If you sell your hard drive or give your
PC away, it’s better to be safe than to end
up paying for some ex-con’s summer in
Cabo San Lucas. Don’t just format your
drive—wipe it absolutely clean.
Go to http://dban.sourceforge.net/, where
you’ll find Darik’s Boot and Nuke (the
name says it all). If you have a floppy
drive, download the floppy version. If
you don’t, download the CD version
instead; you’ll need to burn the disk
image (in ISO format) to a CD. Make sure
you note the important version informa-
tion on this page.
Boot from the floppy or CD.
Press Enter to go into interactive mode.
Press the space bar to select the entire
drive, or just a specific partition.
Press R to select rounds, and enter 7
(that’s the official Department of Defense
standard).
Press F12, and kiss your data goodbye.11) Wipe Your PC Clean
Dell offers a breathtaking deal: $15
buys you the pickup and disposal of up
to 50 pounds of computer equipment.
What’s more, for a limited time, the
company has dropped the price to $5!
Check out http://www.dell4me.com/recycling right
away. Scheduled pick-ups occur in two
or three days.
Hewlett-Packard’s pricing schedule is
a little more Byzantine, but an online
order form will give you an immediate
quote. HP says the service ranges from
$13 to $34 per item, and scheduled
pickups occur in two or three days. Go
to https://warp1.external.hp.com/recycle/ and
feel good about yourself.12) Get Rid of Your Old PC
There’s a difference between having a 5.1
speaker setup and having your 5.1 speak-
ers set up. Here are some tips on how
to get the most performance from your
multichannel speaker system.
Make sure the front two satellites form
an equilateral triangle with the listening
spot. The front-channel speakers should
be the same distance from each other as
they are from the listening spot.
Find the best location for your subwoof-
er by placing the sub where you would
normally sit, and then
playing a bass-heavy
movie or MP3. Now
crawl around the room.
When the bass sounds
ideal, you’ve found your
spot for the subwoofer.
The rear-channel
speakers should be
behind you, but the
optimal angle of the
satellites can vary with
your furniture and walls.
Try turning the satellites
toward the listening
area, then try them fac-
ing straight ahead. Also
try facing them into a
corner behind you—
sometimes bouncing
the sound off a corner
provides the best posi-
tional audio.
Upgrade your speak-
er wire. High-quality audio cables have
a thicker gauge for less resistance, and
usually have highly conductive tips for a
better connection to the speaker.
Calibrate your speakers. Most surround
systems and some soundcards include
a pink-noise test signal you can use to
check the polarity of the speakers as well
as the separation between channels. You
should always perform this test to ensure
proper speaker placement when experi-
menting with different speaker locations.13) Optimize Multichannel Surround Sound
Creative Labs’ speaker calibration utility is one of
the best around, and lets you input the height of the
satellites as well as their angle relative to the sweet spot.