. To be so anal about how somebody pronounces a tech company's name. I remembered for the better part about 10 years ago that I had been pronouncing Asus the wrong way myself (I guess according to Amin that makes me a dumbass and I don't know how to use/install their motherboards even though I've been using and installing them all this time! ) It wasn't until I called tech support that I found out the correct pronunciation of Asus (Patrick might want to test out his idea about calling tech support to see what they do say to him). As long as the Tekzilla crew gives accurate details and facts about the tech they review, I could care less how they pronounce anything! I had more of a problem with the GoToAssist segment (about 2 or 3 episodes ago) involving the Firefox page redirection virus (they did goof on that one). Being from the South myself, the pronunciation deal is kinda a sore spot for me anyway ("If you're from the South, then you're just an idiot!"). So, no Patrick, you DO NOT owe any of us an apology. I wish I had your restraint as I woulda wanted to knock the guy into next year!

Kudos!

[quagga]

Regarding DBAN that's good stuff and all for ye ol' fashioned spinny disks (to which I still use it). But my understanding of SSDs is that DBAN might not get everything due to the way SSDs work and well, you wouldn't want to do all of that writing to a SSD anyway.

For an SSD I believe the suggested way of wiping them is to do an ata-security-erase and the drive will go ahead and obliterate itself and tidy everything up nicely. The problem is that it seems most bios lock the ata controllers from sending this command (least a nice virus fires off one command that tells all of your hard drives to blow themselves away). I'd like to find something that would let me do this. It'd be really nice to just have a stand alone device I can plug the drive into, push a button and it wipes and that is that.

Has anyone heard or seen of such a thing? I think if it was like $30 or so I'd pick one up.

regarding SSDs, just install truecrypt and then mash the keyboard with random characters. Problem solved

[nav13eh]

I just wanted to say that Scott pilgrim vs the world was filmed in Toronto. And Veronica don't complain about year internet speed, mine is half that, and I'm not complaining.