DL.TV

episode 192 (1x192)

: 23, 2007

STUFF • DL.TV viewer, Nick, sent in some great shots of his former hard drive being melted and then set ablaze. Awesome stuff, Nick, but we heartily suggest that anyone doing something similar take the necessary precautions to avoid burning the surrounding area to a cinder. • Robert had a couple of great online monitor calibration sites he wanted to share, Online Monitor Test and DisplayCalibration.com. Both offer quick and easy ways for users to adjust their PC displays or attached HDTVs for the best picture possible. • We had responses from last weeks show from sharp eyed viewers. Murray wanted us to remember that USB flash drives had a limited read/write lifespan, and that the constantly reading and writing to the drives will eventually cause them to fail. So he suggests avoid using flash USB devices that you want to keep working like some models of the iPod. Dori says that booting and running Linux off a USB drive will not keep the data safe from hardware loggers attached to the machine its running from. So keep an eye out for small cylindrical attachments between the keyboard and PS/2 or USB port. Maxell sends these additional tips about TrueCrypt: "TrueCrypt runs from an EXE file that can be keep unencrypted on your USB flash drive. No installation required on guest machines. TrueCrypt will auto dismount during a power outage, upon reboot, or in the event someone yanks your USB flash drive out of your laptop at the library." Esbjorn includes more details on securing data with TrueCrypt: "First off, TrueCrypt means nothing if you don't make sure that you first make a completely secure format of your hard drive. Most folks simply move their data to a TrueCrypt volume by copying from their existing C: or D: drive without first formatting. Hence, if someone steals the laptop you're not really safe as they easily can grab the data from the HD anyways. I used Darik's Boot and Nuke program to first cleanup the drive.
 
Now, every time my