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Cleaning House
Denver finally upgraded his Palm Pilot from the older Palm IIIe to the Palm Tungsten|T model. If you would like to be entered in a drawing to receive the slightly used Palm IIIe, please fill out this
simple form and submit it by Friday, July 11, 2003.
Remember: Many will enter, but only one will win!
New
Feature on Promethius.com!
We recently added a new staff page to Promethius.com. The staff
page includes each employee's photo, name, title, and personal
email address. Check out all of our smiling faces by clicking
here.
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Definition of the
Month
Courtesy of Webopedia...
Spyware
- Also called adware, spyware is any software that covertly gathers user information through the user's Internet connection without his or her knowledge, usually for advertising purposes. Spyware applications are typically bundled as a hidden component of freeware or shareware programs that can be downloaded from the Internet. Once installed, the spyware monitors user activity on the Internet and
transmits that information in the background to someone else. Spyware can also gather information about e-mail
addresses and even passwords and credit card numbers.
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 What
happens to Deleted Files?
We are asked this question quite
often. Whether you are hopeful that a file is retrievable or
you are concerned that a thief might steal your financial data
from a discarded drive, it might be helpful to know the answer
to this question.
In most operating systems, deleting a file is a two-step process.
First you ask your computer to delete a file, and then you must
also empty the data folder that stores the deleted items (Recycle
Bin for Windows users and Trash Can for MAC users). Has it been
removed from the hard drive? No. What you have done is delete
the operating system’s pointer to the file location on the hard
drive. While the operating system doesn’t know that it exists,
other software can find it.
So how do you remove a file from the hard drive? You
must overwrite the file. This is done naturally over time, as
the operating system will write over any files that have no
pointers in the directory tree. The other way of overwriting
the file is to use one of the many programs marketed today.
While PC would never endorse any of these products, they are
easy to find with a simple Internet search. Most experts agree,
however, that if it’s the FBI you’re hiding data from, you’ll
need something closer to a sledgehammer than to Web Eraser Pro
or any other brand of software.
What if I accidentally removed a file? While the best
answer is to always be careful to regularly save the documents
you are working on and to keep a current backup, there are software
packages available to help recover lost data. Keep in mind that
a package that works for your friend may not work for you. Much
depends on your operating system, how your hard drive is formatted,
etc. The key is to not panic. Often the programs you are working
(e.g. MS Word) with will allow you to recover documents in the
event of a power outage. Sometimes you can even trick the computer
into recovering a document you manually deleted. The more steps
you try after you make a mistake, however, the harder it is
to recover the files.
If you have questions about how to recover a lost file or how
to prepare for future data loss, please call us at 317/733-2388.
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